We have already glanced at the structure of the house itself; it may be now interesting to give some account of the household of the Bishop, which may probably be considered a typical one. First there was a chaplain at three crowns a month and his board, a chief secretary at twelve crowns a month, a chamberlain, two or three gentlemen-in-waiting, a groom-of-the-chambers, and six pages--all without any fixed wage, but who lived on promises, perquisites, and what they could pick up, eating, however, at the Bishop's expense, and mostly clothed by him. Then there were two couriers at three shillings a month, which they rarely got; a cook, a buyer, a butler, and a pantryman, at a crown a month each; two cantineers, two "lacqueys," two Irish grooms, and two washerwomen at nominal wages of from three to five shillings a month when they could get them, which was very uncertain. Small as the wages seem to us, the expense of the establishment was very great, as these people and a host of friends and hangers-on were fed roughly but abundantly at the Bishop's cost, the humbler sort eating in the great hall and the gentlemen of the household in the upper chambers. The Bishop had hardly been in possession of the house for a year when Challoner, the English Ambassador in Spain, warned Cecil that the "crafty old fox" was getting to know too much about what went on at Court, and that some decent excuse should be sought for turning him out from so advantageous a coign of vantage as Durham Place, with its water-gate and its close proximity to the palace, whence spies and courtiers might come and go secretly, as we now know they did, at all hours for {275} the information of the King of Spain's Ambassador. We may be sure that the hint was not lost on Cecil, but the Bishop was cunning, and to turn him out without good ostensible cause would have been too risky at a time when Philip's future action was still uncertain. So the Queen's porter in charge of the house was told to take careful note of those who went in and out by the Strand gate, and particularly those who attended Mass in the Ambassador's chapel. But still the weak point in the position was the water-gate, the key of which always remained in the possession of the Bishop or his major-domo. Various stratagems were resorted to by the English porter to obtain possession of it, but in vain, and more decided measures had at last to be taken. The Bishop's confidential secretary, an Italian named Borghese, was bribed by Cecil to tell all he knew of his master's practices, and great promises of high position and a rich marriage in England were held out to him as a further reward for his treachery. This made him arrogant and boastful, and led to a slashing match with the Bishop's Italian gentleman-in-waiting, whom Borghese nearly killed. He boasted that he had friends at Court, snapped his fingers at the officers of the law and at the Bishop's cajolery and threats, made a