It may be with such dangers in mind that Islip spent three pence on arrows for his servant, Robert Seston. The latter received five shillings a quarter for his wages but was provided with clothing, shoes, and doubtless food also, at his master’s expense. In addition he might look forward to a tip of twenty pence on Christmas day as well as on the anniversaries of Queen Eleanor and King Richard II. As Monk-Bailiff Islip had his own cook and outfit of kitchen utensils, while two grooms were in his permanent employment to look after the needs of the seven or eight horses living in his stables. It might well be thought that the offices to which Islip had been appointed in the year 1492 would have provided him with but little leisure from their exercise to assume new duties. In the year 1496, however, William Brewode retired from the onerous position of Cellarer and Islip was elected in his place. The reason for this retirement does not appear. Brewode was only fifty years of age and there was no suggestion that he was unfit any longer to hold an office which he had honourably filled for twelve years and which four years later he was to fill again for a brief space before becoming Warden of the Lady Chapel. It may be that Islip was already so clearly marked out for promotion to the highest places of all that it was thought well for him to have experience of the widest possible character. This, however, is the merest speculation, and the reason for the change must be left in obscurity. In the same year Islip appears in the _rôle_ of Abbot’s Receiver, a position he may have occupied for the four previous years though no record of it has survived. In the two years that followed no incident seems to have occurred of sufficient importance to call for special mention either in his own life or that of the monastery until the beginning of the year 1498, when a few entries recall a story of some historical interest in which Islip was directly involved. As far back as the year 1415 Henry V. had directed in his Will that his body was to be buried in the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, among the sepulchres of the Kings on the spot where the relics of the saints were commonly kept. The beautiful chantry chapel which was afterwards built in his honour attests the care with which his direction was carried out.