which he was law bursar in 1528/9. On 2 July 1526 he graduated Bachelor of both laws, and in 1527 and 1528 practised as a lawyer in Oxford. Political life Petre's career is strikingly similar to those of other statesmen of his time, such as William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, John Mason, and Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich, who, 'sprung from the willow rather than the oak', and served with equal fidelity Kings Henry, Edward and Queens Mary, and Elizabeth, surviving all contemporary political and religious storms. Among mid-Tudor privy councillors, Petre is unique in his unbroken service; he alone escaped execution, imprisonment in the Tower, house arrest, disgrace, fine, exile, or enforced retirement. As a diplomat, his manner was 'smooth, reserved, resolved, yet obliging'. At Boulogne in 1550, Chatillion said of Petre "Ah, we had gained the last two hundred thousand crowns without hostages, had it not been for that man who said nothing". In his later years, he was said to be a Catholic, a creed to which his descendants have consistently adhered. Nevertheless, his piety was not uncompromising, and did not stand in the way of his temporal advancement. Though he was less rapacious than his colleagues in profiting by the fall of Somerset, Petre acquired enormous property by the dissolution of the monasteries; in Devonshire alone he is said to have secured ; but his principal seat was at Ingatestone which he received on the dissolution of the abbey of St. Mary's Barking. Though so occupied in politics, he seems to have been a man with wider interests; a considerable portion of his wealth was spent on charitable objects; he founded almshouses at Ingatestone, and designed scholarships for All Souls College, Oxford, but his chief benefactions were to Exeter College, Oxford, and entitle him to be considered its second founder. In other ways, Petre was a patron of learning; his correspondence with English envoys abroad contains frequent requests for rare books. He was himself governor of Chelmsford grammar school, and Ascham benefited by his favour, which he is said to have requited by dedicating to Petre his Osorius de Nobilitate Christiana. A mass of Petre's correspondence has been summarised in the 'Calendars of State Papers', and many of the originals are in the Cottonian, Harleian, and Additional Manuscripts in the British Museum; his transcript of the notes for Edward VI's will is in the Inner Temple