time, the servant would delay the clock's striking the hour until he knew that his master was ready. Sometimes, if asked what was the hour, the servant would humorously answer, "As your lordship pleaseth," at which the bishop would smile and go his way. Hooker also summed up his opinion of Bishop Oldham in these words: "A man having more zeal than knowledge and more devotion than learning; somewhat rough in speeches but friendly in doings [...] albeit he was not very much learned, yet a great favourer and a friend both to learning and to learned men". Interest in education As bishop, Oldham showed a keen interest in education, probably influenced by his brother Bernard's experiences in Crewkerne. He donated £4,000 and land in Chelsea towards Corpus Christi College, Oxford, which his friend and former Bishop of Exeter, Richard Foxe was in the process of establishing. In 1513, Foxe's original intention had been for the college to be for monks, similar to the long-established Durham College and Canterbury College, both at Oxford. However, Oldham appears to have persuaded Foxe to found a secular college instead, along the lines of New College or Magdalen, supposedly telling him that "monks were but a sort of bussing [buzzing] flies ... whose state could not long endure"—showing, according to some, that Oldham was well aware of the coming Reformation. In return for his generosity, daily prayers for him were recited in the new chapel at Corpus Christi both during his lifetime and after his death, and the college still has a contemporary portrait of him. Oldham may also have patronized Brasenose College, Oxford, which his former master William Smyth had founded in 1509. The historian John Hooker stated that Oldham's advances to Smyth were rebuffed, but evidence of the patronage existed in the form of his coat of arms that used to be set in a library window there. He apparently also offered help to Exeter College, Oxford, established in 1314 by one of his predecessors at Exeter, Bishop Stapledon, but in this case there is no evidence to contradict Hooker's statement that his offer was rejected. Oldham's interests also extended to lower levels of education. He ensured that the younger members of Exeter's cathedral choir attended the city high school, for instance, but his main endowment in this field was made back in his home country of Lancashire. On 2 July 1515