More from Wulstan

"The brilliance of Cardinal College was short-lived; its sky darkened first in 1528, when tremors of reformism were felt. Many of its canons had been attracted from Cambridge [though Wolsey had failed to secure Cranmer, Walter Haddon and Mathew Parker (KP: an unmitigated blessing, actually)] and were of a humanistic and reformist persuasion. Illegal books were discovered at the college, and Taverner himself was involved in the incident. Though ending in tragedy for some of his colleagues, Taverner escaped the stake, being, as the Dean said 'unlearned, and not to be regarded.' (i.e. a talented but dumb musician not to be taken seriously enough to be guilty of an intellectual heresy.) . . . (With the downfall and death of the college's founder, Cardinal Wolsey,) the great college which he cherished was run down. Its vestments, plate, music and other articles were confiscated by the king. The quantity of vestments was probably enormous - Magdalen, for instance, boasted more than a hundred chasubles and a hundred and fifty copes. Taverner returned to Lincolnshire, fully expecting that the college would be destroyed. It narrowly escaped this fate however, being instead refounded by Henry VIII as Christ Church, the college chapel becoming the cathedral of the new diocese of Oxford."

(Wulstan, David, "Tudor Music," pg. 268)