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Sidney was forced to acknowledge that Isaiah had a point. He had, indeed, been fortunate. Following the untimely demise of his predecessor, the new Bishop of Ely, a Corpus man, had wanted to install his own domestic chaplain in Sidney’s place, and had therefore moved him swiftly onwards and upwards to the fortuitously vacant parish of Grantchester. This promotion to such a plum position at the relatively young age of thirty, followed by his acquisition of a canonry only two years later, was regarded with considerable jealousy by colleagues of a similar age who found Sidney’s effortless friendship with the senior clergy nothing less than an affront to their piety and hard work. There was more to being a priest, they argued, than their rival’s easy charm.
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