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Third visit to England (1510 – 1515)

In 1510, Erasmus arrived at More's bustling house, was confined to bed to recover from his recurrent illness, and wrote The Praise of Folly, which was to be a best-seller. More was at that time the undersheriff of the City of London.

After his glorious reception in Italy, Erasmus had returned broke and jobless, with strained relations with former friends and benefactors on the continent, and he regretted leaving Italy, despite being horrified by papal warfare. There is a gap in his usually voluminous correspondence: his so-called "two lost years", perhaps due to self-censorship of dangerous or disgruntled opinions; he shared lodgings with his friend Andrea Ammonio (Latin secretary to Mountjoy, and the next year, to Henry VIII) provided at the London Austin Friars ' compound, skipping out after a disagreement with the friars over rent that caused bad blood.

He assisted his friend John Colet by authoring Greek textbooks and securing members of staff for the newly established St Paul's School and was in contact when Colet gave his notorious 1512 Convocation sermon which called for a reformation of ecclesiastical affairs. At Colet's instigation, Erasmus started work on De copia.

In 1511, the University of Cambridge 's chancellor, John Fisher, arranged for Erasmus to be (or to study to prepare to be) the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, though whether he actually was accepted for it or took it up is disputed. He studied and taught Greek and researched and lectured on Jerome.

Erasmus mainly stayed at Queens' College while lecturing at the university, between 1511 and 1515. Erasmus' rooms were located in the " I " staircase of Old Court. Despite a chronic shortage of money, he succeeded in mastering Greek by an intensive, day-and-night study of three years, taught by Thomas Linacre, continuously begging in letters that his friends send him books and money for teachers.

Erasmus suffered from poor health and was especially concerned with heating, clean air, ventilation, draughts, fresh food and unspoiled wine: he complained about the draughtiness of English buildings. He complained that Queens' College could not supply him with enough decent wine (wine was the Renaissance medicine for gallstones, from which Erasmus suffered). As Queens' was an unusually humanist-leaning institution in the 16th century, Queens' College Old Library still houses many first editions of Erasmus's publications, many of which were acquired during that period by bequest or purchase, including Erasmus's New Testament translation, which is signed by friend and Polish religious reformer Jan Łaski.

By this time More was a judge on the poorman's equity court (Master of Requests) and a Privy Counsellor.