The Earl Was Wild, Full Of
Spirits, And Impatient Of Restraint:
Forbes was a grave, sober, mild
man, and his sage remonstrances had no manner of effect on his pupil.
The duke, seeing what the young gentleman would be at, resolved to send
over one that should govern him.
For this purpose he pitched upon
Colonel Thomas Fairfax, a younger son of the first lord Fairfax, a
gallant and brave man (as all the Fairfaxes were), and roughly honest.
Lord Derby was restless at first: but the colonel told him sharply, that
he was sent to govern him, and would govern him: that his lordship must
submit, and should do it; so that the best method he had to take, was to
do it with decorum and good humour. He soon discharged the vicious and
scandalous part of the earl's acquaintance, and signified to the rest,
that he had the charge of the young nobleman, who was under his
government: and therefore if any of them should ever have a quarrel with
his pupil, who was young and inexperienced, he himself was their man,
and would give them satisfaction. His courage was too well known to
tempt anybody make a trial of it; the nobleness of his family, and his
own personal merit, procured him respect from all the world, as well as
from his pupil. No quarrel happened: the earl was reclaimed, being
always very observant of his governor. He left Paris, and passing down
the Loire went to the south of France, received in all places by the
governors of towns and provinces with great respect and uncommon marks
of honour and distinction. From thence he went into Italy, making a
handsome figure in all places, and travelling with as much dignity as
any nobleman whatever at little more than one thousand two hundred
pounds a year expense; so easy is it to make a figure in those countries
with virtue, decorum, and good management."[321]
This concluding remark of Carte's gives us the point of view of certain
families; that it was more economical to live abroad. It certainly
was - for courtiers who had to pay eighty pounds for a suit of
clothes - without trimming[322] - and spent two thousand pounds on a
supper to the king.[323] Francis Osborn considered one of the chief
benefits of travel to be the training in economy which it afforded:
"Frugality being of none so perfectly learned as of the Italian and the
Scot; Natural to the first, and as necessary to the latter."[324]
Notwithstanding, the cost of travel had in the extravagant days of the
Stuarts much increased. The Grand Tour cost more than travel in
Elizabethan days, when young men quietly settled down for hard study in
some German or Italian town. Robert Sidney, for instance, had only L100
a year when he was living with Sturm. "Tearm yt as you wyll, it ys all I
owe you," said his father. "Harry Whyte ... shall have his L20 yearly,
and you your L100; and so be as mery as you may."[325] Secretary Davison
expected his son, his tutor, and their servant to live on this amount at
Venice. "Mr. Wo." had said this would suffice.[326] If "Mr Wo." means Mr
Wotton, as it probably does, since Wotton had just returned from abroad
in 1594, and Francis Davison set out in 1595, he was an authority on
economical travel, for he used to live in Germany at the rate of one
shilling, four pence halfpenny a day for board and lodging.[327] But he
did not carry with him a governor and an English servant. Moryson,
Howell, and Dallington all say that expenses for a servant amounted to
L50 yearly. Therefore Davison's tutor quite rightly protested that L200
would not suffice for three people. Although they spent "not near so
much as other gentlemen of their nation at Venice, and though he went to
market himself and was as frugal as could be, the expenses would mount
up to forty shillings a week, not counting apparel and books." "I
protest I never endured so much slavery in my life to save money," he
laments.[328] When learning accomplishments in France took the place of
student-life in Italy, expenses naturally rose. Moryson, who travelled
as a humanist, for "knowledge of State affaires, Histories, Cosmography,
and the like," found that fifty or sixty pounds were enough to "beare
the charge of a Traveller's diet, necessary apparrell, and two Journies
yeerely, in the Spring and Autumne, and also to serve him for moderate
expences of pleasure."[329] But Dallington found that an education of
the French sort would come to just twice as much. "If he Travell without
a servant fourscore pounds sterling is a competent proportion, except he
learne to ride: if he maintaine both these charges, he can be allowed no
lesse than one hundred and fiftie poundes: and to allowe above two
hundred, were superfluous, and to his hurte. And thus rateably,
according to the number he keepeth.
"The ordinarie rate of his expence, is this: ten gold crownes a moneth
his owne dyet, eight for his man, (at the most) two crownes a moneth his
fencing, as much dancing, no lesse his reading, and fiftene crownes
monethly his ridings: but this exercise he shall discontinue all the
heate of the yeare. The remainder of his 150 pound I allow him for
apparell, bookes, Travelling charges, tennis play, and other
extraordinaire expences."[330] A few years later Howell fixes annual
expense at L300 - (L50 extra for every servant.) These three hundred
pounds are to pay for riding, dancing, fencing, tennis, clothes, and
coach hire - a new item of necessity. An academy would seem to have been
a cheaper means of learning accomplishments. For about L110 one might
have lodging and diet for himselfe and a man and be taught to ride,
fence, ply mathematics, and so forth.[331] Lassels very wisely refrains
from telling those not already persuaded, what the cost will be for the
magnificent Grand Tour he outlines.
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