For It Is Their Custome So To Doe To All."[345] At Tennis, However, Francis Enjoyed Himself, And Grew Apace.

"I may assure your Lordship that both his Leggs and armes are by a third part bigger now then

They were in England." Robert, even at fourteen a studious person, "doth not Love tennisse play so much, but delights himselfe more to be in private with some booke of history or other, but I perswade him often both to play att tennisse and goe about. I never saw him handsomer, for although he growes much, yet he is very fatt and his cheeks are as red as vermilian. This Leter end of ye winter is mighty cold and a great quantity of snow is fallen upon ye ground, but that brings them to such a stomacke that your Lordship should take a great pleasure to see them feed. I do not give them daintys, but I assure your Lordship that they have allwayes good bred and Good wine, good beef and mouton, thrice a week good capons and good fish, constantly two dishes of fruit and a Good piece of cheese; all kind of cleane linnen twice and thrice a week and a constant fire in their chamber wherein they have a good bed for them, and another for their men."[346]

Indeed, Marcombes was a very good governor, as Robert several times assured the Earl of Cork, and allowed them to lack for nothing. In the spring he bought them saddle-horses so that after their studies they might take the air and see their friends. Since a governor had charge of all the funds, it was a great test of his honesty whether he resisted the temptation to economize on the clothes and spending-money of his pupils, and to pocket the part of their allowance so saved. This is why Marcombes often lets fall into his letters to the Earl of Cork items such as these: "I have made a compleat black satin sute for Mr Robert: ye cloake Lined with plush, and I allow them every moneth a peese ye value of very neare two pounds sterlings for their passe time."[347]

The only disturbing elements in the satisfactory state of Marcombes and his pupils were the Killigrews. Thomas Killigrew, he who afterwards became one of the dramatists of the Restoration, had then only just outgrown the estate of page to Charles I., and in strolling about the Continent he paid the Boyles a visit.[348] As the brother of the wife whom Mr Francis had left at home, and on his own account as a fascinating courtier, he cast a powerful but baleful influence upon the household in Geneva. Marcombes was at first very guarded in his remarks, writing only that "Mr Kyligry is here since Saturday Last ... but I think he will not Stay long: which perhaps will be ye better for yr sons: for although his conversation is very sweet and delectable yet they have no need of interruption, specially Mr francis, which was much abused in his Learning by his former teachers: and although he hath a great desire to redime ye time, yet he cannot follow his younger brother, and therefore he must have time, and avoid ye company of those yt care not for their bookes."[349] But when it appeared that Killigrew had told the Earl of Cork that Marcombes kept the brothers shabbily dressed, the governor unfolded his opinion of the rising dramatist as "one that speakes ill of his own mother and of all his friends and that plays ye foole allwayes through ye streets like a Schoole Boy, having Allwayes his mouth full of whoores and such discourses, and braging often of his getting mony from this or ye other merchant without any good intention to pay."[350] His company fomented in Mr Francis a boastful spirit, "never speaking of any thing but what he should doe when he should once more command his state, how many dogs he shoulde keepe; how many horses; how many fine bands, sutes and rubans, and how freely he would play and keepe Company with good fellowes, etc."[351]

Thomas Killigrew's sister, the wife of Mr Francis, was also a very disturbing person. She would correspond with her husband and urge him to run away from his tutor, and suggested coming to the Continent herself and meeting him.[352] These plots she made with the assistance of her brother, whom she much resembled in disposition.[353] There is no knowing what havoc she would have made with the carefully planned education of the Boyles, for Francis at the end of two years became dangerously restive, had not their tour been decisively ended by the first rumblings of the Civil War at home.

After a winter in Italy, they were about to start for Paris to perfect themselves in dancing and to begin riding the great horse, when they received news that the Earl of Cork was ruined by the rebellion in Ireland. He could send them no more money, he told them, than the two hundred and fifty pounds he had just dispatched. By economizing, and dismissing their servants, they might reach Holland, and enlist under the Prince of Orange. They must now work out their fortune for themselves.[354]

The two hundred and fifty pounds never came. They were embezzled by the agent; and the Boyles were left penniless in a strange country. Marcombes did not desert them, however. Robert, who was too frail for soldiering, he kept with him in Geneva for two years. Francis, free at last, took horse, was off to Ireland, and joined in the fighting beside his brothers Dungarvan, Kynalmeaky, and Broghill, who rallied around their father.[355]

There are several other seventeenth-century books on the theory of travel besides Lassels', which would repay reading. But we have come to the period when essays of this sort contain so many repetitions of one another, that detailed comment would be tedious.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 33 of 54
Words from 32822 to 33828 of 55513