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The Duchess of Newcastle was such an admirer of her husband that it may be wise to give something more than full credit to her admissions respecting him. Among these are that he had “not so much of scholarship and learning as his brother Sir Charles,” that he was “no mathematician by art,” and that he had one vice in that “he has been a great lover and admirer of the female sex; which whether it be so great a crime as to condemn him for it, I will leave to the judgment of young gallants and beautiful ladies”. She also says: “He is quick in repartees”. The uncharitable may suspect that she had frequently winced under them.

WELBECK

Double-page engraving from Newcastle’s book on horsemanship

As to his religion, we learn something from a letter written by George Con, the papal agent at the Court of Queen Henrietta, to Barberini.ssss1 “In matters of religion,” he wrote, “the Earl is too indifferent. He hates the Puritans, he laughs at the Protestants, and he has little confidence in the Catholics.”