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“This Entertainment he made at Bolsover-Castle, in Derbyshire, some five miles distant from Welbeck, and resigned Welbeck for Their Majesties Lodging; it cost him in all between Fourteen and Fifteen thousand pounds.”

Miss Strickland (Queens of England, VIII. 72) thought that this royal entertainment at Bolsover gained for Newcastle the Governorship of the Prince. “So much pleased,” she says, “were the royal pair with the literary taste of the earl and his royal hospitalities at Bolsover, that they agreed in the appointment of Newcastle, as governor to Charles, Prince of Wales.” But this is not very probable; for so long as two years later, Newcastle was very despondent about obtaining the appointment. He had gone to London, and his attempts to secure it had been so much talked about that he was reported to have succeeded. This report had even reached the ears of the King, and it is unlikely to have increased his chances of success.