Читать книгу The First Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne онлайн

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In “apprehending a disgrace to himself,” and resigning the governorship of the Prince, if Newcastle did not meet with the “downfall” spoken of by Bacon, he at least suffered the “eclipse, which is a melancholy thing,” mentioned by the same writer. For so short a time, the appointment seems hardly to have been worth all the trouble which Newcastle had taken to obtain it. How far he succeeded in it we do not know, but one historian did not take a very exalted view of his success.

In his Personal History of Charles II, published as an appendix to Bohn’s edition of Grammont’s Memoirs, Sir Walter Scott says of the Prince: “His governors, successively the Earls of Newcastle, Hertford, and Berkshire, who had the care of his education, appear to have afforded him but few helps towards his improvement”. The Duchess’s statement that Newcastle “attended the Prince, his Master, with all faithfulness and duty befitting so great an employment,” evidently did not weigh heavily in Sir Walter’s opinion. The Prince, however, must have gained little by his change of governors; since Clarendonssss1 says that Hertford, “for the office of Governour, never thought himself fit, nor meddled with it”.