Early in October, the Manor of Stalbridge was dismantled, and the Earl of Cork, with the rest of his family and retinue, set out in state for London. Sir Thomas Stafford had arranged to lend his old friend his House of the Savoy for the winter, “bravely furnished in all things except linen and plate,” which were being brought from Stalbridge.
Lady Barrymore and Lady Katharine Jones “with their Lords and Children” were to be lodged in the adjacent houses, but were to take their meals with the Earl their father in the Savoy;[73] and, as the Lady Mary expressed it many years later, “when we were once settled there, my father, living extraordinarily high, drew a very great resort thither.”[74]
Now that Kynalmeaky and Broghill were out of leading strings, their “Governour” was transferred to the two younger boys; and it was arranged that as soon as Frank and Mrs. Betty Killigrew were united in the bonds of matrimony, M. Marcombes was to carry both the boys off on their “peregrination”. Sir Henry Wotton had hinted at some such scheme when he told the Earl that Marcombes was “borne for your purpose”; and indeed M. Marcombes—the guide and teacher of Robert Boyle from his thirteenth to his eighteenth year—was a remarkable man. “He was a man”—wrote Robert Boyle in later years—“whose garb, his mien and outside, had very much of his nation, having been divers years a traveller and a soldier. He was well-fashioned, and very well knew what belonged to a gentleman.... Scholarship he wanted not, having in his greener years been a professed student in Divinity; but he was much less read in books than men, and hated pedantry as much as any of the seven deadly sins.”
Before company, the governor was “always very civil to his pupils, apt to eclipse their failings, and set off their good qualities to the best advantage;” but in his private conversation he was cynically disposed, and “a very nice critic both of words and men.” His worst quality seems to have been his “choler”; and Robyn soon learned that to avoid “clashing” with his governor he must manage to keep his own quick young temper in submission.
This was the man with whom, all the summer of 1639, Robert Boyle had read the Universal History in Latin, and carried on “a familiar kind of conversation” in French. And this was the man in whose charge Frank and Robyn were to set off on their travels when Frank’s wedding was over. They were to go to Geneva, where Broghill and Kynalmeaky had been before them, where there was now a Madame Marcombes in readiness to receive them.[75] For during his previous peregrinations in France and Switzerland with Kynalmeaky and Broghill, Marcombes, quite unknown to the Earl, had met and married his wife. She was a Parisian lady, of good civic connexions, and she was an excellent housewife. Marcombes had actually run away from Kynalmeaky and Broghill for a day or two to tie the nuptial knot. The Earl had at first been angry, but had forgiven Marcombes; indeed the charge of Kynalmeaky and Broghill was not an easy one; perhaps the Earl realised that Marcombes, under the circumstances, required a besseres Ich; and, in any case, Marcombes would have been difficult to replace. For he was—he says it himself—“an honest and Carefull man”; and he told the Earl in plain words while he was acting as governor to Kynalmeaky and Broghill that the title of governor was but “a vaine name, specially when those yt a man has under his Charge have kept so long Companie with hunters and players, and soe many Gentlemen that will humour them in anything and will let them know their Greatnesse, as my young Lords have been used in Ireland.”[76]
Marcombes had found no fault with my Lord Broghill: “I may assure your Lordship yt you shall have both honour and comfort in him.... Every one yt knows him Loves him and speakes well of him and without any compliment”; but Kynalmeaky, the brilliant young libertine, though “a young Lord of many good parts,” loved his pleasures too well. “I looke at home very narrowly to his drinking and abroad to his borrowing”, Marcombes had reported to the Earl. Moreover, both the boys had had smallpox in Genoa; but he had brought them both safely back to Stalbridge in time to join their brother Dungarvan’s troop of horse in the Scottish engagement; and it must have been with a sigh of relief that he turned his attention to the two younger boys, Frank and Robyn.
On the 24th of October, Francis Boyle was married to Mrs. Elizabeth Killigrew, in the King’s Chapel of Whitehall. The King gave the lady away with his own hand, and a royal feast in Court was made for the young couple. The King and Queen were both present; and the old Earl and three of his daughters (probably Lady Barrymore, Lady Katharine Jones, and Lady Mary Boyle) sat at the royal table, “amongst all the great Lords and Ladies.” The King himself “took the bride out to dance....”
And four days later, “to render this joy as short as it was great,”[77] Frank was packed off to France with Robyn and M. Marcombes. Having kissed their Majesties’ hands, the boys took a “differing farewell of all their friends.” The bridegroom was “exceedingly afflicted” to have to leave his little new-made wife; but the spiritay Robyn was on tip-toe of excitement at the thought of foreign travel and adventure. On October 28, 1639, they set out with their governor and two French servants from the House of the Savoy. So far the sweet-spirited Frank had done everything that was expected of him; but there was a scene at parting. For the bride was to be left behind in the Savoy under the Earl of Cork’s care, with the unruly Lady Mary as her “chamber-fellow.” And so unwilling was Frank to tear himself away that the old Earl was incensed; and Frank, in those last troubled moments of leave-taking, forgot to buckle on his sword—the sword, as well as the lady, was left behind!