When his lordship was at his country house at Gorhambery, St. Albans seemed as if the court were[287] there, so nobly did he live. His servants had liveries with his crest (a boare ...); his watermen were more imployed by gentlemen then any other, even the king's.
King James sent a buck to him, and he gave the keeper fifty pounds.
He was wont to say to his servant Hunt, (who was a notable thrifty man, and loved this world, and the only servant he had that he could never gett to become bound for him) 'The world was made for man, Hunt; and not man for the world.' Hunt left an estate of 1000li. per annum in Somerset.
None of his servants durst appeare before him without Spanish leather bootes: for he would smell the neates-leather, which offended him.
The East India merchants presented his lordship with a cabinet of jewells, which his page, Mr. Cockaine, recieved, and decieved his lord.
Three of his lordship's servants[XIII.] kept their coaches, and some kept race-horses—vide Sir Anthony Welden's Court of King James.
[XIII.] Sir Thomas Meautys, Mr. <Thomas> Bushell, Mr. ... Idney.
[288]He was[289] a παιδεραστής. His Ganimeds and favourites tooke bribes; but his lordship alwayes gave judgement secundum aequum et bonum. His decrees in Chancery stand firme, i.e. there are fewer of his decrees reverst then of any other Chancellor.
His dowager[290] maried her gentleman-usher, Sir (Thomas, I thinke) Underhill, whom she made deafe and blind with too much of Venus. ☞ She was living since the beheading of the late King.—Quaere where and when she died.