“A year after His Return out of Scotland, He [the King] was pleased to send my Lord word, That Her Majesty the Queen was resolved to make a Progress into the Northern parts, desiring him to prepare the like Entertainment for Her, as he had formerly done for Him,”—no very moderate request—“which My Lord did, and endeavour’d for it with all possible Care and Industry, sparing nothing that might add splendor to that Feast, which both Their Majesties were pleased to honour with their Presence: Ben Jonson he employed in fitting such Scenes and Speeches as he could best devise;”—this was the masque entitled “Love’s Welcome at Bolsover,”—“and sent for all the Gentry of the Country to come and wait on their Majesties; and in short, did all that ever he could imagine, to render it Great, and worthy Their Royal Acceptance.
“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.
“W. Earl of Newcastle to his wife (the Countess of Newcastle).[23]
“1636, April 8. London.—There is nothing I either say or do or here but it is a crime, and I find a great deal of venom against me, but both the King and the Queen have used me very graciously. Now they cry me down more than ever they cried me up, and so now think me a lost man. They say absolutely another shall be for the Prince and that the King wondered at the report and said he knew no such thing and told the Queen so; but I must tell you I think most of these are lies, and nobody knows except the King.”
[23] Welbeck MSS., Hist. Comm. Reports, 13th Report, Appendix, Part II, p. 127.
He had several rivals for the office.