“1636, April 15, Good Friday. London.—My Lord Danby certainly did put very far for governor to the Prince but is gone to his government at Guernsey, and they say is denied. My Lord of Leicester has also tried for it but they say he is to go ambassador into France. Lord Goring also plies it for the same place, but they say he will not get it. The Scots also put in for it but it is not thought they will get it. It is believed absolutely that I must be about the Prince, and some say that I am to have my Lord of Carlisle’s place, others that I am to be made of the Garter with the Prince, which will save me £10,000.”
The Same to (the Same).
“1636, May 23. London.—I am very weary and mean to come down presently. I was yesterday with the ‘B. B.,’ and for anything I find it is a lost business.”
At this date Newcastle was evidently in despair and was on the point of going home in very low spirits. Place-hunting is not invariably an exhilarating sport, and Newcastle was certainly a place-hunter at this period. Some words of one of his former contemporaries (Francis Bacon)—a place-hunter himself—are not inapplicable to his case. “The rising into place is laborious; and by pains men come to greater pains.... By indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing.”
CHAPTER IV.
Everything is said to come to him who knows how to wait. Possibly this may not be a universal experience; but the Governorship of the Prince of Wales did come at last to the long-waiting Newcastle. The appointment was conveyed by the following very courteous letter, and it was accepted by a somewhat obsequious reply.
“Mr. Secretary Windebank to the Earl of Newcastle.[24]
“My Lord,