With the King at Oxford

My father was the son of a gentleman of Oxfordshire that had asmall estate near to the town of Eynsham, in that county. The monksof Eynsham Priory had the land aforetime and ‘twas said that here,as elsewhere, there was a curse upon such as held for their own usesthat which had been dedicated to God‘s service. How this may be Iknow not, though there are notable instances—as, to wit, theRussells—in which no visible curse has fallen on the holders of suchgoods; but it is certain that my father‘s forbears wasted their estategrievously. Being but the third son, he had scarce, in any case,tarried at home; but, matters being as they were, the emptiness of thefamily purse drove him out betimes into the world. Being of goodbirth and breeding he got, without much ado, a place about theCourt, which was not, however, much to his liking. I have heard himsay—and this, though, as will be seen hereafter, he was a great loverof monarchy—that, between a weak king and villainous courtiers,Whitehall was no place for an honest gentleman. Robert Carr, thatwas afterwards Earl of Somerset, he liked little, and George Villiers,Duke of Buckingham, he liked yet less, being, as he was wont to say,by so much a greater villain than Somerset as a duke is greater thanan earl. He was right glad, therefore, to leave the “sunshine of theRoyal presence;“ for so did men speak of the Court in thehyperbolical language of those times, even for so dismal andoutlandish a part as Ireland. But I know not whether he did not wishhimself back, for of Ireland he would never afterwards speak withany measure of patience, declaring that he knew not which were theworse, the greediness and cruelty of the English conquerors, or thesavagery and unreason of the native people... Read more