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stairs and eighty-five below.[1] At its head was Sir Thomas Chaloner, formerly an English agent abroad, and in Scotland during the winter preceding the death of Elizabeth. He was a gentleman of scholarly parts, author of one of the elegies in Sylvester's Lachrymæ Lachrymarum on the death of Henry, and in his later years interested especially in scientific studies. Adam Newton, the Prince's tutor, acted as secretary; and Sir David Murray, who like others of his kindred seems to have possessed both practical and poetical talents, was groom of the stole and keeper of the privy purse.
It was the King's wish, expressed to Chaloner when he first signed his book, that "the forme of the Prince's house should rather imitate a colledge then a court,"[2] by which he must have meant that it should be given to scholarly pursuits and composed in part of students and men of culture. To this policy may be due in some measure his son's reputation as a friend of the arts, though as he grew older the Prince himself showed the benefits of his excellent training by a personal interest in literature and by the expenditure of large sums for books and pictures.
Another reason for the modern favorable opinion of the Prince in this respect is the preservation of a detailed record of all his gifts, purchases, and other expenditures during the last four years of his life. These are contained in two account books of Sir David Murray, one among the Declared Accounts, Pipe Office, Roll 2794, and the other among the Exchequer Accounts, Bundle 433, No. 8. The first of these, entitled "The Accompte of the Money Expended by Sir David Murray Kt Keaper of the Privie Purse to the late Noble Prynce Henry, Prynce of Wales, from the first of October 1610 to the sixth of November
- ↑ T. Birch, Life of Henry Prince of Wales, London, 1760, p. 32. Its size increased rapidly, until at the Prince's creation in 1610 there were 426 in the household, 297 with wages and 129 without (Archeologia, Vol. XII, p. 8). Positions were often bartered and distributed without much regard for the wishes of Henry or his immediate guardians.
- ↑ An Account of the Revenues of . . . Prince Henry, Archeologia, Vol. XV, p. 22.
