Alfred J. Church 
With the King at Oxford 

My father was the son of a gentleman of Oxfordshire that had a

small estate near to the town of Eynsham, in that county. The monks

of Eynsham Priory had the land aforetime and ‘twas said that here,

as elsewhere, there was a curse upon such as held for their own uses

that which had been dedicated to God‘s service. How this may be I

know not, though there are notable instances—as, to wit, the

Russells—in which no visible curse has fallen on the holders of such

goods; but it is certain that my father‘s forbears wasted their estate

grievously. Being but the third son, he had scarce, in any case,

tarried at home; but, matters being as they were, the emptiness of the

family purse drove him out betimes into the world. Being of good

birth and breeding he got, without much ado, a place about the

Court, which was not, however, much to his liking. I have heard him

say—and this, though, as will be seen hereafter, he was a great lover

of monarchy—that, between a weak king and villainous courtiers,

Whitehall was no place for an honest gentleman. Robert Carr, that

was 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 than

an earl. He was right glad, therefore, to leave the “sunshine of the

Royal presence;“ for so did men speak of the Court in the

hyperbolical language of those times, even for so dismal and

outlandish a part as Ireland. But I know not whether he did not wish

himself back, for of Ireland he would never afterwards speak with

any measure of patience, declaring that he knew not which were the

worse, the greediness and cruelty of the English conquerors, or the

savagery and unreason of the native people…