ABSTRACT
Between the ages of ten and eleven Charles’s life changed dramatically: first he left the security of Lady Carey’s house, second his brother died, and third he rapidly won and then lost the friendship of his sister and brother-in-law. As a result the already insecure Charles returned to the rather bland existence he had known before: reading, studying, exercising, and doing little to attract attention, until his father’s last favourite, George Villiers, rescued him in 1618, becoming the substitute for the elder brother he had lost six years before. And so were dashed the widespread hopes, expressed on Henry’s death by poets such as Thomas Middleton that ‘The High and Mighty Charles’ would become ‘the illustrious hope of Great Britain’. 1
