The youthful peer soon gave indications of genius; and all that a
careful education could do, was directed to improve his natural capacity
under private tutors. He went to Cambridge; and thence, under the care
of a preceptor named Aylesbury, travelled into France. He was
accompanied by his young, handsome, fine-spirited brother, Francis; and
this was the sunshine of his life. His father had indeed left him, as
his biographer Brian Fairfax expresses it, 'the greatest name in
England; his mother, the greatest estate of any subject.' With this
inheritance there had also descended to him the wonderful beauty, the
matchless grace, of his ill-fated father. Great abilities, courage,
fascination of manners, were also his; but he had not been endowed with
firmness of character, and was at once energetic and versatile. Even at
this age, the qualities which became his ruin were clearly discoverable.
George Villiers was recalled to England by the troubles which drove the
king to Oxford, and which converted that academical city into a
garrison, its under-graduates into soldiers, its ancient halls into
barrack-rooms. Villiers was on this occasion entered at Christ Church:
the youth's best feelings were aroused, and his loyalty was engaged to
one to whom his father owed so much.
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