speak and boast of nothing else. Handsome, well-born, and accomplished, he soon attracted the notice of Henry the Eighth, who welcomed him at Court, and appointed him a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, a place which was then of much higher standing than in later days. But Carew did not make himself popular in the royal household. The constant comparisons which he daily drew between the French and English Courts, to the great disparagement of the latter, offended his colleagues in the highest degree, and were not calculated to gratify the King. Henry resolved to give the young man a lesson. If he were so devoted to France, to France he should go, and that without delay. At the same time, unwilling to dismiss him without some ostensible reason, he appointed Sir Nicholas governor of a fortress in Picardy, which was in the hands of the English. A castle in a provincial town did not offer the charms which Carew had found in the splendid capital of France, and it may easily be believed the office did not suit his taste. He doubtless petitioned the King; at all events, he was recalled, forgiven, and taken back into favour. He now became Henry's almost inseparable companion, and was foremost in all the jousts, tournaments, maskings, and all kinds of Court revelry, in which they both excelled and delighted. Carew was, moreover, appointed Master of the Horse, at that period one of the highest offices in the realm, and Knight of the Garter.
The favour of Henry the Eighth was as easily lost as won, and Fuller tells us that a tradition in the family reported that Carew's downfall proceeded, in the first instance, from a quarrel between him and his master at bowls, 'when his Grace, who was no good fellow, and would always rather give than take in repartee,' so exasperated his Master of the Horse, 'that his answer was rather true than discreet, consulting his own animosity rather than his allegiance, whereat the King was so offended that Sir Nicholas fell from the top of his
