Sir Henry was a great observer of boyhood, as certain quaint observations of his show:-- “When I mark in children much solitude and silence I like it not, nor anything born before its time, as this must needs be in that sociable and exposed life as they are for the most part. When either alone or in company they sit still without doing of anything, I like it worse. For surely all disposition to idleness and vacancie, even before they grow habits, are dangerous; and there is commonly but little distance in time between doing of nothing and doing of ill.” He was besides a philosopher sagely writing:-- “The seeing that very place where I sate when a boy, occasioned me to remember those very thoughts of my youth, which then possessed me; sweet thoughts indeed, that promised my growing years numerous pleasures without mixture of cares, and those to be enjoyed when time (which I therefore thought slow-paced) had changed my youth into manhood. But age and experience have taught me that those were but empty hopes. And though my days have been many, and those mixed with more pleasures than the sons of men do usually enjoy, yet I have always found it true, as my Saviour did foretell, ‘_Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof_.’ Nevertheless I saw there a succession of boys using the same recreations, and questionless possessed with the same thoughts. Thus one generation succeeds another, both in their lives, recreations, hopes, fears, and deaths.” During the Provostship of Wotton the tranquillity of Eton life was disturbed by troops being quartered in the town, whilst a number of French hostages had such a bad effect upon the boys, with whom they mingled, and upon the Fellows, whom they introduced to improper characters, that De Foix, the French Ambassador, was entreated to interfere. [SN: PROVOST ROUSE] Sir Henry Wotton’s successor as Provost, Stewart by name, took up arms for King Charles I. at Oxford, his example being followed by a number of loyal Etonians. With the triumph of the Commonwealth came a Roundhead Provost, Francis Rouse by name, who was afterwards Speaker of the Barebones Parliament and one of Cromwell’s peers. Eton did not fare badly under the Protector, but the spirit of loyalty to the king nevertheless seems to have continued dominant, and the “Restoration” was welcomed with joy.