It is hard to account for Henrietta's affection for this man--an affection so great that from that day to this scandal has been busy with their names. Henry Jermyn was not particularly well born, and he was neither radiantly handsome like Holland, nor clever and witty like Montagu. His abilities, which were severely tested in the course of his life, did not rise above mediocrity; his religion, such of it as existed, was of a very nebulous character, and his morals were of a distinctly commonplace type; indeed, one of his early achievements at Court was to run off with a maid of honour. To set against all this we only know that he was a man of very soft and gentle manners, such as made him a fitting agent in delicate negotiations, and that when the day of trouble came he showed considerable fidelity to the interests of a losing cause. That Henrietta should have lavished on such a man an affection and a confidence which some of her best friends, both now and later, thought exaggerated, is surprising; but she was never a good judge of character, and it must be remembered that personal charm is one of the most evanescent of qualities which cannot be bottled for the use of the historian. That in these happy days Henrietta was one of the brightest ornaments of her own Court cannot be doubted. Old men, who remembered the later years of Elizabeth, must have contrasted the forced compliments offered to her faded charms with the free devotion laid at the feet of this young and beautiful woman, "In whom th' extremes of power and beauty move, The Queen of Britain and the Queen of Love."[82] Her beauty soon reached its prime and soon faded a little, so that in later days she used to say with a touch of pique that no woman was handsome after two-and-twenty. Though she was not tall, her figure was good, and her sweet face with its animated expression attracted all beholders. Fastidious critics did, indeed, find fault with her mouth, which was rather large, but they had nothing but praise for her well-formed nose, her pretty complexion, and, above all, for her sparkling black eyes which, as in the days of her girlhood, were her most striking beauty; so lovely were they that the Puritan Sir Simonds d'Ewes was fain to lament that their owner should be in the thraldom of Popery.[83]