Steadfast attachment to his early friends was a feature of Henry’s character. When an infant in Stirling Castle, he had been lovingly cared for by David Murray the attendant who slept in his chamber. The trusty Scot followed his young master to England and the friendship between them grew closer as the Prince advanced in years, till at last, when the fatal fever had rendered him almost speechless, he called out repeatedly for David. When Murray approached the bed the dying youth recognised his life-long companion, but sighed as he muttered again and again “I would say somewhat but I cannot utter it.”[66] According to the French ambassador, de la Boderie, Henry spent less time in study than in out-of-door exercise and games. “None of his pleasures,” says the Ambassador, writing when the boy was little more than twelve, “savour the least of a child. He is a particular lover of horses and what belongs to them; but is not fond of hunting; and when he goes to it, it is rather for the pleasure of galloping, than that which the dogs give him. He plays willingly enough at Tennis, and at another Scots diversion [golf] very like mall; but this always with persons elder than himself, as if he despised those of his own age. He studies two hours a day, and employs the rest of his time in tossing the pike, or leaping, or shooting with the bow, or throwing the bar, or vaulting or some other exercise of that kind; and he is never idle. He shows himself likewise very good natured to his dependants, and supports their interests against any persons whatever; and pushes what he undertakes for them or others, with such zeal, as gives success to it.”[67] The Frenchman was probably wrong in supposing that the Prince played golf with persons older than himself because he despised those of his own age. The likelihood is that, as golf was introduced into England by Scotsmen who went south with James, only amongst his father’s northern courtiers would Henry be able to find opponents and partners for his game. An anecdote of the Prince regarding golf is told by Strutt in _The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_. “At another time playing at goff, a play not unlike to pale-maille, whilst his schoolmaster stood talking with another, and marked not his highness warning him to stand farther off, the prince thinking he had gone aside, lifted up his goff-club to strike the ball; mean tyme one standing by said to him, ‘beware that you hit not master Newton’: wherewith he drawing back his hand, said, ‘Had I done so, I had but paid my debts.’” Henry’s remark seems to infer that good Master Newton had not spared the rod in the course of his tutorial duties, just as George Buchanan, a generation earlier, did not shrink from chastising the Prince’s father in the schoolroom at Stirling Castle.