Lady Villiers seems both to have foreseen all these defects, and to have prognosticated the atoning graces in her son. She acted as a needy and ambitious woman was likely to act. Instead of supplying the deficiencies of her son’s character and intellect by a sound education, she directed his attention to dancing, fencing, and the other exercises, styled by Lord Clarendon “the conservative qualities and ornaments of youth.”[28] And in these pursuits so rapid a progress was made, that the tutors of all the three brothers were obliged to restrain the progress of George Villiers in order that their other pupils should not be disheartened by his proficiency. Meantime, his expanding beauty of form and face seemed to his proud mother to render her son worthy of a higher culture than that which she could bestow upon him at Godby. Her jointure was very small, and although Godby, where she resided, was a suitable abode for the widow of Sir George Villiers, the Manor House being large enough to receive James the First and his retinue during a royal progress, yet her poverty obliged her to live in great retirement. A rigid economy must have been necessary to regulate its household. Lady Villiers had only two hundred a-year, both for herself and her family, and that income was to cease at her death, when her orphan children would have but a pittance besides their beauty and their talents.[29] Impelled, as it is hinted by several historians, by a desire to benefit her children, the widowed lady, still young and fair, resolved to marry again. Sir Thomas Marquin was first the object of her choice, and after his death, she bestowed her hand upon Sir Thomas Compton, Knight of the Bath, and brother of Lord Compton, First Earl of Northampton, whose marriage with the daughter of Sir John Spencer, Lord Mayor of London, and commonly called “rich Spencer,” had brought an increase of honour and influence to his family. This union was the more important to Lady Villiers and her children, because their half-brothers and sisters looked upon them with no good will, and were little disposed to further their interests. Footnote 28: Ibid. Footnote 29: Coke’s Detection, p. 81.