To the inevitable solitude of ill-health, Charles probably owed his prudence, his early piety, and his taste for elegant pursuits. Villiers, in after life, found his love of pictures and medals one road to Charles’s affections, by producing a sympathy between himself and the young prince. Charles was also, for his age, an accomplished theologian, and notwithstanding the impediment in his utterance, he could discourse to the admiration of all who heard him, on topics of general interest. With the traveller, the mechanic, and the scholar, he was equally fluent, meeting them on their own subjects, and imparting knowledge to the learned. He improved, too, in those diversions, and exercises which were then considered indispensable to the character of a gentleman. “He rid,” says his tutor, Dr. Pernichief, “the great horse very well; and on the little saddle he was not only adroit, but a laborious hunter or fieldman.”[138] Footnote 138: Inedited MS. in the State Paper Office. Domestic, Nov. 1616. The temper of Charles is said to have been tinctured with obstinacy; and his old Scottish nurse reported him to have been of a very evil nature, even in his infancy; whilst another attendant taxes him with being, “beyond measure, wilful and unthankful.”[139] How far, in these uncured qualities, “springing like rank weeds in the heart,” we may trace some of the fatal errors in Charles’s career—his pertinacious adherence, especially when King, to Villiers, whether his favourite was right or wrong, is a matter of curious speculation. Footnote 139: Miss Aikins’ Life of Charles I., vol. i., p. 55, 56., from Sir Philip Warwick’s; also Lilly’s Observations, p. 60. But Dr. Pernichief, who knew Charles well, only allows that his “childhood was blemished with supposed obstinacy, for the weakness of his body inclining him to retirement, and the imperfections of his speech rendering discourse tedious and unpleasant, he was suspected to be somewhat perverse,” a construction often put upon the deportment of a bashful, sad child. Such were his defects; and, as far as his royal father was concerned, they were more offensive to the pride of the king, than painful to the tenderness of a parent. All, however, acknowledged that the youth of the accomplished Charles had hitherto been irreproachable, and that, if he manifested not the powerful intellect and extended views of his late brother, he resembled him in his love of virtue, his sense of honour, and in the difficult task of being dutiful and respectful to parents who were frequently at variance. He now came, at the age of sixteen, before his future subjects, with this singular disadvantage, that the death of his elder brother was still a subject of lamentation. The clergy, especially, could not forget one whose staunch Protestantism gave them the assurance of a steady friend.