Inexperienced as the latter was in the arts of a court, being then only twenty-one, and having passed fourteen years of his life in close captivity in the Tower, he was easily duped by the wily ambassador; and though repeatedly warned against him by De Noailles, who saw through Renard’s design, he disregarded the caution. Satisfied of the Queen’s favourable disposition towards him, which was evinced by the most marked attention on her part, this young nobleman conceived himself wholly beyond the reach of rivalry; and trusting to his personal advantages, and the hold he had obtained over the affections of his royal mistress, he gave himself little concern about an opposition which he regarded as futile. He looked upon himself as certain of the Queen’s hand; and but for his own imprudence, he would have been actually possessed of it. Mary’s meditated alliance was agreeable to all parties, except, as just intimated, that of Spain. Already nearly related to the crown by his descent from Edward the Fourth, no objection could be raised against her favourite on the score of rank; while his frank and conciliating manner, combined with his rare endowments of mind and person, won him universal regard. Doctor Thomas Wilson, in the funeral oration pronounced over Courtenay at Padua in 1556, states, that during his long imprisonment in the Tower, “he wholly devoted himself to study, and that neither the augustia loci, nec solitudo, nec amissio libertatis, ilium à literis avocarent; that he made such progress in philosophy, that no nobleman was equal to him in it; that he also explored the mysteria naturae; that he entered into the mathematicorum labyrintha; that he was so fond of painting, that he could easily and laudably make any one’s portrait on a tabula; that he was equally attached to music, and had attained in it absolutam perfectionem; and that to these acquisitions he added the Spanish, French, and Italian languages. In manners he was grave without pride; pleasant without levity; prudent in speech; cautious in answering; modest in disputing; never boasting of himself, nor excluding others; and though familiar with many, yet intimately known to few.” Allowing for the drawbacks which must necessarily be made from such an éloge, enough will remain to prove that his accomplishments were of no common order.