s Bacon. But to
his father, the Lord Keeper, Paulet writes only that all is well, and
that his son's servant is particularly honest, diligent, discreet and
faithful, and that Paulet is thankful for his "good and quiet behaviour
in my house"--a fact which appears exceptional.

Sir Dudley Carleton, as Ambassador to Venice, was also pursued by
ambitious fathers.[88] Sir Rowland Lytton Chamberlain writes to
Carleton, begs only "that his son might be in your house, and that you
would a little train him and fashion him to business. For I perceive he
means to make him a statesman, and is very well persuaded of him, ...
like a very indulgent father.... If you can do it conveniently, it will
be a favour; but I know what a business it is to have the breaking of
such colts, and therefore will urge no more than may be to your
liking."[89]

Besides gaining an apprenticeship in diplomacy, another advantage of
travelling with an ambassador was the participation in ambassadorial
immunities. It might have fared ill with Sir Philip Sidney, in Paris at
the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, if he had not belonged to
the household of Sir Francis Walsingham. Many other young men not so
glorious to posterity, but quite as much so to their mothers, were saved
then by the same means. When news of the massacre had reached England,
Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham: "I am glad yet that in these
tumults and bloody proscriptions you did escape, and the young gentlemen
that be there with you.... Yet we hear say that he that was sent by my
Lord Chamberlain to be schoolmaster to young Wharton, being come the day
before, was then slain. Alas! he was acquainted with nobody, nor could
be partaker of any evil dealing. How fearful and careful the mothers and
parents be here of such young gentlemen as be there, you may easily
guess by my Lady Lane, who prayeth very earnestly that her son may be
sent home with as much speed as may be."[90]

The dangers of travel were of a nature to alarm mothers. As well as
Catholics, there were shipwrecks, pirates, and highway robbers. Moors
and Turks lay waiting "in a little port under the hill," to take
passenger vessels that went between Rome and Naples. "If we had come by
daye as we did by night, we had bin all taken slaves."[91] In dark
strait ways up the sides of mountains, or on some great heath in
Prussia, one was likely to meet a horseman "well furnyshed with daggs
(pistols), who myght well be called