In the age of the Grand Tour the governor becomes an important figure.  There had always been governors, to be sure, from the very beginnings of travel to become a complete person.  Their arguments with fathers as to the expenses of the tour, and their laments at the disagreeable conduct of their charges echo from generation to generation.  Now it is Mr Windebanke complaining to Cecil that his son “has utterly no mind nor disposition in him to apply any learning, according to the end you sent him for hither,” being carried away by an “inordinate affection towards a young gentlewoman abiding near Paris."[310] Now it is Mr Smythe desiring to be called home unless the allowance for himself and Francis Davison can be increased.  “For Mr Francis is now a man, and your son, and not so easily ruled touching expenses, about which we have had more brabblements than I will speak of."[311] Bacon’s essay “Of Travel” in 1625 is the first to advise the use of a governor;[312] but governors rose to their full authority only in the middle of the century, when it was the custom to send boys abroad very young, at fourteen or fifteen, because at that age they were more malleable for instruction in foreign languages.  At that age they could not generally be trusted by themselves, especially after the protests of a century against the moral and religious dangers of foreign travel.  How fearful parents were of the hazards of travel, and what a responsibility it was for a governor to undertake one of these precious charges, may be gathered from this letter by Lady Lowther to Joseph Williamson, he who afterwards rose to be Secretary of State:  “I doubt not but you have received my son,” writes the mother, “with our letters entreating your care for improving all good in him and restraining all irregularities, as he is the hope and only stem of his father.  I implore the Almighty, and labour for all means conducible thereto; I conceive your discreet government and admonition may much promote it.  Tell me whether you find him tractable or disorderly:  his disposition is good, and his natural parts reasonable, but his acquirements meaner than I desire:  however he is young enough yet to learn, and by study may recover, if not recall, his lost time.

“In the first place, endeavour to settle him in his religion, as the basis of all our other hopes, and the more to be considered in regard of the looseness of the place where you are.  I doubt not but you have well considered of the resolve to travel to Italy, yet I have this to say for my fond fears (besides the imbecility of my sex) my affections are all contracted into one head:  also I know the hotness of his temper, apt to feverishness.  Yet I submit him to your total management, only praying the God of Heaven to direct you for the best, and to make him tractable to you, and laborious for his own advancement."[313]