said to have prosecuted his studies with success, and to have evinced
a taste for classical literature. Being intended for the Bar, he was
entered of the Inner Temple on the 22nd of January 1626; but that
profession ill-accorded with his genius, and he appears to have
selected it in obedience to the wishes of his mother, rather than from
his own choice. It has been supposed that he continued his legal
pursuits until her death left him free to follow his inclination to
travel; but this is not the fact, as he had returned to England before
her decease. At what period he abandoned the law is not known; but
about 1627 he went abroad, with the view of acquiring foreign
languages. Lady Fanshawe says that the whole stock of money with which
he commenced his travels did not exceed eighty-five pounds; that he
proceeded first to Paris, where he remained for twelve months, and
thence went to Madrid; and that he did not return to England for some
years. In 1630 he was appointed Secretary to Lord Aston's embassy to
the Court of Spain, in consequence of the information which he
possessed of the country; but in attaining that knowledge he spent
great part of his patrimony, which amounted only to 50 pounds per
annum, and 1500 pounds in money.

When Lord Aston was recalled, Mr. Fanshawe remained as the Charge
d'Affaires until Sir Arthur Hopton was nominated Ambassador to Madrid;
and he arrived in England in 1637 or 1638. For two years after his
return, he seems to have been in constant expectation of some
appointment, but his views were frustrated by Secretary Windebank. At
the expiration of that time, his eldest brother resigned to him the
situation of Remembrancer of the Court of Exchequer, but upon terms
which prevented its being of any immediate pecuniary advantage. The
Civil War, however, then broke out and being one of the King's sworn
servants, he attended his Majesty to Oxford, where he met the fair