58 CHARLES LEE 



cornet for some years after she had become maid of 

 honour to the queen. By and by it occurred to Lord 

 Sunderland that this was a little too absurd; and so 

 he induced her to resign her commission in exchange 

 for a pension from George I. 1 This memorable inci- 

 dent seems to have escaped the notice of our modern 

 framers of pension bills. 



As the date at which Charles Lee reached the age 

 of eleven was precisely that at which his father reached 

 the rank of colonel, it is not improbable that he may 

 have received a commission of the sort just described. 

 However this may have been, he is known to have 

 studied at the free grammar-school of Bury St. Ed- 

 munds, in Suffolk, and afterward at an academy in 

 Switzerland. He acquired some familiarity with 

 Greek and Latin, and a thorough practical knowledge 

 of French. In later years, in the course of his 

 rambles about Europe, he became more or less pro- 

 ficient in Spanish, Italian, and German. From an 

 early age he seems to have applied himself diligently 

 to the study of the military art. In May, 1751, shortly 

 after his father's death, he received a lieutenant's com- 

 mission in that 44th regiment, of which his father 

 had been colonel. The regiment was ordered to 

 America in 1754, and under its lieutenant-colonel, 

 Thomas Gage, formed the advance of Braddock's 

 army, and received the first attack of the French and 

 Indians in the terrible battle of the Monongahela. It 

 was in this disastrous campaign that Lee must have 

 become acquainted with Horatio Gates and perhaps 

 with George Washington. The remains of the shat- 

 tered army were in the autumn taken northward to 



1 G. H. Moore, "Treason of Charles Lee, 1 ' p. 5. 



