He says of himself, and justly, "that he was incapable of dissimulation" xxvi.
His personal morality was irreproachable, except that he inherited the Plantagenet taste for crooked courses and dissimulation in political affairs; even in this respect the king's reputation has suffered unduly at the hands of Matthew Paris, whose literary skill is only equalled by his malice.
The interference of the state with his education, when he was quite a child, was, however, doubly harmful, as his parents taught him to despise the preceptors imposed upon him by the diet, and the atmosphere of intrigue and duplicity in which he grew up made him precociously experienced in the art of dissimulation.
Chesterfield was selfish, calculating and contemptuous; he was not naturally generous, and he practised dissimulation till it became part of his nature.
He was, however, full of vindictiveness, dissimulation and treachery, and there can be little doubt that in his historic conflict with Warren Hastings unworthy personal motives played a leading part.