He was known for his ability and was described by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, as "a man of great wisdom and temper, and one among the very few soldiers who made himself universally loved and esteemed". He was also noted for his piety (he attended Mass daily) and in the later years in the Low Countries and in England had as his chaplain the Jesuit Peter Wright, later to be sentenced to death on the evidence of Henry's own brother Thomas Gage, an ex-Catholic renegade. In 1630 Gage was given the rank of Captain-commandant of the English regiment in the service of Spain.