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[Illustration:
I. H. BAKER, SC.
GEORGE VILLIERS,
_Duke of Buckingham_.
London: Hurst and Blackett.
]
THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF
GEORGE VILLIERS
DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
FROM ORIGINAL AND AUTHENTIC SOURCES.
BY MRS. THOMSON,
AUTHOR OF
“MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF HENRY THE EIGHTH,”
“LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH,”
“MEMOIRS OF SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH,”
&c., &c.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1860.
_The right of Translation is reserved._
PREFACE.
No complete life of this favourite of James I. and Charles I. has
hitherto appeared, except the biographical sketch by Sir Henry Wotton.
That interesting account deserves all credit, from the character of its
author; yet coming from one who owed Buckingham great obligations, it is
more of a eulogy than a memoir; and is evidently written with a view to
silence those slanderous attacks which not only pursued the Duke during
his life, but continued after his death.
The “Disparity between the Earl of Essex and the Duke of Buckingham,” by
Clarendon, printed, as well as Sir Henry Wotton’s Memoir in the
“Reliquiæ Wottonianæ,” bears, likewise, the impress of enthusiastic
admiration. It is the tribute of a partisan rather than the memorial of
an historian.
The opinions expressed, nevertheless, in both these works, have been
confirmed, in many points, by the letters in the State Paper Office, to
which historical writers have not only now free access, but which have
lately been arranged, whilst valuable Calendars have been published, so
as to facilitate investigations which were formerly most laborious. In
all that relates personally to George Villiers, the State Papers are
especially important.
The great Rebellion, amongst mightier devastations, swept away most of
that domestic correspondence which might otherwise have been found in
the three noble families who are collaterally descended from Buckingham;
those of the Earls of Jersey and Clarendon, and of his Grace the Duke of
Rutland, none of whom possess any letters of their unfortunate ancestor.
Nor is this fact to be wondered at, when we consider not only the stormy
period that succeeded Buckingham’s death, but the extreme youth of his
children at the time of his assassination, the second marriage of his
widow, and the long years of exile which his heir, George, the second
Duke of Buckingham of the house of Villiers, passed in wandering and
indigence.
The documents in the State Paper Office become, therefore, doubly
valuable, and every possible advantage has been taken of a mine so rich
in the present Memoir. It was, indeed, in 1849, some time before the
Calendars by Mrs. Everett Green, and Mr. Bruce, were published, that
this work was begun. The letters in the State Paper Office were then
merely arranged in chronological order, and divided into foreign and
domestic. But the valuable advice, the very great courtesy, and kind
assistance of Mr. Lechmere and Mr. Lemon, enabled the authoress still to
derive great benefit from her researches even at that time. Her work
having been laid aside, though nearly completed, during a residence of
several years on the Continent, the publication of the Calendars of
State Papers had, meantime, taken place, and they enabled her, in
resuming her task, to revise such parts of the memoir as had been
written, and to finish the whole with greater accuracy and fulness of
information than could otherwise have been done, and although the
revision has caused considerable delay and labour, it has been of
incalculable advantage to the work.
Of the Calendar for 1628-1629, which recently appeared, edited by Mr.
Bruce, the authoress has not been able to avail herself to the same
extent as of the four former volumes, since her work was nearly printed
before it was published. She has, therefore, been obliged to insert in
her Appendix the examination of Ben Jonson, and one or two other papers
which could not be interwoven with the narrative, although of great
interest. It is satisfactory to her to find that the contents of this,
the latest volume of the State Paper Calendars, confirm, in some
important points, the views which she has taken of Buckingham’s motives
and intentions. They also exhibit distinctly the great difficulties of
his course; and more especially in regard to the fatal expedition to La
Rochelle.
The authoress believes that she has discharged her task as a biographer
with impartiality: she confesses, nevertheless, to a strong interest in
the faulty but attractive character which she has attempted to
delineate. When stating, in her summary of the Duke’s qualities, that
time and trouble were rendering him a wiser and a better man, she was
ignorant of the following tribute to Buckingham, written, when all
patronage was closed by his death, by Dudley, Viscount Dorchester, to
the Queen of Bohemia, and printed in the last volume of the Calendar.
“The Duke declared a purpose to Dorchester on his (the Viscount’s) last
return from the Queen of Bohemia, which he has since often reiterated,
of making him, by his favour with the King his master, an instrument of
better days than they have seen of late, he having a firm resolution
(which he manifested to some other persons) to walk new ways, but upon
old grounds and maxims, both of religion and policy, finding his own
judgment to have been misled by errors of truth and persuasions of
persons he began better to know; so as knowing otherwise the nobleness
of his nature, and great parts and vigour, Dorchester had full
satisfaction in him himself, and made no doubt but the world would have,
notwithstanding the public hatred to which he was exposed. This
testimony Dorchester owes him after his death.”[1]
Footnote 1:
Calendar, edited by Mr. Bruce, for 1628, 1629, p. 270.
Of the restoration of the Navy by the strenuous efforts of the Duke the
State Papers present almost a chronicle. The authoress regrets that she
is not competent to do the subject justice; and hopes that some abler
hand may employ with more effect the copious materials which will be
found in those documents, of which she has touched merely on the leading
points. Her aim has been chiefly to shew the energy, the sometime lofty
purposes, of one who has been portrayed as a merely rapacious, vain,
remorseless oppressor.
The state of the times, the Impeachment, the Remonstrance, the Petition
of Right, all bear so strongly on the circumstances of the Duke’s life,
that it would be impossible, in a Memoir of him, to escape the difficult
office of explaining to some extent the intricate politics of the day.
In this attempt she also has derived her chief materials from the State
Papers. Personal incidents, trusts, manners, character, literature, the
arts, are subjects in regard to which the annals of this period are
calculated to afford a great amount of instruction and interest.
The authoress has already expressed her obligations to Mr. Lechmere and
Mr. Lemon; to Mr. Bruce she also begs to offer her thanks for a
suggestion by which she is enabled to insert an interesting account of
the murder of Buckingham, in a letter from Lord Dorchester. (See page
112, vol. iii.)
She begs also to express her sense of the valuable aid afforded her by
her friend, Mr. Amos, Professor of Law, Downing College, Cambridge, to
whose kindness and great historical knowledge she is indebted for much
that has facilitated her efforts.
March 1, 1860.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
State of England on the Accession of James I. compared with
that when Elizabeth began to Reign—The Great Rebellion
Attributable to the Misrule of James—Allusion of Lord
Clarendon to this Subject—The Luxury of a Favourite
Essential to James since the Age of Fourteen—Birth and
Origin of George Villiers—His Family little known to Fame
until his Elevation—The Sneers thrown upon it by Sir
Symonds D’Ewes; and its Claims to Honourable Descent
Considered—Sir Henry Wotton’s Testimony—The Family of
Villiers long known in the County of Leicester—The
Different Spellings of the Name—The Fortunes of the Family
in France—Remark of Lord Clarendon upon the Condition of
the Villiers Family in England—Also of the Historian
Sanderson—Brookesby, the Native Place of George
Villiers—His Mother, Mary Beaumont—Her Menial Condition in
the Family of Sir George Villiers—His Marriage—The Family
by a Former Union—Sir William Villiers—John, Viscount
Purbeck—The Children of the Second Marriage: Mary,
Countess of Denbigh—Christopher, George—Lady Villiers
retires to Goadby—Her Efforts for her Son’s Benefit—His
Education, Disposition, and Acquirements—The Slender Means
of his Mother—Her Second Marriage to Sir Thomas
Compton—George Villiers sent to Paris to complete his
Education—State of that Capital in the 17th
Century—Villiers returns from Paris, improved, and repairs
to his Mother’s House at Goadby 1
CHAPTER II.
James I., his Disapproval of the Gentry crowding into
London—Disgust Entertained by the Old Families to him and
his Court—The Clintons, Blounts, Veres, and Willoughby
D’Eresbys show it—Character of Sir Thomas Lake—William,
Earl of Pembroke, the Early Patron of Villiers—Account of
the First Introduction of Villiers to James—Ambitious
Views which it Suggested—His Attachment to the Daughter of
Sir Roger Ashton—Their Engagement Broken off—Account of
the King’s Visit to Cambridge in 1614-15—Some Description
of the Courtly Ladies who were present there—The Queen’s
Absence—Countess of Arundel—Countess of Somerset—Countess
of Salisbury—Lady Howard of Walden—Performance of the Play
of “Ignoramus” in Clare Hall—The Design of this Comedy to
Ridicule the Common Law—Admiration expressed by the King,
during the Performance, of the Personal Appearance of
Villiers, who was Present—The Subsequent Representations
referred to 33
CHAPTER III.
The Fascination of Villiers’s Character as opposed to the
Venality of Somerset—Lord Clarendon’s Opinion—The
Friendship of Archbishop Abbot—Character of the
Primate—His Affection for Villiers—Anecdote of Villiers
when Cup-Bearer. He is befriended by Anne of Denmark—By
her means Knighted—Singular Scene in the Queen’s
Chamber—Jealousy of Somerset—Ingratitude afterwards shewn
by Villiers to Abbot—Abbot commits Manslaughter—Is
pardoned by the King—The Incessant Pleasures of the
Court—Horse-Racing—Ben Jonson’s “Golden Age
Restored”—Allusion in it to Somerset, and to Overbury—An
Angry Interview between Villiers and Somerset—Villiers
supplants the Favourite—He uses no Unfair Means to do
so—Discovery of Somerset’s Guilt by Winwood, who finds
Proofs of it in an Old Trunk—Somerset’s Downfall—Bacon’s
Letter to Villiers—Villiers continues to Profit by the
Delinquencies and Disgrace of Somerset 71
CHAPTER IV.
The King’s Projects—A Journey to Scotland—Obstacles to that
Intention—Want of Money—£100,000 raised in the
City—Dislike of the People to this Journey, on Account of
Expense—James sets out, March 13th, 1616-1617—His
Attendant Courtiers, Sir John Zouch, Sir George Goring,
Sir John Finett—Characteristics of Each—Surpassing
Qualities of Buckingham—Objects of James’s Journey to
Edinburgh—Anecdote of Lord Howard of Walden—Disputations
at St. Andrews—The King knights many of the Young
Courtiers—Offence given at Edinburgh by Laud—A Project to
assassinate Buckingham Suspected—James’s Progress
Concluded—His Visit to Warwick—Affairs relating to Sir
Edward Coke and his Family—Base Conduct of all the Parties
Concerned—Meanness of Bacon—His Letters—Frances
Hatton—Contrast between her and the Earl of Oxford brought
forward by Lady Hatton—Coke restored to Favour—Marriage of
Frances Hatton to Lord Purbeck 139
CHAPTER V.
Buckingham’s Favour Paramount—Change in the King’s
Temper—His Poetic Flights—His Reign a Course of
Dissipation—The Masques of Ben Jonson—Their Great
Beauty—Patronized by the Queen—How Performed—The Vision of
Delight—Composed to Celebrate Buckingham’s being made a
Marquis—His Appearance at this Era—The Banquet given for
this Occasion—Great Extravagance of the
Entertainment—Rivals to Buckingham in James’s Favour—Sir
Henry Mildmay—Brooke—Young Morrison—The Diversions of the
Court—The Meteor that appeared—Foot-Racing—Buckingham’s
Profusion—Jealousies between Prince Charles and him 189
CHAPTER VI.
Review of the State of Political Affairs—Dissolution of
Parliament—Protest—James tears it out of the Journals of
the House of Commons—Acts of Oppression—Case of the Earl
of Oxford—of Lord Southampton—Persecution of Sir Edward
Coke—The Conduct and Impeachment of Lord Bacon—The Part
taken by Buckingham in this Affair—The Abuses of
Monopolies—Case of Sir Giles Mompesson—Of Sir Francis
Michell—Bacon’s Letters to Parliament—His Illness—The
Great Seal taken from Him—James’s Reluctance to act with
Vigour—Sheds Tears upon the Occasion—Bacon still protected
by Buckingham—Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, is made
Chancellor—His Character, by Bishop Goodman 275
CHAPTER VII.
The Spanish Treaty—Negotiations between the Duke of Lerma
and Lord Digby—The Infanta described by Lord Digby—Her
Great Beauty, Piety, and Sweetness—The Description of her
by Toby Matthew—She is disposed to receive Charles’s
Addresses—Gondomar—Attentions shown to him in England—Ely
House allotted for his Reception—Jealousy of the
Protestants at the Favour shown him—First Notion of
Charles’s Journey to Spain suggested by Buckingham—His
Arguments in Favour of it—Obstacles to the Prince’s
Marriage with the Infanta—Buckingham’s Debts and
Difficulties—Interview between Gondomar and the Duke of
Lennox—Journey of Charles and Buckingham into Spain—They
stop in Paris—Louis XIII.—Anne of Austria—Henrietta
Maria—They proceed to Madrid—Reception there—Entrance in
State into that City—Countess of Philip IV.—Festivities in
Honour of the Prince—The King’s Letters to him 315
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I.
STATE OF ENGLAND ON THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. COMPARED WITH THAT WHEN
ELIZABETH BEGAN TO REIGN—THE GREAT REBELLION ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE
MISRULE OF JAMES—ALLUSION OF LORD CLARENDON TO THIS SUBJECT—THE
LUXURY OF A FAVOURITE ESSENTIAL TO JAMES SINCE THE AGE OF
FOURTEEN—BIRTH AND ORIGIN OF GEORGE VILLIERS—HIS FAMILY LITTLE
KNOWN TO FAME UNTIL HIS ELEVATION—THE SNEERS THROWN UPON IT BY SIR
SYMONDS D’EWES; AND ITS CLAIMS TO HONOURABLE DESCENT
CONSIDERED—SIR HENRY WOTTON’S TESTIMONY—THE FAMILY OF VILLIERS
LONG KNOWN IN THE COUNTY OF LEICESTER—THE DIFFERENT SPELLINGS OF
THE NAME—THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY IN FRANCE—REMARK OF LORD
CLARENDON UPON THE CONDITION OF THE VILLIERS FAMILY IN
ENGLAND—ALSO OF THE HISTORIAN SANDERSON—BROOKESBY, THE NATIVE
PLACE OF GEORGE VILLIERS—HIS MOTHER, MARY BEAUMONT—HER MENIAL
CONDITION IN THE FAMILY OF SIR GEORGE VILLIERS—HIS MARRIAGE—THE
FAMILY BY A FORMER UNION—SIR WILLIAM VILLIERS—JOHN, VISCOUNT
PURBECK—THE CHILDREN OF THE SECOND MARRIAGE: MARY, COUNTESS OF
DENBIGH, CHRISTOPHER, GEORGE—LADY VILLIERS RETIRES TO GOADBY—HER
EFFORTS FOR HER SON’S BENEFIT—HIS EDUCATION, DISPOSITION, AND
ACQUIREMENTS—THE SLENDER MEANS OF HIS MOTHER—HER SECOND MARRIAGE,
TO SIR THOMAS COMPTON—GEORGE VILLIERS SENT TO PARIS TO COMPLETE
HIS EDUCATION—STATE OF THAT CAPITAL IN THE 17th CENTURY—VILLIERS
RETURNS FROM PARIS, IMPROVED, AND REPAIRS TO HIS MOTHER’S HOUSE AT
GOADBY.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIFE AND TIMES OF
GEORGE VILLIERS.
----------
=CHAPTER I.=
The historians who attribute the calamities of the Great Rebellion to
the misrule of James the First, under the pernicious influence of his
favourites, draw a lively parallel between the condition of England at
the accession of that monarch and the state of peril and embarrassment
with which his great predecessor had to contend. Elizabeth, whose
inauguration, long celebrated, after her death, as a day of jubilee, was
regarded as the commencement of national prosperity, came to the throne
under very adverse circumstances. The functions of Government were
clogged with debt. The miserable state of the navy required a constant
vigilance to repel the chance of invasion, and to drive away pirates by
whom the narrow seas were infested. The revenues of the Crown were
insufficient to maintain its power and dignity; the country, moreover,
was embroiled in religious dissensions; whilst the authority of the
Queen was lessened by a disputed succession, and her mind harassed and
embittered by the pretensions of the Dauphin of France to the Crown of
England, in right of his wife, Mary Stuart.
James, on the contrary, began his reign with every exterior advantage.
His claim to the sovereignty was undoubted; and various causes had
concurred to give great influence to the Crown. The subservient tributes
of respect paid to its dignity were such as even to astonish the envoys
of despotic France. Elizabeth had been served and addressed by her
subjects on the knee; James, at all events for a time, continued that
abject custom, which was a type of the prevailing national sentiment
towards royalty. Commerce, in spite of monopolies, and of the
injudicious interference of the Legislature with wages, was advancing;
leases granted of large tracts of land had increased the opulence of the
country; the improved prospects of the landholders acted on the
prosperity of the manufacturing classes: whilst the general welfare was
increased by emigration; the religious persecutions on the Continent,
driving from foreign towns ingenious workmen, sent them into England,
where they introduced arts hitherto unknown in this country. The
Constitution, too, had been maintained; and, with the exception of the
court of the Star Chamber, over which James presided in person, the
principles of liberty had not been materially invaded. There was no
standing army; the tenets of Protestantism were established; and the
Presbyterian education of the King afforded a hope that certain traces
of the faith which had been renounced would die away, and that
ceremonials which were objectionable to many would be speedily
discontinued. Thus, the first of the Stuart Kings enjoyed blessings not
possessed by any of his predecessors; and, ascending the throne, opened
a new era in the history of the country.[2]
Footnote 2:
Brodie’s Constitutional History, vol. i., p. 337.
James, nevertheless, was not long in showing how fallacious were all
expectations founded on his good sense, and on the supposed liberal
views which a people, now intelligent and prosperous, fondly anticipated
in their ruler. Educated by Buchanan as if he had been destined for the
Tutor of a College rather than for a King; his memory crammed; his
capacity clogged with ill-digested learning; prejudiced as a Scotchman,
yet prejudiced against the established church of his native country,
James well merited the sneering appellation of Henry IV. of France, who
called him “Captain of Wits and Clerk of Arms,”[3] and proved, too
lamentably, how easy it is by wrong-headedness to embroil and debase a
country.
Footnote 3:
Sully’s Memoirs, vol. i., p. 309.
The blunders which James committed in his civil government began before
the subject of this memoir was introduced to royal notice; yet, since
George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, figured prominently in that
period which is supposed to have been the commencement of decay, the
origin of the Great Rebellion has been attributed to his
maladministration, nor has the grave responsibility been absolutely
disavowed, even by Lord Clarendon, the apologist and admirer of the Duke
of Buckingham.
“I am not,” writes Lord Clarendon, “so sharp-sighted as those who have
discerned the Rebellion contriving from (if not before) the death of
Queen Elizabeth, and fomented by several Princes and great Ministers of
State in Christendom to the time it broke out; neither do I look back so
far, because I believe the design to have been so long since formed, but
that, by viewing the tempers, dispositions, and habits at that time of
the Court and country, we may discern the minds of men prepared, of some
to act, and of others to suffer all that has since happened.”[4]
Footnote 4:
History of the Rebellion.
Whatsoever may have been the faults of James the First, it is probable
that they would not essentially have affected the well-being of his son,
had not the system of favouritism, which was one of James’s greatest
weaknesses, acted upon the character of the young Prince, whose earliest
associations were stamped with devotion to Buckingham. At once minister,
minion, and master, the power behind the throne, to whose dictation,
during the years of his brief and bright career, even the High Court of
Parliament submitted—the distinction of being the last royal favourite
in England is due to this ill-fated man. By him the “sluice of honour,”
as an old writer expresses it, “was opened and closed at pleasure.” He
was to King James a sort of “Parhelion,”[5] at whose course foreign
Courts wondered, whilst the sagacious and prophetic at home trembled as
they beheld at once its eccentricity and its splendour. At his death the
experiment, which had been tried once too often, was abandoned, never to
be renewed; and no acknowledged successor in the meteoric career of
Buckingham ever appeared before the dazzled gaze of our countrymen. The
minutest circumstances relative to his origin are interesting, not only
as they concern one whose noble bearing and powers of fascination almost
effaced, during his life, the remembrance of his errors, but as they
unfold the foundation of a great family which still influences our
national councils.
Footnote 5:
Bishop Hacket’s Life of the Lord Keeper Williams, p. 39.
Until the elevation of George Villiers from low estate to an
unparalleled career of success, the race from which he sprang, though
ancient and honourable, was but partially known to fame, and his
ancestors, how valiant and loyal soever they had proved, had held the
tenor of their way with little variation, and with only an occasional
gleam of celebrity on one or other of its lineage; a course of moderate
prosperity maintaining, without altering, its condition—rather, as Sir
Henry Wotton has well expressed it, “without obscurity than with any
great lustre.”[6] “I will, however,” adds the same quaint writer, after
referring to the difficulty of making a proper estimate of all public
characters, “show, therefore, as evenly as I can, and deduce him from
his cradle through the deep and lubrick waves of State and Court till he
be swallowed in the Gulf of Fatality.”[7]
Footnote 6:
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ. Life of Geo. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, p.
208.
Footnote 7:
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.
It was the fashion of those who were opposed to the Duke of Buckingham
in his political career to speak with contempt of his origin, and thus
attack one who was endowed with every possible advantage of natural
gifts—and upon whom honours were lavished—on what was erroneously
supposed to be his vulnerable point. Sir Symonds D’Ewes, as might be
expected, was not backward in his strictures against a courtier so
favoured and envied. He compares Villiers, indeed, to a man of the
highest rank, but draws the parallel in these offensive terms:—“He was
likest to Henry Loraine, Duke of Guise, in the most of the later
passages of his life and death, that possible could be, onelie in this
they differed, that Guise was a prince born, but Buckingham was but a
younger son of an ordinarie familie of gentrie, of which the coat
armoure was so meane as either in this age or of late years, without any
ground, right, or authoritie, that I could see, they deferred their owne
coate armoure, and bare the arms of Weyland, a Suffolke family, being
argent on a cross gules, five escalops, &c.”[8] And again, when speaking
of Felton, the assassin of the Duke, Sir Simond cannot forbear
remarking:—“His familie was, doubtless, more noble and ancient than the
Duke of Buckingham’s, and his ende much blesseder.”[9] To similar
strictures does Wotton probably refer, when he remarks that, in “a wilde
pamphlet” published about the Duke of Buckingham, the writers, “beside
other pityfule malignities, would scant allow him to be a gentleman.”
Footnote 8:
Quoted in Nichols’s History of Leicestershire, vol. iii., p. 189.
Footnote 9:
Nichol’s History of Leicestershire.
It is far easier to make a charge of this nature than to maintain it,
for the family of Villiers had long been known in the County of
Leicester, where it removed from Kinalton, in Nottinghamshire, the first
place of migration from Normandy; where, writes Sir Henry Wotton, “it
had been long seated.” It does not appear that Leicestershire was the
only place of residence which the ancestors of George Villiers
possessed; as the same authority expresses it, they “_chiefly_
continued” in that county for the space of four hundred years before the
birth of the first Duke of Buckingham;[10] a time long enough, one might
suppose, to satisfy a reasonable genealogist.
Footnote 10:
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, p. 208.
The name of Villiers, conformably to the arbitrary spelling of ancient
times, was written differently, sometimes Villiers, at others Villers,
Villeres, and Vyleres; nor did those who bore this famous surname
finally adopt the spelling “Villiers” until the reign of James I.
The founder of the family, Philip de Villers, of Lisle Adam, was a
Norman Seigneur; he was also Grand Master of the Island of Rhodes, and
signalized himself in the defence of that island against the Turks.
After the conquest, certain lands in Leicestershire were granted by
William the Conqueror to a Norman Knight hearing the appellation De
Villers; but another branch of the same race remained in France, and its
various members have been distinguished in courts, in arms, and as
legislators. Argiver de Villers was sewer[11] to Philip the First;
Pierre de Villers held the office of Grand Master in his native country,
under Charles the Sixth.[12]
Footnote 11:
Fuller’s Worthies of Leicestershire.
Footnote 12:
Sanderson’s Lives of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her Son, p. 467.
Invention was therefore not requisite to dignify the long unbroken line
of respectable progenitors to whom George Villiers owed his origin.
“Heraldry,” remarks a certain writer, when referring to this celebrated
man, “might blazon as large fields of his pedigree as might concern any
subject to prove.”[13] Without bringing that assertion to the test, it
is sufficient to add that successive generations flourished and passed
away, sometimes emerging from their seclusion to follow the reigning
monarch to the wars, as in the instances of Sir Alexander de Villers,
and Sir Nicholas his son, the former assisting Edward the First in the
Crusades, and adding to his name the designation of “Brookesby;” and the
latter, after sundry exploits in the Holy Land, augmenting his armorial
bearings by the Cross of St. George and five escalop shells, ancient
badges of the Crusaders; so that the “coat armour,” esteemed so mean by
Sir Symonds D’Ewes, and said to have been borrowed, was not without its
distinctions, even at an early period.
Footnote 13:
An officer appointed to serve up a feast.
But it is singular that from a personage of lowly fortunes, if not of
humble family, sprang the generation which was so noted in its time.
At Brookesby, the manorial residence of the race, there had dwelt, for
several centuries, successive proprietors, little remarkable, since the
time of the valiant Crusaders, either for their career in arms, or for
their ambition to rise in the State. A stream, dignified by the name of
the River Wreke, flows near the house, which is said to have been the
residence of the Villiers family; a gentleman’s seat, a plain and
somewhat insignificant building, having a central division, and two
projecting wings, now owns the name of Brookesby.[14]
Footnote 14:
It is situated nine miles from Leicester, and six from Melton Mowbray.
The town of Brookesby has, of late years, been returned as a decayed
town; but its church is worthy of note in a county which, as Fuller
remarks, “affordeth no cathedrals, and as for the parish churches, they
may take the eye, but not ravish the admiration of the beholder.” This
structure, dedicated to St. Michael, boasts a handsome tower, above
which rises a small spire, well crocheted; the battlements of the tower
are remarkably beautiful, being open worked, and embellished with a row
of shields, of which the most conspicuous is that of George Villiers,
first Duke of Buckingham, and of his Duchess, and on it there is an
honorary augmentation, showing the descent which he claimed from the
blood royal of Edward the Fourth.[15] It seems as if, amid the decay
which surrounds it, this church has remained as a witness of the former
greatness of that now extinct branch of the Villiers family, whose
glories emblazon its battlements and windows. The direct line of the
favourite of James the First ceased in two generations after his proud
and brief career.
Footnote 15:
Nichols’s History of Leicestershire, vol. iii., p. 189.
From the retirement of Brookesby, one of its owners was summoned, during
a royal progress, to the presence of Queen Elizabeth. This was Sir
George Villiers, the father of the Duke of Buckingham, who was
consequently knighted, when High Sheriff for Leicestershire,[16] by the
Queen. Sir George married the daughter of William Sanders, of
Harrington, in the County of Northampton, and had by that marriage two
sons, William, who inherited Brokesby and became a baronet; and Edward,
afterwards President of Munster, and the ancestor of the present Earl of
Jersey.
Footnote 16:
In 1591. Nichols’s History of Leicestershire.
Three daughters were also the issue of this marriage; Elizabeth, who
married Lord Butler, of Bramfield; Anne, who married William Washington,
of Pakington, County of Leicester; and Frances, unmarried.[17] Their
mother died, and Sir George, perhaps imprudently, for his estate was not
considerable, formed a second union.
Footnote 17:
Collins’s Peerage. Edited by Sir Egerton Brydges. Art., Jersey.
Some circumstances rendered this step, indeed, peculiarly indiscreet;
and nothing could account for so rash an act in a man of grave years,
but an infatuation produced by extraordinary personal gifts, and
probably by some ability and management on the part of his second wife.
It is evident that the Knight had never contemplated the probability of
such an event, for he settled the greater portion of his estates upon
his first wife and her children; and a mere pittance remained for the
issue of any second marriage. Yet, in spite of these considerations, Sir
George Villiers was captivated by a handsome person, the attractions of
which appear not to have been wholly lost upon him even during the
lifetime of the first Lady Villiers.
It happened that among the inferior servants of his household, there
lived a young woman, named Mary Beaumont, the indigent member of an
ancient family,[18] by some asserted to have been that of the Beaumonts
of Cole-Orton, in Leicestershire, by others, to have been settled at
Glenfield, in the same county.
Footnote 18:
Roger Coke’s Detection of the Court of James I., vol. i., p. 81. See,
also, note in the Secret History of the Court of King James I., vol.
i., p. 444, edited by Sir Walter Scott.
The occupation of Mary Beaumont is stated to have been that of a
“kitchen-maid” in the house of Sir George Villiers, but this assertion
may possibly be traced to the desire of a certain class of writers to
debase as much as possible the family of Villiers.
That she was, however, in a menial capacity of some kind, appears from
common report to have been understood.[19] “Her ragged habit,” observes
a contemporary historian, “could not shade the beautiful and excellent
frame of her person, which Sir George, taking notice of, prevailed with
his lady to remove her out of the kitchen into her chamber, which, with
much importunity on Sir George’s part, and unwillingness of my lady, at
last was done.”
Footnote 19:
Sir Anthony Weldon, speaking of the Duke of Buckingham, observes, that
his “father was of an ancient family, his mother of a mean, and a
waiting gentlewoman, with whom the old man (Sir George Villiers) fell
in love.” Secret History, vol. i., p. 442, edited by Sir Walter Scott.
After the death of his wife, the sentiments of the widower were
expressed without reserve. He was observed “to look very sweet upon my
lady’s woman;” he was known to bestow upon her twenty pounds, to
purchase as good a dress as that sum would procure; and when he saw her
attired in a manner suitable to her age and loveliness, he was
transported with admiration. The result may easily be conceived; the
knight married the serving-maid, and as ambitious a spirit as ever
stimulated the energies of woman thus received its first gratification.
Endowed by nature with such profuse outward gifts, Mary Beaumont
possessed, no less, the advantages of a shrewd sense; she was fond, as
her subsequent career showed, of state and profusion; she became, from
her influence and her attractions, the leader of the highest circles;
whilst she retained over the mind of her son that sway which she
deservedly acquired by her care of his infancy and childhood.
In after times, it is curious to find Mary Beaumont, then Lady Villiers
Compton, inviting her country kindred to Court, and providing a place
for them to learn to carry themselves in a “Court-like manner.” It was
the lowly serving-maid who first introduced what were called Country
Dances instead of French dances, which her provincial relations could
not learn soon enough for their deportment to assimilate with the costly
garments with which their prodigal kinswoman supplied them, in order
that they might do her credit in the gay spheres to which they were
introduced.[20]
Footnote 20:
Secret History, vol. i., edited by Sir Walter Scott.
Three sons and a daughter were the offspring of this marriage; the
eldest, John, afterwards created Baron Villiers, of Stoke, and Viscount
Purbeek, was singularly infelicitous in his domestic life, but is said,
by an historian adverse to the family, to have “exceeded them all in wit
and honesty, and, by his influence, to have kept his brother George in
some bounds of modesty, whilst he lived with him, by speaking plain
English to him.”[21]
Footnote 21:
Nichols’s Progresses of James I., vol. iv., p. 688.
The next child of the second marriage was George Villiers, who was born
at Brookesby, on the 20th of August in the year 1592.[22] Another son,
Christopher, became eventually Baron Daventry, and Earl of Anglesea; a
daughter, Mary, afterwards Countess of Denbigh, was also born, to
encumber, as it seemed, the limited means with which the parents of this
younger race were scarcely able to endow them.
Footnote 22:
Fuller styles him the second son of his mother, and the fourth of his
father.—Fuller’s Worthies of Leicestershire.
On the fourth of January, 1605-6, Sir George Villiers died. His landed
property consisted at that time of the Manors of Brookesby, Howby, Godby
Marward, and the Grange of Goadby. These were all settled on the
children of his first marriage. He was also lay improprietor of the
tithes of herbage and hay, in the parishes of Cadewell and Wikeham, and
these, he settled on the three sons of Mary Beaumont, John, George and
Christopher;[23] his daughter appears to have been left wholly
portionless. When it is remembered that this family were all raised to
rank and opulence, and that they were, in various instances, the sources
from which the ancestry of several great houses is derived, the early
privation and difficulties of their career form a strong contrast to
their subsequent elevation.
Footnote 23:
Nichols’s Hist. of Leicestershire, p. 189.
It was not alone poverty that seemed likely to keep the younger children
of Sir George Villiers in obscurity; there were wanting in his father’s
heir those qualities which bring the humble forward, and enrich more
than even prudence and frugality. Sir William, who now took possession
of Brookesby, was contented with his country lot; and so much did he
despise honours and titles, that when he was created a Baronet in
1619,[24] the dignity was almost forced upon him. “He was,” says a
contemporary author, “so careless of honour in courting that compliment,
as that the King (James First) said, ‘Sir William would scarce give him
thanks for it, and doubted whether he would accept of it.’” Thus, little
assistance in the career of life could be expected from one who would
scarcely deem the prizes most sought for by men, worth the trouble of a
little personal exertion.
Footnote 24:
This title, the 109th baronetcy, ceased in 1711, when the elder branch
of the Villiers family became extinct by the death of the third
Baronet, Sir William, without issue.
Upon the death of her husband, Lady Villiers retired to Godby Marward,
which was appropriated to her as a dower house. Her son, George, was
then ten years old; the loss which he had sustained in the death of his
father, great as it seemed, was fully compensated by the care of her
whom Sir Henry Wotton entitles “his beautiful and provident mother.” The
promising boy had already received some education at Billesdon, in
Leicestershire, where he was sent to school, and instructed in music and
in some “slight literature;” but to no common hands would Lady Villiers,
as the dawning personal charms of her son unfolded, entrust the culture
of this, her favourite child; she had him, henceforth, as his biographer
expresses it, “in her especial care.”[25] Possibly, in her widowed
seclusion, when she looked upon the face which afterwards captivated all
beholders, she anticipated the day when her son should appear at Court,
and attract some marks of that royal favour which had been shewn to
Leicester, to Raleigh, and to Essex for no better reason than that they
were handsomer and more graceful than their compeers, and that their
manly beauty was set off by the gallant bearing of well-trained “carpet
knights.” Queen Elizabeth had taught her subjects to value those
attributes which had sunk so low in fashion and estimation in the
troublous reign of Mary, or during the short and saintly career of
Edward.
Footnote 25:
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.
Lady Villiers had the discernment to perceive the deficiencies of her
son’s mind and character, and resolved to avail herself of those
advantages with which he was endowed, without forcing his attention to
pursuits that were ungenial to him. She soon discovered that he was
neither inclined to reflection, nor disposed to study; nor did he ever
alter in those respects, but continued, through life, illiterate, a
defect which his readiness in some measure supplied, but which prevented
his becoming a great statesman, in spite of the fairest opportunities
that ever man enjoyed. In after life he learned, when at Court, “to sift
and question well,”[26] and to supply his own shallow stock of
information by “drawing or flowing unto him” the best sources of
experience and knowledge in others. His manner, says Sir Henry Wotton,
was so sweet and attractive, “in seeking what might be for the public or
his own proper use, that if the Muses favoured him not, the Graces were
his friends;” and Lord Clarendon remarks of Villiers, that “concerning
the traits and endowments of his mind, if the consideration of learning
extend itself not further than drudgery in books, the Duke’s employment
forbids us to suspect him of being any great scholar; but if a nimble
and fluent expression and delivery of his mind (and his discourse was of
all subjects) in a natural and proper dialect be considered, he was well
lettered.”[27]
Footnote 26:
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.
Footnote 27:
Disparity between Robert Davereux, Earl of Essex, and the Duke of
Buckingham, by Lord Clarendon.
Lady Villiers seems both to have foreseen all these defects, and to have
prognosticated the atoning graces in her son. She acted as a needy and
ambitious woman was likely to act. Instead of supplying the deficiencies
of her son’s character and intellect by a sound education, she directed
his attention to dancing, fencing, and the other exercises, styled by
Lord Clarendon “the conservative qualities and ornaments of youth.”[28]
And in these pursuits so rapid a progress was made, that the tutors of
all the three brothers were obliged to restrain the progress of George
Villiers in order that their other pupils should not be disheartened by
his proficiency. Meantime, his expanding beauty of form and face seemed
to his proud mother to render her son worthy of a higher culture than
that which she could bestow upon him at Godby. Her jointure was very
small, and although Godby, where she resided, was a suitable abode for
the widow of Sir George Villiers, the Manor House being large enough to
receive James the First and his retinue during a royal progress, yet her
poverty obliged her to live in great retirement. A rigid economy must
have been necessary to regulate its household. Lady Villiers had only
two hundred a-year, both for herself and her family, and that income was
to cease at her death, when her orphan children would have but a
pittance besides their beauty and their talents.[29] Impelled, as it is
hinted by several historians, by a desire to benefit her children, the
widowed lady, still young and fair, resolved to marry again. Sir Thomas
Marquin was first the object of her choice, and after his death, she
bestowed her hand upon Sir Thomas Compton, Knight of the Bath, and
brother of Lord Compton, First Earl of Northampton, whose marriage with
the daughter of Sir John Spencer, Lord Mayor of London, and commonly
called “rich Spencer,” had brought an increase of honour and influence
to his family. This union was the more important to Lady Villiers and
her children, because their half-brothers and sisters looked upon them
with no good will, and were little disposed to further their interests.
Footnote 28:
Ibid.
Footnote 29:
Coke’s Detection, p. 81.
It was at that time the custom to send our young nobility, and even
their inferiors, to France to complete their education. Lady Villiers
resolved to afford her son George this advantage. She selected him from
her other children partly from partiality, for it is expressly stated
that “he who was debarred from his father’s estate was happy in his
mother’s love;”[30] and partly on account of his singular beauty of
person. He is said, indeed, to have had, when he reached man’s estate,
“no blemish from head to foot,” save that his eyebrows are stated to
have been somewhat over pendulous, a defect which some of his admirers
thought to be redeemed by the uncommon brilliancy of the eyes which
flashed beneath them.[31] The Earl of Essex, to whom Villiers is
compared, was taller, and of an “abler body” than the favourite of James
I. But Villiers had the “neater limbs and freer delivery, he carried his
well-proportioned body well, and every movement was graceful.” Nor does
Lord Clarendon, who thus describes him, think it beneath the dignity of
his subject to remark that Villiers “exceeded in the daintiness of his
leg and foot,” whilst Essex was celebrated for his hands, which, says
his panegyrist, though it be but feminine praise, “he took from his
father.”[32] The complexion of George Villiers was singularly clear and
beautiful, his forehead high and smooth, his eyes dark and full of
intelligence and sweetness, whilst the perfect oval of his face, and
delicate turn of features, fine, yet noble, and the air of refinement
which characterised both his countenance and his bearing, rendered him
one of the most attractive of human beings. As he attained to maturity,
a peculiar courtesy of manner, a frankness and merriment which diverged
at times into a total forgetfulness of forms, a power of throwing off
the appearance of all oppressing business and secret cares, although of
these he had his share, and of assuming “a very pleasant and vacant
face,” a love of social life, and certain traits of character, half
folly, half romance, won upon everyone that approached him before
prosperity had changed courtesy into arrogance, or political intrigues
marred the open expression of a physiognomy on which none could look
without admiration.
Footnote 30:
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.
Footnote 31:
Fuller’s Worthies of Leicestershire.
Footnote 32:
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 171.
The youth, whose promise, even at a very early age, augured the results
which I have anticipated, reached Paris after the death of Henry IV.[33]
It was probably in the autumn that Villiers repaired to the Continent,
since it is expressly stated that he was eighteen when he undertook that
journey, and he had not attained that age until August, 1610. It seems,
therefore, likely that Villiers beheld France under a strange aspect,
that of a universal state of despair. Protestants and Catholics were
alike overwhelmed by the recent calamity; the former might well dread a
fresh massacre, but the grief of their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen
dispelled that apprehension. The excess of lamentation, expressed
somewhat theatrically—the cries of widows and orphans in the streets—the
sight of women rushing through the mourners at the funeral,
screaming—the orations, interrupted by sobs, in which the virtues of the
deceased monarch were panegyrized—these must have ceased before Villiers
visited Paris; but the Huguenots still sheltered themselves in the
Arsenal, where the great Sully mourned his royal master and friend.[34]
Footnote 33:
Henry IV. was stabbed by Ravaillac on the 14th of May, 1610.
Footnote 34:
The women, in some instances, refused to take food, by way of shewing
their grief for the murder of Henry, and even the men gave way to
despondency. “Plusieurs des meilleurs citoyens de la ville,” says
Lacretelle; “se sont sentis frappés du coup de la mort, en apprenant
cette nouvelle; d’autres, qui expirent plus lentement, se plaignent de
survivre trop long temps a ce bon roi.”—Lacretelle “Histoire de
France,” pendant les Guerres de Religion, tome iv., p. 385.
In Paris, Villiers remained three years, prosecuting his studies, which
consisted of French, and the practice of polite and martial exercises.
His education tended, indeed, to increase his failings, to heighten his
taste for display and love of pleasure, and to weaken his reasoning
faculties. He had, according to the acknowledgment of his great
partisan, Sir Henry Wotton, “little grammatical foundation;” and French
appears to have been the only foreign language that he ever acquired;
nevertheless, it is remarkable what application to business he evinced
during the last few years of his life; his punctuality in
correspondence, and the clear and simple style of his letters, prove how
easily his mind might have been trained to higher pursuits than those on
which his mother, worldly, but not wise, based her expectations of his
future fortunes.
Paris, which Villiers was destined twice to revisit under circumstances
very dissimilar to those of his first residence there, was then the
resort of foreigners. The youth, who had emerged from the quiet haunts
of Goadby Grange, took his first lessons in life in the city which
Howell, in his familiar letters, styles, the “huge magazine of men.”
“Its buildings,” says that writer, “were indifferently fair; its streets
as foul during all the four seasons of the year; a perpetual current of
coaches, carts, and horses encumbering them, narrow and dirty as they
were, and were sometimes so entangled that it was an hour or more before
they could proceed. In such a stop,” as Howell terms it, “was
Ravaillac‘s fatal opportunity afforded, and the great Henry slain.”[35]
The plague[36] settled perpetually in one corner or another of Paris,
but Villiers escaped that risk; he returned, apparently exempt from
foreign vices, unscathed by a more fearful contagion than the plague; at
least, thus may we infer from the assertion of Sir Henry Wotton. “He
came home,” says that writer, “in his natural plight, without affected
forms, the ordinary disease of travellers.”[37] It may reasonably be
presumed that the young man who retains his simplicity of deportment,
still possesses a corresponding integrity of character.
Footnote 35:
“Howell’s Familiar Letters,” p. 39.
Footnote 36:
It is as well to remind the reader that before the year 1752, the
civil or legal year began on the 25th of March (Lady Day), while the
historical year began on the 1st of January, for civilians called each
day within that period one year earlier than historians. The
alteration in the calendar took place by Act of Parliament, on the 2nd
day of September, 1752, when it was enacted that the day following
should be the 14th instead of the 3rd of September.—“Nicolas’s Notitia
Historica.”
Footnote 37:
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, p. 209.
Villiers was now twenty-one years old; his accomplishments may shortly
be summed up: he was an excellent fencer, an incomparable dancer, he
understood the arrangement of costume and the art of dressing well, but
those valuable acquirements lay dormant in one who possessed no
wardrobe, for he went to France poor, and his family had not been
enriched during his absence. Villiers was, in addition to these graces,
a perfectly well-bred man. Lord Clarendon describes him to have been “a
fair-spoken gentleman, of a sweet and accostable nature.” At present,
his constitution, which afterwards gave way beneath the pressure of
business, or in consequence of the excitements of his dazzling career,
was in full vigour. Such was the youth who now returned to gratify his
mother’s ambitious hopes, by that career to which the efforts of the
young aristocracy of England were then chiefly directed. It may be here
remarked as singular, that Villiers was trained to no specific
profession; he had not been initiated into those elements of learning
necessary to qualify him for the church or the bar; he had not served in
the army; but was, in fact, literally brought up to follow his fortunes
at the Court of James the First. It appears to those in modern times a
bold speculation, but the character of the monarch upon whose
peculiarities it was based accounts for the scheme, apparently so
chimerical, of qualifying a son for nothing better than to depend merely
upon the chances of an hour, for, had opportunity been wanting, the
graces and accomplishments of George Villiers might have been for ever
concealed, or disregarded.
But it is not improbable that Lady Villiers, especially after her second
marriage, had certain dependence upon the exertions of personal friends,
through whose agency she trusted to advance her son’s interests at
Court. From them, too, she probably learned that the disgrace of
Somerset was at hand.
When Villiers returned to England, he found no better prospect before
him than to pass some time at Goadby, under the “wing and counsel of his
mother.”[38] In this retreat, he had leisure to study the temper of the
times, and to view from afar the characteristics of that sphere for
which he was destined.
Footnote 38:
Sir Henry Wotton.—“Reliquiæ Wottonianæ,” p. 208.
It appears to have been the fashion of the day to rush to London, and to
desert those country seats to which James the First and his son Charles
endeavoured by proclamations and harangues to restrain the gentry. The
innovation was severely reproved by James in the summer of 1616, when he
made that memorable speech in the Star Chamber, in which he censured the
custom, attributing it, of course, to the wives and daughters of the
offenders. “Thus,” remarked James, “do they neglect the country
hospitality, and cumber the city.” He next complained of the new and
sumptuous buildings in the metropolis, of the coaches, lacqueys, and
fine clothes in which the higher classes indulged, comparing them to
“Frenchmen,” or, as if that were not harsh enough, declaring that they
“lived miserably in their houses, like Italians, becoming apes to other
nations.” Finally, he proposed to remedy these evils by an edict of the
Star Chamber.