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

MORISON—THE DIVERSIONS OF THE COURT—THE METEOR THAT

APPEARED—FOOT-RACING—BUCKINGHAM’S PROFUSION—JEALOUSIES BETWEEN

PRINCE CHARLES AND HIM, 1617-1618-1619.

=CHAPTER V.=

1617–1618–1619.

Buckingham may now be said, in the words of Lord Clarendon, “to sleep in

the arms of fortune.” The King, notwithstanding his failing health,

continued his patient sittings in the Star-Chamber, where, groaning

under his mortal disease, he found fault with “lawyers’ repetitions,”

and sometimes indulged in petulant eloquence, comparing, when he

presided at the trial of Sir Thomas Lake, that disgraced courtier to

Adam, Lady Lake to Eve, and their daughter, Lady Roos, to the serpent.

Whilst encouraging, on the one hand, a treaty of marriage for his son

with a daughter of Spain, and ordering, on the other, musters of troops

to be ready to keep down the Papists, who might otherwise be emboldened

by that project; he still, throughout the whole of these troublesome and

often urgent affairs, had one object in view—the gratification and

aggrandizement of George Villiers. Sometimes we find the King indulging

in poetic flights. After a week or two of hard work in the Star-Chamber,

James, in a serious mood, wrote a meditation on the Lord’s Prayer, and

dedicated it to Buckingham.[214] On a festive occasion, in which the

favourite entertained him to his heart’s content, the Monarch thought it

not beneath him to write a poem and address it also to his young

host.[215]

Footnote 214:

State Paper, vol. cv., No. 103.

Footnote 215:

State Paper.

The latter part of King James’s reign was one perpetual course of what

may safely be termed dissipation, but which was then styled “good cheer

and jollity.” Amongst the most refined of his pleasures were the Masques

of Ben Jonson;[216] and the monarch showed his appreciation of the

merits of those beautiful productions by a pension of a hundred marks to

their author. Hitherto, Daniel had been the Laureate of the Court,

having been an especial favourite with Queen Elizabeth and her ladies.

Though the appointment had hitherto been unpaid, the slight thus passed

on Daniel embittered his declining years, and drove him from the Court,

where his talents and virtues were, as he fancied, no longer

appreciated.

Footnote 216:

Life of Ben Jonson, by Gifford, p. 33.

Shakespeare was now in the tomb; and Jonson, who “had hated and feared

him through life,” was left without a rival to interfere with his

triumph, or to commemorate the actions of the great. The death of Prince

Henry had saddened the nation and obscured the gaiety of the Court for a

season; but now, especially before the marriage of Villiers, whose

settling in life was an event cordially desired by James, no revels were

carried on without that most popular feature, a Masque; and no masque

could gain applause unless Ben Jonson were the writer. A frequent

visitor at Belvoir, at Burleigh on the Hill, and at Windsor, when the

Court was at either of these places, Jonson never wrote a masque without

exhibiting, in strong colours, qualities that astonished his

acquaintance. He delighted in the composition of those productions,

which, it has been truly said, were unrivalled except by Comus; of the

masque, he was, as he himself remarked, “an artificer;” it began with

him, and with him it ended. Pageants and masquerades had long been

familiar to the English; and masques, improperly so called, had been

carried to a great degree of splendour in the reign of Henry VIII., but

neither then, as Gifford observes, nor in that of Elizabeth, did the

masque acquire “that unity of design, that exclusive character, which it

assumed on the reign of James.”

That monarch had, in the opinion of the same admirable critic, more

literature than taste or elegance. What was deficient in him was,

however, apparent in the character of his Queen, Anne of Denmark, who

delighted in show and gaiety, loved pomp, and understood it; as Sully

expresses it, she “aspired to convert Whitehall into a temple of

delight.” She assembled around her the most brilliant leaders of fashion

among the nobility; and, not well comprehending our language, she

delighted in masques and shows which addressed themselves to the senses.

She had, however, sufficient discrimination to applaud the poetical

talents of Ben Jonson, whose compositions had delighted her at Althorpe;

and she called him to her Court, and engaged him “to embody her

conceptions,” soon after her arrival in London.[217]

Footnote 217:

Gifford, p. 65.

The masque of Ben Jonson consisted of dialogue, singing, and dancing;

worked up into one harmonious whole by the introduction of some striking

fable, generally borrowed from the Greek or Roman Mythology. The sister

arts were employed to bestow the splendours of moveable scenery,

hitherto unknown to the stage; for pomp and expense were essential to

the masque; “it could only breathe,” as Gifford observes, “in the

atmosphere of a Court;” it was composed for princes, and by princes was

it performed. The flower of all that was gay and gallant was collected

to constitute a band of royal and noble performers; and perhaps there

was never such a display of elegance and beauty as that which graced the

masques of Ben Jonson. The songs devolved probably on professional

performers, but the dialogues required great care and study to learn

them, and skill and practice in their delivery before a courtly and

critical audience. The dances were also executed by the Court; so

admirably, that Jonson paid to the exquisite performance of the

Measures, as he beheld them, in these lines:—

“In curious knots and mazes, so

The Spring at first was taught to go;

And Zephyr, when he came to woo

His Flora, had these notions too;

And thus did Venus learn to head

Th’ Indian brawls, and so to tread,

As if the wind, not she, did walk,

Nor pressed a flower, nor bow’d a stalk.”

The dialogue in the masques of Ben Jonson is marked by strength and

boldness, and the songs are replete with all the luxuriance of the

richest fancy. In his dramatic works, and also in his longer poems,

there is a compression which produces hardness and severity, but, as

Gifford beautifully expresses it, “no sooner has he taken down his lyre,

no sooner touched his lighter pieces, than all is changed, as if by

magic, and he becomes a new person. His genius awakes at once, his

imagination becomes fertile, ardent, versatile, and excursive; his taste

pure and elegant; and all his faculties attuned to liveliness and

pleasure.”[218]

Footnote 218:

Gifford, p. 67.

The masque was therefore one of the highest intellectual delights of an

intellectual age. Whilst Jonson composed the dialogues, in which “the

soundest moral lessons came recommended by the charm of numbers,” the

chief artists of the realm were employed in decorative scenery, the

construction of which was at its climax in the time of James. Lawes, and

other noted composers, set the songs to music; the masque was the

courtly recreation of gallant gentlemen, and ladies of honour, striving

to exceed one another in their measures and changes, and in their

repasts of wit. Notwithstanding the efforts of Inigo Jones, under whose

guidance many of the accompaniments were framed to preserve it, and

those of Aurelius Townshend, the masque fell again into the pageant and

masquerade after the death of James, and, in spite of an effort made by

Charles II. to revive it, ceased to exist.

The “Vision of Delight,” one of the most fanciful and beautiful of

Jonson’s masques, was performed on Twelfth Night, and the expenses of

the representation were defrayed by Buckingham. It was to celebrate his

new dignity as a Marquis, to which James had resolved to elevate him,

that the following lines, spoken by Delight, seen afar off, with his

attendants, Grace, Love, Harmony, Revel, Sport, Laughter, and followed

by Wonder, were composed, and sung in a recitative solo:—

“Let us play, and dance, and sing,

Let us now turn every sort

Of the pleasures of the Spring

To the graces of a court.

From air, from cloud, from dreams, from toys,

To sounds, to sense, to love, to joys;

Let your shows be new, as strange,

Let them oft and sweetly vary,

Let them haste to their change,

As the seers may not tarry;

Too long to expect the pleasing’st sight,

Doth take away from the delight.”

The “Vision” concluded with a dance of ladies, in which Aurora appeared,

and this epilogue followed:—

_Aurora._ “I was not wearier when I lay

By frozen Tithon’s side to-night,

Than I am willing now to stay,

And be a part of your delight;

But I am urged by the day,

Against my will, to bid you come away.”[219]

Footnote 219:

Ben Jonson’s Works.

At this masque Buckingham acted, and assumed his place as a Marquis,

taking, it appears, a precedence to which he was not entitled. “It is

thought strange,” Levingston wrote to Carleton, “amongst the old lords

that he should take precedence of them.”[220]

Footnote 220:

Calendar of State Papers, vol. cv., 4.

James had never, since his accession, conferred the dignity of Marquis

on any of his subjects. He now very hastily gave it to his favourite,

ascribing as the reason for this act that he bestowed that “title for

the affection he bore him, more than he did to any man,” and “for the

affection, faith, and modesty that he had found in Buckingham.”

A few of the nobility about the Court were hastily summoned to witness

the creation, which was by patent, and in private. In the evening great

festivities followed, Buckingham presiding as the master of the feast

which preceded the masque. His appearance at this era has been

delineated by Simon Pass, whose portrait is to be found among the

historical collection of prints in the British Museum. He now assumed a

deep falling ruff; his doublet was closed with a row of rich pearls, and

over it he wore the ribbon of the Garter and the George. A large cloak

of rich satin was suspended over one shoulder;—his hands are adorned by

a cuff of Vandyck lace. His portrait after this time exhibits two long,

very thin wavy curls, suspended from the left ear; his hair, otherwise,

is almost always worn rather short, and turned back from the forehead.

The slight moustache of his earlier portraits becomes augmented into one

of greater consequence, carefully turned up at each corner; and a peaked

beard environs the chin, which had before a youthful smoothness. He was

now matured in form and perfect in deportment.

In unwonted magnificence Buckingham received his royal guest at a

banquet long celebrated in the annals of the Court for its exuberance.

As yet, the Marquis owned no house sufficiently spacious for this

entertainment, and it appears to have been held in Whitehall. How

attractive must have been his deportment at this era, before care sat

upon his brow, and ill health, vexation of spirit, a consciousness of

deserved unpopularity, and a heart sated with unsatisfactory pleasures,

had changed into anxiety the eager enjoyment of his dazzling fortunes!

“Carrying his loves and his hatreds in his open forehead,” he presided,

careless of the future, full of health and hope, at that noisy and

festive board.

The repast on this occasion was served up in the French fashion, under

the auspices of Sir Thomas Edmondes, who had recently returned from

France. “You may judge,” writes an eye-witness, “of the feast, by this

scantling, that there were said to be seventeen dozens of pheasants and

twelve partridges in a dish, throughout which, methinks, were more spoil

than largesse.”[221] The entertainment, “in spite of many presents,”

cost six hundred pounds.

Footnote 221:

Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton. Inedited State Papers,

Jan. 10, 1617-18.

There were some obstacles, even on this day, to Buckingham’s perfect

enjoyment. One of these was the uncertain temper of the King. He had

now, in the words of those who watched his varying humour, “become so

forward and morose, that few things seemed to please him.” The sight of

Buckingham alone appeared to appease him; he was, however, greatly

delighted with the banquet, and praised “both the meat and the master.”

Yet, in spite of this marked preference, and of these abundant honours,

there were rumours that Buckingham’s place in the King’s regard was not

secure; Sir Henry Mildmay, young Brooke, the son of Lord Cobham, and a

son of Sir William Monson’s, began, it was thought, to come into

consideration with the King.

The “Vision of Delight” became the chief theme of public discourse. In

this masque, Prince Charles was a principal performer; and the other

parts were filled up by Buckingham, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of

Montgomery, and some other lords. Among the dancers, Isabel,[222] the

eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Edmondes, “bore away the bell.” She was,

as it were, “hanged all over with jewels;” but, notwithstanding the

beauty of the piece, and the rank of the actors, the plot of the “Vision

of Delight” is said “to have proved dull.” The representation was

attended by the Spanish and Venetian ambassadors, to the great affront

of the French ambassador; for Buckingham had now planned a deep game,

and the apparent frivolity of his pleasures was becoming merely the

surface of those political schemes which he had at heart. Soon after

these festivities, the King took occasion to affront young Monson, who

had been set up by the envious to be an idol in place of Buckingham, by

intimating that he did not like his forwardness in presenting himself

continually before him. The young man not only took the hint himself,

but imparted it to others; so “that all the young Court gallants

vanished like mushrooms;” and those who had taken great pains “to set

out young Monson to the best advantage, pricking and pranking him up,

besides washing his face every day with posset curd, in order that he

might rival the handsome Buckingham, received a severe rebuff.”[223]

Footnote 222:

Afterwards the wife of Henry, Lord de la Warr.

Footnote 223:

Inedited State Papers. Domestic. Mr. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton,

10 Jan., 1617-18.

Among the favourite diversions of King James was horse-racing. Early in

the spring, the Court was aroused by the racing of two footmen from St.

Albans to Clerkenwell; “and many came to pass the time,” writes Mr.

Chamberlain, merrily, “at Newmarket, and the running match ranges all

over the country, where they be fit subjects to entertain it, as lately

they have been at Sir John Croft’s, near Bury, and in requital, those

ladies have invited them to a mask of their own invention (all those

fair sisters being summoned for the purpose), so that on Thursday the

King, Prince, and Court go thither a shroving.”[224]

Footnote 224:

Inedited State Papers. It is dated, London, March 11, 1619-20.

The following extract from one of Mr. Chamberlain’s letters represents

another kind of diversion:—“The King came hither the Saturday before

Shrovetide, and the two days following there was much feasting and

jollity; and the Christmas mask repeated on Shrove Tuesday night. On

Saturday last, the Prince made a ball and a banquet at Denmark House,

which he had lost at Tennis to the Marquis of Buckingham,[225] who

invited thither a number of ladies, mistresses, and valentines, a

ceremony come lately in request, and grown so costly that it is said he

hath cast away this year 2000_l._ that way, among whom a daughter of Sir

John Croft’s that is unmarried, had a carcanet of 800_l._ for her share;

and the King is so pleased with the whole society of those sisters,[226]

that he extols them before all others, and hath bespoken them for the

Court against next Christmas. The banquet at Denmark House was so

plentiful that it cost 400_l._, and all the women came away, as it were,

laden with sweetmeats; but supper there was none, save what the Lord of

Purbeck made to his private friends.”[227]

Footnote 225:

Inedited State Papers, Feb. 26, 1619-20.

Footnote 226:

Sir J. Croft’s Daughters.

Footnote 227:

N. Brent to Sir D. Carleton, March 30, 1618. State Paper Office,

inedited.

Another of those aspirants to royal favour, to whom we have referred,

and whom the career of Buckingham drew forth from obscurity, was Sir

Henry Mildmay, and a son of George Brooke’s, who had been executed at

Winchester, on the supposed Raleigh plot. But James soon discovered that

both these young courtiers were the tools of factions directed against

Buckingham; and they were banished the Court. Some time afterwards, it

was thought that the return of young Monson might be effected through

the influence of his friends; but, observes a bystander of this game,

these Court resolutions do strangely alter, and for the most part, “the

day following gives the lie to that which preceded.”

The King, meantime, continued to amuse himself vastly at Newmarket. The

following description of one of his days of pleasure presents a singular

picture of the homely diversions of the first of the Stuart monarchs

that reigned in this country:—

“We hear nothing from Newmarket, but that they devise all the means they

can to make themselves merry, as of late there was a feast appointed at

a farm-house not far off, where every man should bring his dish. The

King brought a great chine of beef; the Marquis of Hamilton four pigs,

garnished with sausages; the Earl of Southampton two turkies; another,

some partridges; and one, a whole tray full of buttered eggs: and so all

passed very pleasantly.”[228]

Footnote 228:

Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, Nov. 28, 1618. State Paper

Office, inedited.

During these diversions, James’s good humour, often interrupted by

disease and self-indulgence, was maintained by his partiality for

Buckingham. “The King,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “is never out of tune,

but that the sight of the Earl of Buckingham doth settle and quiet all.”

Meantime, one of those meteoric appearances to which the superstition of

the day attached some portentous meaning, excited popular alarm, and

suspended even the course of public business. “On Wednesday,” writes one

of the functionaries of government, “we had no Star Chamber, by reason

of the Lord Chancellor’s indisposition; that was the first day we took

notice here of the great blazing star, though it was observed at Oxford

a full week before. It is now the only subject of discourse, and not so

much as little children, but as they go to school, talk in the streets

that it foreshows the death of a king or a queen, or some great war

towards.”[229]

Footnote 229:

T. Locke to Sir Dudley Carleton, Nov. 17, 1618, State Paper Office,

inedited.

At another time a race of two footmen from St. Albans to Clerkenwell

diverted the Court. Many money bets were laid upon the result, and

Buckingham won three thousand pounds upon that day. “The story,” as the

narrator of it well observes, “were not worth telling, but that you may

see we have little to do when we are so far affected with these trifles,

that all the Court in a manner, lords and ladies, and some further off,

and some nearer, went to see this race, and the King himself almost as

far as Barnet; and though the weather was sour and foul, yet he was

scant _fils de bonne mère_ that went not out to see, insomuch that it is

verily thought there was as many people as at the King’s first coming to

London; and for the courtiers on horseback, they were so pitifully

bewrayed and bedaubed all over, that they could scant be known one from

another, besides divers of them came to have falls and other mishaps, by

reason of the multitude of horses.”

On some of these occasions, the lavish disposition of Buckingham was

exhibited. On St. George’s Day, a festival observed with much solemnity,

he presented forty of his gentlemen with fifty pounds a piece “to

provide themselves,” and twenty to ten of his yeomen, besides a hundred

pounds to treat them with a supper and a play on the following night at

the Mitre in Fleet Street. A retinue of fifty persons appears, in modern

days, a tolerable attendance for a nobleman even of high rank; but it

had recently been found necessary to limit them to that number, owing to

the unbounded ostentation and extravagance of many of the nobility.[230]

Footnote 230:

Nichols, vol. iii., p. 477.

Whilst this continued round of pleasures was carried on, some adverse

events checked the merriment of those who played a part in the revels.

Prince Charles, who was his mother’s favourite, was sometimes the object

of his father’s jealousy, although, by the gentleness and prudence of

his deportment, he had avoided the almost open state of variance with

the King, which, in his brother’s days, had divided the Court into two

parties. Still there were occasions on which the conduct of the young

Prince was misrepresented.

The difference was soon reconciled; and “my Lord of Buckingham,” as he

was called by several annalists of the day, gave a dinner to the King

and Queen for the express purpose of reconciling his Highness to his

royal father. The King and Queen dined at a separate table, but in the

same room as that in which the lords and ladies were feasted: among

these, Lady Hatton, Lady Villiers Compton, and Lady Fielding, and

several others of the same family, were placed; the King drank to all

these separately, and sent them secret messages. At the close of the

banquet, he rose, and drank a common health to all the noble family, and

declared that he desired them to advance them before all others. “And

because,” adds the writer of the letter in which this account is given

of himself, “there was no doubt—for, said he, ‘I live to that end;’ be

assured we live in their posterity’s name, that they would so far regard

their father’s commandments and instructions as to advance that house

above all others whatsoever.”[231]

Footnote 231:

Nichols, 484, from Birch’s MSS. British Museum.

The King shortly afterwards verified his assertion by creating Lady

Villiers Compton, by patent, Countess of Buckingham in her own right for

life. The Heralds, it is said, were “posed” to explain how Sir Thomas

Compton, himself of a noble and loyal family, should have no part in

this patent; but the public could easily comprehend that it was the aim

and intention of James to elevate the Villiers family by every mark of

especial favour. The newly-made Countess of Buckingham, thus raised by

fortune from a low estate, did not escape calumny; rumours, both

scandalous and unjust, being set afloat regarding her imputed intimacy

with Lord Keeper Williams, who succeeded Bacon on the woolsack.[232]

Footnote 232:

Life of B. Goodman, p. 286.

Another melancholy event saddened all hearts, and excited a deep and

generous resentment. This was the death of Sir Walter Ralegh. In this

event, “the sacrifice,” as Hume expresses it, “of the only man in the

nation who had a high reputation for valour and military experience,”

Buckingham had no doubt some indirect participation. He promoted it,

because he promoted the projected alliance with Spain, which had now,

for some years, lain the closest at the King’s heart. He was responsible

for it, because no intercession that he might have chosen to make for

the “gallantest worthie that England ever bred,” would have been

proffered in vain. During the early part of his career, Buckingham had,

indeed, befriended Ralegh; but little credit is to be assigned for the

mediation which, in 1615, had procured the release of the illustrious

prisoner, after twelve years of durance, since it was purchased, through

the agency of Lady Villiers, for fifteen hundred pounds. On that

occasion, Ralegh had addressed a letter of thanks to the all-powerful

favourite; but now affairs had undergone a marvellous change. Even money

could not avail, and Buckingham, in all the sunshine of his fortunes,

stood at all events indifferent, if not accessory, to the infamous

sentence, by the revival of which Ralegh was doomed to death.

The fashion of the day, as well as the wishes of the King, all tended at

this time to increase the ascendancy of Spanish counsels in England.

James entertained an opinion, peculiar to himself, that any marriage,

except with a daughter of France or Spain, would be unworthy of the

Prince of Wales, and he would never suffer a princess of any other royal

house to be mentioned in his presence as a suitable consort for the heir

apparent.[233] Upon the death of Prince Henry, a negotiation for a

marriage between the Prince Charles and the second daughter of France,

the Princess Christine, was set on foot, but failed, owing to the death

of the Count de Soissons, its chief promoter.[234] The efforts of the

Spanish ambassador, the famous Gondomar, and the long course of

intrigues which attended his visitation to England, afterwards

effectually set aside for a time all thoughts of prosecuting the scheme

of a marriage treaty with either of the French princesses, on the one

hand; whilst, on the other, the affairs of Germany were such as to

discourage, to all appearance, the exertions which were made by the

Spanish party in England to produce a union between the royal families

of Great Britain and Spain. Frederic, the Elector, and son-in-law of

James, had accepted the tender of the crown of Bohemia, and become,

consequently, involved in hostilities with Austria, and these were

regarded as a religious war; for Austria, which, throughout her

dominions, had always made religion a pretext for her usurpations, now

upheld the Catholic faith as her object, whilst the Elector Palatine, a

Protestant, ranged himself on the side of liberty. The whole of the

English nation were eager to espouse the cause, and to aid the brave

exertions of that prince. Sincerely attached to the Princess Palatine,

the ill-fated Elizabeth of Bohemia, they considered her interests, and

those of her husband, as constituting a sort of crusade, and they were

ready to risk plunging the country into all “the chaos of German

politics,” considering the contest as between Protestantism and

liberty—and Popery and despotism.

Footnote 233:

Hume. Life of James I.

Footnote 234:

Birch’s Negotiations between England, France, and Brussels, p. 372.

On the first introduction of Gondomar to the King, an accident had

occurred which was regarded by many as a presage.[235] As the ambassador

was passing from the Council Chamber, along the terrace towards the

Great Chamber in Whitehall, a piece of the floor sank, and several

persons fell down. The Earl of Arundel hurt his face; the Lord Gerrard

and Lord Gray also received some injury from the fall; the ambassador

alone escaped, being held up by two of the household guards. This

accident seemed ominous of the ultimate rupture between England and

Spain; James regarded it in that light, and could never bear to hear it

mentioned!

Footnote 235:

Inedited State Papers, March 20, 1619-20.

Unwonted honours were indeed shown to Gondomar. He was received with

marks of great distinction, and lodged at Ely House, which had been

prepared for his use with considerable expense. But the most important

deviation from established custom was the appropriation of a cloth of

state to this ambassador, an appendage never permitted to any such

personage before. That mark of favour, however, which gave the greatest

offence to the Puritan party, was the order that the chapel should be

renewed and embellished, and an altar placed in it. All the ambassador’s

expenses of living were defrayed by the King; although, on being offered

some of the royal attendants, Gondomar declined their services. Whilst

these things were going on at Court, the populace, cherishing the cause

of the distant and deserted daughter of James, Elizabeth of Bohemia,

were parading the streets with drums beating, to muster recruits for the

Palatinate.[236]

Footnote 236:

Inedited State Papers for 1619-20.

But James was under the influence of Gondomar, and Spain was connected

by the closest ties of blood, and by the still dearer bonds of political

interest, with the Emperor of Austria. Gondomar well understood the

King, and divined his wishes. He offered, at this juncture, the second

daughter of the King of Spain to Prince Charles, and backed his proposal

by the promise of an immense sum of money, which he well knew would be

acceptable in the present needy circumstances of the British King. The

proposal, though entertained by James, was distrusted by the public, and

deemed wholly insincere, for it was thought that Spain had no intention

of forming any union with a princess of heretical principles.

The fate of Sir Walter Ralegh was therefore sealed. Twenty-three years

before, he had acquired for the crown of England a claim to the

continent of Guiana; and, in his second expedition, had planned, and

executed through his son Walter, the sacking of St. Thomas, a small town

which the Spaniards, not acknowledging the British claim to the

territory of Guiana, had built on the river Oronooko. The young Walter

Ralegh was killed in that attempt. He was a young man more desirous of

honour than safety; “with whom,” said the agonized father, on hearing of

his loss, “to say truth, all the respects of this world have taken end

in me.”[237]

Footnote 237:

Letter to Winwood.

Ralegh was now to suffer for the results of an enterprise which he had

undertaken with the express consent of the King.[238] Whilst proceedings

were carried on against him, Gondomar was entertained, as it will be

remembered, with a marked distinction by Buckingham. The extreme youth

of the favourite had indeed attracted the witticisms of the artful

Spaniard, who had converted that circumstance into a compliment to the

King’s penetration, telling his Majesty “that he was the wisest and

happiest prince in Christendom, to make privy-counsellors sage at the

age of twenty-one, when his master, the King of Spain, could not do it

when they were sixty.”[239] The wily Spaniard dealt out his phrases in

points and conceits, a sort of discourse then well received in society,

and peculiarly agreeable to the King. He affected, also, to speak false

Latin. The King laughed at him, on which the Ambassador rejoined, “Your

Majesty speaks like a pedant, but I speak like a gentleman,” and James

gloried in his acknowledged superiority in the classics. By these small

contrivances had Gondomar insinuated himself into royal favour, so that

no boon that he could ask—not even the life of the venerated

Ralegh—could be refused.

Footnote 238:

Hume. Reign of James I.

Footnote 239:

Oldmixon. History of the House of Stuart, p. 52.

There was another wheel within this closely-contrived political machine.

The Countess of Buckingham was inclined to Popery; and became,

eventually, a convert to that faith. This circumstance naturally

influenced greatly the son, over whose counsels the Countess continued

to hold a sway, and to dispose them to the marriage of the heir apparent

to a Catholic.

Some time previously, when the affair of the marriage was first

broached, the sentiments of the Marquis and his mother were, therefore,

generally understood to be favourable, and the Lord Treasurer Cranfield,

at that time, under their influence, was zealous in a cause so

acceptable to the favourite.

In February, 1617, Nathaniel Brent wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton: “By the

Marquis of Buckingham and his mother the Spanish match is much

apprehended, though methinks there needs no such haste, the lady being

yet scant eleven years old. In the meantime every man hopes or fears as

he is affected, and they say the Lord Treasurer is so far possessed,

that, like another Cato, that began to learn Greek at threescore years

old, he hath got him a Spanish reader, and applies it hard.” The

influence of the Countess of Buckingham doubtless, therefore, turned the

scale against Ralegh, to the vexation of her son’s best friends. “She

was,” writes Bishop Hacket, who knew her well, “mother to the great

favourite, but, in religion, became a step-mother. She doated upon him

extremely, as the glory of her womb, yet, by turning her coat so

wantonly when the eyes of all the kingdom were upon her, she could not

have wrought him a worse turn if she had studied a mischief against

him.” “Many,” adds the same writer, “marvelled what rumbled in her

conscience all that time; for, from a maid to a maiden, she had not

every one’s good words for practice of piety.”[240] “Arthur Wilson

complains also that the Countess of Buckingham was the cynosure that all

the Papists steered by; but that it was above her ability to bear the

weight of that metaphor.”

Footnote 240:

Hacket’s Life of Archbishop Williams, vol. i., p. 171.

“The Countess was,” he adds, “a protectress of the Jesuits and

Jesuitesses, the females of that order, of whom there were no fewer in

England than two hundred English ladies of good families.” Her opinions

were well known to affect her son, who now began to be accused by the

Puritans of Armenianism, and became the friend and patron of Archbishop

Laud. Gondomar saw well to what point to direct his insidious game. The

Countess had a share in the management of State affairs; she, with her

son, guided the helm, and as much court was paid to her as to

Buckingham, whilst both received far more adulation than was thought

necessary to bestow on the King himself. Wittily, though somewhat

impiously, Gondomar wrote to the Spanish Court that “there never was

more hope of the conversion of England than now; for there are more

prayers and oblations offered here to the mother than to the son.”[241]

Footnote 241:

Oldmixon, p. 52.

Under this complication of interests, Ralegh, on the 24th of October,

1618, was given to understand that it was the King’s intent that he

should be put to death, and that he should therefore prepare himself for

the same.[242] Between that intimation and the fulfilment of his doom,

the courage of the broken-spirited and diseased prisoner, prematurely

old with sorrow and disappointment, gave way. He sought to anticipate

his fate, and attempted suicide, but the wound which he gave himself by

stabbing—a cut, rather than a stab—was not fatal, and he recovered to

address to his disconsolate wife one of the most eloquent and

heart-rending letters that ever emanated from that tomb of the living in

which he passed the close of his days.[243] How Buckingham could hear of

this last act of a mind almost frenzied with misery, of a being, to use

Ralegh’s own words, “not tempted with Satan,” but only “tempted with

sorrow, whose sharp teeth devour my heart,” and not plead for this

ornament of his age, it is scarcely possible to conceive. He would have

culled golden opinions for such an interference; he would have

established a source of proud and consolatory recollections for his own

heart; but he lost that glorious opportunity, and left the illustrious

prisoner, to use his own words, to be a “wonder and a spectacle,” and

went on in his own perilous career, until the hour of retribution, even

to him, arrived.

Footnote 242:

Nichols, iii., p. 493.

Footnote 243:

It begins thus:—“Receive from thy unfortunate husband these, his last

lines; these, the last words that ever thou shalt receive from him.

That I can live, and think never to see you and my child more, I

cannot. I have desired God, and disputed with my reason, but nature

and compassion hath the victory. That I can live to think how you are

both left a spoil to my enemies, and that my name shall be a dishonour

to my child, I cannot—I cannot endure the memory thereof. Unfortunate

woman! unfortunate child! comfort yourselves, trust God, and be

contented with your poor estate; I would have bettered it, if I had

enjoyed it a few years.”—Bishop Goodman, ii., p. 93. Mr. Brewer has,

by the discovery of this letter, in the College of All Souls, Oxford,

definitively settled the question whether Ralegh did or did not

attempt his life in the Tower. Ralegh’s list of his debts, and his

beseeching his wife “to take care of them,” are not among the least

affecting parts of his letter.

Ralegh’s execution was fixed to take place—so conscious was Government

of the odium which it would incur—on the Lord Mayor’s Day, “that the

pageants and fine shows might,” as Aubrey expresses it, “avocate and

draw away the people from beholding the tragedie of the gallantest

worthie that England ever bred.”[244]

Footnote 244:

Nichols, p. 493.

On the twenty-third of October, a discussion took place in the Privy

Council as to the mode in which prisoners who had been condemned for

treason, and set at liberty, could be executed. The subject was one of

much perplexity, but everything that was subservient and expedient could

be accomplished in those days. It was, however, determined to send a

Privy Seal to the judges on the King’s Bench, desiring them to try Sir

Walter Ralegh “according to law.” The death to which he was doomed, by

the hand of the executioner, was already impending over the illustrious

prisoner in the form of disease. He had sent to the merciless Cecil his

mournful manifesto of privation and sickness; his left side was numbed,

his fingers on the same side were beginning to be contracted, his tongue

and speech affected; he spoke feebly, and feared he might altogether

lose the power of utterance. An application had therefore been made for

his removal from his damp, cold lodging in the Tower, to a little room

in the garden, which he had himself built, close to his laboratory, or,

as it was styled, his stilhouse.[245]

Footnote 245:

Letter in the State Paper Office, no date. See Life of Sir Walter

Ralegh, by the author. Appendix, p. 395.

But the time was at hand when his spirit should breathe in a freer

atmosphere; and all that man could do to him should cease to be of a

source of dread. “The world,” he calmly observed, “was but a large

prison, out of which some were daily selected for execution.”

On the twenty-eighth of October, he was tried, and of course, condemned,

in the King’s Bench. Henry Yelverton, then attorney-general, could not

help again, in his address for the Crown, describing the prisoner as one

who, for his parts and quality, was to be pitied; “one who had been a

star, yea, and of such nature, that shineth far; but out of the

necessity of state, like stars when they trouble the sphere, must indeed

fall.” It is remarkable that Yelverton, who had been patronised by

Somerset, did himself, in after days, fall, having incurred the enmity

of Villiers.

The King, and of course Buckingham, were at this time in Hertfordshire,

on the Royal progress, which was always a scene of festivity and

amusement. The warrant for Ralegh’s execution was, however, produced

directly after the sentence had been passed, dated the same day, signed,

and addressed to Lord Bacon. The sentence was commuted from hanging to

beheading: but no other favour was granted. James and his courtiers

feared the effect of public indignation; no time, therefore, was

allowed; on the day after his sentence, Ralegh met his death with

simple, decorous tranquillity; as one who was going to take a long

journey, for which he was well prepared. The streets were then thronged

with the gay followers of the annual pageantry; and, amid the din of

trumpets, and shouts of the people, the noble spirit of Ralegh passed to

a better world. Perhaps, had he sued for life to Gondomar, as his friend

Lord Clare recommended, the boon might have been granted. But those who

loved his memory had not this act of humiliation to recall, as casting

one shadow over the brightness of his departure from among them. “I am

neither so old, nor so infirm,” was his reply, when urged to make this

appeal to the Spaniard, “but that I should be content to live; and,

therefore, this would I do, were I sure it would do my business; but if

it fail, then I shall lose both my life and my honour; and both those I

will not part with.”[246]

Footnote 246:

Oldys’s Life of Ralegh, folio viii., p. 729.

Since it was understood that Ralegh’s death was a sacrifice to Spanish

councils, owing to a disputed territory, there can be no doubt but that

this event embittered the minds of the public against the cherished

schemes which James and Villiers had for some time conceived with regard

to the Spanish alliance. Whilst all bore a smiling aspect, various

sources of discontent were ready to break forth; and it was generally

reported that James had, to his infinite disgrace, somewhat insisted on

the sentence of hanging being put into execution, and that he could with

difficulty be brought to consent to its being commuted.[247]

Footnote 247:

State Papers. Domestic. 1618-19.

One circumstance which somewhat disturbed the minds of the Court

revellers, yet seemed not to lessen the number of the revels, was the

fatal illness of the Queen. At the Christmas of 1618-19, the physicians

began to speak doubtfully, and the courtiers to plot for leases for her

lands, for the keeping of Somerset House, and for a division of the

spoil of her furniture and personalities, whenever her death should take

place, so confidantly was it expected. Meantime, the festivities of the

season went on as usual, Hatton House being the centre of all that was

gay and great, and the lady of the mansion the deepest of domestic

politicians. During the Christmas she gave a grand supper, with a play,

and invited all the gallants and great ladies about the Court to grace

it; but the Howards, especially, were solicited and caressed, for it was

Lady Hatton’s aim to “solder and link them fast again” with the Marquis

of Buckingham; and to see if he would cast an eye towards Diana

Cecil,[248] the second daughter of William, second Earl of Salisbury.

This young lady was made, in order to attract the greater notice,

Mistress of the Feast; but the bait proved unsuccessful. Many,

doubtless, were the parents who were not unwilling to match even the

fairest of their daughters with the young Marquis, “for it is like,”

writes Mr. Chamberlain, “there will be much angling after it, now it is

decided the King wishes him to take a wife, which of divers is diversely

constructed.”[249]

Footnote 248:

Her mother was a Howard—the sister of the infamous Lady Somerset.

Footnote 249:

Nichols, iii., 521.

Twelfth Night was celebrated with a masque, in which Prince Charles,

Buckingham, and several young noblemen and gentlemen, to the number of

twelve—amongst whom young Maynard “bore away the bell” for

dancing—enacted. This masque was one of Ben Jonson’s compositions; but

whether it was the “Vision of Delight” repeated, or “Pleasure Reconciled

to Virtue,” is not determined.[250] Six days afterwards, the Banqueting

House at Whitehall, in which these revels had taken place, was burned

down, owing, it was supposed, to the neglect of women who were appointed

to sweep the room, and who held their candles too near to some of the

oiled cloths and devices for the masque, which had been left by the

King’s orders to be ready for Shrove Tuesday.[251]

Footnote 250:

Bishop Goodman’s Letters, ii., 188

Footnote 251:

The fire happened in the day time, at eleven, and lasted only an hour.

Lord Chancellor Bacon was among those high personages who by his

presence attempted to ensure order; but there was much spoliation even

in the face of day. The hall was re-erected three years afterwards.

This ancient building might, it is thought, have been saved; but two

men, who saw the flames break out, went away for fear of being blamed.

The Queen had been some time ill, but hopes were entertained of her

recovery until within a very short period of her death. When the danger

increased, Dr. Mayerne, according to a promise he had given her, told

her, twenty-four hours before her decease, that she could not recover.

It was then too late for the Queen to make a will; but she wished to

leave all that she possessed, with the exception of a jewel to the King

of Denmark, and a casket to the Princess Elizabeth, to her son Charles,

adding an assurance that her faith was free from Popery. Although, when

asked if she wished to leave all she had to her son, she answered, and

had again, “Yes,” her possessions were so valuable, that the people

about the Court did not expect that her wishes would be followed out

without the usual formalities. Meantime, whilst her body lay at Denmark

House, her funeral was delayed, because the Master of the Wardrobe would

not pay double prices, usually then charged when ready money could not

be produced. Crowds thronged round Denmark House; and far more curiosity

was expressed to see her after her death than had ever been testified

during her life. The ladies were weary of waiting till the money could

be raised to carry to the grave one who had left 400,000_l._ in jewels,

90,000_l._ in plate, 80,000 Jacobuses in ready money, besides a costly

wardrobe.[252] “The will,” says the precise Mr. Chamberlain, in a letter

to Sir Dudley Carleton, “proves to be nothing.”[253] The King, meantime,

was dangerously ill, of an agonising disease, and obliged to be carried

part of the way to Theobalds in a Neapolitan portative chair, given him

by Lady Hatton; weak as he was, and even whilst the Queen was unburied,

he would have his deer brought before him, that he might enjoy his

wonted pleasures. The lady mourners were, meantime, quarrelling by the

funeral bier for precedency at the approaching ceremonial; and, amongst

the foremost of the combatants was the Countess of Nottingham, who

claimed, as one of the two conditions of Nottingham’s giving up the post

of Lord High Admiral, that he should be the first Earl of England, and

that she, as first Countess, should step out before all others on this

occasion. The expenses of the funeral were to exceed those of Queen

Elizabeth’s, although money was so scarce, that some of Queen Anne’s

plate would have to be coined three times to pay them. There was not

even money to put the King’s and Prince’s servants in mourning; and,

though Anne died on the twenty-first of March, the twenty-seventh of

March found her still in ghastly state at Denmark House.[254] At length,

on the fourteenth of May, the corpse, with Prince Charles riding before

it, was carried to its resting place. The chariot and six horses, on

which the Queen’s effigy was placed, and the hearse itself, were very

stately, yet the funeral was pronounced to be a “poor, drawling sight.”

Two hundred and fifty indigent women followed the hearse. The Countess

of Arundel claimed and obtained her privilege to follow as first

Countess; whilst Buckingham’s place, as pall-bearer, was supplied by the

Earl of Rutland.

Footnote 252:

State Papers. Calendar, vol. cvii., No. 7.

Footnote 253:

Ibid, 52.

Footnote 254:

State Papers, vol. cviii., No. 85. Calendar.

The Queen’s death took away all chance of that counter-influence which

it is possible that Anne might have sought to exercise when the conduct

of Buckingham became, as it eventually did, oppressive and overbearing.

It left, also, her son, whose affectionate nature had found a return in

his mother’s partiality for him, dependent wholly upon Buckingham as a

mediator with his father. Shortly afterwards, one of the effects of this

state of affairs was exhibited. The King, upon the Prince’s suit,

granted the Marquis of Buckingham an estate of twelve hundred a year,

that had belonged to the Queen; and to requite this service, Buckingham

sued the King for an addition of 5,000_l._ a year to the Prince’s former

allowance, which was also granted. It appears, however, that the estate

assigned to Buckingham was given, ostensibly, for the care which the

favourite had bestowed on His Majesty during a severe illness which had

followed closely upon the death of Queen Anne.[255]

Footnote 255:

Nichols, iii., 546.

Hitherto, the young favourite had proved himself possessed of no higher

qualities than those which a courtier’s life requires. He was now placed

in a situation which drew forth abilities of which his enemies and his

friends were alike ignorant. On the thirtieth day of January, 1618-19,

Buckingham was created Lord High Admiral; a post which he at first

refused to accept on account of his youth and inexperience. James would,

however, admit of no excuse, and the aged Earl of Nottingham resigned

that pre-eminent place, alleging as a reason, his advanced years, but,

actually, for a “consideration.” According to one authority, the

compensation was a pension of six hundred a year to his lady, of five

hundred to his son, Charles Howard, and of two hundred and fifty to his

daughter, to commence from the death of the Earl; or, as another

statement gives it, the compact was made for certain benefits; namely,

“a good round sum of ready money, and 3,000_l._ yearly pension during

the Earl’s life; and after his decease, 1,000_l._ pension to his lady,

and 500_l._ a year to his eldest son by her, which was to be doubled to

him at his mother’s death.”[256]

Footnote 256:

Letter from Sir Edward Harwood to Sir Dudley Carleton. State Paper

Office. Domestic, 1618-19.

The office of High Admiral was enjoyed by Buckingham to the close of his

short life; and was maintained by energy such as had not been witnessed

in the administration of naval affairs since the days of Queen

Elizabeth. Little credit has been assigned to him hitherto by historians

for his unwearied endeavours, not only to restore, but actually to

create a navy; but the recent discoveries in the State Paper Office

place his merits in this important sphere beyond dispute, as will

hereafter be shown.[257]

Footnote 257:

Birch’s MSS., British Museum, 4173. Letter of Oct. 3, 1618.

He served, indeed, a master, whose confidence in him, based, perhaps, on

more solid grounds than have been allowed, it was no easy task to

disturb.

Buckingham would have acted wisely, had he, at this most critical period

of his life, remembered the counsels given by Bacon in his famous

“Letter to Sir George Villiers.” “You are as a new risen star, and the

eyes of all men are upon you; let not your own negligence make you fall

like a meteor.” But his youth, his sudden rise to fortune, his mother’s

influence, and his own desire to elevate his family—an aim which

militated against disinterested conduct—all contributed to smother the

naturally generous impulses of his heart.

The King’s partiality was manifested both publicly and privately.

Buckingham had been his attendant in illness; he was now his consoler in

affliction; for the King was not insensible to the loss of a wife to

whom, in spite of “some matrimonial wrangling,”[258] he had been an

indulgent husband. Accordingly, when the funeral made for the Queen took

place, Buckingham remained at Theobalds with his royal master.[259] His

great object appears, at this period of his career, to have been the

aggrandisement of his family. He had secured the prosperity of his elder

brother, Sir John Villiers, by his marriage with the daughter of Sir

Edward Coke; he now determined to effect that of his youngest brother,

Sir Christopher Villiers, not by marrying him to the niece of a rich

alderman, but by other methods. Already had he availed himself of his

empire over the actions of Bacon,[260] to procure for his relatives one

of those profitable sinecures which abounded in that reign. This was a

monopoly for the licensing of ale houses, which Buckingham desired to

engross, conjointly with Mr. Patrick Maule, for his brother. But there

was an impediment—the monopoly had been deemed a grievance, and in 1617,

Bacon had replied to Buckingham’s application for it in the following

terms:—

“I have conferred with my Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Solicitor

thereupon, and there is a scruple in it that it should be one of the

grievances put down in Parliament; which, if it be, I may not, in my

duty and love to you, advise you to deal in it; if it be not, I will

mould in the best manner and help it forward.”[261] In a subsequent

letter, three years afterwards, Bacon again discourages the continued

solicitude expressed by Buckingham for the patent; for, in alluding to

the patents “as like to be stirred in the lower house of parliament,” he

mentions among them that of the ale houses; and recommending, through

the “singular love and affection he bore to Buckingham,” that his

Lordship, “whom God hath made in all things so fit to be beloved, would

put off the envy of these things,” which, according to Bacon’s judgment,

“would bear no great fruit, and rather take the means for ceasing them,

than the note for maintaining them.”[262]

Footnote 258:

Miss Strickland’s Life of Anne of Denmark.

Footnote 259:

Nichols, iii. 539.

Footnote 260:

Made Chancellor on the 4th of January, 1617.

Footnote 261:

Bacon’s Works, vol. ii., p 201, note.

Footnote 262:

Bacon’s Works, p. 225.

It was probably, on finding his first application, though assisted by

his mother, useless, that Buckingham contrived a match between Sir

Sebastian Harvey’s[263] only daughter and Sir Christopher Villiers. “The

match,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “being not to the joy of the poor

father, so much against the old man’s stomach, as the conceit thereof

hath brought him near his grave already, if at least the world mistake

not the true cause of his sickness.”[264]

Footnote 263:

The Lord Mayor.

Footnote 264:

Nichols, 548.

The marriage was urged on, nevertheless, by the Countess of Buckingham,

who found, however, that Sir Sebastian, then the Lord Mayor, a wilful

and dogged man, could not by any means, either foul or fair, be brought

to yield; in the agony of his spirit, the old man wished himself and his

daughter dead, rather than be compelled to comply. The truth is, the

young lady was only in her fourteenth year, and very small in stature,

and her father did not wish her to be married until four or five years

afterwards. He was, nevertheless, incessantly annoyed with messages from

the King; and these he took so much to heart that he was brought to

death’s door, although Buckingham and others were sent to comfort him.

The Lord Mayor and aldermen had not been present at the Queen’s funeral;

and the King, wishing to please Harvey, and to atone for this apparent

insult, ordered that St. Paul’s Cross should mourn on Trinity Sunday,

and that the Mayor and Corporation should go there as mourners; but

Harvey, “sick and surfeited”, declined attendance; nor, when his

Majesty, on the fifth of June, made his triumphant entry into London,

was he well enough to receive him. In truth, the honest pride of

Englishmen began to revolt against having the relatives of the favourite

forced upon them as sons-in-law. The King, however, entered in state,

attended by Prince Charles and all the nobility—Buckingham, of course, a

conspicuous object amid the throng. James, on this melancholy occasion,

looked “more like a wooer than a mourner.” He had already laid aside his

weeds for Queen Anne. A fresh suit of “watchet satin, laid with a blue

and white feather,” rejoiced the eyes of the company, who were glad to

see him so gallant; and ill accorded with the expected appearance of an

embassy of condolence from the Duc de Lorraine, with two or three

thousand persons all in deep mourning.[265] And when it was remembered

that the King had, not long ago, formally recommended, as on his

death-bed, his son, his favourite, and Lord Digby—who had suffered, he

said, in popularity, for the Spanish match—to his council, and had

expected his decease shortly, there was something almost ludicrous in

the contrast.

Footnote 265:

State Papers, vol. cix; No. 76. Calendars.

The desired match did not, however, prosper, not withstanding a visit

from James to the Lord Mayor’s own residence, soon afterwards, to

expostulate with the old man. He also sent for Sir Sebastian, his wife,

and daughter, from their dinner, in Merchant Taylor’s Hall, in order to

recommend Sir Christopher as a suitor; but all was in vain, Buckingham

was defeated, and the young lady was eventually united to the eldest son

of Sir Francis Popham.[266]

Footnote 266:

Nichols, vol., iii. p. 556.

Disappointed in this matter, Buckingham now manifested his intentions of

improving his own fortunes by a successful marriage; various objects of

attraction had been offered to his gaze, but they wanted, probably, that

which his extravagance rendered essential—fortune. On one occasion, we

find him, with the King, visiting a house in order to admire the beauty

of one of his god-daughters, but no result followed. The world, too, now

talked loudly of the marriage of Lady Diana Cecil with the Earl of

Oxford, whilst a richer bride was given, by common report, to

Buckingham. This was the Lady Katherine Manners, the only daughter of

Francis, sixth Earl of Rutland, a nobleman of great wealth; the lady was

also endowed with other attractions besides fortune, proving a woman of

many attainments and great spirit.

This marriage was, in every respect, desirable. It produced, amongst one

of its advantages, an alliance in blood with the illustrious Sydneys.

Roger, fifth Earl of Rutland, the brother of Earl Francis, having

married Sir Philip Sydney’s daughter and heiress.[267] It cemented a

union with a house already favoured by King James, who visited Belvoir

Castle repeatedly, and who had constituted its two last lords

successively Chief Justices in Eyre of all his forests and chases north

of the Trent, beside conferring other distinctions; lastly, it offered

to Buckingham a prospect of domestic happiness with a lady of

considerable wit and spirit, and one whose affectionate attachment to

her husband was amply testified by her letters and conduct during their

union.

Footnote 267:

Brydges’s Peers of James I.

One drawback, however, existed. The Lady Katherine was a Roman Catholic;

and, although passionately attached to Buckingham, she, for some time,

refused to go to church. Through the exertions, however, of the

celebrated Williams, then Dean of Salisbury, and afterwards Lord

Chancellor, she was ultimately converted. It was for her benefit that he

composed his work, entitled, “A Manual of the Elements of the Orthodox

Religion, by an old Prebend;” only twenty copies of which were printed,

and these were all presented to the Marquis of Buckingham.[268] Such was

the success of Williams’s arguments, or the influence of the young

lady’s affection for her suitor, that, shortly before her marriage, a

public profession of the reformed faith was made by Lady Katherine, on

her partaking of the Holy Communion at the altar of a Protestant

church.[269]

Footnote 268:

Nichols, vol. iii., p. 589.

Footnote 269:

Ibid, vol. iv., p. 606.

Various were the rumours at Court concerning the progress of the

engagement, which went on “untowardly;” amongst others, that the

Countess of Buckingham, having taken the young lady away from her home,

the Countess of Rutland, Lady Katherine’s step-mother, had refused to

receive her back: the King was said to be in the plot.[270]

Footnote 270:

State Papers, vol. cxiii., No. 38.

The future Duchess of Buckingham was the only child of the Earl of

Rutland, by his first wife, Frances, the widow of Sir William Bevile, of

Kilkhampton, Cornwall;[271] and, during the lifetime of her mother, she

was regarded as the sole heiress of all the wealth of her father. Upon

the death of the first Countess of Rutland, the Earl married again, his

second lady being the daughter of the Earl of Thanet, and the widow of

Sir Henry Hungerford. Two sons were the offspring of this union, but

before the courtship of Buckingham, death removed them from being

obstacles to Lady Katherine’s prosperity. They died in their infancy,

from the effects, as it was believed in those credulous days, of wicked

practices and sorcery.[272] It was this celebrated case which is said to

have convinced King James, before sceptical on the subject, of the

existence of witchcraft, of the real agency of the power of

darkness.[273] The instruments of the foul fiend were three women in the

service of the Earl of Rutland, Joan Flower, and her two daughters, who

were stated to have entered into a formal contract with the devil, and

to have become “devils incarnate themselves.” Being dismissed from

Belvoir Castle, on account of bad conduct, they made use of all the

enchantments, spells, and charms that the black art comprised.

Footnote 271:

Which afterwards came to the Granvilles, hence the name of Bevile

Granville.

Footnote 272:

This lady is said to have died in consequence of some medicine given

her by Sir W. Ralegh;—a slanderous accusation.

Footnote 273:

Granger, from Howell. Art. Rutland.

Henry Lord Roos, the eldest born of the house of Rutland, sank under the

effects of these demoniacal influences, or rather, probably, from

childish terrors, in 1613.[274]

Footnote 274:

State Papers, vol. cxii., No. 104.

The Lady Katherine did not escape their machinations, having, with her

brother Francis, been tortured by Flower and her accomplices.[275] Five

years after the supposed exercise of their witchcraft, these wretched

women were apprehended, and upon being rigidly examined by Lord

Willoughby d’Eresby, Sir George Manners, and others, were committed to

Lincoln gaol. Joan died on her way to prison, whilst wishing the bread

and butter which she was eating, might choke her if she were guilty. The

two daughters were tried, confessed their guilt, and were executed at

Lincoln.

Footnote 275:

Even King James, it is said, was not exempt from the designs of the

wicked. In the State Paper Office is the following entry:—“A man named

Peacock, a schoolmaster, to be committed to the Tower and tortured,

‘for practising sorcery on the King, to infatuate him in Sir Thomas

Lake’s business.’”

By the death of her brother, Lady Katherine, whose more advanced years,

and probably, whose courage and sense enabled her to master the dark

terrors of the wicked Joan and her daughters, became a personage of no

little importance in those venal times, when even a show of affection

was scarcely thought necessary for the preliminary arrangements of the

nuptial tie. Belvoir, her father’s proud possession, stands upon the

eminence, the fine prospect from which gave it the name it bears, in all

its stately antiquity.[276] It was built in the time of the Conqueror,

by Robert de Belvedeir, standard-bearer to the monarch. The edifice is

seated on the confines of the counties of Lincoln and Leicester,

Nottingham and Rutland, and it commanded, in the time of Francis

Manners, until the present day, fourteen lordships.[277] Of this domain,

Lady Katherine was now sole heiress. Repeated visits had been made by

King James to it, and, indeed, a sojourn at Belvoir was always a

principal feature in a royal progress. A singular custom was formerly

observed on the occasion of a royal visit to this castle. A family in

Nottinghamshire, who held the Manor of Staunton, by the office of castle

guard of the strong hold of Belvoir Castle, called the Staunton Tower,

were required to present the keys of that tower to the monarch, in the

same manner as the keys of a town are offered. The tenure required, in

feudal times, that—

“Unto this forte with force and flagge,

The Staunton’s stock should sticke,

For to defende against the foe,

Which at the same might kicke.”[278]

Footnote 276:

The interior was destroyed by fire, in 1816; it has been rebuilt in a

style of great magnificence.

Footnote 277:

The present Duke of Rutland traces his descent in direct line from the

founder of the castle, Robert de Belvedeir.

Footnote 278:

In January, 1814, when George IV., then Prince Regent, was received at

Belvoir Castle, the key of Staunton Tower, of gold, and beautifully

wrought, was presented to him in the drawing-room, on a gold cushion,

by the Rev. Dr. Staunton, with a suitable address. Nichols’s Progress,

vol. ii., p. 458.

The office of castle guard has long become a sinecure, but the

importance of maintaining all those forms was such, that in 1618 a writ

of inquiry was issued to show why the Castle of Belvoir should not fall

into the king’s hands, on account of some alienation. “This,” says a

modern writer, “might appear an ungrateful return to the earl for his

hospitality; but it was

the customary process when property held under the crown became, on any

occasion, alienated.”[279]

Footnote 279:

The whole of the castle stands in Leicestershire.

At Belvoir, James made, on one occasion, a considerable number of

knights, and, notwithstanding his writ of inquiry, he visited the

hospitable palace every second or third year, from 1612 to 1621. In

1612, Henry, Prince of Wales, met his father at Belvoir Castle, riding

thither from Richmond in two days, and received “very honourable

entertainment” from Francis, Earl of Rutland, who, but a fortnight

before, had attended the funeral of his brother at Bottesford.[280]

Footnote 280:

Note in Nichols’s Progresses, vol. i., p. 490.

In August, 1619, the king again visited Belvoir, but it does not appear

certain that Buckingham accompanied his royal master. Probably, the

preliminaries to the union which subsequently took place, may have been

entered into on that occasion. Early in the following year, the marriage

contract was signed, a ceremonial which generally preceded the completed

marriage by a period of forty days. In this instance, that event did not

take place until the sixteenth of May.

In the interim, Buckingham, either through the impatience of a lover,

or, what is more likely, fearful of losing, from objections, the heiress

of Belvoir, took a step which cannot be condemned without a full

knowledge of every circumstance connected with it; but which seemed, on

the first view, alike discreditable to the lover and to his mistress. He

induced the Lady Katherine to leave her father’s house, and conveyed her

to his own apartments at Whitehall. Of this transaction, an account is

given by Arthur Wilson, whose puritanical principles caused him to

regard Buckingham with dislike, and perhaps to misrepresent his conduct,

and Buckingham is stated to have kept the lady there for several days,

and then to have returned her to her father. “The stout old earl,”

pursues the same writer, “sent him this threatening message, ’That he

was too much of a gentleman to suffer such an indignity, and if he did

not marry his daughter, to repair her honour, no greatness should

protect him from his justice.’” It is conjectured that this elopement

may have been contrived by Buckingham, in order to extort from the Earl

of Rutland an unwilling consent. He quickly, therefore, says Wilson,

“salved the wound before it grew to a quarrel; and if this marriage

stopped the current of his sins, he had the less to answer for.”[281]

Footnote 281:

Wilson’s Life of James I., p. 149.

Such is one account of the obstacles which impeded that good

understanding which afterwards existed between the Earl of Rutland and

his son-in-law. It appears, however, from an unpublished document in the

State Paper Office, that Buckingham’s exorbitant demands had disgusted

the Earl; these were, 20,000_l._ in ready money, 4,000_l._ in land a

year, and, in case of Lord Roos’s death, 8,000_l._ in land. On this

account, at first, had the match been broken off, but renewed upon the

death of the son and heir, an event which some ascribed to witchcraft,

others to the falling sickness, to which the poor youth was subject.

Rumour also attributed the interruption of the marriage-treaty to the

religious scruples of Buckingham.[282]

Footnote 282:

Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton. Inedited State

Papers, March 11th, 1619-20.

After his daughter had left his house, the Earl wrote a letter, half

indignant, half relenting, to Buckingham. In this epistle, the feelings

of a father’s struggle with the offended honour of the man. “I confess,”

he writes to Buckingham, “I took no great council in this business, for

nature taught me that I was to advise my daughter to avoid the occasion

of ill, as confidently as I assure myself she _is of ill_.” The

aggrieved and unhappy parent had perhaps, afterwards, reason to retract

that bitter expression. “I confess,” he adds, “I had noble offers from

you, but I expect real performance, which I hope in the end will bring

comfort to us both.” “His daughter,” he touchingly remarks, “deserves no

so great a care from a father whom she little esteems,” as he had shown

her; “yet,” adds the Earl, “I must preserve her honour, if it were with

the hazard of my life. And for calling our honours in question,” he

proceeds, “pardon me, my lord, that cannot be any fault of mine; for you

would have me think that a contract, which, if you will make it so, be

it as secret as you will, this matter is only at an end; therefore, the

fault is only your lordship’s if the world talk of us both.”

All that the father demanded was, to use his own words, addressing

Buckingham, as follows, “proof that she is yours, and then you shall

find me tractable, like a loving father; although she is not worthy in

respect of her neglect to me; yet, it being once done, her love and due

respects to your lordship shall make me forget that which I confess I

now am too sensible of.” “To conclude, my lord, this is my resolution,

if my conscience may not be fully satisfied she is yours, take your own

courses; I must take mine, and I hope I may arm myself with patience,

and not with rage. Your lordship shall even find I will be as careful of

your honour as I shall be tender of mine own; and this is my

resolution.”[283]

Footnote 283:

From Court and Times of King James. Bishop Goodman, vol. ii., p. 189.

To this searching letter, wrung from a father, uncertain how far his

daughter had for ever exposed herself to shame, hoping, yet fearing,

lest it might not prove so, and that she had fallen into honourable

hands, Buckingham thus replied:—

“MY LORD,

“Your mistaking in your fashion of dealing with a free and honest heart,

together with your froward carriage towards your own daughter, enforced

me the other day to post to Hampton Court, and there cast myself at His

Majesty’s feet, confessing freely unto him all that hath ever passed in

privacy between your lordship and me concerning your daughter’s

marriage, lest otherwise, by this, your public miscarriage of the

business, it might by other means, to my disadvantage, have come to his

knowledge. And now that I have obtained my master’s pardon for this, my

first fault, for concealing, and going further in anything than His

Majesty was acquainted with, I can delay no longer of declaring unto you

how unkindly I take your harsh usage of me and your own daughter, which

hath wrought this effect in me; that, since you esteem so little of my

friendship and her honour, I must now, contrary to my former resolution,

leave off the pursuit of that alliance any more, putting it in your free

choice to bestow her elsewhere, to your best comfort; for, whose fortune

it shall ever be to have her, I will constantly profess that she never

received any blemish in her honour but which came by your own tongue. It

is true I never thought before to have seen the time that I should need

to come within the compass of the law, by stealing of a wife against the

consent of the parents, considering of the favours that it pleaseth His

Majesty, though undeservedly, to bestow upon me. So leaving this to you

and your wife’s censure,

“I rest,

“Your lordship’s servant,

“BUCKINGHAM.”[284]

These protestations on the part of Buckingham, that the honour of Lady

Katharine was untouched, are confirmed by the following extracts from

certain letters relative to the affair, by which it is evident, first,

that James himself promoted the abduction of the young heiress, and,

secondly, that the Countess of Buckingham, whilst she favoured her son’s

schemes, never suffered the reputation of her daughter-in-law to be

injured, since she did not, for an instant, permit her to leave her

presence during the temporary absence from her father’s house.

Footnote 284:

From Harleian, 1581, p. 134.

“There is an accident happened which breeds great stir in town, which is

concerning the taking away of the Earl of Rutland’s daughter, by my Lady

Buckingham. Nobody knows what to think of it, but, in my opinion, the

King is in the plot, for, with all his arts, he could not persuade her

to go to church, to which it may be, they think, she refuses to come by

reason of her mother and father. Now, you may remember what my lord said

to your lordship, that he would not marry one who did not come to

church. She loveth him, and I think now he makes trial of her, whether

she will forsake all the world for his sake.”[285]

“But the Lady Buckingham sayeth her father desired her to take her

abroad with her, which she did, having his fatherly love imposed on her

that she should not go out of her sight. She fell ill towards night, and

rather than send her home with waiting gentlewomen, kept her that night

to lie with herself, and brought her home the next day; her mother

refusing to take her, so she went back, and there abided.”[286]

Footnote 285:

Buckingham.

Footnote 286:

Inedited State Papers. Letter from Sir Edward Zouch to Lord Zouch,

February 5th, 1619-20. Domestic. Sir Edward Zouch was a much esteemed

wit and courtier. His family is now nearly, if not wholly

extinct.—Brydges’s Peers of King James, p. 71.

Another account states that the “Lady of Buckingham” fetched the young

lady away one Sunday, without her father’s either leave or liking, “so

that the next day he refused to receive her back, and Lady Katherine was

obliged to take refuge with her uncle, being her nearest relation.”

Neither party, it was observed, gained by this mode of dealing, which

was “subject to much construction.”[287]

It is touching to find the Earl of Rutland, some years afterwards,

excusing himself from visiting the Court, that he might bear his

daughter company in her solitude at Burleigh, during the long interval

in which Buckingham, attending on the King at Windsor, left her in that

then remote country seat, in retirement.[288]

Footnote 287:

Inedited State Papers. Letter dated March. 20th, 1619-20.

Footnote 288:

State Papers. Letter from the Earl of Rutland. Domestic. 1625.

A coolness, however, continued for some time between these two noblemen;

for on St. George’s day, which was observed with much solemnity at

Greenwich, the now haughty Buckingham showed his resentment against the

Earl of Rutland by refusing to be consorted with him in one mess; and,

coupling himself with the Earl of Leicester, left his future

father-in-law alone, “and yet,” as a contemporary relates, “the opinion

is, the match must go on with his daughter, or else do her great wrong

as well in other respects; so, for his sake and his mother’s, she is to

be converted and receive the communion this Easter.”[289]

Footnote 289:

Nichols, iv., 606.

The marriage took place eventually, at Lumley House, a mansion built in

the time of Henry the Eighth, by Sir Thomas Wyatt, on the site of the

ancient Monastery of Crutched Friars, near Tower Hill.[290] The

ceremonial was conducted with great privacy, probably on account of the

vexatious and awkward circumstances which had previously occurred.[291]

Footnote 290:

This house was afterwards inhabited by the Lumley family. The navy

office was once here, until removed to Somerset House. The immense

warehouses belonging to the East India Company, now cover the spot

where Buckingham’s nuptials took place.—See Pennant’s London, p. 237.

Footnote 291:

Nichols, vol. iv., p. 607.

It does not appear to which of his magnificent mansions the Marquis of

Buckingham took his bride, after he had at last obtained possession of

her hand. The man who only four years previously had appeared before a

host of scoffing courtiers, in a thread-bare black suit, and whose

slender allowance scarcely kept him from absolute penury, was now the

owner of several stately residences. His apartments at Whitehall were

held by virtue of his various offices near the King’s person. That

palace was the constant residence of James the First when in London. It

was, at this time, in a very ruinous state, and the Banqueting House had

been recently burned down. Inigo Jones[292] was, indeed, employed in

rebuilding it upon an extensive plan, only a portion of which was

completed. It is, therefore, very unlikely that the honeymoon would be

passed in the midst of noise and dust, although Whitehall, partially

surrounded, as it was, by beautiful gardens, was not, by any means,

devoid of that rural beauty for which the denizens of a royal

metropolitan palace may now look in vain. Wanstead House, in Essex,

which had escheated to the crown in 1606, upon the death of Charles

Blount, Earl of Devonshire, was the first residence that Buckingham

could properly call his own. He obtained it by a royal grant, and the

King seems to have been well repaid for that act of generosity, by the

pleasure which he took in visiting his favourite there.

Burleigh-on-the-Hill, or Burleigh Harrington, so called to distinguish

it from Burleigh Stamford, had been bought by Buckingham from the

heir-general of the Harrington family, into whose possession it had come

by purchase in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was seated upon a hill,

rising abruptly from the vale of Catmore, commanding a view of the

country around, and protecting the village of Burleigh. At

Burleigh-on-the-Hill, King James was entertained during his first

journey into England; there he was received by Sir John Harrington, who

was then its owner.

Footnote 292:

He was called by the Earl of Pembroke, “Iniquity Jones.” It is said,

in that nobleman’s MS., that he had 16,000_l._ a year for keeping the

King’s houses in repair.—Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. ii., p.

271.

After Burleigh had become the possession of the Marquis of Buckingham,

he made it one of the most splendid seats in the island, until it not

only rivalled, but, in some respects, excelled, Belvoir.[293] Both the

Marchioness of Buckingham and the Countess took a great interest in the

place. In one of her letters to her husband, the Marchioness writes

thus: “For Burly Shaw the wall is not very forward yett, and my lady”

(her mother-in-law, the Countess of Buckingham) “bid me send you word

that shee is gon done to look how things ar ther. Shee ses shee is about

making a litell river to rune through the parke. It will be about xvi.

foote broode. But shee ses shee wants money.”[294]

Footnote 293:

Wright’s History of Rutland, 1684, p. 30.

Footnote 294:

Nichols, vol. iv., p. 778.

This magnificent structure, in which many a revel took place, and

beneath whose roof many a masque was enacted, was not destined to remain

a monument of Buckingham’s splendour. Its very strength proved its

destruction; for it was, on that account, selected, during the

Rebellion, as a garrison for the Parliamentarian troops, in order that

they might, from that commanding station, at once harass the surrounding

country, and protect their county committee. But they were unable to

maintain the long line of defence which the extensive buildings

presented, and therefore set them on fire, and thus, destroying the

house and furniture, they deserted Burleigh.

The stables alone remained; and these alone perpetuated the magnificence

of their first owner, being the finest in England. The ruins of Burleigh

long served as a memento of the devastations of civil war, for the son

and successor of George Villiers was unable to restore them. The estate

was sold eventually to Daniel, Earl of Nottingham, who rebuilt the

house, but of the structure which the princely taste of Buckingham

planned, and which his lady mother embellished with her taste, little or

no trace remains.[295]

Footnote 295:

York House was not at present in his possession.

Newhall, in Essex, was another residence of the Marquis of Buckingham’s.

This property was purchased after Burleigh, in 1622, and was considered

a great bargain, the money paid for it being twenty thousand pounds, for

which there was a return of 1,200_l._a year in land, whilst the wood was

valued at about 4,000_l._ or 5,000_l._ The house, which cost originally

14,000_l._ in building, was immediately put under the hands of Inigo

Jones, the King’s surveyor, “to alter and translate” according to the

modern fashion.[296] It is described by Evelyn, who visited it in 1656,

in the following terms:—“I saw New Hall, built in a park, by Henry VII.

and VIII., and given by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Sussex, who sold

it to the late great Duke of Buckingham; and since seiz’d on by O.

Cromwell (pretended Protector). It is a faire old house, built with

brick, low, being only of two stories, as the manner then was; ye

gatehouse better; the court large and pretty, the staircase of

extraordinary wideness, with a piece representing Sir F. Drake’s action

in the year 1580, an excellent sea-piece; ye galleries are trifling; the

hall is noble; the garden a faire plot, and the whole seate well

accommodated with water; but, above all, I admir’d the fine avenue,

planted with stately lime trees, in foure rowes, for neere a mile in

length. It has three descents, which is the only fault, and may be

reform’d. There is another faire walk of ye same at the mall and

wildernesse, with a tennis-court, and a pleasant terrace towards the

park, which was well stor’d with deere and ponds.”[297]

Footnote 296:

Nichols, p. 881, from Harleian MSS., 6987.

Footnote 297:

For a fuller history of Newhall, see Nichols’s Progresses of Queen

Elizabeth, vol. i., p. 94-6.

Our ancestors understood well the adaptation of what may be called

landscape gardening, to the style of their stately edifices; and

Buckingham appears to have displayed in his improvements the magnificent

and refined taste of a man whose nature was noble, and who was intended

for a holier career than that of a royal favourite.

Buckingham’s delight in improving his estates soon found scope here. “I

have not beene yet att New Hall,” wrote his lady to him, in 1623, when

he was in Spain, “but I do intend to go shortly to see how things ar

ther. The walk to the house is done, and the tenis-court is all most

done, but the garden is not done, nor nothing to the bouling greene, and

yett I told Totherby, and he tould me he would sett men a worke

presently; but I warant you they will all be redey before you come.” In

a letter from the Countess of Denbigh, she informs her brother that

there is one of the finest approaches to the house made that she ever

saw. Buckingham, on his return from Spain, seems to have enjoyed

thoroughly the sight of Newhall, in all its freshness, and to have

gloried in its sylvan beauties. “I have found this morning,” he writes

to the King, “another fine wood that must go in with the rest, and two

hundred acres of meadows, broomes, closes, and plentiful springs running

through them, so that I hope Newhall shall be nothing inferior to

Burleigh. My stags are all lusty, my calf bold, and others are so too.

My Spanish colts are fat, and so is my jovial filley.”[298] How gladly

must he have returned to those more innocent pursuits of a country life,

that formed so strong a contrast to the harassing existence of a

courtier.[299]

Footnote 298:

Harleian MSS., 6987., quoted in Nichols’s Progresses of King James.

Footnote 299:

Newhall is now a nunnery.

Another place much coveted by Buckingham was stoutly refused, even to

the all-powerful favourite. This was Beddington Hall, in Surrey, then

possessed, and still inhabited, by the ancient family of Carew, on whom

it was bestowed, having been before a royal manor, by Queen Elizabeth.

It was, probably, its vicinity to London which increased Buckingham’s

desire to possess this fine old house, with its stately precincts.

“The Marquis,” as we learn from a private letter of the day, from

London, “would settle himself hereabout, and is much in love with

Beddington, near Croydon, having won over the King, Prince, and others,

to move Sir Nicholas Carew about it; but it seems he will not be

removed, by reason his uncle bestowed it so frankly on him, with purpose

to continue his memory there, and to that end caused him to change his

name. If his lordship would have patience, he would soon find out many

places convenient enough, or, at farthest, stay for Gorhambury, whereof

(they say) he hath the reversion after my Lord Chancellor’s life, but

upon what terms and conditions is only between themselves.”[300]

Footnote 300:

Inedited Letters in the State Paper Office, Mr. Chamberlain to Sir

Dudley Carleton, July 31, 1619.

Wanstead House was another seat of Buckingham’s. The village which bears

that name is situated on the borders of Waltham Forest; it commands a

view of London and of Kent; the prospect stretching over a fertile and

beautiful country. The manor of Wanstead had passed through various

possessors to Sir John Heron, whose son, Sir Giles, being attainted, it

was seized by the Crown. It was then granted to Robert, Lord Rich, who

built the Manor House, then called Naked Hall House. The son of Lord

Rich sold it to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; and it thus became

eventually the residence of two royal favourites. The unscrupulous

Dudley owned it for some years. He enlarged and improved the house; and

here his marriage with the Countess of Essex was solemnised in 1578.

At his death, Wanstead passed into the hands of his widow, Lady Essex;

and the Earl being much involved in debt, an inventory was made of his

property, real and personal. The furniture at Wanstead was valued at one

hundred and nineteen pounds, six shillings, and sixpence; the pictures

at eleven pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence. Such is the small

amount of that which was reckoned costly in those days; yet there were

in this collection original portraits of Henry the Eighth, of his

daughters, and Lady Cartmills, Lady Rich, and thirty-six others not

particularized. The library, consisting of an old Bible, of the Acts and

Monuments, old and torn, of seven Psalters and a Service book, was

valued at thirteen shillings and eightpence. The horses, however, were

rated at three hundred and sixteen pounds and threepence.

The Countess of Essex married Sir Christopher Blount, and by some family

arrangements the house was conveyed to his son, Charles Blount, Earl of

Devonshire. At his death it was escheated to the Crown, and became the

property of Buckingham. In 1619, he sold it to Sir William Mildmay;[301]

and in our days this once noble possession, which has fallen, like its

possessors, to ruin and destruction, came into the family of the present

Earl of Mornington.[302]

Footnote 301:

Wright’s Hist. of Essex, vol. ii., p. 502-3.

Footnote 302:

Nichols, vol. iii., p. 364.

A mineral spring was about this time discovered at Wanstead, and there

was such “running there” by lords and ladies, that the spring was almost

“drawn dry,” “and if it should hold on,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “it

would put down the waters at Tunbridge, which, for these three or four

years, have been much frequented, specially in summer, by many great

persons, insomuch that they who have seen both, say it is not inferior

to the Spa for good company, numbers of people, and other

appearances.”[303]

Footnote 303:

Sir William Mildmay’s descendants conveyed it to Sir Joseph Child,

whose son Richard, afterwards created Earl of Tilney, built Wanstead

House, well known in modern days, on the site of the mansion which had

been the home of Leicester and of Buckingham. The new house was

erected in 1715. It descended, in due time, to Miss Tilney Long, who

married the Hon. Wellesley Pole, now Earl of Mornington. In 1825 she

died, and Wanstead House was sold in lots under the hammer. The park

is now let out for grazing cattle. The ancient church of Wanstead has

also been pulled down, and a new one erected; so that those who look

for any traces of Leicester and Buckingham will not find them at

Wanstead.—_Note in Wright’s “Essex,”_ p. 1150.

To one or other of these stately abodes Buckingham perhaps conveyed his

bride; although the custom of travelling immediately after marriage is

one of more recent, date. Such, however, were the future homes of the

young Marchioness.

The year succeeding the nuptials of the Marquis was passed by him and

his bride in a constant round of courtly revels. During these

festivities, various incidents, of little import in themselves, marked

the determination of James to accomplish the marriage which he now had

at heart between his son and the Infanta of Spain. The slightest

objection to that desired event was dangerous to the meanest of his

subjects. A man named Almed, who held a subordinate situation, having

presented the Marquis of Buckingham with a treatise against the match,

was cast into prison by the King’s express commands.[304] Secretary

Naunton was suspended from his situation for treating with the French

ambassador concerning a union between the Prince and Henrietta Maria,

and was obliged to write an humble acknowledgment of his errors to

Buckingham, and to address to James an epistle penned, as he expressed

it, “in grief and anguish of spirit.”[305] Buckingham interposed in his

behalf, and prevented the secretary’s being turned out of his lodgings

at Whitehall, by which many, looking upon Naunton as a ruined man, for

having lent an ear to the proposal of France, were already

intriguing.[306] The infatuation of James, promoted, it was believed, by

the counsels of Buckingham, brought infinite disgrace upon the English

court, and was repaid by the haughty Spaniards, acting through the

crafty Gondomar, with contempt.

Footnote 304:

Nichols, v. 699.

Footnote 305:

Bishop Goodman, ii., 228.

Footnote 306:

Bishop Goodman, 243.

Even the pulpits were _tuned_, as Queen Elizabeth would have said, to

one key. “The King,” Mr. Chamberlain wrote to Sr Dudley Carleton,

“ordered the Bishop of London to warn his clergy not to preach against

the Spanish match, but they do not obey.”[307]

Footnote 307:

State Papers, Calendar, vol. cxviii., No. 29.

The resolution taken by James to withhold assistance to the Bohemians in

their revolt against the power of Austria, and his determined refusal to

give to his son-in-law, who had been made King of Bohemia, any higher

title than that of Prince Palatine, were resented by the jealous people

whom James was so incapable even of comprehending, and his English

subjects regarded his neutrality with disgust. “The happiness and

tranquillity of their own country,” remarks Hume, “became distasteful to

the English when they reflected on the grievances and distresses of

their Protestant brethren in Germany.” Prince Charles besought his

father on his knees, and with tears, to take pity upon his sister

Elizabeth and her family, and to suffer himself no longer to be abused

with treaties. The young and generous Prince entreated the King, since

His Majesty was himself old, to allow him to raise a royal army, and to

permit him to be the leader of it, being assured that his subjects would

be ready to follow him. To this James replied, “that he would hear once

more from Spain, and that if he had not satisfaction, he would give his

son and the state leave to do what they would.”[308]

Footnote 308:

Letter in Bishop Goodman’s Life, vol. ii., p. 215, from Mr. Mead to

Sir M. Stuteville.

Still James was deaf alike to arguments and to parental affection, and

defended his pacific measures upon the notion that Austria, swayed by

his justice and moderation, would restore the Palatinate, which had been

wrested from Frederic, his son-in-law, by Spinola, especially if his

son’s marriage with the Infanta were effected. He was blind to the fact

that his powers of negotiation would be wholly unable to achieve this

end, nor when it was achieved, would the result be such as his hopes

anticipated. His reluctance to engage in war, his want of courage in

avowing to his subjects the measures which he meant to pursue, were

alike indicative of that pusillanimous spirit which exposed him to the

contempt of foreign courts, and rendered him unpopular at home.

Not having called a parliament for seven years, he now sent forth a writ

of summons in the beginning of the year 1621; an event from which all

men “who had any religion,” as Sir Symonds D’Ewes expressed it, “hoped

much good, and daily prayed for a happy issue; for both France and

Germany needed support and help from England, or the true professions of

the Gospel were likely to perish in each nation under the power and

tyranny of the anti-Christian tyranny.”

The opening of Parliament was graced by a splendid procession from

Whitehall to Westminster; but although the progress was short, it was

varied by several significant circumstances. Prince Charles appeared, on

this occasion, riding on horseback between the Sergeants-at-arms and the

Gentlemen Pensioners, with a rich coronet on his head. Next before his

Majesty rode Henry Vere, Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain of

England, with Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal. These

noblemen were bare-headed. Then appeared James, with a crown on his

head, “and most royally caparisoned.” But the personage who excited the

most general interest was Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, a man only

sixty-three years of age, but accounted in those days—such is the

increased value of life in ours—“decrepit with age.” This nobleman, the

son of the Protector Somerset, was dear to the people as the relative of

Lady Jane Grey, whose sister, the Lady Catherine, he had married; an act

for which he had incurred a long and unmerited imprisonment in the time

of Elizabeth. He died shortly after the opening of parliament.

The King was now manifestly broken and infirm; the disease, then deemed

incurable, which caused him intense agony, softened his petulance, and

produced a courtesy that touched the bystanders with pity. As he rode

along, he spoke often and lovingly to the crowd three-fold thick;

calling out, with more good-will than kingly dignity, “God bless ye, God

bless ye”—a striking contrast to his usual practice, or, to use the

words of D’Ewes, to his “hasty and passionate custom, which often, in

his sudden distemper,” would bid a plague upon those who flocked to see

him.

Such was one of the remarks made on this day. Another was, that whilst

the windows of Whitehall were crowded by the great and fair, James

saluted none of them as he passed along, except the Marchioness of

Buckingham and her mother-in-law.

He was observed to speak often and particularly to Gondomar, and his

whole demeanour was, for some time, kindly and cheerful.

On a sudden, however, his gracious countenance became overcast. On

gazing up at one window, he observed it to be full of gentlewomen and

ladies, all in yellow bands: this fashion had been discountenanced at

Court ever since the trial of the Countess of Somerset; her accomplice,

Mrs. Turner, having been hanged, by sentence, “in her yellow tiffany

ruffs and cuffs,” she being the first inventor of the yellow

starch.[309] But certain “high-handed women,” as King James termed them,

chose, it seems, perhaps out of despite to Buckingham, to retain what

was conceived to be a memento of the Somerset faction. No sooner did the

King perceive them than he cried out “a plague take ye—are ye there?”

and immediately the ladies, in alarm, vanished from the window. James

was so much exhausted by his exertions this day, and by a speech of an

hour long, in which nevertheless he commended brevity, that he was

obliged to be carried in a chair from the Abbey, where he attended

service, to the Parliament House.

Footnote 309:

Nichols, iv., 630; and iii., 120.

By these and other symptoms, the people saw too plainly that the

interests of Spain were adopted by the Favourite. Parliament, opened

with so much state and promise, was opposed to the King’s wishes, and

deprecated the Spanish alliance. Declamations against the growth of

Popery were continually heard in that assembly, and formed a constant

feature in its discussions during the reign of the Stuarts; these

invectives were now exasperated by the treaty with Spain, and the

indifference of James to the sufferings of the Protestant cause on the

Continent. In the House of Lords, the presence of Prince Charles, around

whom all the bishops, and most of the courtiers, flocked, was supposed

to overawe the debates. All this time, James had “engaged his crown,

blood, and soul,” such were his expressions, for the recovery of the

Palatinate. Nevertheless, he dissolved Parliament early in the ensuing

year; and the fruitless treaties and debasing intrigues went on as

usual.[310]

Footnote 310:

Wilson, Hume, Oldmixon.

An embassy extraordinary from the French King, who had visited Calais,

proved the touchstone of much latent jealousy. An attendance of fifty or

sixty persons of rank, and a retinue of three hundred, gave to the

Marquis de Cadenat, brother to the Duc de Luisues, the favourite of the

King of France, all the dignity that so numerous a company of the flower

of their country could ensure. The ambassador and his suite were met at

Gravesend by the Earl of Arundel, and conducted to Denmark House, where

the Earl, merely accompanying the Marquis to the foot of the first stair

which led to his lodgings, took his leave, saying that there were

gentlemen there who would show him to his apartments. This was a decided

slight. Shortly afterwards, an affront was given by the Countess of

Buckingham, owing to her having placed the Marquise de Cadenat and her

niece, Mademoiselle de Luc, at a ball at Whitehall, beneath her own

daughter-in-law, the Marchioness of Buckingham.

On the eighth of January, a tilting match was performed, to entertain

the French Marquis, wherein Prince Charles broke a lance with great

success. Amongst the tilters was the “beloved Marquis of Buckingham,” so

called by Sir Symonds D’Ewes, who thus describes the appearance of the

Favourite on the occasion:—

“Seeing the Marquis of Buckingham discoursing with two or three French

monsieurs, I joined to them, and most earnestly viewed him for about

half-an-hour’s space at the least, which I had the opportunitie the more

easilie to accomplish, because he stood all that time he talked,

bareheaded. I saw everything in him full of delicacie and handsome

features; yea, his hands and face seemed to me especiallie effeminate

and curious.” The contrast with the homely-featured foreigners who

surrounded him seems to have struck this not very good-natured observer.

“It is possible,” he adds, “he seemed more accomplist, because the

French monsieurs that invested him weere verie swarthie, hard-featured

men.”

All irritation seems to have subsided by this time, and the natural

hospitality of well-bred Englishmen to have reappeared. In the midst of

the business and pleasure which occupied the English Court, the

unpopularity of the Spanish match was, however, so apparent that

Gondomar begged to retire to Nonsuch Palace, to avoid the “fear and

fury” of Shrove Tuesday.

In the summer of this year,[311] James visited his Favourite at

Burleigh, when he was so much pleased with his entertainment, that he

could not forbear expressing his contentment in certain verses, in which

he said “that the air, the weather, and everything else, even the stags

and bucks in their fall, did seem to smile.” The chief diversion

prepared for His Majesty was a masque by Ben Jonson, entitled “The

Metamorphosed Gipsies;” it was acted first at Burleigh, then at Belvoir,

and lastly at Windsor, within the course of a few months.

Footnote 311:

1620.

Buckingham employed the poet’s pen at his own expense, and himself

enacted the Captain of the gipsies; and, in his disguise, marching up to

the King, he thus addressed him, with the freedom of his lawless tribe:—

With you, lucky bird, I begin:

I aim at the best, and I trow you are he,

Here’s some luck already, if I understand

The grounds of mine art; here’s a gentleman’s hand,

I’ll kiss it for luck sake; you should, by this line,[312]

Love a horse and a hound, but no part of a swine;[313]

To hunt the brave stag, not so much for the food

As the weal of your body and wealth of your blood.

Footnote 312:

The line of life in Palmistry is the line encompassing the ball of the

thumb.—See, for this masque, Gifford’s edition of Ben Jonson.

Footnote 313:

James’s known dislike of pork was one trait of his Scottish descent.

In this fashion did Buckingham flatter the tastes of James, who, priding

himself on his prowess in the chase, which he followed in a ruff and

trowsers,[314] was charmed with any allusion to his favourite diversion.

Footnote 314:

Grainger.

As the Captain of the Gipsies further pursued the telling of the King’s

fortune, his verse changed its metre, and touched on more serious

themes:—

Could any doubt that saw this hand,

Or who you are, or what command

You have upon the state of things?

Or would not say you were let down

From Heaven, on Earth, to be the Crown

And top of all your neighbour Kings?

In another verse, he gracefully referred to the royal bounty to

himself:—

Myself a gipsy here do shine,

Yet are you maker, sir, of mine.

Oh! that confession should content

So high a bounty, that doth know

No part of motion but to flow,

And giving, never to repent.

These poetical addresses were interspersed with dances and songs. After

the second dance, a gipsy, supposed to be Viscount Purbeck, the brother

of the Marquis, paid a tribute to Prince Charles:—

As my Captain hath begun

With the sire, I take the son!

Your hand, sir!

Of your fortune be secure,

Love and she are both at your

Command, sir!

See what states are here at strife,

Who shall tender you a wife,

A brave one?

And a fitter for a man

Than is offered here, you can

Not have one.

She is sister of a Star,

One, the noblest that now are,

Bright Hesper;

Whom the Indians in the East,

Phosphor call, and in West,

Hight Vesper.

Courses even with the sun

Doth her mighty brother run

For splendour.

—alluding to the boast of the Spaniards that the sun never sets on their

King’s dominions.

The Marchioness of Buckingham was next addressed, in these terms:—

But, lady, either I am tipsy,

Or you are in love with a gipsy;

Blush not, Dame Kate,

For early or late,

I do assure you it will be your fate,

Nor need you once be ashamed of it, madam,

He’s as handsome a man as e’er was Adam.

The fortunes of Cecily, Countess of Rutland, the stepmother of the

Marchioness, of the Countess of Exeter, and of the Countess of

Buckingham, were then told. In the verses addressed to the last

mentioned, the beauty and attractions of the lady were thus alluded to:—

Your pardon, lady, here you stand,

If some should judge you by your hand,

The greatest felon in the land,

Detected.

I cannot tell you by what arts,

But you have stol’n so many hearts,

As they would make you at all parts

Suspected.

The Lady Purbeck was the next theme:—

Help me, woman, here’s a book,

Where I would for ever look;

Never yet did Gipsy trace

Such true lines in hands or face.

Venus here doth Saturn move,

That you should be Queen of Love,

Only Cupid’s not content;

For, though you do the theft disguise,

You have robb’d him of his eyes.

The fair, frail being, whose loveliness was thus panegyrized, fled from

her husband’s house three years afterwards, never to return. “She was,”

says the historian Wilson, “a lady of transcending beauty.” Ben Jonson’s

lines on her face:—

Though your either cheek discloses

Mingled baths of milk and roses;

Though your lips be banks of blisses,

Where he plants and gathers kisses—

were not, therefore, greatly exaggerated.

Her mother—the mother who had bartered her at the altar—was next

flattered:—

Mistress of a fairer table,

Hath no history or fable;

Others’ fortunes may be shewn,

You are builder of your own,

And whatever Heaven hath gi’n you,

You preserve the state still in you.

Here ended the fortune-telling. And now, a dance of clowns, “Cockrel,

Clod, Town’head, and Puffy,” each personated by knights, delighted the

company with a colloquy in prose, and in their hands the conduct of the

piece remained until the Gipsies, metamorphosed, “appeared in rich

habits, to close the whole with a eulogy upon King James.”

A song was introduced just before the conclusion:—

Oh, that we understood

Our good!

There’s happiness indeed in blood,

And store—

But how much more When virtue’s flood

In the same stream doth hit!

As that grows high with years, so happiness

With it!

Thus ended this masque, which furnishes, in the estimation of a great

critic, “specimens of poetic excellence, injurious flattery, and adroit

satire.”

James was delighted with his cheer at Burleigh.[315] Before departing

for Belvoir, he noticed, with much satisfaction, that there was a

prospect of there soon being an heir to the house of Villiers; and,

after uttering a fervent wish that all might prosper, he called upon the

Bishop of London, by way of amen, to give the young couple a blessing in

his presence on the interesting expectation.[316]

Footnote 315:

Gifford.

Footnote 316:

Nichols, vol. iv., p. 710.

This gay scene was followed by some mischances. James, riding out after

dinner, from Theobalds, early in the next year,[317] was thrown into the

New River;[318] the ice broke, and he fell in, nothing appearing above

the water except his boots. Buckingham, who was not with him, was sent

for from Hertfordshire, and posted away to attend his royal master. The

King recovered from this accident, but his infirmities increased daily;

he was confined for some time at Theobalds, “by reason of a defluxion,”

which, setting in his leg, assumed the form of gout; and he was obliged

to be carried out in a litter when he went to see the deer.

Footnote 317:

1622.

Footnote 318:

Or, as it was called, Middleton’s Water, from the great contriver of

that inestimable improvement, the introduction of water into the

metropolis, Sir Hugh Middleton.

Preparations were now made for that event to which James had referred

when he had called the Bishop of London to bless the parents of the babe

yet unborn. Yet, contrary to His Majesty’s expectations, it did not

prove to be a “fine boy.” Early in the year 1622, a daughter, afterwards

christened Mary, gladdened the hearts of the young and happy parents. On

the twenty-seventh of March, the Marchioness was sufficiently recovered

to be churched in the King’s chamber, where she dined, notwithstanding

that the King was in bed. The Duchess of Lennox accompanied her on this

occasion. This lady, was recently married, for the third time, to the

Duke of Lennox, her first husband having been Henry Purnell, Esq.; her

second, Edward Seymour, first Earl of Hertford. Ludowick, Duke of

Richmond and Lennox, her husband, was a cousin of the King’s,[319] being

grandson to John D’Aubignie, who was brother to Mathew, Earl of Lennox,

grandfather of His Majesty. The Duke of Lennox deservedly enjoyed a

great share of the King’s confidence; and it was a proof of the highest

consideration for the young Marchioness of Buckingham, that his duchess

should be her companion at the ceremony of churching. The Duchess

attended her also in her sickness, and was rewarded for “her great pains

and care in making broths and caudles” for the invalid, by a present

from the King of a fair chain of diamonds, with his picture suspended to

it, Prince Charles and the Marquis of Buckingham being charged to convey

it to the Duchess, who, henceforth, came to be “in great request, and to

be much courted and respected by the Prince.”[320]

Footnote 319:

Granger’s Biography, Reign of King James, vol. i., p. 237.

Footnote 320:

Nichols’ Progresses, vol. iv., p. 756.