The indignation of the House of Commons first descended on the head

of Mainwaring, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, who had preached, by

the King’s order, a sermon containing doctrines subversive of

liberty. Mainwaring, although he had acted under royal authority,

had been fined a thousand pounds, imprisoned, and suspended during

three years.[105] After he had been sentenced, the House proceeded

to pass “strong condemnation on Buckingham,” whose name had hitherto

not been mentioned. It must have been a singular scene, when, on the

fifth of June, the House being assembled, a message was delivered to

them from the King, announcing that, as he meant to prorogue

Parliament in six days, he desired that no new business, which might

consume time, nor lay any aspersion on His Majesty’s ministers,

should be commenced. A deep dejection was observed on all faces; but

when Sir John Eliot, the most impassioned speaker of that period of

earnest and eloquent men, rose, and was about to denounce Buckingham

as the author of all the national misfortunes, he was stopped by Sir

John Finch, the speaker, who, rising from his chair, his eyes full

of tears, told the House that he had been commanded to interrupt

every member who laid aspersions on any minister of state. A

profound and melancholy silence succeeded; then, after several

members had broken it, by resuming the debate, it was strange again

to hear that voice which had never deceived his fellow-subjects, and

to behold Sir Edward Coke rise, and remind them of former

parliamentary impeachments, and tell them that it was their province

to regulate prerogative and correct abuses; and he added, “If they

flattered man, God would never prosper them.” Then the name fell

from his lips that none since the King’s message had dared to utter:

he denounced Buckingham; he called him the grievance of grievances;

and, setting at nought the royal mandate, declared, that till the

King were informed of that truth, the Commons could neither continue

together, “nor depart with honour.”

Footnote 105:

At the end of the session, Charles not only pardoned Mainwaring,

but gave him a valuable living.

Thus the fears of the poor Duchess of Buckingham were finally and

fully realized. One member imputed to the Duke the ruin of the

shipping, in the restoration of which he had so incessantly

laboured. The faults of others were thus laid on him. Another stated

that there were Papists in every branch of the public service. The

intolerant fierceness of Puritanical opinions, on this occasion,

blazed out. Selden proposed a declaration of grievances, and

suggested that, though a mantle had been thrown over the charge

against the Duke in the last Parliament, it ought to be resumed, and

judgment demanded. Whilst the question was being put, on this

motion, whether the Duke should be named as the primary cause of

grievances, the Speaker begged leave to retire for a few minutes,

and soon returned with a message from the King to adjourn.

The consternation at the Court must have been extreme; for Charles

now retraced his former steps; again went to the House, and, giving

his consent to the Petition of Right, in the usual form since the

Norman Conquest, “_Soit droit fait comme il est desiré_,” was

received with loud acclamations. His popularity did not, however,

last very long. He took this opportunity to commit an act which was

both dangerous to himself and to his friend. When, by the

dissolution of a former parliament, the impeachment of the Duke had

been stopped, Charles, to save appearances, ordered an information

against him to be filed in the Star Chamber. He now ordered this

information to be taken off the file; thus insulting the Commons,

who had named Buckingham as the “grievance of grievances.”[106]

It may easily be imagined how deeply chagrined Buckingham must have

been during these proceedings. Among the common people his name was

held in still greater detestation than even by his parliamentary

opponents.

It was during this session that Sir Thomas Wentworth, recently

created Viscount Strafford, distinguished himself by his eloquence,

which he exerted in support of Buckingham, thus abandoning his

former show of patriotism, in the fervour of which he had denounced

the Council of State.

“They have taken from us,” he exclaimed--“what shall I say?--indeed,

what have they left us? They have taken from us all means of

supplying the King, and ingratiating ourselves with them, by tearing

up the roots of all property.”[107]

Footnote 106:

Brodie, p. 202. Hume’s “Charles I.”

Footnote 107:

Brodie, p. 170.

In the midst of this declaration the Presidentship of the County of

York was deemed likely to be vacated, owing to the illness of Lord

Scrope, who then held it; and Wentworth had not scrupled to solicit

the promise of it in the following terms of abject flattery to

Buckingham. The letter is addressed to Lord Conway:--

“Wentworth, this 20th of January, 1625.

“MY MUCH HONORED LORD,--The duties of the place I now hold not

admitting my absence out of these parts, I shall be bold to trouble

your lordship with a few lines, whereas otherwise I would have

attended you in person. There is a strong and general beleaf with us

here that my Lord Scrope purposeth to leave the Presidentshippe of

York; whereupon many of my friends have earnestly moved me to use

some means to procure it, and I have at last yielded to take it a

little into consideration, more to comply with them than out of any

violent inordinate desire thereunto in myself. Yett, as on the one

side I have never thought of it unless it might be effected, w^{th}

the good liking of my Lord Scrope, soe will I never move further in

it till I know also how this may please my Lord of Buckingham,

seeing, indeed, such a seale of his gracious good opinion would

comfort me much, make the place more acceptable; and that I am fully

resolved not to ascende one steppe in this kind except I may take

along with me by the way a special obligation to my Lord Duke, from

whose bountye and goodness I doe not only acknowledge much allready,

but, justified in the truth of my own hartte, doe still repose and

rest under the shadow and protection of his favour. I beseach y’r

Lorp., therefore, be pleased to take some good opportunity fully to

acquaint his Grace hearunto, and then to vouchsafe, with y’r

accustomed freedom and nobleness, to give me your counsel and

direction, wh. I am prepared strictly to observe, as one albeit

chearfully embracing better means to doe his Majesty humble and

faithful service in the parttes whear I live, yet can w^{th} as well

contented a mind, rest wher I am, if by reason of my manie

imperfections I shall not be judged capable of neuer appointment or

trust. There is nothing more to add for the present save that I must

rest much bounden unto y’r Lorp. for the light I shall borrow from

y’r judgement and affection hearin and soe borrow it too, as may

better enable me more effectually to express myself hereafter.--Y’r

Lorp. most humble and affec^{ate} kinsman to be commanded,

T. WENTWORTH.

To the Right Honble. my much honored Lord the Lorde Conway,

Principall Secretary to his Majestie.”[108]

Footnote 108:

State Papers, Domestic, 1625.

This favour being granted, and Sir Thomas having been created a

Viscount, he appeared in the upper house as an advocate for the

ministers whom he had, only a few months previously, denounced; but

the adherence of Strafford was of little benefit to Buckingham, as

his new ally was the most unpopular of men. One unhappy result,

however, this unprincipled alliance produced. The new partisan

ingratiated himself with Charles during his late and brief support

of Buckingham; and the seeds were laid of that influence which so

tended to undermine the future stability of the Crown, and pioneered

the way to Charles’s fall.

The most unjust aspersions were now circulated throughout all

society. It was Buckingham’s custom to cast away, as unworthy of

consideration, all reports that were brought to him. On one

occasion, hearing that two Colonels, when before St. Martin’s Fort,

had said to a third that they observed the Duke often go in his

barge to the fleet, and that they believed he would steal away to

England some day; and that if he did, they swore they would hand out

the white flag, and deliver up the town and island to Tonar, the

Governor; the Duke called a council of war, the accused being

absent, and charged these gentlemen with their words. They flatly

denied them on their swords. The Duke, without further inquiry,

believed them, and dismissed the court. Nor did he ever pay any

attention to things said about him, either in the Commons or in the

camp.

In the same way he appears to have treated James Howell, who,

presuming on having been in his service, and on the affabilities of

the Duke, and a facility of character which had its advantages as

well as disadvantages, wrote an impertinent letter, saying, that in

his “shallow apprehension” it might be well for the Duke to part

with some of his places, and so to avoid opprobrium. “Your Grace,”

he remarked, “might stand more firm without an anchor.” Then he next

threw out some suggestions as to the better regulation of the Duke’s

family and private affairs; and ended by saying that he knew the

Duke did not, nor need not, affect popularity. “The people’s love,”

he added, “is the strongest citadel of a sovereign prince, but wrath

often proved fatal to a subject, for he who pulleth off his hat to

the people giveth his head to the prince.” And he ends by referring

to “a late unfortunate Earl,” who, a little before Queen Elizabeth’s

death, had drawn the axe across his own neck; he had become so

unpopular, that he was considered dangerous to the State. This very

unpleasant reference was taken, at all events, amicably by

Buckingham. The fate of Essex was often supposed to shadow forth his

own; and the rapid rise, the more rapid fall, the generous, careless

nature, the very early doom of both, to have suggested that parallel

between the Earl of Essex and Buckingham, in which Lord Clarendon

has placed the characters of both before the reader in delicate

touches.

In one respect they were very different. Essex, when attacked, even

before going to Ireland, wrote an apology, which he dispersed with

his own hands. Buckingham left his fame to his contemporaries, and

to posterity, just as they choose to view it. On an offer once being

made to him to write a justification of his actions, he refused it,

says Lord Clarendon, “with a pretty kind of thankful scorn, saying

that he would trust to his own good intentions, which God knew, and

trust to Him for the pardon of his errors;” that he saw no “fruit of

apologies but the multiplying of discourse, which, surely,” even

Lord Clarendon observes, “was a well-settled matter.”[109]

Footnote 109:

Parallel between Essex and Buckingham--“Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.”

But there were dangers lurking in his path which no defence could

avert. Personal danger did not appal him. Slander did not affect

him. Yet a forgotten, morbid, disappointed man was the instrument of

destiny; and even in this crisis Buckingham seems never to have

shrunk from the assassins, even in imagination: he knew that he had

already escaped great perils--and that consciousness gave him

security.

CHAPTER III.

FELTON--HIS CHARACTER--UNCERTAINTY OF HIS MOTIVES--CIRCUMSTANCES

UNDER WHICH HE WAS BROUGHT INTO CONTACT WITH BUCKINGHAM--MOTIVES

OF HIS CRIME DISCUSSED--THE REMONSTRANCE--THE FATE OF

LA ROCHELLE--BUCKINGHAM’S UNPOPULARITY--RETURNS TO

RHE--MISGIVINGS OF HIS FRIENDS--INTERVIEW WITH LAUD--WITH

CHARLES I.--HIS FAREWELL--HE ENTERS PORTSMOUTH--FELTON--THE

ASSASSINATION--ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM SIR D. CARLETON AND SIR

CHARLES MORGAN--THE KING’S GRIEF.

CHAPTER III.

Whilst all these events were pending, dark designs were being formed

and cherished in the distempered mind of one far from the Court, and

probably wholly forgotten by him to whose destiny he gave the final

stroke.

Hitherto Buckingham had escaped all bodily harm. He had rallied

speedily from illness, and was in the full vigour of his life; he

had returned unhurt from the perilous service at Rhé; he had

repeatedly crossed the Channel, and tracked even the great ocean

when the science of navigation, as well as of ship-building, was

imperfect, and when a thousand dangers encompassed his course: he

had escaped the pestilence by which the army lost many of its best

men. And yet his days were numbered.

In the remote county of Suffolk the unhappy John Felton was born. He

was the youngest son of an ancient family, and in somewhat narrow

circumstances, and had been a lieutenant in a regiment of foot,

under the command of Sir John Ramsey, in the expedition against Rhé.

He was a man of great reserve, which, though he had long led a

soldier’s life, in the course of which he appears to have risen from

the ranks, was still silent and gloomy. In person he was diminutive,

with a meagre form, and a face rendered almost ghastly from the

expression of that deep, habitual, and apparently causeless

melancholy to which we give the term morbid; and thus singularly did

these outlines of his character correspond with the circumstances of

his daily life. So strange was it to discover in the young soldier

the characteristics attributable to a cloister rather than to a

camp, that one turns to the mournful plea of insanity for

explanation. But no defence of that nature, or on that ground, was

ever attempted for Felton; unhappily, so much has lunacy increased

in modern times, that it forms now one point in almost every case of

unaccountable crime. In the days of our ancestors it was different.

Such an excuse was rare, and only applied to imbecility, or to

mania, when too apparent to be disputed.

To this day, indeed, there has been found no adequate motive for the

deed, which Felton long contemplated in the depths of a soul that

never gave utterance to its joys or sorrows, and exchanged no

sympathies with others. Whatever “may have been the immediate or

greatest motive of that felonious conception,” Sir Henry Wotton

declares, “is even yet in the clouds.”[110] The origin of that dark

design has, nevertheless, been referred to a disappointment in

Felton’s military career. This he subsequently denied, by saying

that the Duke had always shown him respect. Whilst at Rhé, Felton’s

captain having died in England, he naturally applied to Buckingham

for promotion. The Duke, however, consulted the colonel of the

regiment, and, by his suggestion, gave the company to an officer

named Powell, who happened to be lieutenant of the colonel’s

company, and a man of great bravery; and Felton himself acknowledged

the justice and expediency of this preference of Powell to himself.

So that, to follow the same authority, the idea of any rancour being

harboured, owing to this arrangement, can have no foundation.[111]

But the notion has been taken up by historians adverse to

Buckingham--and such are in the majority--rather to heighten the

impression that he suffered for an act of injustice, for which his

death was, more or less, a retribution, than from any certain

conviction on the point.

Footnote 110:

Wottonianæ Reliquiæ, p. 233.

Footnote 111:

Ibid.

There was also another cause assigned for the crime which Felton

meditated. In his native county there was a certain knight whom the

Duke had latterly favoured; and between this individual and Felton

there “had been ancient quarrels not yet healed,” which might be

festering within his breast, and worked up by his own grievance into

frenzy. But this explanation is also rejected by Sir Henry Wotton,

whose evidence is the best that can be given, as proceeding from a

man of principle, and a contemporary and friend of Buckingham’s.

Three hours before his execution, however, Felton, either as a

palliation to others, or to excuse the deed to himself, alleged that

the book written by Dr. Egglisham, King James’s Scottish physician,

in which the Duke was portrayed as one of the foulest monsters upon

earth, unfit to live in a Christian court, or even within the pale

of humanity, had a great effect upon his mind, in inciting him to

what he deemed an act of heroic virtue. The fact, indeed, it is

plain, was, that his religious convictions had an all-powerful

influence upon his judgment, which was warped by the gloomy bigotry

which casts a shadow over the noblest and most encouraging hopes of

the Christian. The tenor of this unhappy man’s life had been marked

by seriousness and religious observances; but it was the religion

which condemned all who differed--the religion, not of love, but

self-righteousness and hatred.

During the leisure of peace--if peace that can be called in which

all the elements of civil war were being engendered--the Petition of

Right--that great measure, which even Clarendon allows, "was of no

prejudice to the Crown"--received the King’s assent. Not contented

with what they found might prove a bare declaration of the law, the

Commons drew up a Remonstrance, addressed to the King, in order that

the too great power of Buckingham might be diminished. The promotion

of Papists, the protection of Arminians, under the patronage of Neal

and Laud, were the chief subjects, and were calculated to arouse and

inflame the passions of a fanatic, like Felton, and to have

suggested the reasoning that was soon warped, by prejudice and

hatred, into the form and conception of guilt. There were other

subjects of complaint in that celebrated Remonstrance, which touched

him also--the standing commission of general continued to Buckingham

in time of peace, the dismissal of faithful officers from various

places of trust, the failures at Cadiz and at Rhé--these were but a

small part of that important document, but they were the portion

most likely to excite such a mind as that of Felton. He stated,

indeed, that the idea of assassination, which he had repelled by

stern efforts of conscience--for he was a man misled and mistaken,

but not devoid of certain principles, and he dared to make use of

that solemn and misguiding word, conscience--was revived, with

irresistible force, by the Remonstrance. Never, hitherto, had the

members most distinguished for oratory in parliament reasoned with

so much force, and so much research, and so great a depth of legal

argument, as on the Petition of Right, and its successor, the

Remonstrance. It was the era of good taste and profound argument in

that great assembly.[112] All tended to strengthen Felton in the

conviction that the Duke was a traitor and oppressor, whom any

patriot would do well to assassinate.

Footnote 112:

Brodie.

Then he read works which maintained the lawfulness of ridding a

nation of an oppressor; and the voice of conscience was heard no

more--a false heroism was thenceforth the spectre that lured him

onwards. Never was there a more striking instance of the influence

of one mind over another than that which the books of the day had

over the mind of Felton; never was there a more prominent

exemplification of the responsibilities of a writer, even if his

words chance to have only an ephemeral reputation, than this man’s

crime.

The resolution was then formed--Buckingham’s life was to be

sacrificed for the public good. Sir Henry Wotton seems to think that

every plea adopted by Felton in explanation of this design was to be

distrusted. “Whatever were the true motives, which, I think, none

can determine but the Prince of Darkness itself, he did thus

prosecute the effort.”

He bought for tenpence, in a cutler’s shop on Tower Hill, a

knife--that instrument, the blow of which paralyzed England--and

sewed the sheath into the lining of his pocket, so that he could at

any time draw out the knife with one hand--his other being maimed

and powerless.

Being thus provided, he watched in gloom and privacy (for he was

very poor) the opportunity over which he brooded.

Meantime, Buckingham was mingling, in the full confidence of his

fearless nature, in the affairs of that world which he was so soon

to quit for ever. His unpopularity was at its acmé, and if he feared

not for himself, there were friends who trembled for his safety. Sir

Clement Throgmorton, a man of great consideration and judgment, one

day asked a private conference, and advised the Duke to wear a coat

of mail underneath his his outer garment. The Duke received the

suggestion very kindly, but gave this reply, “Against popular fury a

coat of mail would be but a weak defence, and with regard to an

attack from any single man, he conceived there was no danger.” "So

dark," says Wotton, “is destiny.”

This consciousness of being the object of universal hatred probably

increased the keen desire which now possessed the Duke’s mind of

retrieving the discredit into which his failure had plunged him.

During the whole of the spring, preparations for a fresh descent on

La Rochelle had been in contemplation. As good a squadron as that

which Admiral Pennington had previously commanded was ready at

Plymouth by the end of February, ten ships having been pressed into

the service. Several new vessels were built, notwithstanding that

the workmen of the navy at Chatham complained that they had not

received any pay for seven months. Buckingham was, at one time, on

the point of visiting Plymouth, but went to Newmarket instead.[113]

During the session of Parliament his brother-in-law, the Earl of

Denbigh, was dispatched with a fleet to the relief of La Rochelle,

which was blockaded by the French, but he returned without even

attempting to effect anything; and the unfortunate town was left to

its fate. Richelieu, besieging it by circumvallations, constructed a

mole across the mouth of the harbour, leaving room only for the ebb

and flow of the sea; and destruction seemed inevitable. It was,

therefore, a very probable means of recovering his credit at home,

for the Duke again to attempt the relief of those who, as

Protestants, represented a cause dear to English hearts.

Independently of this, it is not unlikely that old rivalship with

the sagacious Cardinal may have influenced Buckingham to undertake a

second expedition to La Rochelle.[114] It is, perhaps, not to be

wondered at that Buckingham’s name should be covered with so much

opprobrium after his death, when the fate of the heroes who defended

La Rochelle is remembered. In the October of the year in which the

Duke perished, La Rochelle, long refusing to yield, was forced to

submit. The inhabitants surrendered at discretion--even with an

English fleet, commanded by Lord Sidney, in sight. Of fifteen

thousand men who had been enclosed in the town, only four thousand

survived famine and fatigue, to lay down their arms before the

generals sent by Richelieu.

Footnote 113:

Calendar, vol. xciv., No. 96.

Footnote 114:

Brodie--Hume.

To make a last effort for these valiant sufferers was, therefore,

the wisest determination that Buckingham could form. The fleet which

Lord Denbigh had commanded was in good condition, and all at home

had learned experience through failure. He had taken that severe

lesson to his own heart. Had Buckingham been spared to relieve La

Rochelle, and to recover for England the honour of her sullied

reputation, his errors would doubtless have been forgiven.

Before leaving London, the Duke went to take leave of Laud, then

Bishop of London. Laud had now, both in civil and ecclesiastical

matters, a great influence over the King: of this Buckingham was

fully sensible.

Sir Henry Wotton, who had made some inquiries whether the Duke had

had any presentiment of his death, relates a touching scene between

the Duke and Laud.

“My Lord,” Buckingham said, “you have, I know, very free access to

the King, our sovereign; let me pray you to remind his Majesty to be

good to my poor wife and children.”

At these words, or perhaps rather on looking at the expression of

countenance with which they were uttered, the Bishop, with some

uneasiness, asked the Duke whether he had any forebodings in his

mind which he did not like to betray?

“No,” replied the Duke; “but I think some adventure may kill me as

much as any other man,”

The day before he was assassinated, the Duke being ill, Charles the

First visited him whilst he was in bed. After a long and serious

conversation in private, they separated, Buckingham embracing the

King “in a very unusual and passionate manner;” and he also showed

great emotion on taking leave of Lord Holland, “as if his soul had

divined he should see them no more.”

The twentieth of August was his birthday. He had completed his

thirty-sixth year--that period which has been marked by a great

writer as the departure of youth[115]--it might have been, perhaps,

in Buckingham’s case, the beginning of wisdom extracted from

experience.

Footnote 115:

Student.

It was the age of omens and other superstitious weaknesses; and

supernatural warnings were not wanting to heighten the effect of the

tragedy that was soon to be acted. Neither did they who foreboded

evil to the Duke wait until after the event to bring forth their

ghostly revelations. One day, some little time before the Duke’s

death, he was playing at bowls with the King in Spring Gardens.

Buckingham, as he usually did,even in Charles’s presence, kept his

hat on, a piece of presumption which irritated a Scotsman named

Wilson, who, in his wrath, tossed off the Duke’s hat, and declared

he would punish impertinence wherever he met it in the same way. On

looking round for this man, he had vanished, and was nowhere to be

found. The courtiers marvelled at the incident, and regarded it as

ominous of the Duke’s fate; but he laughed at them for their folly,

and showed no fear.[116]

Footnote 116:

Balfour’s Annals, MSS., Advocate’s Library, quoted from Brodie,

vol. ii., p. 209.

His indifference was regarded as infatuation; in fact, it proves

that the Duke was, in some respects, superior to those whom he most

respected. There was no lone spinster in the country more given to

believe in dreams and omens than Laud; and his diary contains

perpetual references to his dreams. Every slight incident had its

peculiar meaning, foreshadowing some great event. Nor does Lord

Clarendon rise above the tone of the times, in his relation of that

famous ghost story which forms one of the most prominent incidents

of Buckingham’s latest days.

Old Sir George Villiers had now been dead eighteen years, and

perhaps few of his family, and certainly not his wife, who had been

twice married, ever wished to see him again. There was a certain Mr.

Nicholas Towse, however, living in Bishopsgate Without, London, to

whom the aged knight appeared in the spirit, during the year 1627,

making choice of that individual as the depositary of secrets beyond

the grave, because he had known him whilst he was a boy at school in

Leicestershire, near Brookesby. As a mark of friendship, therefore,

the apparition of Sir George favoured Mr. Towse with his

revelations, and stood one night at the foot of his bed, dressed in

the costume of the time of Elizabeth. There was a candle in the

room, and Mr. Towse was perfectly wakeful. On beholding Sir George,

he uttered, according to his own account, the natural inquiry, “What

he was, and whether he was a man?” To which the apparition answered,

“No.” Then Towse, in considerable emotion, asked, “Was he a devil?”

To which the apparition still answered, “No.” Then Mr. Towse, with

increasing agitation, said, “In the name of God, tell me what you

are?”

"I am," replied the spectre, in doublet and hose, “the spectre of

Sir George Villiers, the father of the Duke of Buckingham;” adding,

that because he believed Mr. Towse loved him, and was sensible of

the former kindness that he had shown him, he had selected him as

the bearer of a message to the Duke of Buckingham, warning him in

such a manner as to prevent much mischief and present ruin to the

Duke.

Whilst the apparition was speaking, Towse became more and more

convinced of his identity, and more fully conscious that the long

defunct master of a noble house stood before him; nevertheless, he

refused to do Sir George’s bidding, saying that it would bring

ridicule on him to carry to the Duke such a message. But the ghost

earnestly entreated him to comply, assuring him, after the manner of

ghosts, that there were certain passages in the Duke’s life known

only to himself and his son, and that the revelation of these would

plainly show the Duke it was no “distempered fancy, but a reality,

that he wished to disclose.”

That night was one of irresolution, if not of incredulity; but, on

the next, the unhappy Towse, thus picked out for so ghostly a

service, promised to go to the Duke. He went, indeed, and found out

Sir Thomas Freeman and Sir Ralph Bladden, the Duke’s chamberlains,

by whom he was presented to the Duke. Then followed some private and

agitated interviews between Buckingham and Towse, and the cautions

of the ghost were fully and forcibly communicated: they related

chiefly to Buckingham’s patronage of Laud, and suggested some

popular acts which the Duke was to perform in Parliament--and, in

short, contained advice that any reasonable man might have offered.

But nothing that was said by Mr. Towse made the slightest impression

on the Duke, except, when certain passages of his life were referred

to, with which the ghost had primed Mr. Towse, he owned he had

believed “that no living creature knew of them but himself, and that

it must be either God or the devil that had revealed them.” The Duke

then offered to get Mr. Towse knighted, and to have him made a

burgess in the forthcoming Parliament. But Mr. Towse, finding that

the obstinate favourite was deaf to his advice, left him,

prognosticating that the Duke’s death would happen at a certain

time--which prognostic was fulfilled.

Mr. Towse then returned to Bishopsgate Without; and, there is much

reason to believe, laboured under mental malady; for the visits of

the apparition were now so frequent that he grew familiar with

him, “as if it had been a friend or acquaintance that had come to

visit him.” And from this very unpleasant guest Towse learned to

see in perspective many events that had not then dawned on

England; more especially the troubles of Prynne, who was Towse’s

father-in-law--which was contrary to all rule, as a ghost should

keep to one subject. On the day of Buckingham’s death, also, Mr.

Towse and his wife being at Windsor Castle, where Towse had an

office, they were sitting in company, when he started up,

exclaiming, “The Duke of Buckingham is slain!” At the very moment

that these words were uttered the blow had been given. Towse dying

soon after, also foretold his own death.

This narrative, thought worthy of insertion by Clarendon, and

therefore not to be completely disregarded in any biography of

Buckingham, is taken, however, from a letter penned at Boulogne, by

one Edmund Wyndham, in 1672, twenty years after the event.[117][118]

According to Lord Clarendon, Buckingham, after hearing Towse’s

revelation, was observed ever afterwards to be very melancholy. That

he had misgivings as to his return, we have seen; but there are few

men so insensible, at such a moment, as to be quite free from

presentiment of evil--more especially one on whom the eyes of the

country were directed in resentment, and regarding whom the Commons

was then preparing a Remonstrance.[119]

Footnote 117:

The letter from Edmund Wyndham, of Kattisford, county Somerset,

was addressed to Dr. Robert Plot, who wished to have the story

correctly stated, in order to correct the false representations of

William Lilly.

Footnote 118:

“Biographia Britannica,” Art. “Villiers,” _Note_.

Footnote 119:

See Appendix A.

Felton, meantime, was intent on pursuing his scheme. The frank and

kindly manner of the Duke towards his officers and soldiers at

Rhé, his personal courage, and his participation in the hardships

all had undergone in that expedition, had failed to propitiate the

assassin, who was, in fact, stimulated by the fiercest of all

incentives--political hatred, justified by the plea of religion.

He set off, therefore, to Portsmouth, and, partly on horseback,

and partly on foot, accomplished that journey; and perhaps the

desperate state of his fortunes added to his gloomy views and

reckless designs, into which one thought of self-preservation

never entered. At a few miles from Portsmouth he was seen

sharpening the fatal knife on a stone; he arrived at that city

with the determination that, should his scheme of assassination

fail for want of opportunity, he would enlist as a volunteer, in

order to accomplish it eventually.

There was, of course, considerable bustle in the town; and on

entering it, when the ghastly murderer stood unobserved amongst the

crowd, there was too numerous a train about the Duke for Felton to

reach him. Fearful of observation, he kept himself indoors one

morning after his arrival; but, on the ensuing day, repaired to the

house where Buckingham was staying. The Duke was at that time at

breakfast, and little attention was paid by a number of suitors and

applicants who were waiting for him in the antechamber, to the

diminutive being who was watching, with his dark purpose, among the

unconscious crowd. As there were several military men, amongst whom

was the Duc de Soubise, with Buckingham, as well as Sir Thomas

Fryer, much animation pervaded the conversation, in consequence of a

report having reached Portsmouth that La Rochelle had been relieved.

Soubise and his followers believed that this report was set on foot

by some agents of the French, in order to induce the English to

relax in their preparations, until the mole, which it was

Richelieu’s plan to form at the mouth of the harbour, should be

completed. He and the other foreigners spoke with vehemence, and in

tones which the English, who were listening, deemed to be those of

anger. The Duke, it appeared, was inclined to believe the report,

and the eagerness of Soubise was not, therefore, to be matter of

surprise, since his interests, and those of his adherents, were

irrevocably engaged in the approaching expedition. At length,

however, the conference ended; Soubise took his leave, and

Buckingham rose to quit the chamber where he had breakfasted.

It was, probably, with a pre-occupied mind that he thus prepared to

go out; and it is very possible that he scarcely observed a small

figure, which he may not even have recognized, which was lifting up,

as he passed on, the hangings between the room and the antechamber.

This was Felton. Buckingham, on his way, stopped an instant to speak

to Sir Thomas Fryer, one of his Colonels, who was a short man--so

that, in order to hear his reply, the Duke bent down his head

somewhat. Fryer then drew back, and, at that moment, Felton,

striking across the Colonel’s arm, stabbed Buckingham a little above

the heart. The knife was left in the body; the Duke, with a sudden

effort, drew it out, and exclaiming, “The villain has killed me,”

pursued the assassin out of the parlour into the hall or

antechamber, where he sank down, and, falling under a table, drew a

deep breath, and expired.

Then the utmost confusion ensued. The English, misled by what had

passed at breakfast, accused Soubise and his followers of the

murder; and they would have been instantly sacrificed to the fury of

the populace, had not some persons of cooler feelings interposed in

their behalf. No one had seen the murderer; he had come in

unnoticed, and had withdrawn in like manner. At this moment, a hat,

into which a paper was sewn, was found near the door; it was eagerly

examined, and some writing on the paper read with avidity, and these

words were deciphered:--

“That man is cowardly, base, and deserves neither the name of a

gentleman nor soldier, who will not sacrifice his life for the

honour of God, and safety of his prince and country. Let no man

commend me for doing it, but rather discommend themselves; for if

God had not taken away our hearts for our sins, he could not have

gone so long unpunished.

”JNO. FELTON."[120]

Footnote 120:

The original letter was in possession of the late Mr. Upcott, by

whom the author of this Memoir was presented with a fac-simile. It

is, however, given in all the histories of this period.

Whilst the bystanders were reading these words, the body of the Duke

had been conveyed to the inner apartment, from which he had issued,

having been first laid on the table of the antechamber, or hall; and

in this inner chamber it was left, without a single person, even a

domestic, to watch over his remains, or to give him that tribute of

sorrowing respect which is due to the poorest. And this singular

neglect has been regarded as a proof of indifference in those who,

but a few minutes previously, were crowding round the powerful

Minister and General. But it was, in fact, one of those accidents

which often bear a very different construction, when they are

considered relatively to the circumstances of the hour, to that

placed on them. Sir Henry Wotton, to whom the fact was mentioned by

one of the Duke’s friends, speaks of it as “beyond all wonder;” but

accounts for it by the horror which the murder had excited, added to

the astonishment at the sudden disappearance of the murderer, who

had glided from the terrible scene like an actor who has done his

part, and makes his exit. For a time, however, whilst high words

were heard between the Frenchmen and their accusers, whilst murmurs

from the street below, of the eager and infuriated crowd, were

changed into yells of vengeance, that cold corpse lay unheeded;

“thus, upon the withdrawing of the sun, does the shadow depart from

the painted dial.”[121] All were, indeed, in the house, occupied in

asking again and again the question, Where could the owner of the

hat be?--for he, doubtless, was the assassin. Whilst they were thus

talking, a man without a hat was seen walking with perfect composure

up and down before the door. “Here,” cried one of the crowd, “is the

man who killed the Duke,” upon which Felton calmly said, “I am he,

let no person suffer that is innocent.” Then the populace rushed

upon him with drawn swords, to which Felton offered no defence,

preferring rather to die at once, than to abide the issue of

justice. He was, however, rescued by others less violent--a

circumstance which was thought very fortunate for the popular party,

on whom a stigma might have rested had the murderer been killed; and

Felton being secured, was conveyed to a small sentry-box; he was

instantly loaded with heavy irons, which prevented his either

standing upright or lying down in that narrow prison, where he

remained sometime, whilst the mob were raging without in the

streets.[122]

Footnote 121:

Sir Philip Warwick’s Memoirs, p. 35.

Footnote 122:

See Brodie--Wotton--Hume.

The Duchess of Buckingham was in an upper room of that house in

which the husband whom she had “loved,” to use her own words, “as

never woman loved man,” was murdered. She had not, when it happened,

risen from her bed.[123]

Footnote 123:

Reliq. Wotton., p. 234.

The following very graphic account, written by a very devoted friend

of Buckingham, Sir Dudley Carleton, presents, in several details, a

somewhat different delineation of this scene of murder, to that

which has been related, collected from various sources, although, in

various instances, it is confirmatory of the statements usually

received.[124]

Footnote 124:

It shows in what manner the Duchess was informed of her husband’s

death.

"S^R--If y^e ill newes we have heard (doe not as their use is) out

flye these lres,[125] they will bring you y^e worst of y^e strangest

I think you ever received: sure I am, whatever passed my pen. Our

noble Duke in y^e midst of his army he had ready at Portsmouth as

well shipping as land forces, in y^e height of his favour with our

Gracious Master, who was herd by at this place and in the greatest

joy and alacrity I ever saw him in my life at y^e newes he had

received about of y^e clock in y^e morning on Saturday last of y^e

relief of Rochell, in that fort, that y^e place might well attend

his coming, wherewith he was hastening to y^e King, who that morning

had sent for him by me upon other occasions;--at his going out of a

lower parlour where he usually sat, and had then broken his fast in

presence of many standers by (Frenchmen with Monsieur de Soubise,

officers of his army and those of his own Trayns) was stabbed unto

y^e heart a little above y^e breast with a knife by one Felton, an

Englishman, being a Reformed Lieutenant, who hastening out of y^e

doore and y^e duke having pulled out y^e knife which was left in y^e

wound and following him out of y^e parlour into y^e hall, with his

hand putt to his sword, there fell down dead with much effusion of

bloud at his mouth and nostrils. The Lady Anglesea,[126] then

looking down into y^e hall out of an open Gallery, which crossed y^e

end of it, and being spectator of this tragical fight, went

immediately with a cry into y^e Duchesses Chamber, who was in bed,

and then fell down on y^e floor, so surprized y^e poor Duchesse with

this sad ... matin....[127] The murderer in y^e midst of y^e noise

and tumult, every man drawing his sword and no man knowing whom to

strike, nor from whom to defend himself, slipt out into y^e kitchen

and there stood with some others unespyed, when a voyce being

currant in the court to w^{ch} y^e window and doore of y^e kitchen

answered (a Frenchman, a Frenchman), and his guilty conscience

making him believe it was “Felton, Felton” (who being otherwise

unknown and undiscovered might well have escaped) he came out of y^e

kitchen with his sword drawn, and presenting himselfe, said, I am

the man: some offering to assayle him and one running at him with a

spit, he flung down his sword and rendered himselfe to y^e company,

who being ready to handle him as he deserved by tearing him in

pieces I took him from them, and having committed him to y^e custody

of some officers, when I had taken y^e best order I could for other

affairs in so great confusion, jointly with Secretary Cooke I

examined y^e man and found he had no particular offence against y^e

Duke, more than all others for want of some small entertayments were

owing him: but he grounded his practise upon y^e Parliament’s

Remonstrance as to make himselfe a Martyr for his Country, which he

confessed to have resolved to execute y^e Monday before, he being

then at London, and came from thence expressly by the Wednesday

morning, arriving at Portsmouth y^e very morning, not above half an

hour before he committed it. We could not then discover any

complices, neither did we take more than his free and willing

confession: but now His Majestie hath ordayned by Commission y^e

Lord Treassurer, Lord Steward, Earl of Dorset, Secretary Cooke and

myselfe to proceed with him as y^e nature of y^e fact requires, and

wee shall begin this afternoon: meane while I would not but give you

this relation to y^e end you may know y^e truth of this bloudy act,

which will flye about the world diversly reported to you, and you

should not find it strange such a blowe to be struck in y^e midst of

y^e Duke’s friends and followers: you must know y^e murderer took

his time and place at y^e presse near y^e issue of y^e room, and

many of us were stept out to our horses, as I my selfe was to go to

Court with the Duke. The murderer gloryed in his acte y^e first day;

but when I told him he was y^e first assassin of an Englishman, a

gentleman, a soldier, and a protestant, he shrunk at it, and is now

grown penitent. It seems this man and Ravillac were of no other

Religion (though he professeth other) than _assassanisme_; they have

the same maxims as you will see by two writings were found sowed in

his hat, wc^h goe herewith.

“From Lord Viscount Dorchester to” [not addressed.][128]

Footnote 125:

Letters.

Footnote 126:

Lady Anglesea, the sister-in-law of Buckingham’s mother, being the

wife of his brother, Christopher, Earl of Anglesea.

Footnote 127:

There is an hiatus here in the MS.

Footnote 128:

Domestic State Papers, August 27, 1628. No. 21.

In another letter, addressed to the King of Bohemia by Sir Charles

Morgan, it was also shown in what sanguine spirits the Duke was, and

how he was forming good resolutions, when he received the fatal blow

which cut him off from all hope of retrieving the errors he so

candidly confessed, or of completing the work of reformation, in

various departments, which he hoped to accomplish. Although we may

feel assured that the blow was suffered to fall for some purpose of

mercy, yet never did any sudden death seem more untimely.

The King was only about six miles from Portsmouth, whence he

intended doubtless to witness the departure of a friend whom he

never ceased to lament. He was at prayers when Sir John Hippesley

came suddenly into the Presence Chamber, where service was that day

performed, and whispered the news into his Majesty’s ear. Charles

did not permit a single feature of his face to express either

astonishment or distress; and, when a deep pause ensued, the

appalled chaplain thinking to spare his Majesty the distress of

remaining during the service, he calmly ordered him to proceed with

the prayers--and, until those were concluded, preserved the same

undisturbed demeanour. Some there were who argued, from this perfect

mastery over his feelings, that the King did not regret the death of

one who had rendered him so unpopular, and from whom he could not

unloose the bonds which early habit and youthful friendship had

drawn so closely as to convert them into shackles. But the deep

sorrow which Charles felt was shown in his affectionate care of

those whom his favourite loved; nor was it, as some supposed,

without a stern effort that he controlled his emotions whilst he

remained amid those assembled in prayer. No sooner was the service

over, than he suddenly departed to his chamber, and, throwing

himself on his bed, gave full vent to a passion of grief, and,

weeping long and bitterly, paid to the poor Duke the tribute of his

anguish,--lamenting not only the loss of an excellent friend and

servant, but “the terrible manner of the Duke’s death.” And he

continued for many days in the deepest melancholy.[129]

Footnote 129:

Clarendon.

Of course, in those days, this fearful event was said to have been

foretold, not only by a ghost, but in dreams, and by presentiments.

Sir James Bagg, one of the Duke’s most trusted servants, has left

the following proof of his belief in dreams:--

"RIGHT HONORABLE--Hand in hand came to my unfortunate hand yo

Expps.[130] and my noble friend Mr. Secretarie Cooke’s, and yo^r

Honors leynes could not be but welcome although they brought vnto

mee the sadd and heavy newes of that damnable act of that accursed

ffelton, wc^h hath so seated itself in my heart as it will hould

memorie there, of the untymilie losse of my deere and gracious Lord

to my unpacified sorrow untill my Death; for as I partook wt^h him

of his comforts living, I will have a share of his sorrowes after

him. Oh my Lord! his end was upon Satterdau morning. The daie of his

dissolving tould mee by a dreame, discribed in all. It wanted but

the damned name of Felton. But that fiende unworthy of it was

entituled by the name of Souldier. This Dreame tould my Wife and

dearest friends, did not a little trouble mee, but now the trueth

thereof torments me.

"Yo leynes my only comforte brought wt^h them his Mat[131] commands.

In all I doe obey them," &c., &c.

Footnote 130:

Expresses.

Footnote 131:

Majesty’s.

The letter is addressed thus from Sir James Bagg--“For his

Lordship,” and dated, “Augt. 28th, 1628.”[132]

Footnote 132:

Domestic State Papers, Aug. 1628, No. 26.

Amongst the Duke’s relations the Countess of Denbigh was most

beloved by him, and his affection was warmly returned. On the very

day of his death he wrote to her. Whilst she was penning her answer,

her paper was moistened with her tears, in a passion of grief so

poignant and so despairing, that she could only account for it by

believing those transports of sorrow to have been prophetic. She

wrote to him these words:--

“I will pray for your happy return, which I look to with a great

cloud over my head, too heavy for my poor heart to bear without

torment. But I hope the great God of Heaven will bless you.”[133]

Footnote 133:

Biog. Brit.

On the day after the Duke’s death, the Bishop of Ely, who was the

devoted friend of Lady Denbigh, being considered the fittest person

to break the intelligence to her, went to visit her, but hearing

that she was asleep, waited until she awoke, which she did in all

the perturbation produced by a terrible dream. Her brother, she

said, had seemed to pass with her through a field, when, hearing a

sudden shout from the people, she had asked what it meant, and was

told that it was for joy that the Duke of Buckingham was ill. She

was relating this dream to one of her gentlewomen when the Bishop

entered her chamber. The scene that followed may be easily

conceived. Whatever were the ill-starred Duke’s failings, he died

beloved by those most dear to him.

His sister’s apprehensions were, indeed, perfectly justifiable, and

they might well intrude into those hours of silence in which

thoughts of the absent or unhappy most frequently trouble our minds.

Had the Duke again been saved from the chances of war, what might

have been his fate at home in case of his return unsuccessful?

Already had he hardly escaped from the indignation of the people:

even then, in the remote county of Carmarthen, they were raising

reports that the King had been poisoned by the Duke--reports that

had been believed by the simple inhabitants of Wales. The fury of

party had much to answer for in the excitement of bad passions, the

end and mischief of which can never be foreseen.

The greatest obscurity hung over the motives which prompted the act,

unless it be explained by the practical aberration of a mind which,

still bearing the outward semblance of reason, has evil thoughts,

fostered by strong passions. The connections of Felton were not only

poor--his mother appears to have been illiterate. To them, probably,

his designs were never imparted, although they lived in the

metropolis; yet it is evident, from several circumstances, that they

knew of his animosity to the Duke, and were, to a certain

extent--without any complicity--prepared to hear of some fearful act

on the part of their unhappy relative.

Whilst the Duke’s family were overwhelmed with anguish, another

humble mourner almost sank under the blow. This was Elianore Felton,

the mother of the assassin. She was a native of Durham, of which

city her father had once been mayor, but she was then residing in

London. On the 24th of August, in the church in St. Dunstan’s, in

the Strand, an aged woman and her daughter attended afternoon

service. These poor women were Elianore Felton and Elizabeth Hone,

the mother and sister of Felton.

During the singing of the psalms, whilst the congregation were

standing up, some disturbance took place in the church. Elianore

Felton, turning to a gentleman near her, inquired what was the

cause? She was told that the Duke of Buckingham was killed; upon

which, although the name of the assassin was not then mentioned to

her, the unhappy woman fainted.

It is probable that, knowing her son’s sentiments towards the Duke,

and being aware of Felton’s fanatical opinions and moody temper, a

panic, causing that sudden fainting, seized her. Her daughter, also,

as the poor mother confessed in her subsequent examination, swooned

also. These facts are very remarkable, and seem to show that she and

her mother were aware of Felton’s intentions. No further information

was gathered from these gentlewomen by those around them, until, in

about half-an-hour, upon the church becoming fuller, there ran

another whisper through it, purporting that a certain Lieutenant

Felton, or Fenton, had killed the Duke. Then, as Elizabeth Hone

confessed, she did much weep and lament, supposing that it was her

brother that had done the deed. She had, however, the presence of

mind to conduct her mother home, before she told her that it was her

son who had committed murder, and plunged the nation into

consternation, and his family into ruin.

No proof whatsoever of any conspiracy was to be elucidated from the

unfortunate relations of the culprit. Debt and disappointment had,

according to their evidence, driven Felton to desperation. How many

of the evil accidents of life issue, as far as one can see, humanly

speaking, from pecuniary mismanagement. Felton, on the Wednesday

before the Duke was killed, had gone to his mother’s lodging, and

told her of his intention to get the money due to him for pay from

the Duke; adding, that “he was too deeply in debt to stay longer in

town.” Eighty pounds, it appeared, was then owing to him. This, and

the loss of his Captaincy, were all that he had alleged to his own

family against the Duke; he owned to no other grievance. The mother

and sister, and brothers, were, however, committed to prison,

although Edmund Felton, the brother of the delinquent, affirmed that

he had not seen him for ten weeks previously to the murder; that

John Felton had been estranged from him, and did not let him know

where he lodged. There was no attempt in the examination, which took

place before Thomas Richardson and Henry Finch, to screen the

culprit by a plea of insanity; all his brother said was, that his

disposition was “melancholie, sad, and heavy, and of few

words.”[134] Alone had he conceived, planned, and put into execution

the deed of guilt; yet such was the hard disposition of the times,

that it was proposed to extract a confession from John Felton by

torture; but Charles interposed, and forbade the application of that

horrible test,[135] and it was never again attempted in this

country.

Footnote 134:

Domestic State Papers, August, 1628, No. 31.

Footnote 135:

Brodie.

The nation was paralyzed by the death of the Minister, Admiral, and

General. “During Buckingham’s presence at Court,” as Mr. Bruce, in

the preface to the “Calendar of State Papers,” remarks, “he reigned

there as the King’s absolute and single Minister. Every act of the

Government passed by or through his will. The King was little seen

or heard of on State affairs. He seldom ever attended a sitting of

the Privy Council, except to carry out some object of his

favourite.” The void, the loss, may easily be conceived, after the

death of the Duke. Charles, however, not only entered warmly into

public affairs, but into the care and concerns of those children

whom his friend had solemnly bequeathed to his charge.

His first office, however, was to honour the remains of one so

suddenly cut off, whilst in the prime of life. The process of

embalming was then deemed indispensable; the Duke’s body, therefore,

was submitted to that, happily, now disused operation; his bowels

were interred at Portsmouth, where Lady Denbigh erected over them a

memorial. Thus the place of his death was marked.

The corpse was then conveyed to York House, where all that could be

viewed of that once noble form was exhibited underneath a hearse.

Eventually it was entombed under a splendid monument in Westminster

Abbey, on the north side of Henry VII.’s Chapel; and his Duchess,

notwithstanding her second marriage, and his two sons, were buried

in the vault beneath the tomb with their father.

The Duchess of Buckingham was near her confinement when this tragedy

occurred. When Charles first visited the young widow, he promised

her that he would be a “husband to her, and a father to her

children.” One son alone was living at the time of the Duke’s

decease. This was George, the second Duke of Buckingham of the house

of Villiers. The character of this young nobleman, to whom Horace

Walpole imputed “the figure and genius of Alcibiades,” has been

“drawn by four masterly hands. Burnet has hewn it out with his rough

chisel. Count Hamilton touched it with slight delicacy, that

finishes while it seems to sketch. Dryden catched the living

likeness. Pope completed the historical resemblance.” Lastly, Sir

Walter Scott, in our time, has depicted this singular being with

admirable skill, if not with perfect fidelity. He was scarcely a

year and seven months old at his father’s death.

One daughter, Lady Mary Villiers, survived the Duke. In the third

year of the reign of Charles I., Buckingham having then no male

heir, caused a patent to be made, limiting to her the title of

Duchess of Buckingham, in default of male issue, his infant eldest

son, Charles, having died in 1626, and George not being then born.

Lady Mary’s life, so happy, seemingly, in her infancy, when, as

“little Moll,” she was King James’s plaything, was not, in one

respect, felicitous. Her first marriage, to Charles Lord Herbert,

son and heir of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, was hastened, and

performed privately in the chapel at Whitehall, because the young

bride had formed an attachment to Philip Herbert, a younger son, who

“did more apply himself to her,” as she stated, than the elder

suitor.

But her mother chided her out of this fancy, and the wedding took

place--the bridegroom dying of small-pox a few weeks afterwards.

Lady Mary married, secondly, James, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, by

whom she had a son, Esme Stuart, who died in infancy; and thirdly,

Thomas Howard, brother of the Earl of Carlisle. She left no

children, so that her father’s desire to perpetuate in her his title

was not realized. If we may believe the praise of an epitaph which

was undisguisedly paid for, we must suppose Lady Mary to have been

endowed with all the virtues.[136]

Footnote 136:

EPITAPH ON THE LADY MARY VILLIERS.

“The Lady Mary Villiers lies

Under this stone: with weeping eyes

The parents that first gave her breath

And their sad friends laid her in earth.

If any of them, reader, were

Known unto thee, shed a tear;

Or if thyself possess a gem,

As dear to thee as this to them,

Though a stranger to this place,

Bewail in theirs thine own hard case:

For thou perhaps at thy return

May’st find thy darling in an urn.”

ANOTHER.

“The purest soul that e’er was sent

Into a clayey tenement

Informed this dust; but the weak mould

Could the great guest no longer hold:

The substance was too pure--the flame

Too glorious that thither came:

Ten thousand Cupids brought along

A grace on each wing that did throng

For place there--till they all opprest

The seat on which they sought to rest.

So the fair model broke for want

Of room to lodge th’ inhabitant.

When in the brazen leaves of Fame

The life, the death of Buckingham

Shall be recorded, if truth’s hand

Incise the story o’er our land,

Posterity shall see a fair

Structure by the studious care

Of two kings raised, that no less

Their wisdom than their power express;

By blinded zeal (whose doubtful light

Made murder’s scarlet robe seem white--

Whose vain deluding phantoms charmed

A clouded sullen soul, and arm’d

A desperate hand, thirsty of blood)

Torn from the fair earth where it stood!

So the majestic fabric fell.

His actions let our annals tell;

We write no chronicle; this pile

Wears only sorrow’s face and style;

Which e’en the envy that did wait

Upon his flourishing estate,

Turned to soft pity of his death,

Now pays his hearse; but that cheap breath

Shall not blow here, nor th’ impure brine

Puddle the streams that bathe this shrine.

These are the pious obsequies

Dropped from his chaste wife’s pregnant eyes,

In frequent showers, and were alone

By her congealing sighs made stone,

On which the carver did bestow

These forms and characters of woe:

So he the fashion only lent,

Whilst she wept all this monument.”

Some months after the Duke’s death, his widow gave birth to a son,

named Francis after his grandfather, who provided for him in a

fortune of 1,000_l._ a-year. When he grew up, however, Francis

shared with his brother the misfortune that overshadowed the family,

from the unexpected second marriage of their mother to Randolph

Macdonald, first Earl and afterwards Marquis of Antrim. It is

painful to find the widowed Duchess separated from her children,

having become a Roman Catholic; and having incurred in this, and on

account of the conduct of her husband in Ireland, under Sir Thomas

Wentworth, the King’s displeasure. Charles so greatly disapproved of

her marriage, that he refused, for several years, to see her, and,

when reconciled, took away her children lest they should be imbued

with her religious opinions. The young Duke and his brother Francis

were educated, unhappily for themselves, with the Princes, Charles

II. and his brothers; and Lady Mary was received in the house of the

Earl of Pembroke, her father-in-law. Such are the changes and

chances of life, that in 1639 we find Katharine, (still signing

herself “Katharine Buckingham”) interceding with Strafford for her

husband, Lord Antrim. “Any misfortune,” she writes, “to my lord must

be mine.”[137]

Footnote 137:

"My Lord,--I was in hope, till very lately, that all your

displeasure taken against my lord had been past; but, in letters

sent me out of England, I was assuredly informed your lordship was

much disgusted still with him, which news hath very much troubled

me. I cannot be satisfied without sending these expressly to you.

And I beseech you that, whatever you do conceive, you will deal

clearly with me, and let me know it, and withal direct me how I

may remove it. I must necessarily be included in your lordship’s

anger to him, for any misfortune to my lord must be mine, and it

will prove a great misfortune to me to live under your frowns. Out

of your goodness you will not, I hope, make me a sufferer, who

have never deserved from you but as

“Your Lordship’s

“KATHARINE BUCKINGHAM.

“Dunbere, this 2nd of September, 1639.”[138]

Footnote 138:

Strafford Letters, vol. ii., p. 386.

For him she had sacrificed indeed the favour of the King, and the

guardianship of her children.

In 1648, Lord Francis, who, with his brother, had taken the field

against the Parliament, was killed, at about two miles distance from

Kingston-on-Thames: standing with his back planted against an

oak-tree on the road-side; and, scorning to ask quarter, he met his

death gallantly, having nine wounds on his face and body. He is said

to have been a most beautiful youth, and was only nineteen when he

thus fell. His body was brought by water to York House, then sad and

desolate, and was taken thence to be deposited in his father’s

vault, with a Latin inscription on the coffin, preserved by Brian

Fairfax, a faithful adherent, who thought it a pity that the epitaph

should be buried with him; and who has therefore given it in his

life of George, the second Duke of Buckingham. The elder brother of

Lord Francis, after a life of extraordinary adventure, vicissitude,

study, and dissipation, died, in 1688, quietly in his bed--“the fate

of few of his predecessors of the title of Buckingham.” His body

also lies entombed near his father. “The life of pleasure and the

soul of whim,” as Pope describes him, his career furnishes a wide

field for reflection and investigation, to those who may dare to

dive into a biography so characterized by all the worst parts of the

age in which he existed, as that of this profligate man.

Mary, Countess of Buckingham, survived the Duke, her son, four

years--when, with her life, her dignity expired.

John Villiers, Lord Purbeck, died in 1657, when the titles which

he bore became extinct. He lived, however, to recover his powers

of mind, and to act as a friend and guardian to his nephews. Lady

Purbeck, his first wife, took the name of Wright, and her son, by

Lord Howard, bore that surname. The once flattered heiress, whose

follies and misconduct were forgiven, as we have seen, by her

father, died in 1645, in the King’s Garrison, at Oxford, and she

is buried in the Church of St. Mary’s, in that city.[139]

Notwithstanding the misery of his first union, Lord Purbeck

married again; but had no issue by his second wife, who was a

daughter of Sir William Thugsby, of Kippen, in Yorkshire.

Footnote 139:

Burke’s Extinct Peerage.

Robert Wright, the illegitimate son of Lady Purbeck, took his wife’s

name of Danvers, in order to abandon that of Villiers, so

distasteful to the Commonwealth, with which he sided.

His descendants, nevertheless, laid claim to the honours of the

first Lord Purbeck--and, although their claim was refused by

Parliament, assumed them, until, in 1774, the death of the last

pretender to the title, George Villiers, died without issue.

Christopher Villiers, the youngest brother of the Duke, pre-deceased

him, dying in 1624. His title became extinct in 1659.

Sir William Villiers, the eldest half-brother of the Duke, had never

emerged from his original obscurity; but Sir Edward, his other

half-brother, whom Buckingham constituted President of Munster, was

highly esteemed for his justice and hospitality, and lamented by the

whole province.[140] From him, through his son, who had succeeded

his maternal uncle in the title of Viscount Grandison, was descended

the famous (or infamous) Barbara Villiers, afterwards Duchess of

Cleveland, the mistress of Charles II. Her beauty appears to have

been one of the few traits of the Villiers family that she

possessed.

Footnote 140:

"In the Earl of Cork’s chapel at Youghal, where he was buried,

there still remains the following hexastich to his memory:--

“Munster may curse the time that Villiers came

To make us worse, by leaving such a name

Of noble parts as none can imitate,

But those whose hearts are married to the State;

But if they press to imitate his fame,

Munster may bless the time that Villiers came.”

_Biographia Britannica_, vol. vi.

It is remarkable that not one of the titles conferred on the family

of Villiers by James I. remains to distinguish the descendants of

old Sir George of Brookesby. The Earldoms of Clarendon and of Jersey

are subsequent creations.[141]

Footnote 141:

Burke’s Extinct Peerage.

The Duchess of Buckingham, as she still styled herself, appears to

have lived occasionally at Newhall, for after her daughter’s

marriage she was very desirous of having her with her--but the King

would not hear of it; and the soundness of his judgment was proved

by the conduct of the Duchess. Her life was henceforth occupied in

bringing over converts to the faith she professed; amongst others

she succeeded in making a proselyte of the Countess of Newburgh.

After the death of her father, in 1632, she inherited the title of

Baroness de Ros. It is remarkable that even in her person the

honours her first husband had procured for his family did not abide.

She, indeed, by courtesy, bore still his title, but was actually

Marchioness of Antrim and Baroness de Ros. So extraordinary an

acquisition of honours, and so rapid an extinction, are not known in

any other family of England, but are peculiar to the House of

Villiers.

Few things disappoint the reader more than the unaccountable change

in the character of Katharine, Duchess of Buckingham, after she

ceased, except by courtesy, to bear that name. She seems to have

hastened, not only to plunge into a second marriage, but to have at

last avowed, what she had during the whole of her life denied, the

tenets of the Church of Rome. Henceforth she was opposed to the

monarch by whom her husband, the Duke, had been overwhelmed with

benefits. This painful alteration in one so gentle, so forgiving, so

affectionate in her earlier life, is one of those anomalies in life

that one cannot cease to regret, without being able to explain.

CHAPTER IV.

CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM--HIS PATRONAGE OF ART--HIS

COLLECTION--THE SPANISH COURT DESCRIBED--COLLECTION BY CHARLES

I.--FATE OF THESE PICTURES.

CHAPTER IV.

Whatever may have been the failings of the Duke of Buckingham as a

husband, he marked his confidence in his wife by his will. That last

act of his life gave the Duchess power over all his personal

property, as well as a life possession of all his mansion-houses,

with a fourth of his lands in jointure. That his debts were

considerable, has been amply shewn during the course of the

preceding narrative. Previous to his expedition to Rhé, he had

wisely put his revenues into the hands of commissioners, and placed

it out of his own power to manage or mismanage his own affairs. His

occupations, as a courtier, as a minister, as an ambassador, and,

lastly, as a general, sufficiently excuse his want of leisure for

the control of his expenses, and the system of retrenchment

requisite to relieve him from harassing liabilities.

He left, however, an immense amount of capital locked up in

pictures; and that famous collection which places him, as Dr. Waagen

affirms, in the third rank as “a collector of paintings in this

country,” came into the possession of his son. It was chiefly

deposited in York House--that stately structure, so complete and so

princely, that in 1663, when it had become the residence of the

Russian embassy, Pepys was still amazed at its splendour, although

thirty-five eventful years had shaken many a grand fabric to its

fall. “That,” he says, “which did please me best, was the remains of

the noble soul of the late Duke of Buckingham appearing in his

house, in every place, in the door-cases, and the windows.”

It was in the Court of Madrid that Buckingham had learned to love

art, to favour artists, and to become a judge of their works. Philip

IV., of Spain, inert and inefficient as a monarch, and governed by

Olivares, was a man of considerable intellectual powers, and of

great taste. “The denizens of his palace breathed,” as a modern

writer expressed it, “an atmosphere of letters.”[142] At that time

the Castilian stage was in its perfection; the scenery was

inimitable, and the greatest expense was bestowed in representing

the pieces of Lope de Vega, and of Calderon; in the same manner as

the masques of Ben Jonson were aided in effect by the talents of

Inigo Jones. Nor was Philip IV. a mere patron of genius; he was

himself an actor and author, writing with purity and elegance: a

musician, a poet, or, as he delighted to style himself, _Ingenio de

esto corte_. He wrote a tragedy on the death of Essex, Elizabeth’s

favourite; and he often acted with other literary men of his Court,

delighting to vie with them in the display of fancy and humour in

the _Comedias de repente_, representations resembling those of

charades in the present day, in which a certain plot was worked out,

with extempore speeches.

Footnote 142:

Dr. Waagen--Life of Velasquez, p. 48.

Several of this monarch’s drawings, both of figures and landscapes,

long remained as proofs of that skill which had distinguished both

his fathers and grandfathers. He was an incomparable judge of

painting; for at Valencia he delighted the citizens: on being shewn

the great silver altar of the cathedral, he remarked promptly, that

"the altar was of silver, but the doors were gold"--alluding to the

pictures painted by Aregio and Neapoli, which adorned the doors.

It may easily be imagined how the example of this young Prince, only

in his nineteenth year when Buckingham visited Spain, must have

awakened in him, as in Charles, a new sense; fresh conceptions of

the beautiful, cravings hitherto unfelt, an honourable emulation.

And the example of Philip had its effect on both: the reception

given to Rubens, who, as an artist, was treated with far greater

distinction than he would have been as a mere diplomatist, in which

capacity he came; the efforts of Philip to form an academy of fine

arts; the honours bestowed on Velasquez; and the enthusiasm which he

shewed in the collection of fine pictures for the galleries, which

he so wonderfully enriched, must have proved to Charles and

Buckingham how far behind was their own country in taste and

liberality. They saw that the gold of Mexico and Peru was freely

given for the treasures of art, whilst royalty at home was lavish

only on pageants, horse-racing, hunting, and feasting. They saw the

elevating effects of art and letters, and staid not in Spain long

enough to witness the results of that life-long mistake made by

Philip IV., in resigning the reins of government to the hands of a

minister who lost for his sovereign great possessions, far exceeding

those that many conquerors have acquired.

These refined tastes, which shone forth in Philip, were participated

by his young and beautiful queen, Isabella of Bourbon, his first

wife, and the sister of Henrietta Maria. She was the loveliest

subject of the pencil of Velasquez. At Broom-Hall, in Fifeshire,

there is a picture by him representing the exchange of this

Princess, when a girl, with Anne of Austria, the sister of Philip

IV.

Isabella was destined to be the bride of Philip, then Prince of the

Asturias--Anne to become the wife of Louis XIII. of France.

This production of Velasquez was only one of many portraits of this

lovely princess; for she was by all acknowledged to be the very star

of the Court. She shared the taste of her husband, whilst his young

brothers, both early instructed in drawing, warmly joined in the

King’s pursuits, not only in the arts, but in literature. The elder,

Don Carlos, beloved, as has been stated, by the Spaniards for his

dark complexion, was supposed to have excited the jealousy of

Olivares by his talents--he died in 1626: the second, the

Boy-Cardinal, who assumed the Roman purple and the mitre of an

archbishop, was the able pupil in painting of Vincencio Carducho,

and became the most intellectual of the Spanish Princes that had

appeared since Charles V. He set the fashion of those half-dramatic,

half-musical pieces, which were called in Spain, _Zarzuelas_.[143]

The boy--whom we have seen joining heart and soul, in his purple

robe, and beneath his mitre, in court revels, given in honour of

Charles I., was, at that very time, a student in philosophy and

mathematics; and when at the age of twenty-two he was sent to govern

Flanders, and henceforth to spend the brief span of life allotted to

him in camps and councils--was still, to the last, the patron of

Velasquez and Rubens.[144]

Footnote 143:

From the name of his country-seat.

Footnote 144:

The infant Cardinal, the conqueror of Nordlingen, died in 1641.

Olivares the Magnificent, as he was often called, cultivated the

fine arts as a means of diverting the young monarch from his own

abuse of power, and the consequent discontents which marked his

administration. He possessed the most magnificent library in Europe,

abounding in rare manuscripts, and, domesticated in this house as

chaplain, Lope de Vega passed his old age. Quevedo, Pachecho, and

many others, owed much to the patronage of Olivares--a protection

which they paid back in compliments, and, like Lord Halifax, he was

“fed with dedications.” Olivares was one of the first sitters to

Velasquez; he was the patron of Murillo, and, in the downfall of

this minister, these two painters did not desert their early friend,

but alone clung to him in his misfortunes.

The King, his Queen, the two royal brothers, and Olivares, had all a

passion for having portraits taken of themselves. Philip was born

for a sitter. His face, as Dr. Waagen remarks, “is better known than

his history.” His pale Flemish complexion, Austrian features, and

fair hair have been many times depicted by Rubens and Velasquez. He

was sometimes painted on his Andalusian courser, sometimes in black

velvet, as he was going to the council--even at his prayers. There

was an hereditary gift of silence and composure in his race: in

Philip the attribute was so signal, that he could witness a whole

comedy without stirring hand or foot, and conduct an audience

without a muscle moving, except those in his lips and tongue.[145]

Even after slaying the bull of Xarama, famed for strength and

fierceness, not for a moment did he change countenance. To this

incomparable staidness and dignity was added the advantage of a tall

figure, which Philip knew well how to set off by a perfect mastery

in combination of colours. Black he mixed almost uniformly with

white, and gold and silver. This stately monarch was never known to

smile more than three times in his life--that is, publicly, for in

private he was ever “full of merry discourses.”

Footnote 145:

Waagen, p. 62. From "Voyage en Espagne"--Cologne, 1662.

Thus, taste, letters in every branch, the noblest works of

architecture and sculpture, were the themes of a court where those

who had left behind them the pedantry and vulgarity of King James

arrived in the vigour of youth and intellect. Velasquez was painting

a portrait of the King, and one also of the Infant, Don Fernando,

when Charles and Buckingham arrived at Madrid, and interrupted, by

their presence and the ceremonials of their reception, the

completion of these pictures. The astonished Prince and his

favourite found themselves transformed into a region hitherto

scarcely dreamed of, yet which they were, by natural refinement of

taste, well calculated to enter. They had left King James hunting in

a ruff and bombasted garments; that King hated novelties. “It was as

well,” Horace Walpole remarks, “that he had no disposition to the

arts, but let them take their own course, for he might have

introduced as bad a taste into them as he did into literature.”

Walpole attributes, likewise, the absence of pictures in the houses

of the English nobility at this period to the great size and height

of the rooms which they erected in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries, when vastness seems to have constituted the idea of

grandeur. Pictures would have been lost in rooms of such height,

which were better calculated for tapestry; and he offers, as an

instance, Hardwicke--which was furnished for the reception and

imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots--and Audley-End, as proofs of

the prodigious space covered by a modern gentleman’s house in the

days of James I., and observes how impossible it would have been to

place pictures in such structures.

One may readily conceive, therefore, the enchantment that was felt

in visiting the Escurial, the palace of Buen-retiro, and the noble

churches and famous convents of Madrid. Charles and Buckingham

beheld that capital in the height of its splendour, and witnessed

its most brilliant displays; they attended the grand, picturesque

services and processions; they became acquainted with the works of

Titian, of Velasquez, and Carducho. That Charles cherished the

remembrance of the scenes in which he had once played so romantic a

part, is evident from his employing a young painter, Miquel de la

Cruz, even when England was threatened with the great Rebellion, to

paint for him copies of a number of pictures from those in the

Alcazar of Madrid.[146] The painter was cut off by an early death,

and the project was never carried out.

Footnote 146:

Waagen; Life of Velasquez, p. 82.

After visiting the halls of the Escurial and of the Pardo, Charles

resolved to form a gallery of art at Whitehall; and Buckingham, at

the same time, determined to decorate York House with Spanish

paintings. The nucleus of the gallery of art at Whitehall was bought

from the collection of the Conde de Villame. Charles, also,

endeavoured to purchase a small picture, on copper, of Correggio’s,

from Don Andres Velasquez, for a thousand crowns, but was

unsuccessful; he failed, also, in obtaining the valuable volumes of

Da Vinci’s drawings, which Don Juan de Espina refused to sell,

saying that he intended to bequeath these treasures of art to his

master, the King. The nobles in the Spanish Court were in the habit

of gratifying their young sovereign with presents of pictures and

statues; and a similar attention was paid both to the Duke of

Buckingham and to Charles. Philip gave the Prince the famous

“Antiope,” by Titian; as well as “Diana Bathing,” "Europa," and

“Danaë,” by the same master. Buckingham had several presents of

value given him; but though they were packed up, these paintings

were left behind, in the hurry of departure, and were never

forwarded to England.

A great portion of the large sums spent by Buckingham in Spain was

expended in forming that famous collection which fell, unhappily,

into the hands of his son. It would appear that James I. somewhat

curtailed Charles’s expenditure on this head; for we find, by an

entry in the State Paper Office, that Buckingham lent the Prince

twelve thousand pounds during their sojourn in Spain. Nevertheless,

no specimen of Spanish art was ever conveyed to England by

Charles.[147] A sketch was, indeed, begun of the Prince, by

Velasquez, but it is doubtful if it were ever completed. Pachecho,

the father-in-law of Velasquez, states that Charles was so delighted

with this portrait in its unfinished state, that he presented the

great painter with a hundred thousand crowns.[148] One may readily

account for its never being completed, because Velasquez, when

Charles and Buckingham left Madrid, could scarcely have finished the

portraits and other pictures on which he was engaged by Philip IV.

Footnote 147:

State Papers: Calendar, by Mr. Bruce.

Footnote 148:

Waagen.

In 1847, a picture belonging to Mr. Saare, of Reading, and supposed

to have been a relic of the gallery of Whitehall, was exhibited in

London as this lost portrait by Velasquez. It portrays Prince

Charles in a more robust form, and with a greater breadth of

countenance than any other known resemblance; and was stated to have

been painted in 1623, and to have been mentioned in a privately

printed catalogue of the gallery of the Earl of Fife, who died in

1809, in which it was stated that it had once belonged to the Duke

of Buckingham. Unfortunately, the surname of the Duke of Buckingham

was not specified; and since the title has been owned, so late as

1735, by the Sheffield family, the evidence was incomplete. A very

curious controversy ensued, but facts remain much in the same state

as before; and the authenticity of the portrait has been strongly

disputed, if not denied, by Dr. Waagen, and others. It is singular

that there was no work of Velasquez among the pictures left by

Buckingham.

Whilst the great enlargement of ideas and improvement in taste,

resulting from the journey into Spain, is acknowledged, it must be

remembered that Charles and his favourite went, prepared in

knowledge, and in an honourable emulation, to profit by all they

might behold and hear. In painting, Perichief tells us, Charles “had

so excellent a fancy, that he would supply the defect of art in the

workman, and suddenly draw those lines, give those airs and lights,

which experience and practice had taught the painters.” In every

point he met the accomplished Philip IV. on equal grounds; in some

he exceeded him. A good antiquary, a judge of medals, a capital

mechanist--cognizant of the art of printing--there existed not a

gentleman of the three kingdoms that could compete with him in

universality of knowledge.[149] He was as ready for war as for

peace; could put a watch together, yet comprehend a fortification;

understood guns, and the art of ship-building; but the dearest

occupation of his leisure was the collection of sculptures and

paintings.

Footnote 149:

Perichief.

The Crown was already in possession of some good pictures, when

Charles commenced his undertaking. Prince Henry had begun the work,

and the nobility, perceiving the King’s love of art, imitated the

Spanish nobles, and sent him presents of great value. But the great

act of Charles’s life as a connoisseur, was the purchase of the

collection of the Duke of Mantua, which was considered to be the

richest in Europe.[150]

Footnote 150:

Walpole, p. 183, vol. v.

Philip IV. constantly employed his ambassadors and viceroys to buy

up fine pictures for his gallery; and Charles and Buckingham

likewise, on their return, adopted a similar plan on a smaller

scale, by instructing Sir Henry Wotton and Balthazar Gerbier to

negociate for them in works of art. It is obvious how much the royal

collection at Whitehall must have been prized; since, upon its being

sold during the Protectorate, the principal purchaser was Don Alonzo

de Cardenas, the agent of the Spanish King, and his purchases

required eighteen mules to carry them from the coast to Madrid,

whence Lord Clarendon, ambassador of the exiled Charles II. was

dismissed, that he might not see the treasures of his unfortunate

master thus brought into a far and foreign country.[151]

Footnote 151:

Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion.

The collection of the Duke of Mantua cost Charles eighty thousand

pounds--Buckingham being the agent, and probably the instigator of

this purchase. The family of Gonzaga had been, in 1627, a hundred

years in forming this noble gallery. Little inferior to the Medici

in their liberality to artists, they were the patrons of Andrew

Mantegna, of Guido Romano, of Raphael, of Correggio, and of Titian,

successively. The “Education of Cupid,” by Correggio, was among King

Charles’s purchases, as well as the “Entombment,” now in the

Louvre,and the “Twelve Cæsars” by Titian. Rubens purchased for him

the Cartoons of Raphael, which had been sent by Leo X. to Flanders,

to be worked in tapestry, and left there. Then Charles received

various presents; that especially commonly styled the “Venus del

Pardo,” or more properly “Jupiter and Antiope;” the figures being

set off by one of the grandest landscapes by Titian, known. This gem

was given by Charles to the Duke of Buckingham.[152] It is now in

the Louvre, as is also the “Baptist,” by Leonardo da Vinci, a

present originally from Louis XIII. to Charles.[153]

Footnote 152:

Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painters; Art. “Charles I.”

Footnote 153:

In the work styled “Art and Artists,” by Dr. Waagen, there is a

full and most interesting account of all Charles’s collection.

It was during the residence of Buckingham in Paris that he became

acquainted with Rubens. Eventually he bought the whole of the

collection of statues, paintings, and other valuable works of art,

which that master had formed at a cost of about a thousand pounds,

and which he sold to the Duke for ten thousand. But it was not often

that Buckingham increased his stores so easily; so early as the year

1613, he had in his household Balthazar Gerbier d’Ouvilly, of

Antwerp, a sort of amanuensis, or, as Sanderson styles him, a

“common penman,” whose transcribing the decalogue for the Dutch

Church was one of his first steps to preferment. Gerbier became a

miniature painter, and in that ostensible capacity went into Spain

with the Duke; he painted, amongst other portraits of the family, a

fine oval miniature of his patron on horseback, which, in Walpole’s

time, belonged to the Duchess of Northumberland; the figure, dressed

in scarlet and gold, is finished with great care--and the horse,

dark grey, with a white mane, is very animated; underneath the horse

is a landscape with figures, and over the Duke’s head is suspended

his motto, “_Fidei curricula crux_.” It was in allusion to the

well-known talents of Gerbier that the Duchess of Buckingham wrote

to the Duke, when in Spain, begging him, “if he had leisure to sit

to Gerbier for his portrait, that she might have it well done in

little.”

Gerbier seems at that time to have been a special favourite with the

King and Queen, who supped once at his house--the entertainment, it

is said, costing the painter a thousand pounds.[154] Gerbier, like

Rubens, was employed in delicate diplomatic missions; he was also an

architect and an author, and the founder of an Academy for foreign

languages, and “for all noble sciences and exercises,” as he

expressed it. As a diplomatist, Gerbier negociated in Flanders a

private treaty with Spain:--as an architect, his fame rested, in the

reign of Charles, chiefly on a large room built near the Water Gate,

at York Stairs, in the Strand, which was commended by Charles I.

almost as much as the Banqueting House. Encouraged by this encomium,

Gerbier wrote a small work on magnificent buildings, proposing to

level Fleet Street and Cheapside, and to erect a fine gate at Temple

Bar; a plan of which was presented to Charles II., in whose reign

Gerbier died. He was the rival, or believed himself to be so, of

Inigo Jones. Hempstead-Marshal, the seat of Lord Craven, long since

burned down, was Gerbier’s last effort: he died before it was

completed, and was buried in the chancel of the church at that

place.

Footnote 154:

Note in Walpole, p. 189, vol. iii.

His literary works seem to have been very singular compounds of

falsehood, invective, and flattery. Horace Walpole believes him to

have been the author of a tract printed by authority, in 1651, three

years after the execution of Charles I., entitled “The Nonsuch

Charles, his character,” and considers it one of the basest libels

ever published. “The style, the folly, the wretched reasoning, are,”

he observes, “consistent with Gerbier’s usual works; he must, at all

events,” he decides, “have furnished materials.” Nevertheless, two

years afterwards, Gerbier published a piece styled “Les Effets

Pernicieux,” written in French, and to this he affixed his name; it

was printed at the “Stag,” and composed apparently as a

precautionary palliative to the other work, in case of the

restoration of the Stuarts; and the notion seems to have succeeded,

since Gerbier returned to England with Charles II., and the

triumphal arches, erected on the Restoration, were designed by this

singularly versatile man.[155] He had, however, the merit, as we

have seen, of endeavouring to form an Academy, somewhat on the plan

of the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street. Sir Francis Keynaston

at that time resided in Covent Garden, and at his house the Academy

was held. None but gentlemen were admitted. Arts were taught by

professors, in lectures, Gerbier being one of the lecturers. The

academy was afterwards removed to Whitefriars; then to Bethnal

Green, whence he dedicated one of his lectures on Military

Architecture to General Skippon, whom he loaded with the most

fulsome, and from one who had, like himself, been overwhelmed by

kindnesses from Charles I.--the most treacherous flattery.

Footnote 155:

Walpole, p. 192.

It is unsatisfactory to refer to any statement of Gerbier’s as

reliable; in a work on “Royal Favourites,” written in French, he

stated that Dr. Egglisham had applied to him, through Sir William

Chaloner, to procure his pardon, on condition of his confessing that

he had been instigated by others to publish his libel on Buckingham.

Gerbier stated that he had applied to the Secretary of State, but

received no answer. It is unfortunate that no one could believe

Gerbier, either when he calumniated or when he excused any

individual.

It was by this able, scurrilous sycophant that the catalogue of

Buckingham’s pictures was drawn up. In it were enumerated thirteen

pictures by Rubens, whom the Duke had seen when he was at Antwerp,

shortly before the Expedition to Rhé. When, in 1630, the great

painter came to England as a diplomatist, the Duke was dead, but the

sovereign who had so greatly encouraged his tastes, did not, as

Walpole remarks, “overlook in the ambassador the talents of the

painter.” Rubens painted, for three thousand pounds, the ceiling of

the Banqueting House built by Inigo Jones--and depicting the

“Apotheosis of King James;” a subject highly inconsistent for the

purpose for which it is now most strangely appropriated as a chapel.

Vandyck was to have adorned the sides with the history of the

Garter; so that three great masters would have combined to form that

noblest room in the world; but so grand a possession was not

destined to be the work of former times, or the pride of our own.

After Buckingham’s death, some of his pictures were bought by the

King, some by the Earl of Northumberland, and some by Abbot

Montague.[156] In the collection there were nineteen pictures by

Titian, seventeen by Tintoret, thirteen by Paul Veronese, twenty-one

by Bassano, two by Julio Romano, two by Georgione, eight by Palina,

three by Guido, thirteen by Rubens, three by Leonardo da Vinci, two

by Correggio, and three by Raphael, besides several by inferior

masters whose productions are scarce. The great prize of the

collection was the “Ecce Homo,” of Titian, eight feet in length and

twelve in breadth. For this magnificent work of art, in which

portraits of the Pope, the Emperors Charles V. and Solyman the

Magnificent are introduced, the Earl of Arundel had offered

Buckingham seven thousand pounds in land or money. The proposal was

refused, and the “Ecce Homo” shared the fate of many of the other

pictures in the year 1648.

Footnote 156:

Dr. Waagen says they were sequestrated; but it appears only a

portion of them were sold by the Parliament--the rest fell into

the hands of the second Duke of Buckingham.

George, the second Duke of Buckingham, among whose few good

qualities was a loyal adherence to that family to whom his father

owed all, after being allowed by the Parliament a period of fifty

days to choose between desertion of the Stuarts and outlawry, chose

the latter. His estates were seized, but his father’s pictures, many

of which still hung on the now gloomy walls of York House, were sent

to him in his exile at Antwerp, by an old servant, John Traylinan,

who had been left to guard the property. These were now sold for

bread. Duart, of Antwerp, purchased some of them, but the greater

number became the possession of the Archduke Leopold, and were

removed to the Castle of Prague. Amongst them was the “Ecce Homo;”

which has been described as embodying the greatest merits of its

incomparable painter.[157]

Footnote 157:

Biographia, Art. “George Villiers,” the second note.

Buckingham’s collection contained two hundred and thirty pictures.

One may conceive how grandly they must have adorned York House,

where in every chamber were emblazoned the arms of the two families,

lions and peacocks, the houses of Villiers and Manners, who were for

a few brief years united by one common bond under that roof.[158]

Neither pains nor money were ever spared by Charles, or by

Buckingham, to enrich their collections. Charles, with his own

hands, wrote a letter inviting Albano to England. Buckingham

endeavoured to attract Carlo Maratti, who had painted for him

portraits of a Prince and Princess of Brunswick, to the English

Court; but Maratti excused himself on the plea that he was not yet

perfect in his art.[159] Little could the King have foretold that

his treasures at Whitehall would have been sold, as Horace Walpole

expresses it, by “inch of candle;” or the Duke that his son and heir

should have parted with his father’s collection to save himself from

starvation in a foreign country. Such events seem to confirm Sydney

Smith’s counsel to a friend, not to look forward more than to a

futurity of two hours’ duration.

Footnote 158:

See Biographia Britannica.

Footnote 159:

Walpole.

Charles I., less happy than Buckingham, had the chagrin to hear that

his favourite’s beloved collection was partially sold, three years

before his own death. It seems, as Walpole expresses it, “to have

become part of the religion of the time to war on the arts, because

they had been countenanced at Court.” In 1645 the Parliament ordered

the two collections to be sold; but, lest the public exigencies

should not be thought to afford sufficient cause for this step, they

passed the following acts to colour their proceedings:--

“Ordered, (July 23, 1635,) that all such pictures and statues there

(at York House) as are without any superstition, shall be forthwith

sold.”[160]

Footnote 160:

Dr. Waagen says that some of the Duke’s pictures were not genuine,

and many of little worth; but this is not the opinion of Horace

Walpole.

“Ordered, that all such pictures as shall have the representation of

the second person in the Trinity upon them shall be forthwith

burnt.”

"Ordered, that all such pictures there, as have the representation

of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt."[161]

Footnote 161:

Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iii., p. 297--from the

Journals of the House of Commons.

This, Walpole remarks, was a worthy contrast to Archbishop Laud, who

made a Star Chamber business of a man’s breaking some painted glass

in the cathedral at Salisbury. Times were changed; Laud, however,

looked on the offence as an indication of a spirit of destruction

and irreverence;--unhappily, he was right.

Such was the fate of Buckingham’s pictures: a brief notice of the

proceedings which dispersed the far more valuable collection of the

King must not be omitted. Immediately after Charles’s death, votes

were passed for the sale of his pictures, statues, jewels, and

“hangings.” It was then ordered that inventories should be made, and

commissioners be appointed to appraise, secure, and inventory the

said goods. Cromwell, to his honour, attempted to stop the

dispersion of these valuables; but he had matters of even greater

importance to engage his attention, and the sale, about the year

1650, appears, as far as the paintings were concerned, to have been

completed. From that time no further mention of them is to be found

in the Journals of the House of Commons.[162]

Footnote 162:

Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iii., p. 200.

All the furniture from the ill-fated King’s different palaces was

brought up, and exposed for sale; and, as far as relates to the

jewels, plate, and furniture, the affair was not concluded until

1653. It must, indeed, have been a melancholy sight. Cromwell,

through his agent, was one of the principal purchasers. The price of

each article was fixed, but, if any one offered a higher sum,

preference was given. Cromwell, who resided alternately at Whitehall

and Hampton Court, bought the Cartoons for 300_l._ The order against

“superstitious” pieces was not, it seems, strictly observed; for a

painting of Vandyck’s, “Mary, our Lord, and Angels,” sold for

40_l._[163] The celebrated portrait of George, the second Duke of

Buckingham, and his mother, by Vandyck, one of the finest

productions of that master, was valued at 30_l._, and sold for

50_l._ Many of the finest pictures were bought by Mons. Jabach, a

native of Cologne, settled in Paris, who sold his collection

afterwards to Louis XIV. “The Entombment,” by Titian, which he

secured, and “Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus,” are in the

Louvre. Amongst the pictures in the Mantua collection, was the large

“Holy Trinity;” it was bought by De Cardenas, the Spanish

Ambassador; and on its arrival Philip IV. exclaimed, "That is my

pearl"--and the picture has, ever since, been known by that name.

Footnote 163:

Ibid., p. 204.

There were, also, valuable allegorical sketches by Correggio, which

are among the valuable collection of drawings and designs in the

Louvre.

The Imperial Gallery of the Palace Belvedere, in Vienna, contains

several fine pictures from the Whitehall collection. They were

bought at the sale by the Archduke Leopold William, Governor of the

Netherlands, and afterwards Emperor of Austria. Reynst, an eminent

Dutch connoisseur, Christina, Queen of Sweden, and Cardinal Mazarin,

were amongst the purchasers--but bought still more largely of the

jewels, medals, tapestry, carpets, embroidery--many of which went to

adorn Mazarin’s palace in Paris. Bathazar Gerbier, and other

painters, also purchased pictures--and thus, by their aid, and that

of some few Englishmen, the wreck of this noble collection may still

be traced in this country, but the greater portion was lost to it

for ever. Some miniatures were restored;--the States-General, during

the reign of Charles II., bought back the pictures formerly sold to

Reynst, and presented them to Charles II.

By the exertions of that monarch, seventy of the best paintings that

his father had possessed again adorned his various Palaces. St.

James’s, Hampton Court, and Windsor were enriched with the works of

those masters in whose productions Charles I. had so greatly

delighted. But in Whitehall, the gallery of which was hung with the

works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Vandyck,

Holbein, Rubens, and many others, had been deposited the finest

specimens of their works. England seems fated never to contain a

collection suitable to her wealth, her intelligence, and her

wishes--for in 1697 that ancient palace, so often partially burnt,

was destroyed by fire; and within its old walls and many chambers

perished the various collections of Charles II., both of pictures,

medals, and sculpture.[164]

Footnote 164:

Dr. Waagen.

Charles I., like all good judges of art, was extremely careful of

his pictures. Hitherto the Court revels had been held in that

famous gallery which Charles II. afterwards debased into a resort

for gamblers and infamous women of rank; and the Banqueting-house

was next appropriated to them. But during the Christmas of 1637,

when two masques were to be performed, the King being one of the

chief dancers, a building, the mere boarding of which cost two

thousand five hundred pounds, was erected in the main court at

Whitehall, because the King would not have “his pictures in the

Banqueting-house burnt with lights.”[165]

Footnote 165:

Dr. Waagen.

The noble portrait by Vandyck, of Charles on horseback, was

reclaimed from Seemput, a painter, who had bought it at the sale;

and some few paintings which Catherine of Braganza had coolly

shipped off to Lisbon, were stopped by the Lord Chamberlain in their

embarkation.

When the convulsions under which the country groaned had ceased, and

on the arrival of the Restoration, the nobility, though not

encouraged by the reigning monarch, introduced the custom of

adorning their country seats with paintings. “But the pure and

elevated taste,” as Dr. Waagen expresses it, “of Charles I. had

degenerated; the names of famous masters were indeed to be found,

but not their works.”[166]

Footnote 166:

Walpole, p. 188.

Architecture and sculpture were also arts which owe infinitely to

the judicious patronage of Charles, assisted by Buckingham. Among

the Mantua collection was a whole army “of old foreign emperors,

captains, and senators,” whom Charles I., as Walpole tells us,

“caused to land on his coasts, to come and do him homage, and attend

him in his palace of St. James’s and Somerset House.”[167] But the

King also discerned and rewarded native genius; and when he planned

the noblest palace in the world at Whitehall, sent for no foreign

architect, but summoned Inigo Jones to his service.

Footnote 167:

Walpole, p. 203.

“England,” says Walpole, “adopted Holbein and Vandyck; she borrowed

Rubens; she produced Inigo Jones.” Originally a joiner, Jones was

brought out of obscurity, according to many accounts, by the patron

who first extended a hand to assist George Villiers in his struggles

in life. William Earl of Pembroke was the friend alike of the young

courtier and of the son of the clothworker--the immortal Inigo.

Either by the Earl of Arundel or by Pembroke--it is not certain

which--Inigo was sent to Italy to learn landscape-painting; but at

Rome he soon discovered the inclination and bent of his genius. It

is of no use to stop the pure and flowing stream, and thus to make

it turbid. Inigo “laid down his pencil, and conceived Whitehall.”

Nature had not, he felt, destined him to decorate cabinets; his

vocation was to build palaces. He was, however, still in danger of

living in remote splendour. Christian III. enticed him to

Copenhagen, whence James I. sent for him, and whence he was brought

to be the Queen’s architect in Scotland. Patronized by Prince Henry,

he was in despair at the death of that royal youth, and went again

to Italy. It was in the interval between his two journeys to Rome

that he perpetrated some buildings in bad taste; to which the

appellation of “King James’s Gothic” was affixed.