903 



BUCKINGHAM. 



BUCKINGHAM. 



994 



enjoyed in the former reign, and the intimate confidence of the new 

 king. 



The war with Spain, although undertaken without due grounds, 

 had been popular at first, perhaps on account of the long peace which 

 had preceded it. But the ill success which attended an expedition 

 against Cadiz, rendered Buckingham odious to the Commons, and even 

 occasioned his impeachment, from which he escaped chiefly through 

 the interference of the king. 



The spirit which in the end overthrew the kingly power was already 

 awakened, and the nation submitted with impatience to the levies 

 necessary for the conduct of hostilities with France. The Duke of 

 Buckingham, wholly ignorant of the art of war, rashly sailed with 100 

 ships and 7000 soldiers for the occupation of La Rochelle, at that time 

 in possession of the Huguenot?. So wholly without concert had this 

 expedition been undertaken, that the Rochellois were alarmed at the 

 appearance of this huge fleet in their harbour, and being ignorant of 

 ita intentions, and ill-prepared at the moment for a general rising, 

 they closed their gates and rejected the proffered assistance. Buck- 

 ingham then directed his armament upon the neighbouring island of 

 Rhe', and after unskilful operations during three months, and a defeat 

 which cost him 2000 men in attempting re-embarkation, he returned, 

 according to the language of Hume, " totally discredited both as an 

 admiral and a general, and bringing no praise with him but the vulgar 

 one of valour and personal bravery." 



A large force was entrusted to Buckingham for another attempt to 

 relieve La Rochelle, and he went to Portsmouth to superintend the 

 preparations. " There were many stories," says Clarendon, "scattered 

 abroad at that time of several prophecies and predictions of the duke's 

 untimely and violent death. Amongst the rest there was one which 

 was upon a better foundation of credit than such discourses usually 

 have," which he proceeds to relate at some length. 



On August 24, 1628, the duke having dressed himself in his chamber 

 at Portsmouth, was preparing to take a hurried breakfast, in order to 

 communicate to the king, then holding his court at Southwick, about 

 five miles distant, some important intelligence which he had received 

 from La Rochelle. While conversing with Sir Thomas Fryar, one of 

 his colonels, " he was on the sudden struck over his shoulder on the 

 breast with a knife, on which, without using any other words but 

 ' The villain has killed me ! ' and at the game moment pulling out the 

 knife himself, he fell down dead, the weapon having pierced hi-5 heart." 



A hat was picked up, into the crown of which had been sewed a 

 paper, containing part of the declaration of the House of Commons, 

 in which the duke was styled 'an enemy to the kingdom,' and under 

 it were written a short ejaculation or two apparently belonging to a 

 prayer. The hat belonged to a man who was walking before the door 

 very composedly, and who was recognised to be John Felton, a 

 younger brother, of mean fortune, and of Suffolk extraction. He 

 appears to have been of a moody temperament, and to have withdrawn 

 from the army in consequence of disappointment in promotion. He 

 was probably not without a touch of insanity ; and it appears he was 

 awakened to the full enormity of his crime before his execution. 



George Villiers was murdered in his thirty-sixth year, having had 

 three sens and one daughter by his wife, Lady Catherine Manners. 

 The Lady Mary was his first-born ; his eldest son died at nurse ; his 

 second succeeded him in his title and estates, and his third was Lord 

 Francis. 



An instance of Buckingham's public-spirited munificence while 

 employed in concluding a treaty at the Hague ought not to be 

 omitted, especially as his many faults have been carefully chronicled. 

 Hearing that a rare collection of Arabic manuscripts, which had been 

 made by Erpenius, a scholar of great erudition, was at that moment 

 on sale by his widow to the Jesuits at Antwerp, " liquorish chapmen," 

 as Sir Henry Wotton adds, " of such ware," the duke anticipated them 

 by giving the widow 5001., " a sum above their weight in silver, and 

 a mixed act both of bounty and charity, the more laudable from 

 being out of his natural element ; " for Buckingham had received but 

 an imperfect education. It was his intention, if the design had not 

 been prevented by hia unexpected death, to present these manuscripts 

 together with many other similar treasures, to the University of 

 Cambridge, of which learned body he was chancellor : after his 

 assassination they were deposited by his widowed duchess in the 

 public library of that university, where they still remain. 



GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OP BUCKINGHAM, second son of the George 

 Villiers, duke of Buckingham, just noticed, was born in Londou, 

 January 30th, 1627. He was educated at Cambridge, under the 

 enpecial patronage of the king, and after travelling with his brother, 

 Lord Francis Villiers, returned to England on the outbreak of the 

 civil war, and espoused the .royal cause. The Earl of Holland, under 

 whom he served, was defeated by Fairfax, near Nonsuch, in which 

 battle Lord Francis, after fighting bravely, was killed, and the 

 duke himself escaped with difficulty beyond the seas. The parlia- 

 ment required him to return within forty days, under the penalty 

 of confiscation of his estates ; but he preferred remaining abroad, 

 where he supported himself by the sale at Antwerp of a valuable 

 gallery of paintings which his father had collected. He afterwards 

 served under Charles II. at Worcester, and was again compelled 

 to take refuge on the Continent. 



Part of his estates had been assigned by the parliament to Fairfax, 

 BIOO. cry. vor, i. 



who generously allowed the duchess of Buckingham, the duke's 

 mother, a considerable annuity. The duke, not without hope that 

 the republican general might exercise similar liberality towards him- 

 self, ventured, although outlawed, to return to England, was well 

 received by Fairfax, and married one of his daughters in 1657. 

 Cromwell, taking this alliance ill, arrested Buckingham, and committed 

 him to the Tower. On the abdication of Richard Cromwell he was 

 released from Windsor Castle, the place which had been allotted for 

 his less rigid confinement ; and on the Restoration he recovered his 

 paternal estates. He had already received the order of the garter 

 while in Holland, and he was now sworn of the privy couucil, and 

 nominated lord lieutenant of the county of York. His political 

 conduct however was most versatile, and the influence which he 

 maintained over Charles by his talent for agreeable ridicule was 

 unworthily employed in procuring the fall of Clarendon. In his 

 habits Buckingham was utterly profligate. He appears to have 

 regarded buffoonery as an honourable and legitimate weapon against 

 a court rival. Not unfrequently, when the grave chancellor had 

 retired from the council-table, Buckingham threw the king into con- 

 vulsions of laughter by mimicking the gait of the venerable statesman, 

 carrying a cushion dangling by his side as the bag and seals, and 

 ordering an attendant to precede him with the bellows as a mace. 



On the formation of the ' Cabal' ministry Buckingham's name con- 

 tributed an initial to that anagram. In 1670 he proceeded on an 

 embassy to the court of France, nominally to condole with Louis XIV. 

 upon the death of Charles's sister, the duchess of Orleans, but in truth 

 to urge his accession to the triple alliance. On that oecasion, he 

 condescended to pander to his master's pleasures by providing him 

 with a French mistress ; but so light of purpose and frivolous was he, 

 that the ascendancy which he might thus have secured was lost by his 

 total neglect of the afterwards Duchess of Portsmouth, immediately 

 upon her embarkation. Objects yet more unworthy than ti'at lady 

 had been already introduced by him to the royal notice, and the 

 actresses, Mistress Davies and Nell Gwynn, were first known at court 

 through him. " He was a man indeed," to use the strong language of 

 a contemporary by whom he was well known, "who had studied the 

 whole body of vice ;" and assuredly no one had ever less barrier of 

 principle to stand in the way of his instruction. So entirely did he 

 set at nought all moral feeling, that when Charles II. on one occasion 

 expressed apprehensions that his injured queen might probably inter- 

 fere with some intrigue by her jealousy, Buckingham offered to remove 

 her to a West Indian plantation, where " she should be well taken 

 care of, without creating more trouble." The king, though selfish 

 and cold-hearted, had enough good feeling remaining to revolt from 

 so atrocious a project. 



Already, in 1666, Buckingham had manifested symptoms of his 

 fickleness, and had forfeited all his high offices, to which however he 

 was subsequently restored through his own submission and the king's 

 extreme facility. The Duke of Ormond had taken a considerable part 

 against him on this occasion, and so deeply did Buckingham cherish 

 resentment that there is strong reason to believe he was concerned in 

 a plot which nearly ended in the murder of that nobleman by Colonel 

 Blood. The transaction was not inquired into, but the Earl of Ossory, 

 eldest sou of the Duke of Ormond, could not forbear from taxing 

 Buckingham with his guilt, even in the king's presence. 



Notwithstanding his public and private crimes, Buckingham still 

 retained the king's favour, was still employed on important embassies, 

 and like his father, and with as little title to the honour, was elected 

 chancellor of the University of Cambridge. On the dissolution of the 

 Cabal ministry and his dismissal from office, he gradually weaned 

 himself from the court. In 1674 he resigned the chancellorship of 

 Cambridge, and vehemently supported the Nonconformists by his 

 opposition to the Test Act. He was deeply engaged in the popish 

 plot, and the remainder of his days was spent in factious opposition, 

 and in connection with the intrigues of Shaftesbury. 



One incident in Buckingham's life but too plainly exhibits the 

 demoralisation of the times on which he was thrown. Buckingham, 

 having been detected by the Earl of Shrewsbury in an intrigue with 

 his wife, killed him in a duel, while the wife of the unfortunate earl 

 held the duke's horse during the combat, in the disguise of a page. 

 For this murder, which occurred in February, 1667-68, the duke 

 received a royal pardon, but it was afterwards brought before the 

 House of Lords in a petition presented by the Earl of Westmoreland in 

 the name of the young Earl of Shrewsbury, who desired justice against 

 Buckingham for his father's blood and his mother's infamy. The 

 duke insolently replied, " first, that it was very true he had had the 

 hard fortune to kill the Earl of Shrewsbury, but that it was on the 

 greatest provocation in the world ; that he had fought him twice 

 before, and had as often given him his life, nevertheless that the earl 

 had threatened that if be would not again fight him he would pistol 

 him wherever he could find him, and that for these reasons the king 

 had been induced to pardon the fatal result of their meeting. Secondly, 

 that as for that part of the petition which regarded Lady Shrewsbury, 

 he knew not how far his conversation with that lady was cognisable 

 by that House, but that if he had given offence by it she was now gone 

 into retirement." The parliament was soon afterwards prorogued, 

 and although a day had been appointed for taking the petition into 

 consideration, it does not appear that it was further noticed. 



3 s 



