Chapter V (2)

It was probably, on finding his first application, though assisted by his mother, useless, that Buckingham contrived a match between Sir Sebastian Harvey’s[263] only daughter and Sir Christopher Villiers. “The match,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “being not to the joy of the poor father, so much against the old man’s stomach, as the conceit thereof hath brought him near his grave already, if at least the world mistake not the true cause of his sickness.”[264]

Footnote 263:

The Lord Mayor.

Footnote 264:

Nichols, 548.

The marriage was urged on, nevertheless, by the Countess of Buckingham, who found, however, that Sir Sebastian, then the Lord Mayor, a wilful and dogged man, could not by any means, either foul or fair, be brought to yield; in the agony of his spirit, the old man wished himself and his daughter dead, rather than be compelled to comply. The truth is, the young lady was only in her fourteenth year, and very small in stature, and her father did not wish her to be married until four or five years afterwards. He was, nevertheless, incessantly annoyed with messages from the King; and these he took so much to heart that he was brought to death’s door, although Buckingham and others were sent to comfort him. The Lord Mayor and aldermen had not been present at the Queen’s funeral; and the King, wishing to please Harvey, and to atone for this apparent insult, ordered that St. Paul’s Cross should mourn on Trinity Sunday, and that the Mayor and Corporation should go there as mourners; but Harvey, “sick and surfeited”, declined attendance; nor, when his Majesty, on the fifth of June, made his triumphant entry into London, was he well enough to receive him. In truth, the honest pride of Englishmen began to revolt against having the relatives of the favourite forced upon them as sons-in-law. The King, however, entered in state, attended by Prince Charles and all the nobility—Buckingham, of course, a conspicuous object amid the throng. James, on this melancholy occasion, looked “more like a wooer than a mourner.” He had already laid aside his weeds for Queen Anne. A fresh suit of “watchet satin, laid with a blue and white feather,” rejoiced the eyes of the company, who were glad to see him so gallant; and ill accorded with the expected appearance of an embassy of condolence from the Duc de Lorraine, with two or three thousand persons all in deep mourning.[265] And when it was remembered that the King had, not long ago, formally recommended, as on his death-bed, his son, his favourite, and Lord Digby—who had suffered, he said, in popularity, for the Spanish match—to his council, and had expected his decease shortly, there was something almost ludicrous in the contrast.

Footnote 265:

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

The desired match did not, however, prosper, not withstanding a visit from James to the Lord Mayor’s own residence, soon afterwards, to expostulate with the old man. He also sent for Sir Sebastian, his wife, and daughter, from their dinner, in Merchant Taylor’s Hall, in order to recommend Sir Christopher as a suitor; but all was in vain, Buckingham was defeated, and the young lady was eventually united to the eldest son of Sir Francis Popham.[266]

Footnote 266:

Nichols, vol., iii. p. 556.

Disappointed in this matter, Buckingham now manifested his intentions of improving his own fortunes by a successful marriage; various objects of attraction had been offered to his gaze, but they wanted, probably, that which his extravagance rendered essential—fortune. On one occasion, we find him, with the King, visiting a house in order to admire the beauty of one of his god-daughters, but no result followed. The world, too, now talked loudly of the marriage of Lady Diana Cecil with the Earl of Oxford, whilst a richer bride was given, by common report, to Buckingham. This was the Lady Katherine Manners, the only daughter of Francis, sixth Earl of Rutland, a nobleman of great wealth; the lady was also endowed with other attractions besides fortune, proving a woman of many attainments and great spirit.

This marriage was, in every respect, desirable. It produced, amongst one of its advantages, an alliance in blood with the illustrious Sydneys. Roger, fifth Earl of Rutland, the brother of Earl Francis, having married Sir Philip Sydney’s daughter and heiress.[267] It cemented a union with a house already favoured by King James, who visited Belvoir Castle repeatedly, and who had constituted its two last lords successively Chief Justices in Eyre of all his forests and chases north of the Trent, beside conferring other distinctions; lastly, it offered to Buckingham a prospect of domestic happiness with a lady of considerable wit and spirit, and one whose affectionate attachment to her husband was amply testified by her letters and conduct during their union.

Footnote 267:

Brydges’s Peers of James I.

One drawback, however, existed. The Lady Katherine was a Roman Catholic; and, although passionately attached to Buckingham, she, for some time, refused to go to church. Through the exertions, however, of the celebrated Williams, then Dean of Salisbury, and afterwards Lord Chancellor, she was ultimately converted. It was for her benefit that he composed his work, entitled, “A Manual of the Elements of the Orthodox Religion, by an old Prebend;” only twenty copies of which were printed, and these were all presented to the Marquis of Buckingham.[268] Such was the success of Williams’s arguments, or the influence of the young lady’s affection for her suitor, that, shortly before her marriage, a public profession of the reformed faith was made by Lady Katherine, on her partaking of the Holy Communion at the altar of a Protestant church.[269]

Footnote 268:

Nichols, vol. iii., p. 589.

Footnote 269:

Ibid, vol. iv., p. 606.

Various were the rumours at Court concerning the progress of the engagement, which went on “untowardly;” amongst others, that the Countess of Buckingham, having taken the young lady away from her home, the Countess of Rutland, Lady Katherine’s step-mother, had refused to receive her back: the King was said to be in the plot.[270]

Footnote 270:

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

The future Duchess of Buckingham was the only child of the Earl of Rutland, by his first wife, Frances, the widow of Sir William Bevile, of Kilkhampton, Cornwall;[271] and, during the lifetime of her mother, she was regarded as the sole heiress of all the wealth of her father. Upon the death of the first Countess of Rutland, the Earl married again, his second lady being the daughter of the Earl of Thanet, and the widow of Sir Henry Hungerford. Two sons were the offspring of this union, but before the courtship of Buckingham, death removed them from being obstacles to Lady Katherine’s prosperity. They died in their infancy, from the effects, as it was believed in those credulous days, of wicked practices and sorcery.[272] It was this celebrated case which is said to have convinced King James, before sceptical on the subject, of the existence of witchcraft, of the real agency of the power of darkness.[273] The instruments of the foul fiend were three women in the service of the Earl of Rutland, Joan Flower, and her two daughters, who were stated to have entered into a formal contract with the devil, and to have become “devils incarnate themselves.” Being dismissed from Belvoir Castle, on account of bad conduct, they made use of all the enchantments, spells, and charms that the black art comprised.

Footnote 271:

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

Footnote 272:

This lady is said to have died in consequence of some medicine given
her by Sir W. Ralegh;—a slanderous accusation.

Footnote 273:

Granger, from Howell. Art. Rutland.

Henry Lord Roos, the eldest born of the house of Rutland, sank under the effects of these demoniacal influences, or rather, probably, from childish terrors, in 1613.[274]

Footnote 274:

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

The Lady Katherine did not escape their machinations, having, with her brother Francis, been tortured by Flower and her accomplices.[275] Five years after the supposed exercise of their witchcraft, these wretched women were apprehended, and upon being rigidly examined by Lord Willoughby d’Eresby, Sir George Manners, and others, were committed to Lincoln gaol. Joan died on her way to prison, whilst wishing the bread and butter which she was eating, might choke her if she were guilty. The two daughters were tried, confessed their guilt, and were executed at Lincoln.

Footnote 275:

Even King James, it is said, was not exempt from the designs of the
wicked. In the State Paper Office is the following entry:—“A man named
Peacock, a schoolmaster, to be committed to the Tower and tortured,
‘for practising sorcery on the King, to infatuate him in Sir Thomas
Lake’s business.’”

By the death of her brother, Lady Katherine, whose more advanced years, and probably, whose courage and sense enabled her to master the dark terrors of the wicked Joan and her daughters, became a personage of no little importance in those venal times, when even a show of affection was scarcely thought necessary for the preliminary arrangements of the nuptial tie. Belvoir, her father’s proud possession, stands upon the eminence, the fine prospect from which gave it the name it bears, in all its stately antiquity.[276] It was built in the time of the Conqueror, by Robert de Belvedeir, standard-bearer to the monarch. The edifice is seated on the confines of the counties of Lincoln and Leicester, Nottingham and Rutland, and it commanded, in the time of Francis Manners, until the present day, fourteen lordships.[277] Of this domain, Lady Katherine was now sole heiress. Repeated visits had been made by King James to it, and, indeed, a sojourn at Belvoir was always a principal feature in a royal progress. A singular custom was formerly observed on the occasion of a royal visit to this castle. A family in Nottinghamshire, who held the Manor of Staunton, by the office of castle guard of the strong hold of Belvoir Castle, called the Staunton Tower, were required to present the keys of that tower to the monarch, in the same manner as the keys of a town are offered. The tenure required, in feudal times, that—

“Unto this forte with force and flagge,
The Staunton’s stock should sticke,
For to defende against the foe,
Which at the same might kicke.”[278]

Footnote 276:

The interior was destroyed by fire, in 1816; it has been rebuilt in a
style of great magnificence.

Footnote 277:

The present Duke of Rutland traces his descent in direct line from the
founder of the castle, Robert de Belvedeir.

Footnote 278:

In January, 1814, when George IV., then Prince Regent, was received at
Belvoir Castle, the key of Staunton Tower, of gold, and beautifully
wrought, was presented to him in the drawing-room, on a gold cushion,
by the Rev. Dr. Staunton, with a suitable address. Nichols’s Progress,
vol. ii., p. 458.

The office of castle guard has long become a sinecure, but the importance of maintaining all those forms was such, that in 1618 a writ of inquiry was issued to show why the Castle of Belvoir should not fall into the king’s hands, on account of some alienation. “This,” says a modern writer, “might appear an ungrateful return to the earl for his hospitality; but it was

the customary process when property held under the crown became, on any occasion, alienated.”[279]

Footnote 279:

The whole of the castle stands in Leicestershire.

At Belvoir, James made, on one occasion, a considerable number of knights, and, notwithstanding his writ of inquiry, he visited the hospitable palace every second or third year, from 1612 to 1621. In 1612, Henry, Prince of Wales, met his father at Belvoir Castle, riding thither from Richmond in two days, and received “very honourable entertainment” from Francis, Earl of Rutland, who, but a fortnight before, had attended the funeral of his brother at Bottesford.[280]

Footnote 280:

Note in Nichols’s Progresses, vol. i., p. 490.

In August, 1619, the king again visited Belvoir, but it does not appear certain that Buckingham accompanied his royal master. Probably, the preliminaries to the union which subsequently took place, may have been entered into on that occasion. Early in the following year, the marriage contract was signed, a ceremonial which generally preceded the completed marriage by a period of forty days. In this instance, that event did not take place until the sixteenth of May.

In the interim, Buckingham, either through the impatience of a lover, or, what is more likely, fearful of losing, from objections, the heiress of Belvoir, took a step which cannot be condemned without a full knowledge of every circumstance connected with it; but which seemed, on the first view, alike discreditable to the lover and to his mistress. He induced the Lady Katherine to leave her father’s house, and conveyed her to his own apartments at Whitehall. Of this transaction, an account is given by Arthur Wilson, whose puritanical principles caused him to regard Buckingham with dislike, and perhaps to misrepresent his conduct, and Buckingham is stated to have kept the lady there for several days, and then to have returned her to her father. “The stout old earl,” pursues the same writer, “sent him this threatening message, ’That he was too much of a gentleman to suffer such an indignity, and if he did not marry his daughter, to repair her honour, no greatness should protect him from his justice.’” It is conjectured that this elopement may have been contrived by Buckingham, in order to extort from the Earl of Rutland an unwilling consent. He quickly, therefore, says Wilson, “salved the wound before it grew to a quarrel; and if this marriage stopped the current of his sins, he had the less to answer for.”[281]

Footnote 281:

Wilson’s Life of James I., p. 149.

Such is one account of the obstacles which impeded that good understanding which afterwards existed between the Earl of Rutland and his son-in-law. It appears, however, from an unpublished document in the State Paper Office, that Buckingham’s exorbitant demands had disgusted the Earl; these were, 20,000_l._ in ready money, 4,000_l._ in land a year, and, in case of Lord Roos’s death, 8,000_l._ in land. On this account, at first, had the match been broken off, but renewed upon the death of the son and heir, an event which some ascribed to witchcraft, others to the falling sickness, to which the poor youth was subject. Rumour also attributed the interruption of the marriage-treaty to the religious scruples of Buckingham.[282]

Footnote 282:

Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton. Inedited State
Papers, March 11th, 1619-20.

After his daughter had left his house, the Earl wrote a letter, half indignant, half relenting, to Buckingham. In this epistle, the feelings of a father’s struggle with the offended honour of the man. “I confess,” he writes to Buckingham, “I took no great council in this business, for nature taught me that I was to advise my daughter to avoid the occasion of ill, as confidently as I assure myself she _is of ill_.” The aggrieved and unhappy parent had perhaps, afterwards, reason to retract that bitter expression. “I confess,” he adds, “I had noble offers from you, but I expect real performance, which I hope in the end will bring comfort to us both.” “His daughter,” he touchingly remarks, “deserves no so great a care from a father whom she little esteems,” as he had shown her; “yet,” adds the Earl, “I must preserve her honour, if it were with the hazard of my life. And for calling our honours in question,” he proceeds, “pardon me, my lord, that cannot be any fault of mine; for you would have me think that a contract, which, if you will make it so, be it as secret as you will, this matter is only at an end; therefore, the fault is only your lordship’s if the world talk of us both.”

All that the father demanded was, to use his own words, addressing Buckingham, as follows, “proof that she is yours, and then you shall find me tractable, like a loving father; although she is not worthy in respect of her neglect to me; yet, it being once done, her love and due respects to your lordship shall make me forget that which I confess I now am too sensible of.” “To conclude, my lord, this is my resolution, if my conscience may not be fully satisfied she is yours, take your own courses; I must take mine, and I hope I may arm myself with patience, and not with rage. Your lordship shall even find I will be as careful of your honour as I shall be tender of mine own; and this is my resolution.”[283]

Footnote 283:

From Court and Times of King James. Bishop Goodman, vol. ii., p. 189.

To this searching letter, wrung from a father, uncertain how far his daughter had for ever exposed herself to shame, hoping, yet fearing, lest it might not prove so, and that she had fallen into honourable hands, Buckingham thus replied:—

“MY LORD,

“Your mistaking in your fashion of dealing with a free and honest heart, together with your froward carriage towards your own daughter, enforced me the other day to post to Hampton Court, and there cast myself at His Majesty’s feet, confessing freely unto him all that hath ever passed in privacy between your lordship and me concerning your daughter’s marriage, lest otherwise, by this, your public miscarriage of the business, it might by other means, to my disadvantage, have come to his knowledge. And now that I have obtained my master’s pardon for this, my first fault, for concealing, and going further in anything than His Majesty was acquainted with, I can delay no longer of declaring unto you how unkindly I take your harsh usage of me and your own daughter, which hath wrought this effect in me; that, since you esteem so little of my friendship and her honour, I must now, contrary to my former resolution, leave off the pursuit of that alliance any more, putting it in your free choice to bestow her elsewhere, to your best comfort; for, whose fortune it shall ever be to have her, I will constantly profess that she never received any blemish in her honour but which came by your own tongue. It is true I never thought before to have seen the time that I should need to come within the compass of the law, by stealing of a wife against the consent of the parents, considering of the favours that it pleaseth His Majesty, though undeservedly, to bestow upon me. So leaving this to you and your wife’s censure,

“I rest,
“Your lordship’s servant,
“BUCKINGHAM.”[284]

These protestations on the part of Buckingham, that the honour of Lady Katharine was untouched, are confirmed by the following extracts from certain letters relative to the affair, by which it is evident, first, that James himself promoted the abduction of the young heiress, and, secondly, that the Countess of Buckingham, whilst she favoured her son’s schemes, never suffered the reputation of her daughter-in-law to be injured, since she did not, for an instant, permit her to leave her presence during the temporary absence from her father’s house.

Footnote 284:

From Harleian, 1581, p. 134.

“There is an accident happened which breeds great stir in town, which is concerning the taking away of the Earl of Rutland’s daughter, by my Lady Buckingham. Nobody knows what to think of it, but, in my opinion, the King is in the plot, for, with all his arts, he could not persuade her to go to church, to which it may be, they think, she refuses to come by reason of her mother and father. Now, you may remember what my lord said to your lordship, that he would not marry one who did not come to church. She loveth him, and I think now he makes trial of her, whether she will forsake all the world for his sake.”[285]

“But the Lady Buckingham sayeth her father desired her to take her abroad with her, which she did, having his fatherly love imposed on her that she should not go out of her sight. She fell ill towards night, and rather than send her home with waiting gentlewomen, kept her that night to lie with herself, and brought her home the next day; her mother refusing to take her, so she went back, and there abided.”[286]

Footnote 285:

Buckingham.

Footnote 286:

Inedited State Papers. Letter from Sir Edward Zouch to Lord Zouch,
February 5th, 1619-20. Domestic. Sir Edward Zouch was a much esteemed
wit and courtier. His family is now nearly, if not wholly
extinct.—Brydges’s Peers of King James, p. 71.

Another account states that the “Lady of Buckingham” fetched the young lady away one Sunday, without her father’s either leave or liking, “so that the next day he refused to receive her back, and Lady Katherine was obliged to take refuge with her uncle, being her nearest relation.” Neither party, it was observed, gained by this mode of dealing, which was “subject to much construction.”[287]

It is touching to find the Earl of Rutland, some years afterwards, excusing himself from visiting the Court, that he might bear his daughter company in her solitude at Burleigh, during the long interval in which Buckingham, attending on the King at Windsor, left her in that then remote country seat, in retirement.[288]

Footnote 287:

Inedited State Papers. Letter dated March. 20th, 1619-20.

Footnote 288:

State Papers. Letter from the Earl of Rutland. Domestic. 1625.

A coolness, however, continued for some time between these two noblemen; for on St. George’s day, which was observed with much solemnity at Greenwich, the now haughty Buckingham showed his resentment against the Earl of Rutland by refusing to be consorted with him in one mess; and, coupling himself with the Earl of Leicester, left his future father-in-law alone, “and yet,” as a contemporary relates, “the opinion is, the match must go on with his daughter, or else do her great wrong as well in other respects; so, for his sake and his mother’s, she is to be converted and receive the communion this Easter.”[289]

Footnote 289:

Nichols, iv., 606.

The marriage took place eventually, at Lumley House, a mansion built in the time of Henry the Eighth, by Sir Thomas Wyatt, on the site of the ancient Monastery of Crutched Friars, near Tower Hill.[290] The ceremonial was conducted with great privacy, probably on account of the vexatious and awkward circumstances which had previously occurred.[291]

Footnote 290:

This house was afterwards inhabited by the Lumley family. The navy
office was once here, until removed to Somerset House. The immense
warehouses belonging to the East India Company, now cover the spot
where Buckingham’s nuptials took place.—See Pennant’s London, p. 237.

Footnote 291:

Nichols, vol. iv., p. 607.

It does not appear to which of his magnificent mansions the Marquis of Buckingham took his bride, after he had at last obtained possession of her hand. The man who only four years previously had appeared before a host of scoffing courtiers, in a thread-bare black suit, and whose slender allowance scarcely kept him from absolute penury, was now the owner of several stately residences. His apartments at Whitehall were held by virtue of his various offices near the King’s person. That palace was the constant residence of James the First when in London. It was, at this time, in a very ruinous state, and the Banqueting House had been recently burned down. Inigo Jones[292] was, indeed, employed in rebuilding it upon an extensive plan, only a portion of which was completed. It is, therefore, very unlikely that the honeymoon would be passed in the midst of noise and dust, although Whitehall, partially surrounded, as it was, by beautiful gardens, was not, by any means, devoid of that rural beauty for which the denizens of a royal metropolitan palace may now look in vain. Wanstead House, in Essex, which had escheated to the crown in 1606, upon the death of Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire, was the first residence that Buckingham could properly call his own. He obtained it by a royal grant, and the King seems to have been well repaid for that act of generosity, by the pleasure which he took in visiting his favourite there. Burleigh-on-the-Hill, or Burleigh Harrington, so called to distinguish it from Burleigh Stamford, had been bought by Buckingham from the heir-general of the Harrington family, into whose possession it had come by purchase in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was seated upon a hill, rising abruptly from the vale of Catmore, commanding a view of the country around, and protecting the village of Burleigh. At Burleigh-on-the-Hill, King James was entertained during his first journey into England; there he was received by Sir John Harrington, who was then its owner.

Footnote 292:

He was called by the Earl of Pembroke, “Iniquity Jones.” It is said,
in that nobleman’s MS., that he had 16,000_l._ a year for keeping the
King’s houses in repair.—Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. ii., p.
271.

After Burleigh had become the possession of the Marquis of Buckingham, he made it one of the most splendid seats in the island, until it not only rivalled, but, in some respects, excelled, Belvoir.[293] Both the Marchioness of Buckingham and the Countess took a great interest in the place. In one of her letters to her husband, the Marchioness writes thus: “For Burly Shaw the wall is not very forward yett, and my lady” (her mother-in-law, the Countess of Buckingham) “bid me send you word that shee is gon done to look how things ar ther. Shee ses shee is about making a litell river to rune through the parke. It will be about xvi. foote broode. But shee ses shee wants money.”[294]

Footnote 293:

Wright’s History of Rutland, 1684, p. 30.

Footnote 294:

Nichols, vol. iv., p. 778.

This magnificent structure, in which many a revel took place, and beneath whose roof many a masque was enacted, was not destined to remain a monument of Buckingham’s splendour. Its very strength proved its destruction; for it was, on that account, selected, during the Rebellion, as a garrison for the Parliamentarian troops, in order that they might, from that commanding station, at once harass the surrounding country, and protect their county committee. But they were unable to maintain the long line of defence which the extensive buildings presented, and therefore set them on fire, and thus, destroying the house and furniture, they deserted Burleigh.

The stables alone remained; and these alone perpetuated the magnificence of their first owner, being the finest in England. The ruins of Burleigh long served as a memento of the devastations of civil war, for the son and successor of George Villiers was unable to restore them. The estate was sold eventually to Daniel, Earl of Nottingham, who rebuilt the house, but of the structure which the princely taste of Buckingham planned, and which his lady mother embellished with her taste, little or no trace remains.[295]

Footnote 295:

York House was not at present in his possession.

Newhall, in Essex, was another residence of the Marquis of Buckingham’s. This property was purchased after Burleigh, in 1622, and was considered a great bargain, the money paid for it being twenty thousand pounds, for which there was a return of 1,200_l._a year in land, whilst the wood was valued at about 4,000_l._ or 5,000_l._ The house, which cost originally 14,000_l._ in building, was immediately put under the hands of Inigo Jones, the King’s surveyor, “to alter and translate” according to the modern fashion.[296] It is described by Evelyn, who visited it in 1656, in the following terms:—“I saw New Hall, built in a park, by Henry VII. and VIII., and given by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Sussex, who sold it to the late great Duke of Buckingham; and since seiz’d on by O. Cromwell (pretended Protector). It is a faire old house, built with brick, low, being only of two stories, as the manner then was; ye gatehouse better; the court large and pretty, the staircase of extraordinary wideness, with a piece representing Sir F. Drake’s action in the year 1580, an excellent sea-piece; ye galleries are trifling; the hall is noble; the garden a faire plot, and the whole seate well accommodated with water; but, above all, I admir’d the fine avenue, planted with stately lime trees, in foure rowes, for neere a mile in length. It has three descents, which is the only fault, and may be reform’d. There is another faire walk of ye same at the mall and wildernesse, with a tennis-court, and a pleasant terrace towards the park, which was well stor’d with deere and ponds.”[297]

Footnote 296:

Nichols, p. 881, from Harleian MSS., 6987.

Footnote 297:

For a fuller history of Newhall, see Nichols’s Progresses of Queen
Elizabeth, vol. i., p. 94-6.

Our ancestors understood well the adaptation of what may be called landscape gardening, to the style of their stately edifices; and Buckingham appears to have displayed in his improvements the magnificent and refined taste of a man whose nature was noble, and who was intended for a holier career than that of a royal favourite.

Buckingham’s delight in improving his estates soon found scope here. “I have not beene yet att New Hall,” wrote his lady to him, in 1623, when he was in Spain, “but I do intend to go shortly to see how things ar ther. The walk to the house is done, and the tenis-court is all most done, but the garden is not done, nor nothing to the bouling greene, and yett I told Totherby, and he tould me he would sett men a worke presently; but I warant you they will all be redey before you come.” In a letter from the Countess of Denbigh, she informs her brother that there is one of the finest approaches to the house made that she ever saw. Buckingham, on his return from Spain, seems to have enjoyed thoroughly the sight of Newhall, in all its freshness, and to have gloried in its sylvan beauties. “I have found this morning,” he writes to the King, “another fine wood that must go in with the rest, and two hundred acres of meadows, broomes, closes, and plentiful springs running through them, so that I hope Newhall shall be nothing inferior to Burleigh. My stags are all lusty, my calf bold, and others are so too. My Spanish colts are fat, and so is my jovial filley.”[298] How gladly must he have returned to those more innocent pursuits of a country life, that formed so strong a contrast to the harassing existence of a courtier.[299]

Footnote 298:

Harleian MSS., 6987., quoted in Nichols’s Progresses of King James.

Footnote 299:

Newhall is now a nunnery.

Another place much coveted by Buckingham was stoutly refused, even to the all-powerful favourite. This was Beddington Hall, in Surrey, then possessed, and still inhabited, by the ancient family of Carew, on whom it was bestowed, having been before a royal manor, by Queen Elizabeth. It was, probably, its vicinity to London which increased Buckingham’s desire to possess this fine old house, with its stately precincts.

“The Marquis,” as we learn from a private letter of the day, from London, “would settle himself hereabout, and is much in love with Beddington, near Croydon, having won over the King, Prince, and others, to move Sir Nicholas Carew about it; but it seems he will not be removed, by reason his uncle bestowed it so frankly on him, with purpose to continue his memory there, and to that end caused him to change his name. If his lordship would have patience, he would soon find out many places convenient enough, or, at farthest, stay for Gorhambury, whereof (they say) he hath the reversion after my Lord Chancellor’s life, but upon what terms and conditions is only between themselves.”[300]

Footnote 300:

Inedited Letters in the State Paper Office, Mr. Chamberlain to Sir
Dudley Carleton, July 31, 1619.

Wanstead House was another seat of Buckingham’s. The village which bears that name is situated on the borders of Waltham Forest; it commands a view of London and of Kent; the prospect stretching over a fertile and beautiful country. The manor of Wanstead had passed through various possessors to Sir John Heron, whose son, Sir Giles, being attainted, it was seized by the Crown. It was then granted to Robert, Lord Rich, who built the Manor House, then called Naked Hall House. The son of Lord Rich sold it to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; and it thus became eventually the residence of two royal favourites. The unscrupulous Dudley owned it for some years. He enlarged and improved the house; and here his marriage with the Countess of Essex was solemnised in 1578.

At his death, Wanstead passed into the hands of his widow, Lady Essex; and the Earl being much involved in debt, an inventory was made of his property, real and personal. The furniture at Wanstead was valued at one hundred and nineteen pounds, six shillings, and sixpence; the pictures at eleven pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence. Such is the small amount of that which was reckoned costly in those days; yet there were in this collection original portraits of Henry the Eighth, of his daughters, and Lady Cartmills, Lady Rich, and thirty-six others not particularized. The library, consisting of an old Bible, of the Acts and Monuments, old and torn, of seven Psalters and a Service book, was valued at thirteen shillings and eightpence. The horses, however, were rated at three hundred and sixteen pounds and threepence.

The Countess of Essex married Sir Christopher Blount, and by some family arrangements the house was conveyed to his son, Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire. At his death it was escheated to the Crown, and became the property of Buckingham. In 1619, he sold it to Sir William Mildmay;[301] and in our days this once noble possession, which has fallen, like its possessors, to ruin and destruction, came into the family of the present Earl of Mornington.[302]

Footnote 301:

Wright’s Hist. of Essex, vol. ii., p. 502-3.

Footnote 302:

Nichols, vol. iii., p. 364.

A mineral spring was about this time discovered at Wanstead, and there was such “running there” by lords and ladies, that the spring was almost “drawn dry,” “and if it should hold on,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “it would put down the waters at Tunbridge, which, for these three or four years, have been much frequented, specially in summer, by many great persons, insomuch that they who have seen both, say it is not inferior to the Spa for good company, numbers of people, and other appearances.”[303]

Footnote 303:

Sir William Mildmay’s descendants conveyed it to Sir Joseph Child,
whose son Richard, afterwards created Earl of Tilney, built Wanstead
House, well known in modern days, on the site of the mansion which had
been the home of Leicester and of Buckingham. The new house was
erected in 1715. It descended, in due time, to Miss Tilney Long, who
married the Hon. Wellesley Pole, now Earl of Mornington. In 1825 she
died, and Wanstead House was sold in lots under the hammer. The park
is now let out for grazing cattle. The ancient church of Wanstead has
also been pulled down, and a new one erected; so that those who look
for any traces of Leicester and Buckingham will not find them at
Wanstead.—_Note in Wright’s “Essex,”_ p. 1150.

To one or other of these stately abodes Buckingham perhaps conveyed his bride; although the custom of travelling immediately after marriage is one of more recent, date. Such, however, were the future homes of the young Marchioness.

The year succeeding the nuptials of the Marquis was passed by him and his bride in a constant round of courtly revels. During these festivities, various incidents, of little import in themselves, marked the determination of James to accomplish the marriage which he now had at heart between his son and the Infanta of Spain. The slightest objection to that desired event was dangerous to the meanest of his subjects. A man named Almed, who held a subordinate situation, having presented the Marquis of Buckingham with a treatise against the match, was cast into prison by the King’s express commands.[304] Secretary Naunton was suspended from his situation for treating with the French ambassador concerning a union between the Prince and Henrietta Maria, and was obliged to write an humble acknowledgment of his errors to Buckingham, and to address to James an epistle penned, as he expressed it, “in grief and anguish of spirit.”[305] Buckingham interposed in his behalf, and prevented the secretary’s being turned out of his lodgings at Whitehall, by which many, looking upon Naunton as a ruined man, for having lent an ear to the proposal of France, were already intriguing.[306] The infatuation of James, promoted, it was believed, by the counsels of Buckingham, brought infinite disgrace upon the English court, and was repaid by the haughty Spaniards, acting through the crafty Gondomar, with contempt.

Footnote 304:

Nichols, v. 699.

Footnote 305:

Bishop Goodman, ii., 228.

Footnote 306:

Bishop Goodman, 243.

Even the pulpits were _tuned_, as Queen Elizabeth would have said, to one key. “The King,” Mr. Chamberlain wrote to Sr Dudley Carleton, “ordered the Bishop of London to warn his clergy not to preach against the Spanish match, but they do not obey.”[307]

Footnote 307:

State Papers, Calendar, vol. cxviii., No. 29.

The resolution taken by James to withhold assistance to the Bohemians in their revolt against the power of Austria, and his determined refusal to give to his son-in-law, who had been made King of Bohemia, any higher title than that of Prince Palatine, were resented by the jealous people whom James was so incapable even of comprehending, and his English subjects regarded his neutrality with disgust. “The happiness and tranquillity of their own country,” remarks Hume, “became distasteful to the English when they reflected on the grievances and distresses of their Protestant brethren in Germany.” Prince Charles besought his father on his knees, and with tears, to take pity upon his sister Elizabeth and her family, and to suffer himself no longer to be abused with treaties. The young and generous Prince entreated the King, since His Majesty was himself old, to allow him to raise a royal army, and to permit him to be the leader of it, being assured that his subjects would be ready to follow him. To this James replied, “that he would hear once more from Spain, and that if he had not satisfaction, he would give his son and the state leave to do what they would.”[308]

Footnote 308:

Letter in Bishop Goodman’s Life, vol. ii., p. 215, from Mr. Mead to
Sir M. Stuteville.

Still James was deaf alike to arguments and to parental affection, and defended his pacific measures upon the notion that Austria, swayed by his justice and moderation, would restore the Palatinate, which had been wrested from Frederic, his son-in-law, by Spinola, especially if his son’s marriage with the Infanta were effected. He was blind to the fact that his powers of negotiation would be wholly unable to achieve this end, nor when it was achieved, would the result be such as his hopes anticipated. His reluctance to engage in war, his want of courage in avowing to his subjects the measures which he meant to pursue, were alike indicative of that pusillanimous spirit which exposed him to the contempt of foreign courts, and rendered him unpopular at home.

Not having called a parliament for seven years, he now sent forth a writ of summons in the beginning of the year 1621; an event from which all men “who had any religion,” as Sir Symonds D’Ewes expressed it, “hoped much good, and daily prayed for a happy issue; for both France and Germany needed support and help from England, or the true professions of the Gospel were likely to perish in each nation under the power and tyranny of the anti-Christian tyranny.”

The opening of Parliament was graced by a splendid procession from Whitehall to Westminster; but although the progress was short, it was varied by several significant circumstances. Prince Charles appeared, on this occasion, riding on horseback between the Sergeants-at-arms and the Gentlemen Pensioners, with a rich coronet on his head. Next before his Majesty rode Henry Vere, Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain of England, with Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal. These noblemen were bare-headed. Then appeared James, with a crown on his head, “and most royally caparisoned.” But the personage who excited the most general interest was Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, a man only sixty-three years of age, but accounted in those days—such is the increased value of life in ours—“decrepit with age.” This nobleman, the son of the Protector Somerset, was dear to the people as the relative of Lady Jane Grey, whose sister, the Lady Catherine, he had married; an act for which he had incurred a long and unmerited imprisonment in the time of Elizabeth. He died shortly after the opening of parliament.

The King was now manifestly broken and infirm; the disease, then deemed incurable, which caused him intense agony, softened his petulance, and produced a courtesy that touched the bystanders with pity. As he rode along, he spoke often and lovingly to the crowd three-fold thick; calling out, with more good-will than kingly dignity, “God bless ye, God bless ye”—a striking contrast to his usual practice, or, to use the words of D’Ewes, to his “hasty and passionate custom, which often, in his sudden distemper,” would bid a plague upon those who flocked to see him.

Such was one of the remarks made on this day. Another was, that whilst the windows of Whitehall were crowded by the great and fair, James saluted none of them as he passed along, except the Marchioness of Buckingham and her mother-in-law.

He was observed to speak often and particularly to Gondomar, and his whole demeanour was, for some time, kindly and cheerful.

On a sudden, however, his gracious countenance became overcast. On gazing up at one window, he observed it to be full of gentlewomen and ladies, all in yellow bands: this fashion had been discountenanced at Court ever since the trial of the Countess of Somerset; her accomplice, Mrs. Turner, having been hanged, by sentence, “in her yellow tiffany ruffs and cuffs,” she being the first inventor of the yellow starch.[309] But certain “high-handed women,” as King James termed them, chose, it seems, perhaps out of despite to Buckingham, to retain what was conceived to be a memento of the Somerset faction. No sooner did the King perceive them than he cried out “a plague take ye—are ye there?” and immediately the ladies, in alarm, vanished from the window. James was so much exhausted by his exertions this day, and by a speech of an hour long, in which nevertheless he commended brevity, that he was obliged to be carried in a chair from the Abbey, where he attended service, to the Parliament House.

Footnote 309:

Nichols, iv., 630; and iii., 120.

By these and other symptoms, the people saw too plainly that the interests of Spain were adopted by the Favourite. Parliament, opened with so much state and promise, was opposed to the King’s wishes, and deprecated the Spanish alliance. Declamations against the growth of Popery were continually heard in that assembly, and formed a constant feature in its discussions during the reign of the Stuarts; these invectives were now exasperated by the treaty with Spain, and the indifference of James to the sufferings of the Protestant cause on the Continent. In the House of Lords, the presence of Prince Charles, around whom all the bishops, and most of the courtiers, flocked, was supposed to overawe the debates. All this time, James had “engaged his crown, blood, and soul,” such were his expressions, for the recovery of the Palatinate. Nevertheless, he dissolved Parliament early in the ensuing year; and the fruitless treaties and debasing intrigues went on as usual.[310]

Footnote 310:

Wilson, Hume, Oldmixon.

An embassy extraordinary from the French King, who had visited Calais, proved the touchstone of much latent jealousy. An attendance of fifty or sixty persons of rank, and a retinue of three hundred, gave to the Marquis de Cadenat, brother to the Duc de Luisues, the favourite of the King of France, all the dignity that so numerous a company of the flower of their country could ensure. The ambassador and his suite were met at Gravesend by the Earl of Arundel, and conducted to Denmark House, where the Earl, merely accompanying the Marquis to the foot of the first stair which led to his lodgings, took his leave, saying that there were gentlemen there who would show him to his apartments. This was a decided slight. Shortly afterwards, an affront was given by the Countess of Buckingham, owing to her having placed the Marquise de Cadenat and her niece, Mademoiselle de Luc, at a ball at Whitehall, beneath her own daughter-in-law, the Marchioness of Buckingham.

On the eighth of January, a tilting match was performed, to entertain the French Marquis, wherein Prince Charles broke a lance with great success. Amongst the tilters was the “beloved Marquis of Buckingham,” so called by Sir Symonds D’Ewes, who thus describes the appearance of the Favourite on the occasion:—

“Seeing the Marquis of Buckingham discoursing with two or three French monsieurs, I joined to them, and most earnestly viewed him for about half-an-hour’s space at the least, which I had the opportunitie the more easilie to accomplish, because he stood all that time he talked, bareheaded. I saw everything in him full of delicacie and handsome features; yea, his hands and face seemed to me especiallie effeminate and curious.” The contrast with the homely-featured foreigners who surrounded him seems to have struck this not very good-natured observer. “It is possible,” he adds, “he seemed more accomplist, because the French monsieurs that invested him weere verie swarthie, hard-featured men.”

All irritation seems to have subsided by this time, and the natural hospitality of well-bred Englishmen to have reappeared. In the midst of the business and pleasure which occupied the English Court, the unpopularity of the Spanish match was, however, so apparent that Gondomar begged to retire to Nonsuch Palace, to avoid the “fear and fury” of Shrove Tuesday.

In the summer of this year,[311] James visited his Favourite at Burleigh, when he was so much pleased with his entertainment, that he could not forbear expressing his contentment in certain verses, in which he said “that the air, the weather, and everything else, even the stags and bucks in their fall, did seem to smile.” The chief diversion prepared for His Majesty was a masque by Ben Jonson, entitled “The Metamorphosed Gipsies;” it was acted first at Burleigh, then at Belvoir, and lastly at Windsor, within the course of a few months.

Footnote 311:

1620.

Buckingham employed the poet’s pen at his own expense, and himself enacted the Captain of the gipsies; and, in his disguise, marching up to the King, he thus addressed him, with the freedom of his lawless tribe:—

With you, lucky bird, I begin:
I aim at the best, and I trow you are he,
Here’s some luck already, if I understand
The grounds of mine art; here’s a gentleman’s hand,
I’ll kiss it for luck sake; you should, by this line,[312]
Love a horse and a hound, but no part of a swine;[313]
To hunt the brave stag, not so much for the food
As the weal of your body and wealth of your blood.

Footnote 312:

The line of life in Palmistry is the line encompassing the ball of the
thumb.—See, for this masque, Gifford’s edition of Ben Jonson.

Footnote 313:

James’s known dislike of pork was one trait of his Scottish descent.

In this fashion did Buckingham flatter the tastes of James, who, priding himself on his prowess in the chase, which he followed in a ruff and trowsers,[314] was charmed with any allusion to his favourite diversion.

Footnote 314:

Grainger.

As the Captain of the Gipsies further pursued the telling of the King’s fortune, his verse changed its metre, and touched on more serious themes:—

Could any doubt that saw this hand,
Or who you are, or what command
You have upon the state of things?
Or would not say you were let down
From Heaven, on Earth, to be the Crown
And top of all your neighbour Kings?

In another verse, he gracefully referred to the royal bounty to himself:—

Myself a gipsy here do shine,
Yet are you maker, sir, of mine.
Oh! that confession should content
So high a bounty, that doth know
No part of motion but to flow,
And giving, never to repent.

These poetical addresses were interspersed with dances and songs. After the second dance, a gipsy, supposed to be Viscount Purbeck, the brother of the Marquis, paid a tribute to Prince Charles:—

As my Captain hath begun
With the sire, I take the son!
Your hand, sir!

Of your fortune be secure,
Love and she are both at your
Command, sir!

See what states are here at strife,
Who shall tender you a wife,
A brave one?

And a fitter for a man
Than is offered here, you can
Not have one.

She is sister of a Star,
One, the noblest that now are,
Bright Hesper;

Whom the Indians in the East,
Phosphor call, and in West,
Hight Vesper.

Courses even with the sun
Doth her mighty brother run
For splendour.

—alluding to the boast of the Spaniards that the sun never sets on their King’s dominions.

The Marchioness of Buckingham was next addressed, in these terms:—

But, lady, either I am tipsy,
Or you are in love with a gipsy;
Blush not, Dame Kate,
For early or late,
I do assure you it will be your fate,
Nor need you once be ashamed of it, madam,
He’s as handsome a man as e’er was Adam.

The fortunes of Cecily, Countess of Rutland, the stepmother of the Marchioness, of the Countess of Exeter, and of the Countess of Buckingham, were then told. In the verses addressed to the last mentioned, the beauty and attractions of the lady were thus alluded to:—

Your pardon, lady, here you stand,
If some should judge you by your hand,
The greatest felon in the land,
Detected.
I cannot tell you by what arts,
But you have stol’n so many hearts,
As they would make you at all parts
Suspected.

The Lady Purbeck was the next theme:—

Help me, woman, here’s a book,
Where I would for ever look;
Never yet did Gipsy trace
Such true lines in hands or face.
Venus here doth Saturn move,
That you should be Queen of Love,
Only Cupid’s not content;
For, though you do the theft disguise,
You have robb’d him of his eyes.

The fair, frail being, whose loveliness was thus panegyrized, fled from her husband’s house three years afterwards, never to return. “She was,” says the historian Wilson, “a lady of transcending beauty.” Ben Jonson’s lines on her face:—

Though your either cheek discloses
Mingled baths of milk and roses;
Though your lips be banks of blisses,
Where he plants and gathers kisses—

were not, therefore, greatly exaggerated.

Her mother—the mother who had bartered her at the altar—was next flattered:—

Mistress of a fairer table,
Hath no history or fable;
Others’ fortunes may be shewn,
You are builder of your own,
And whatever Heaven hath gi’n you,
You preserve the state still in you.

Here ended the fortune-telling. And now, a dance of clowns, “Cockrel, Clod, Town’head, and Puffy,” each personated by knights, delighted the company with a colloquy in prose, and in their hands the conduct of the piece remained until the Gipsies, metamorphosed, “appeared in rich habits, to close the whole with a eulogy upon King James.”

A song was introduced just before the conclusion:—

Oh, that we understood
Our good!
There’s happiness indeed in blood,
And store—
But how much more When virtue’s flood
In the same stream doth hit!
As that grows high with years, so happiness
With it!

Thus ended this masque, which furnishes, in the estimation of a great critic, “specimens of poetic excellence, injurious flattery, and adroit satire.”

James was delighted with his cheer at Burleigh.[315] Before departing for Belvoir, he noticed, with much satisfaction, that there was a prospect of there soon being an heir to the house of Villiers; and, after uttering a fervent wish that all might prosper, he called upon the Bishop of London, by way of amen, to give the young couple a blessing in his presence on the interesting expectation.[316]

Footnote 315:

Gifford.

Footnote 316:

Nichols, vol. iv., p. 710.

This gay scene was followed by some mischances. James, riding out after dinner, from Theobalds, early in the next year,[317] was thrown into the New River;[318] the ice broke, and he fell in, nothing appearing above the water except his boots. Buckingham, who was not with him, was sent for from Hertfordshire, and posted away to attend his royal master. The King recovered from this accident, but his infirmities increased daily; he was confined for some time at Theobalds, “by reason of a defluxion,” which, setting in his leg, assumed the form of gout; and he was obliged to be carried out in a litter when he went to see the deer.

Footnote 317:

1622.

Footnote 318: