being newly come to provide for themselves, we conceive are as much concerned herein as the rest.

Nor are we of the ribaldry of the city (as some blackmouths have uncharitably belched out against us) yet, in such a multitude, the city being exhausted of many of our fellows, it is not to be expected that all should be wise, learned, nor rich; nor can we see any reason why a poor or illiterate man, being injured, should not seek for redress of his grievances, as well as a rich or learned.

And, though a multitude, we humbly conceive ourselves no tumults. As for that miscarriage at Whitehall gate, if any were, tho' greater have been than that is reported to be: We gave no direction for doing it, nor do we commend, must less justify it. But, however, we hope, that particular crimes shall not be imputed to a general cause, nor hinder a general good: Nor if the major part of them, that accompanied us, had committed any outrages, in regard they had divested themselves of their power, and laid it on the twenty, who are the representative body of the petitioners, it would be but hard justice to make them liable to the offences of others, nor ought it to be, we hope, at least, in a candid, or but indifferent construction, a scandal upon the petitioners, or crime upon the petition.

Concerning our preposterous delivery of the petitions, we desire the houses favourable construction; for, in that we presented it first to the house of lords, it was not for want of due honour or respect to the house of commons, but our want of experience in parliament-courses; which we hope may satisfy that honourable house.

All which we thought good to declare, that the world may know, that endeavouring for peace is a work acceptable, we hope, to God, his Majesty, the parliament, and kingdom; though, we believe, some, not altogether for a good conscience's sake, do oppose us. But we esteem their words as no slander, because they are nothing else: And, that posterity may know, that we, by seeking peace, are servants, as to private and particular men, so to the general and publick good.

A SHORT VIEW OF THE

LIFE AND DEATH OF GEORGE VILLIERS,

DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

Written by Sir Henry Wotton, Knight, late Provost of Eaton College. London, Printed for William Sheares, 1642. Quarto, containing thirty pages.

I DETERMINE to write the life, and the end, the nature, and the

fortunes of George Villiers, late Duke of Buckingham, which yet I have not undertaken out of any wanton pleasure in mine own pen; nor,

truly, without often pondering with myself before-hand what censures I might incur; for I would not be ignorant, by long observation, both abroad and at home, that every where all greatness of power and favour is circumvested with much prejudice. And that it is not easy for writers to research with due distinction, as they ought, in the actions of eminent personages, both how much many have been blemished by the envy of others, and what was corrupted by their own felicity, unless, after the period of their splendor, which must needs dazzle their beholders, and, perhaps, oftentimes themselves, we could, as in some scenes of the fabulous age, excite them again, and confer a while with their naked ghosts. However, for my part, I have no servile or ignoble end in my present labour, which may, on either side, restrain or embase the freedom of my poor judgment; I will, therefore steer as evenly as I can, and deduce him from his cradle through the deep and lubrick ways of state and court, till he was swallowed in the gulf of fatality.

I find him born in the year of our Saviour, 1592, on the 28th of August, at Brooksby in Leicestershire, where his ancestors had chiefly continued about the space of four-hundred years, rather without obscurity, than with any great lustre, after they had long before been seated in Kinalton in the county of Nottingham; he was the third son of George Villiers, knight, and Mary, late Countess of Buckingham, and daughter to Anthony Beaumont, of Coleorton, Esq; names on either side well known of ancient extraction. And yet I remember there was one, who, in a wild pamphlet which he published, besides other pitiful malignities, would scarce allow him to be a gentleman. He was nurtured, where he had been born, in his first rudiments, till the years of ten; and, from thence, sent to Billisden school in the same county, where he was taught the principles of musick, and other slight literature, till the thirteenth of his age, at which time his father died. Then his beautiful and provident mother, for those attributes will not be denied her, took him home to her house at Goodby, where she had him in especial care; so as he was first, as we may say, domestick favourite: But finding him, as it should seem, by nature, little studious and contemplative, she chose rather to endue him with conversative qualities and ornaments of youth, as dancing, fencing, nnd the like; not, without perchance, even then, though far off, at a courtier's life: To which lessons he had such a dexterous proclivity, as his teachers were fain to restrain his forwardness, to the end that his brothers, who were under the same training, might hold pace with him. About the age of eighteen he travelled into France, where he improved himself well in the language, for one that had so little grammatical foundation, but more in the exercises of that nobility, for the space of three years; and yet came home in his natural plight, without affected forms, the ordinary disease of travellers. After his return, he passed again one whole year, as before, at Goodby, under the wing and counsels of his mother; and then was forward to become a suitor, at London, to Sir Roger Ashton's daughter, a gentleman of the bedchamber to King James, and master of his robes; about which time, he falls into intrinsical society with Sir John Graham, then one of the

gentlemen of his Majesty's privy-chamber; who, I know not upon what luminaries he espied in his face, dissuaded him from marriage, and gave him rather encouragement to wooe fortune in court, which advice sunk well into his fancy; for, within a while, the King had taken, by certain glances (whereof the first was at Apthorpe in a progress) such liking of his person, that he resolved to make him a master-piece, and to mould him, as it were, platonically to his own idea. Neither was his Majesty content only to be the architect of his fortune, without putting his gracious hand likewise to some part of the work itself: Insomuch as it pleased him to descend and to veil his goodness, even to the giving of his aforesaid friend, Sir John Graham, secret directions how, and by what degrees, he should bring him into favour. But this was quickly discovered by him, who was then, as yet, in some possession of the King's heart. For there is nothing more vigilant, nothing more jealous, than a favourite, especially towards the waining-time and suspicion of satiety, so as many arts were used to discuss the beginnings of new affliction (which lie out of my road, being a part of another man's story.) All which notwithstanding, for I omit things intervenient, there is conveyed to Mr. Villiers an intimation of the King's pleasure to wait, and to be sworn his servant: And, shortly after, his cup-bearer at large; and, the summer following, he was admitted in ordinary. After which time favours came thick upon him (liker main showers, than sprinkling drops or dews) for, the next St. George's Day, he was knighted, and made gentleman of the King's bed-chamber; and, the very same day, had an annual pension given him, for his better support, of one-thousand pounds out of the Court of wards. At New Year's-tide following, the King chose him master of the horse. After this, he was installed of the most noble order. And, in the next August, he created him Baron of Whaddon, and Viscount Villiers. In January of the same year, he was advanced Earl of Buckingham, and sworn here of his Majesty's privy-council, as if a favourite was not so before; the March ensuing, he attended the King into Scotland, and was likewise sworn a counsellor in that kingdom, where (as I have been instructed by unpassionate men) he did carry himself with singular sweetness and temper, which I held very credible, for it behoved him, being new in favour, and succeeding one of their own, to study a moderate stile amongst those generous spirits. About New-year's-tide, after his return from thence (for those beginnings of years were very propitious unto him, as if Kings did choose remarkable days to inaugurate their favours, that they may appear acts as well of the times, as of the will) he was created Marquis of Buckingham, and made lord admiral of England, chief justice in Eyre of all the parks and forests on the south-side of Trent, master of the King's Bench office (none of the unprofitablest places), head steward of Westminster, and constable of Windsor castle.

Here I must breathe a while, to satisfy some that, perhaps, might otherwise wonder at such an accumulation of benefits, like a kind of embroidering, or listing of one favour upon another. Certainly the hearts of great princes, if they be considered, as it were, in abstract, without the necessity of states and circumstances of time, being besides

VOL. V.

their natural extent; moreover, once opened and dilated with affection, can take no full and proportionate pleasure in the exercise of any narrow bounty. And, altho' at first they give only upon choice and love of the person, yet, within a while, themselves likewise begin to love their givings, and to foment their deeds, no less than parents do their children; but let us go on.

For these offices and dignities already rehearsed, and these of the like nature, which I shall after set down in their place, were, as I am ready to say, but the facings or fringes of his greatness, in com parison of that trust, which his last most gracious master did cast upon him, in the one and twentieth year of his reign, when he made him the chief concomitant of his heir apparent, and only son, our dear Sovereign: Now being in a journey of much adventure, and which, to shew the strength of his privacy, had been before not communicated with any other of his Majesty's most reserved counsellors at home, being carried with great closeness, liker a business of love than state; as it was in the first intendment. Now, because the whole kingdom stood in a zealous trepidation of the absence of such a prince, I have been the more desirous to research, with some diligence, the several passages of the said journey, and the particular accidents of any moment in their way. They began their motion in the year 1623, on Tuesday, the eighteenth of February, from the Marquis's house of late purchase, at Newhall in Essex; setting out with disguised beards, and with borrowed names of Thomas and John Smith; and then attended with none, but Sir Richard Graham, master of the horse to the Marquis, and of inward trust about him. When they passed the river against Gravesend, for lack of silver they were fain to give the ferry-man a piece of two and twenty shillings, which struck the poor fellow into such a melting tenderness, that so good gentlemen should be going, for so he suspected, about some quarrel beyond sea, as he could not forbear to acquaint the officers of the town, with what had befallen him, who sent presently post for their stay at Rochester, through which they were passed before any intelligence could arrive. On the brow of the hill beyond that city, they were somewhat perplexed, by espying the French ambassador, with the King's coach and others attending him; which made them baulk the beaten road, and teach post-hacknies to leap hedges. At Canterbury, whether some voice, as it should seem, was run on before, the Mayor of the town came himself to seize on them, as they were taking fresh horses, in a blunt manner, alledging first a warrant to stop them from the council, next from Sir Lewis Lewkner, master of the ceremonies, and lastly, from Sir Henry Manwaring, then lieutenant of Dover castle. At all which confused fiction, the Marquis had no leisure to laugh, but thought best to dismark his beard, and so told him, that he was going covertly with such slight company, to take a secret view (being admiral) of the forwardness of his Majesty's fleet, which was then in preparation on the narrow seas: This, with much a-do, did somewhat handsomely heal the disguisement. On the way afterwards, the baggage postboy, who had been at court, got, I know not how, a glimmering who they were; but his mouth was easily shut. To Dover, through bad horses, and those pretty impediments, they came

not before six at night; where they found Sir Francis Cottington, then secretary to the prince, now Baron of Hanwart, and Mr. Endimion Porter, who had been sent before, to provide a vessel for their transportation. The foresaid Knight was enjoined, for the nearness of his place, on the prince's affairs, and for his long residence in the court of Spain, where he had gotten singular credit, even with that cautious nation, by the temper of his carriage. Mr. Porter was taken in, not only as a bed-chamber servant of confidence to his highness, but likewise as a necessary and useful instrument for his natural skill in the Spanish tongue. And these five were, at the first, the whole parade of this journey. The next morning, for the night was tempestuous, on the sixteenth of the foresaid month, taking ship at Dover, about six o'clock, they landed the same day at Boulogne in France, near two hours after noon; reaching Monstreuel that night, like men of dispatch; and Paris the second day after, being Friday the twenty-first; but about three posts before, they had met with two German gentlemen, that came newly from England, where they had seen at Newmarket the prince and the marquis taking coach together with the King, and retained such a strong impression of them, that they now bewrayed some knowledge of their persons; but were out-faced by Sir Richard Graham, who would needs persuade them they were mistaken, which in truth is no very hard matter; for the very strangeness of the thing itself, and almost the impossibility to conceive so great a prince, and favourite, so suddenly metamorphosed into travellers, with no greater train, was enough to make any man living unbelieve his five senses. And this I suppose, next the assurance of their own well resolved carriage, against any new accident, to have been their best anchor, in all such incounters. At Paris the prince spent one whole day, to give his mind some contentment, in viewing of a famous city and court, which was a neighbour to his future estates; but for the better veiling of their visages, his highness, and the marquiss, bought each of them a perriwig, somewhat to overshadow their foreheads. Of the King they had got sight, after dinner, in a gallery where he was solacing himself with familiar pleasures. And of the queen's mother, as she was at her own table; in neither place descried, no not by Mons. Cadinet, who saw them in both, one that hath been lately ambassador in England, Towards evening, by a mere chance, in appearance, though underlined with a providence, they had a full sight of the Queen Infanta, and of the Princess Henrietta Maria, with other great ladies, at the practice of a masquing dance, which was then in preparation; having over-heard two gentlemen, who were tending towards that sight, after whom they pressed, and were let in by the Duke de Mont Bason, the Queen's lord chamberlain, out of humanity to strangers, when divers of the French went by. Note here, even with a point of a diamond, by what obliquesteps and imaginable preparatives, the high disposer of princes affections sometimes contrives the secrets of his will; for by this casual curiosity it fell out, that when afterwards the marriage came in motion, between our sovereign lord and the aforesaid most amiable princess, it must needs be, howsoever unknown, no small spur to