CHAPTER II.

JAMES I., HIS DISAPPROVAL OF THE GENTRY CROWDING INTO LONDON—DISGUST ENTERTAINED BY THE OLD FAMILIES TO HIM AND HIS COURT—THE CLINTONS, BLOUNTS, VERES, AND WILLOUGHBY D’ERESBYS SHOW IT—CHARACTER OF SIR THOMAS LAKE—WILLIAM, EARL OF PEMBROKE, THE EARLY PATRON OF VILLIERS—ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST INTRODUCTION OF VILLIERS TO JAMES—AMBITIOUS VIEWS WHICH IT SUGGESTED—HIS ATTACHMENT TO THE DAUGHTER OF SIR ROGER ASHTON—THEIR ENGAGEMENT BROKEN OFF—ACCOUNT OF THE KING’S VISIT TO CAMBRIDGE IN 1614-15—SOME DESCRIPTION OF THE COURTLY LADIES WHO WERE PRESENT THERE—THE QUEEN’S ABSENCE—COUNTESS OF ARUNDEL—COUNTESS OF SOMERSET—COUNTESS OF SALISBURY—LADY HOWARD OF WALDEN—PERFORMANCE OF THE PLAY OF “IGNORAMUS” IN CLARE HALL—THE DESIGN OF THIS COMEDY TO RIDICULE THE COMMON LAW—ADMIRATION EXPRESSED BY THE KING, DURING THE PERFORMANCE, OF THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF VILLIERS, WHO WAS PRESENT—THE SUBSEQUENT REPRESENTATIONS REFERRED TO.

CHAPTER II.

It might be presumed, from this harangue, that never had the Court of James been so magnificent, nor such a throng of the high-born and the opulent clustered in the metropolis as at that time. But the fact was that whilst obscure country gentlemen brought thither their families, the old nobility fled from a court which cherished Somerset and proscribed Raleigh, and where all the real business of the King’s life consisted in expedients to raise money in order to support an expenditure from which he derived no dignity. The great and gallant representatives of the Houses of Clinton, Blount, and Willoughby D’Eresby sought in continental countries the meed of honour which was denied them in the service of their own country by the pacific temper of the King.[[39]] The Tower entombed some of the noblest spirits. There still languished the Earl of Northumberland and the Earl of Wilton; the one beloved, nevertheless, by Henry Prince of Wales, though suspected of being concerned with his kinsman Percy in the Gunpowder Plot; the other a “very hopeful gentleman blasted in the bud,” who had been imprisoned since the Raleigh plot. Others prosecuted schemes of discovery; West, Earl of Delawarr, in Virginia, attempted to second Raleigh, and contenting himself with that return and inward satisfaction which a good mind feels in its own consciousness of virtue, died in the undertaking. Others, such as the Earl of Arundel, could not tolerate the vulgar revels, the tasteless prodigality of the Court of James; that nobleman confined himself, therefore, to the splendours of his stately home, for his soul was not that of a patriot, nor had he, says Lord Clarendon, “any other affection for the nation or kingdom than as he has a home in it, in which, like the great Leviathan, he might disport himself.”[[40]]

Room and opportunity there were, therefore, for fresh aspirants to compete for royal favour; nevertheless the Earl of Somerset still reigned pre-eminent, and had then been recently promoted to the highest office about the King’s person, that of Lord Chamberlain. The reason assigned for this new display of partiality was also such as to prove that Somerset was firmly planted in his sovereign’s favour. He succeeded in the high office the Earl of Salisbury, who, as James expressed it, was wont to entertain his royal master with “epigrams, discourses, and learned epistles, and other such nicks and devices.” These, the King observed, would pay no debts, and he therefore selected in Somerset, he said, a “plain and honest gentleman, who, if he committed a fault, had not rhetoric enough to excuse it.”[[41]] It seemed therefore very improbable that Villiers should ever hope to rival one who was so rooted in the King’s regard as the Earl of Somerset, but events which no human foresight could have anticipated worked for him in the dark secrecy of a woman’s guilty career.

Mature years, precipitated into old age by disease and infirmities, had brought no increase to James of that practical wisdom which regulates a Court as well as a family. His imputed wisdom, which was so over panegyrized in his own time, and which has been too much depreciated in ours, consisted in shrewd and sensible general notions, which he never seems to have applied to his private benefit.

So that, though the favour of Somerset, when George Villiers returned from France, was in its decline, the King could not be deterred from seeking a new object for his partiality. He might indeed have learned a lesson which should have taught him that he had disgusted the nation and lowered himself by his system of favouritism, yet, after recovering from the perils and vexations of the infamous business which ruined Carr, he had not a notion that it would be wise to profit by experience, and was ready to commence a new career of folly, and to sacrifice all the slender portion of dignity that remained to him—a dignity which consisted chiefly in the general confidence of his subjects towards him—by adopting any new object that might chance to cross his path.

It was during the year of inaction which Villiers passed at Goadby, that he became acquainted with the family of Sir Roger Aston. This knight was the father of four daughters, for one of whom Villiers, in the quiet hours of his country life, conceived an attachment. One might, on a first view of this incident, wonder at the want of caution in Lady Villiers, in detaining her son at Goadby, there to shackle his future course by an early, and, apparently, unprofitable engagement; but she was not acting, it appears, inconsistently with her schemes of future advancement, when she permitted the intimacy which produced this result. Sir Roger Aston was, it is true, only the base-born son of John Aston, of Aston, in Cheshire;[[42]] he could, therefore, derive no lustre from that ancient family; he had held formerly the office of barber to King James when in Scotland, where Sir Roger was chiefly educated.[[43]] He was, in time, made a groom of the royal chamber, and further promoted to be master of the wardrobe, and, however humble his birth and education may have been, became a person of no inconsiderable influence at Court. During the last twenty years of Elizabeth’s reign, he was the continual correspondent of Cecil, whom he supplied with details of all that transpired in Scotland. The powerful minister was not, it appears, ashamed to owe much important information to the former barber, and, fortunately for those who rested upon the good offices of Aston, he is reported to have been a “very honest, plain-dealing man, no dissembler, neither did he do any ill office to any man.”[[44]]

In addition to these acquired advantages, Sir Roger was enabled to provide his daughters with portions. It may, therefore, be inferred that Lady Villiers—who could never have foreseen that her son would have claimed the hand of an heiress of ducal line, nor have anticipated that those attractions, of which she could but partially calculate the value, should captivate in after times even a royal mistress—approved of the growing affection which sprang up amid the rural scenes of Goadby. It was permitted, indeed, at first, by both the parents, whose interests were concerned in it, and it seems, on the part of the lady, to have been a fervent and disinterested sentiment. But the question of a settlement intervened: Villiers, in consideration of a handsome dower, to which the young damsel was entitled, was required to settle upon her the moderate sum of eighty pounds a-year. The arrangement was impracticable, for all his fortune at that time, and even after he had appeared for some time at Court, amounted to only fifty or sixty pounds annually.[[45]]

Some opposition to the engagement originated, therefore, with the friends of the young lady, though she, passionately enamoured, was at first fixed in her choice, and firm to her professions of affection. “The gentlewoman,” says Sir Anthony Weldon, “loved him so well as, could all his friends have made for her great fortune but a hundred marks jointure, she had married him presently, in despite of all her friends, and, no question, would have had him without any fortune at all.” But whilst the affair was under consideration, or probably when it was partially concluded, but was still cherished in the minds of the parties most concerned in it, a circumstance occurred which diverted the hopes of Villiers into another direction; a new stimulus was given to the energies of his nature, and ambition, as it is known to have done before, proved mightier than love.

It was at a horse-race in Cambridgeshire that Villiers first attracted the attention of the King. The poverty of the young man was then such that even on this notable occasion, when the sovereign, on his annual progress, was expected, and at a time when the costliness, or, as it was well styled, the “bravery” of dress was at its height, he could not afford any new attire. An “old black suit, broken out in divers places,” was, as Sir Symonds D’Ewes asserts,[[46]] the garment in which his narrow means constrained him to appear amid the gay courtiers who composed the royal train.

As if this were not a sufficient mortification, other inconveniences arose. The race had taken place near Linton, and most of the company slept at that town. There was no room in the lodgings of the inn for the ill-dressed youth in the old black suit, “and he was obliged,” adds the same writer, “and even glad, to lie on a truckle bed in a gentleman’s chamber, of mean quality, also, at that time, from whose own mouth I heard this relation, who was himself an eye-witness of it.”[[47]]

According to another account, it was at Apthorpe, whither King James, in the month of August, 1614, had sent his dogs, that the monarch was so struck by the appearance and deportment of Villiers, that he resolved to mould him, as it were “platonically, to his own idea.”[[48]] The impression produced upon the King was publicly observed by attendants and courtiers, and the success of Villiers was decided. About this time, indeed, Villiers formed an acquaintance upon whose counsels he acted, so as to take the tide of fortune at its height.

Villiers into the English Court,[[49]] and there was, perhaps, not one of the subordinate personages better calculated to guide, in that sphere, the first steps of an inexperienced youth than Lake. Patronized originally by Sir Francis Walsingham, and by him recommended to the service of Queen Elizabeth, he had acted as Secretary for the French and Latin tongue to his Royal mistress, and acquired, from his accurate and rapid writing, the name of “Swiftsure.” In the Court of Elizabeth, where none but men of ability flourished, he had received his political education. He had enjoyed the Queen’s confidence, and was reading to her in French and Latin at the very moment when the Countess of Warwick told him that the Queen had expired. James made him a Privy Counsellor, and afterwards appointed him one of his Secretaries of State.[[50]] Lake eventually fell into disgrace, not from his own fault, but owing to the unfortunate marriage of his eldest daughter to the Lord de Roos[Roos], son of the Earl of Exeter, and to the subsequent enmity of the Cecils. But at the time when Villiers owed his first introduction to him, Lake was in the height of his influence, and James, even after his downfall, accorded to him the praise that “he was a Minister of State fit to serve any greater prince in Europe.”[[51]]

Under such auspices, Villiers secured the best introduction to the world that can be obtained—that afforded by individuals whose high rank was upheld in public estimation by their personal influence; and it augurs well of the views which were at that time entertained of his character, and of the terms on which it was desired to place him with the King, that those who were real lovers of their country, and patrons of its best interests, should have presented him to their sovereign.

Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, “led him,” says Fuller, “by the one hand, and William, Earl of Pembroke, by the other.”

Few women shone in the giddy revels of the Court with a purer lustre than the Countess of Bedford; her virtues and accomplishments may have been exaggerated by grateful poets and dependants, but they were such as to confer a certain dignity on all whom she countenanced. Hence we must admire the discrimination of Lake in obtaining for the youthful Villiers the friendship of one whom society estimated so highly. The sister of Sir John Harrington, the Countess of Bedford, resembled her brother in his love of letters, and fortune favoured the full indulgence of her inclinations. By the death of that accomplished brother, she succeeded to two-thirds of his possessions. She had then been married six months to Edward, Earl of Bedford; and, at his decease, which happened in 1627, she was left in the uncontrolled possession of all that nobleman’s estates. This proof of her husband’s confidence and attachment was not misapplied. The widowed Countess, resembling somewhat the Mrs. Montagu of later times, aimed to be the patroness of poets. Of course her motives have been satirised, and her mode of dispensing her patronage impugned, for there seems to be, in most biographers, a love of decrying lettered women of rank. Grainger, for instance, declares that the Countess of Bedford bought the praise of poets by money, and that they, in return, were lavish of incense.[[52]] Her taste for gardening has, however, met with more indulgence. Sir William Temple, in his “Gardens of Epicurus,” praises her “most perfect picture of a garden” at Moor Park, in Surrey, for she was, in truth, the first improver of the English flower-garden—an honourable distinction. Her education was in conformity with the practice of the day; she was well read in classics, and had a knowledge of ancient medals. Such was the lady-patroness of Villiers. To her Ben Jonson inscribed three of his epigrams:[[53]] to her Dr. Donne addressed several poems, whilst Daniel celebrated her in verse.

It is singular that no relics have been discovered of this far-famed lady’s writings, though numerous allusions are made to them in the works of others. A marvellous degree of uncertainty even attends many points of her career; the place of her death is unknown; and she left behind her no will; the abode on which she spent large sums is long since levelled to the ground; this was Burleigh-on-the-Hill[Burleigh-on-the-Hill], which she sold, eventually, to Villiers, when in the height of his fortunes; he erected a noble mansion upon it, but it was destroyed in the time of the Rebellion. Thus, as Mr. Lodge observes, “she has left, by a singular fatality, as it should seem, a splendid reputation, which can neither be supported nor depreciated by the evidence of historical facts.”[[54]]

Less exclusive, more patriotic, and far more popular even than the great Earl of Arundel, William, Earl of Pembroke, stood, on that day, on the same vantage ground with that lofty nobleman, the pre-eminence of character. Pembroke, however, was beloved as well as respected; he was pious, liberal, honourable; a lover of literature and the arts: he encouraged the ingenious and the learned, not only because he delighted in their society, but from a higher motive, a sense of duty to the community. He inherited, indeed, that generous spirit which ennobles the noble, for he was the nephew of Sir Philip Sydney, and the son of that Countess of Pembroke whom Ben Jonson has termed “the subject of all verse.” He was brave and honourable; his abilities were excellent; his character above all suspicion of the ordinary insincerity of courtiers. His immense fortune was employed worthily, not lavished, for his expenses were limited only by his “great mind,” and occasions, to use it nobly. His personal qualities were such as to make even the Court itself respectable, and “better esteemed in the country,” and he had the happiness, in spite of envy, to have more friends than any public character of his time No man dared to avow himself the enemy of one who was beloved equally at the Court of James and in the retirement of a home circle at Wilton; who sought for neither office nor honours, and yet was lenient to the faults from which his noble nature was exempt.

Such was the nobleman who took by the hand a poor youth, whose present integrity and innocence might, he perhaps believed, vanquish the degrading influence of Somerset and his wife, to whose fame report already attached the darkest rumours. In the patron who was moved to second by his well-earned influence the fortunes of an obscure country youth, Villiers was thus no less fortunate than in the favour of Lucy Harrington. Happy had it been for him had he modelled his own conduct and rectified his notions by the standards now placed before his view; for there was nothing in the bearing of Pembroke to lower the dignity of virtue. That nobleman had been termed “the very picture and viva effigies of nobility.”[[55]] In person, majestic, in his manners, full of stately gravity, which characterised him, whether in repose or when animated, his easy wit, free from every taint of malice, his habitual, unconscious good-breeding, might have assisted that young and unformed mind in the formation of good taste, a property which rarely flourishes without the aid of refined associates. Some defects there were, and those of a vital nature, which, in looking closely into any character of that time, cannot but be discovered. These were materially owing to the bartering marriages of the middle and early modern times—the selling one’s dearest hopes and interests in this life for an estate, or an honour, or a reversion. The standard of morality was, of course, lowered, as it still is in France, by the excuse that fidelity to a wife could hardly be expected under the circumstances of enforced unions, sometimes contracted while the parties were children. William, Earl of Pembroke, was one of the many who exhibited this doctrine in his practice. United to an heiress, for whose fortune even the grave Lord Clarendon observes, he paid “too dear by taking her person into the bargain,”[[56]] he devoted himself publicly to Christian, the daughter of Lord Bruce, afterwards Countess of Devonshire. To her he addressed those beautiful lines which were, with other poems, edited by Dr. Donne, prefixed with a fulsome dedication to the Countess.[[57]]

To Pembroke, Buckingham was, perhaps, indebted for that love of the arts and taste for building and embellishments which afterwards distinguished the lordly proprietor of York House and Burleigh. It is, however, painful to reflect that not three years after the good offices performed by Lord Pembroke to Villiers, a coolness took place upon some matters of little moment compared with the debt of gratitude due to the Earl by the favourite.[[58]]

Notwithstanding the countenance of the Countess of Bedford, and of the Earl of Pembroke, those who detailed the smallest incidents of the Court observed that the favour of Villiers appeared to be stationary; even his appointment as a Groom of the Bedchamber was deferred in favour of one Carr, a baseborn kinsman of the Earl of Somerset; and it began to be thought that the King’s preference for Villiers was declining.[[59]] But the game was begun—the hopes of future power, of wealth, perhaps of rank, cherished by maternal counsels, were now working upon the mind of the young adventurer, and he resolved upon one sacrifice to obtain the objects at which he grasped—the sacrifice was, his youthful attachment to old Sir Roger Aston’s daughter.[[60]]

As it often happens, the relinquishment of fondly-cherished hopes was owing, in part, to the advice of a friend: the disposition of Villiers was naturally so generous, that, to abandon all his pretensions to one who was willing to forego the gifts of fortune for his sake, would, probably, not otherwise have occurred to his mind. It happened, however, that whilst he was lingering about the Court, a young companion, Sir Robert Graham, one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, professed himself to be greatly interested in his advancement. Villiers soon constituted Graham his “familiar friend,” and, being brought into what Sir Henry Wotton terms “intrinsical society” with him, was naturally led to speak of his hopes and fears, and to unfold to the young courtier, who could boast more experience than he might pretend to possess, his projected marriage. That bond was disapproved of by Graham. “I know not,” remarks Wotton, “what luminaries he spied in his face;” but they were, at all events, sufficient to indicate success at Court. Impressed with this conviction, Graham dissuaded Villiers from his love-match, and encouraged him rather to “woo fortune,” by still further improving the King’s favourable sentiments towards him. It is not improbable that Graham was the tool of that party who earnestly desired Somerset’s downfall, and who gladly availed themselves of the attractions of young Villiers to accomplish their desires. The advice given by Graham “sank,” it is said, into the young man’s “fancy.” He may have remembered the auspicious meeting at Abthorpe, when, in his old black suit, he had charmed even the regard of a Monarch who rarely dispensed with the display of costly garments in others, how slovenly soever he might, in his royal pleasure, be in his own attire. A love-suit to a country damsel, richly endowed, even if fond and faithful, seemed but a poor exchange for a courtly career. Villiers, therefore, wavered; and perhaps the obstacles thrown in his way by the Aston family added to his irresolution. It is probable, too, that the prospect of aiding hereafter his many relations and connections may have had an influence over his decision. How great the struggle may have been, must be left to the imagination, for no documents are at hand to reveal it. The step was momentous; for it threw upon the world, to buffet with all the turmoils of a conspicuous station, a man who, otherwise, would probably have lived and died in respectable obscurity, existing upon his wife’s fortune.

Villiers, however, in time, adopted the advice of Sir Robert Graham. He abjured the thoughts of an early marriage, and devoted himself to ambition.[[61]]

An opportunity was soon found of bringing him again before the King, under a more advantageous aspect than in his black suit, and those who sought his advancement henceforth supplied him with the means of appearing conformably to the fashion of the day, by affording him a present income far above his poor patrimonial inheritance.[[62]] Thus assisted, the young man prepared to meet the King at Cambridge, where, in the month of March, 1614-15, the honour of a royal visit was conferred upon that University.

The influence of the Somerset family had, in a great measure, procured this distinction to Cambridge, in preference to Oxford; for the Earl of Suffolk, the father of the Countess of Somerset, had been chosen Chancellor of Cambridge during the preceding year;[[63]] and to honour this nobleman,—who had also been recently constituted Lord Treasurer, an office from which he was eventually degraded—James announced that he purposed to fulfil an intention which he had held for some years, but had deferred, as the good fortune of Villiers decreed, until this critical period. For a powerful cabal was now concentrated against the hateful sway of this branch of the Howard family, and Villiers was the anchor on which the hopes of the adverse party rested.

On the seventh day of the month, King James made his entry into Cambridge with as much solemnity and as great a concourse of “gallants and great men as the hard weather and extremely foul ways would permit.” He was accompanied by Prince Charles, who had previously visited the University; and these royal personages were met at the boundaries of the town by the Corporation, and welcomed by the Recorder with an address setting forth the loyalty of the Mayor and Burgesses of Cambridge, and insisting upon the antiquity of the town, which “was builded ‘as historians testifie, and as these worthy personages now certified,’ before Christ’s Incarnation, with a castle, tower, and walls of defence, by Duke Cantaber.” “The Muses,” pursued the Recorder, “did branch from Athens to Cambridge, and were lovinglie lodged in the houses of citizens until ostles and halls were erected for them without endowments.” Two cups were then presented, one to the King, the other to Prince Charles, who was addressed as “a peerless and most noble Prince, our morning starre,” and the procession moved onwards.[[64]] Among the gallants who followed through the “foul ways” of the outskirts of the town was George Villiers, no longer in his black and worn suit, but decked out with all the advantages which the pride and ambition of his mother could command. It is worthy of remark that at that time a plan for forming a public library at Cambridge, similar to that at Oxford, was entertained by the Heads of the College. The scheme was abandoned until many years afterwards, when it was adopted by the very youth who passed along amid a throng of others far more wealthy and important than himself, when he was himself Chancellor of the University.[[65]]

The whole body of the collegians was drawn out in their appropriate costume, in order to receive the King. From some of the regulations for this occasion, it appears that the habits of the University were not at that time the most refined, nor their taste in attire the most modest. It was found necessary not only to forbid the graduates, scholars, and students of the University to frequent ale-houses and taverns during His Majesty’s sojourn, but also not to presume to take tobacco in St. Marie’s Church, or in Trinity College Hall “upon pain of expulsion.” These young gentlemen, too, were prone to indulge themselves in strange “pekadivelas, vast bands, huge cuffs, shoe-roses, tufts, locks, and topps of hair,” unbecoming that modesty and carriage suitable to the students of so renowned a University, and it was therefore determined to enforce the dress fixed by Statute, upon a penalty of 6s. 8d. for every default; and in case of contempt of this warning, of a month’s imprisonment.[[66]] Thus restricted, the undergraduates and their superiors appeared in all the advantage of academic attire, and the King and his youthful son, passing through their well-disciplined ranks, proceeded to Trinity College, where they were domiciled.

One or two circumstances were wanting, nevertheless, to complete the magnificence of this reception:—the first was the presence of the Queen, who was not invited—an omission for which the Chancellor, and not the University, was blamed—another, the scarcity of ladies, there being only seven present, and those entirely of the Howard family. Such was the pride or policy of that haughty and rapacious faction.

The Countess of Arundel, wife of Philip, Earl of Arundel, the half-brother of the Chancellor, was one of the seven present on that occasion. She was scarcely less exalted as the wife of the great Earl of Arundel, than as the daughter of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl Marshal of England, whose co-heiress she was. Not only were her possessions large, but her virtues great; she was beloved for her excellence of character and conjugal virtues. Upon this lady’s brow, as she passed along, a cloud of sadness may perhaps have been traced for the loss of her son, James, Lord Maltravers, a young nobleman of great promise, whose death, happening a few years previously, she had incessantly deplored. By her side came the Lady Elizabeth Grey, her sister.

The Countess of Suffolk was, of course, an object of considerable attention. This lady was the second wife of the Chancellor, and was equally celebrated for her beauty and her rapacity. At the time of her marriage with the Earl of Suffolk she was a widow, having been united to the eldest son of Lord Rich. Her birth was not noble, but she had inherited a portion of the estate of her father, Sir Henry Knevit, a Wiltshire Knight. The Countess acquired a great ascendancy over her husband, and there is too much reason to suppose that he succumbed to the influence of her talents and her beauty, and, although he did not share in the fruits of her peculation, permitted her to indulge her avarice. So notorious were the bribes of which this lady accepted, that Lord Bacon compared her to an exchange woman who kept a shop, in which Sir John Bingley exclaimed “What do ye lack?” At length the small-pox destroyed the beauty which had been so fatal to the Countess’s peace and honour, and which had wrought much misery and disgrace to all who yielded to its influence.

But if the career of this busy female courtier were reprehensible, that of her young and beautiful daughter, the Countess of Somerset, who accompanied her mother that day, was tinged with guilt of a far deeper dye. It is difficult, in modern times, to realise to one’s mind two such women—the one availing herself of her high station and her personal attractions to enrich her family at the expense of every delicate sentiment and lofty principle; the other infuriated by a mad passion, until every womanly attribute departed, and the vengeance of a fiend alone characterised her dark career. The Countess of Somerset was, at this time, still in the bloom of her youth, being about twenty-four years of age, and the crimes which afterwards brought infamy and retribution on her, were then known only to her corrupt and remorseless heart. The Court, to use the expression of a contemporary historian, “was her nest, and she was hatched up by her mother, whom the sour breath of the age had already tainted, from whom the young lady might take such a tincture, that ease, greatness, and Court glories would more disdain and impress on her, than any way wear out and diminish.” Such was the loveliness of this guilty woman, that those who saw her face might, it has been said, “challenge nature for harbouring so wicked a heart under so sweet and bewitching a countenance:”[[67]] nor were the arts fashionable at the time forgotten; they heightened the attractions of the Countess of Somerset. “All outward adornments,” we are told, “to present beauty in her full glory, were not wanting;” among the rest, yellow starch, “the invention and foyl of jaundiced complexions, with great cut-work bands and piccadillies,” were adopted by the unhappy Lady Somerset, and were, doubtless, produced on this, as upon other festive occasions.

The Countess of Suffolk and her retinue proceeded to Magdalen College, which had been founded by Lord Chancellor Audley, the grandfather of the Earl of Suffolk.[[68]]

The youngest daughter of the Earl of Suffolk accompanied her sister and mother. This was Catherine, married to William Cecil, second Earl of Salisbury. By this union long enmities between the two families of Howard and of Percy were partially reconciled; a daughter of the house of Cecil marrying eventually Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland, “whose blood,” it had been said by the Earl of Salisbury, “would not mingle in a basin,” so inborn was the hereditary hatred between the two races. This union had been one of policy alone; for the Earl of Salisbury inherited no traits of his ancestry but their titles; and his weak and abject nature revived the remembrance of only the worst parts of his father’s character; “a man,” adds Clarendon, who sums up the whole, “of no words, except in hunting and hawking.”

Lady Howard of Walden, the daughter of George Hume, Earl of Dunbar, and wife of the eldest son of the Earl of Suffolk, and Lady Howard, the wife of Thomas, Lord Howard of Charlton, his second son, completed the family array. The latter of these two ladies was a Cecil, but her claims to celebrity rest chiefly upon her being the mother of Lady Elisabeth Howard, who married the great Dryden; her two sons, Sir Robert and Edward Howard, enjoyed some portion of literary fame in their day.[[69]]

The first night’s entertainment at Cambridge was a comedy, acted by the gownsmen of St. John’s College. This was a sort of burlesque, ridiculing Sir Edward Radcliffe, the King’s physician; it proved, according to public opinion, but “a lean argument, and though it was larded with pretty shows at the beginning and end, and with somewhat too broad speech for such a presence, still it was dry.”

On the following evening there was performed in Clare Hall the famous play of “Ignoramus” a burlesque. This production was attributed to George Buggle, a Fellow of Clare Hall. It was written and spoken in Latin, nor was it even printed at the time when it agitated the polite and learned society by which its points and satire were so keenly enjoyed. The manuscript was, it appears, destroyed; and it was not until ten years after the death of its reputed author that it was thought prudent to print it, having been taken down from the mouth of the author. The design of this popular comedy was to ridicule the Common Law, and no one enjoyed the satire more than the august individual whose office it was to uphold the laws. Never, it has been said, did anything fascinate the King’s attention or suit his taste so much as this representation, and he commanded several repetitions by the same performers. “Ignoramus” was not, however, readily forgiven or forgotten by that body whom it attacked; and, whilst the King and his Court derived the most lively pleasure from its mingled invective and burlesque, the lawyers were greatly offended by its pungent satire. Successive publications afterwards appeared, taxing the justice of this attack upon the legal profession, and written with much bitterness.

During the performance of this play, the King’s attention was not, however, wholly riveted upon “Ignoramus” and his associates; among the audience in Clare Hall, George Villiers, decorated with all the care that his mother’s pride and affection could suggest, appeared, resplendent in beauty. “The King,” to use the expression of a contemporary writer, “fell into admiration of him,” so that he became confounded between his delight at the appearance of Villiers and the pleasure of the play. To both of these contending emotions, James, with his usual absence of dignity, gave a free expression. “This,” says Roger Coke, “set the heads of the courtiers at work how to get Somerset out of favour, and to bring Villiers in.”[in.”][[70]]

Ample time was permitted during the tedious performance for the King to observe the young adventurer who sought his favour, and for busy politicians to build upon the absurd partiality of the weak old King. The representation of “Ignoramus,” with its dull pedantic jests, and its personalities, long since passed away and forgotten, lasted eight hours; the second time it commenced at eight in the evening, and was not concluded until one in the morning.

The performers were chiefly Fellows of Clare Hall and of Queen’s College, and their efforts met with the greatest applause. Thus, in Bishop Corbet’s “Grave Poem,” written in 1614, to celebrate the occasion, it is said:—

Nothing did win more praise of mine,

Than did these actors, most divine.

And, alluding to the clerical character of these much-approved individuals, he adds:—

Their play had sundry wise factors,

A perfect diocess of actors

Upon the stage, for I am sure that

There was both bishop, pastor, curate,

Nor was their labour light and small,

The charge of some was pastoral.[[71]]

Several of the younger men who figured on the stage of Clare Hall were associated in their subsequent career with some of the most important events of the period in which they lived. At the last hour, a boy of thirteen was called upon to act the part of Surda, in which it was necessary to assume female attire. This youth was, even at that early age, an undergraduate; and he was thus summoned hastily to learn a new part in addition to that of Venica, which had been allotted to him, from the scruples of his tutor, the Rev. Mr. Fairclough, who had been selected to undertake the character of Surda on account of his low stature; but Mr. Fairclough was a Puritan, and, deeming it a species of deception to wear women’s clothes, abjured the degrading task. The boy who now supplied his place was Spencer Compton, afterwards Lord Compton, an early favourite and attendant of Charles I., whom he accompanied into Spain. His loyal exertions in the cause of his unfortunate master shed, in after life, honour upon his name. Mr. Fairclough was not the only person who objected to lower the dignity of man’s estate by the assumption of a woman’s gown. The Head of Emmanuel College, then esteemed a Puritanical house, objected also to one of its undergraduates accepting the part of a girl; but these scruples were overruled by the guardian of the youth.[[72]]

In the “Grave Poem” of Bishop Corbet, Emmanuel College is thus satirised:—

But th’ poor house of Emmanuel

Would not be like proud Jesabel,

Nor shew herself before the King,

An hypocrite, or painted thing;

[And images she would have none,

For fear of superstition, or]

But that the ways might seem more fair,

Conceived a tedious mile of prayer.[[73]]

The plot of “Ignoramus” was borrowed from the Trappolaria of Giamballista Porta, an Italian dramatist, but the characters were taken from life. “Ignoramus” was designed to personify Mr. Francis Brakyn, the Recorder of Cambridge, who had rendered himself obnoxious to the University in a dispute about precedence between the Mayor of the town and the Vice-Chancellor. Mr. Brakyn was a barrister, and the ridicule cast upon him was as much enjoyed by the dignified heads of houses as by noisy undergraduates.[[74]]

Amongst the performers was John Cole, afterwards Earl of Clare, distinguished for his moderation in the Civil Wars. The youth who was nearly being precluded from acting by the tutors of Emmanuel College, was the Rev. John Towers, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, one of the twelve loyal Prelates imprisoned by Parliament. Fuller says of him, “He was a great actor when young, and a great sufferer when old, dying rich only in children and patience.” “Ignoramus” was translated into English in the year 1678, and a mutilated version of it was produced at the Royal Theatre in the same year, called the “English Lawyer.” This was written by Edward Ravenscroft.[[75]]

Another play, entitled “Albumazar,” followed the successful representation of “Ignoramus;” this, and a Latin pastoral, were the “action or invention of Trinity College, and met with a gracious approval from the King, who, even at his repasts, was now heard loudly to extol Cambridge above Oxford; and yet an awkward incident occurred during the royal visit. During the acts and disputations, in which James delighted, the University orator addressed Prince Charles, who stood beside his father, as Prince Jacobissime Carole;” it was also said that he called him Jacobule, too, which, observed an eye-witness, “neither pleased the King nor anybody else.”[[76]] Buckingham, who possibly understood no Latin, must have found the dramas, the pastoral, the acts and disputations insufferably tedious; but he was now the tool of a party, and therefore, doubtless, remained to witness all these various exhibitions, little dreaming that one day he was to be installed Chancellor of that very University. Dark and contemptuous looks were discerned on the faces of sundry jealous Oxonians, who had gone to see and to ridicule their rivals, the Cambridge men, who were continually, as a contemporary relates, “applauding themselves, and the Oxford men as fast condemning and detracting all that was done.”[[77]] The best comment upon the exploits of the boastful collegians was that returned by Mr. Corbet, afterwards Bishop Corbet, who, “being seriously dealt withal by some friends to say what he thought, answered that he had left his malice and judgment at home, and came thither only to commend.”[[78]]

King James, however, expressed such unqualified admiration of what he saw, that fears were entertained by those who had had to entertain him that he would have repeated his visit privately; apprehensions were felt also lest he should order the performers of the “Ignoramus,” a band chiefly composed of ghostly preachers and learned bachelors of divinity, to repair to London; but the panic was groundless, and neither of these dreaded events took place. Great, indeed, was the expense of the reception and provision considered suitable to the grandeur of the occasion. Nor was it long before events still more ruinous to the Earl of Suffolk and his family than their enormous expenditure to grace the King’s visit at Cambridge scandalized the public mind. The jealousy of the Earl of Somerset was now aroused by the favour shown at Court to his young rival. Slight occurrences warned the sinking favourite of his own unpopularity. An entertainment was given at Baynard’s Castle by three great families—those of Herbert, Hertford, and Bedford; as the company were repairing to the appointed place, they discerned Somerset’s portrait hanging out of a limner’s shop. Sanderson, the historian, who happened to be a bystander, took occasion to inquire “on what score that was done?” The reply was, “that this meeting at Baynard’s Castle was to discover;” for there it appears the scheme to elevate Villiers was concocted by those who viewed with disgust the ascendancy of Somerset.