Before his last fatal expedition, among the many libels which abounded, I have discovered a manuscript satire, entitled "Rhodomontados."[[243]] The thoughtless minister is made to exult in his power over the giddy-headed multitude. Buckingham speaks in his own person; and we have here preserved those false rumours and those aggravated feelings then floating among the people: a curious instance of those heaped up calumnies which are often so heavily laid on the head of a prime minister, no favourite with the people.
'Tis not your threats shall take me from the king!—
Nor questioning my counsels and commands,
How with the honour of the state it stands;
That I lost Rhé and with such loss of men,
As scarcely time can e'er repair again;
Shall aught affright me; or the care to see
The narrow seas from Dunkirk clear and free;
Or that you can enforce the king believe,
I from the pirates a third share receive;
Or that I correspond with foreign states
(Whether the king's foes or confederates)
To plot the ruin of the king and state,
As erst you thought of the Palatinate;
Or that five hundred thousand pounds doth lie
In the Venice bank to help Spain's majesty;
Or that three hundred thousand more doth rest
In Dunkirk, for the arch-duchess to contest
With England, whene'er occasion offers;
Or that by rapine I fill up my coffers;
Nor that an office in church, state, or court,
Is freely given, but they must pay me for't.
Nor shall you ever prove I had a hand
In poisoning of the monarch of this land,
Or the like hand by poisoning to intox
Southampton, Oxford, Hamilton, Lennox.
Nor shall you ever prove by magic charms,
I wrought the king's affection or his harms.
Nor fear I if ten Vitrys now were here,
Since I have thrice ten Ravilliacs as near.
My power shall be unbounded in each thing,
If once I use these words, "I and the king."
Seem wise, and cease then to perturb the realm,
Or strive with him that sits and guides the helm.
I know your reading will inform you soon,
What creatures they were, that barkt against the moon.
I'll give you better counsel as a friend:
Cobblers their latchets ought not to transcend;
Meddle with common matters, common wrongs;
To the House of Commons common things belongs.
Leave him the oar that best knows how to row,
And state to him that best the state doth know.
If I by industry, deep reach, or grace,
Am now arriv'd at this or that great place,
Must I, to please your inconsiderate rage,
Throw down mine honours? Will nought else assuage
Your furious wisdoms? True shall the verse be yet—
There's no less wit required to keep, than get.
Though Lambe be dead, I'll stand, and you shall see
I'll smile at them that can but bark at me.
After Buckingham's death, Charles the First cherished his memory as warmly as his life, advanced his friends, and designed to raise a magnificent monument to his memory;[[244]] and if any one accused the duke, the king always imputed the fault to himself. The king said, "Let not the duke's enemies seek to catch at any of his offices, for they will find themselves deceived." Charles called Buckingham "his martyr!" and often said the world was much mistaken in the duke's character; for it was commonly thought the duke ruled his majesty; but it was much the contrary, having been his most faithful and obedient servant in all things, as the king said he would make sensibly appear to the world. Indeed, after the death of Buckingham, Charles showed himself extremely active in business. Lord Dorchester wrote—"The death of Buckingham causes no changes; the king holds in his own hands the total direction, leaving the executory part to every man within the compass of his charge."[[245]] This is one proof, among many, that Charles the First was not the puppet-king of Buckingham, as modern historians have imagined.
FELTON, THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN.
Felton, the assassin of the Duke of Buckingham, by the growing republican party was hailed as a Brutus, rising, in the style of a patriotic bard,
Refulgent from the stroke.—AKENSIDE.
Gibbon has thrown a shade of suspicion even over Brutus's "god-like stroke," as Pope has exalted it. In Felton, a man acting from mixed and confused motives, the political martyr is entirely lost in the contrite penitent; he was, however, considered in his own day as a being almost beyond humanity. Mrs. Macaulay has called him a "lunatic," because the duke had not been assassinated on the right principle. His motives appeared even inconceivable to his contemporaries; for Sir Henry Wotton, who has written a Life of the Duke of Buckingham, observes, that "what may have been the immediate or greatest motive of that felonious conception (the duke's assassination) is even yet in the clouds." After ascertaining that it was not private revenge, he seems to conclude that it was Dr. Eglisham's furious "libel," and the "remonstrance" of the parliament, which, having made the duke "one of the foulest monsters on earth," worked on the dark imagination of Felton.
From Felton's memorable example, and some similar ones, one observation occurs worth the notice of every minister of state who dares the popular odium he has raised. Such a minister will always be in present danger of a violent termination to his career; for however he may be convinced that there is not political virtue enough in a whole people to afford "the god-like stroke," he will always have to dread the arm of some melancholy enthusiast, whose mind, secretly agitated by the public indignation, directs itself solely on him. It was some time after having written this reflection, that I discovered the following notice of the Duke of Buckingham in the unpublished Life of Sir Symonds D'Ewes. "Some of his friends had advised him how generally he was hated in England, and how needful it would be for his greater safety to wear some coat of mail, or some other secret defensive armour, which the duke slighting, said, 'It needs not; there are no Roman spirits left.'"[[246]]