“I rest, your very loving father,
“G. Cant.”[[87]]
The conduct of Villiers on a subsequent occasion made a deep impression on the mind of the excellent prelate who thus befriended the youth. “The Roman historian, Tacitus,” he bitterly remarks, “hath somewhere a note, that benefits while they may be requited, seem courtesies, but when they are so high that they cannot be repaid, they prove matters of hatred.”[[88]] This was a severe reflection on one who ought never to have forgotten the greatest of all obligations, those bestowed on the unfriended by one in the height of favour. Villiers may henceforth be regarded as fairly launched in his career; it was perhaps his misfortune that so few important obstacles occurred in his progress, and that it was achieved by an apparent concurrence of lucky events, and not by patient merit, nor by any of the legitimate sources of success. “The genius of the man,” observes a modern writer, “was daring and magnificent, and his elocution was graceful as his manners; but these were natural talents; he possessed no acquired ones.”[[89]]
A true, free-spoken, conscientious friend might have guarded his youth from peril, and given to his aspiring mind a laudable bias. Abbot would have been that friend, but Abbot was soon discarded, and an incident occurred some years afterwards which clouded this excellent prelate’s days, and produced a temporary, though unmerited, disgrace.
The archbishop, like many churchmen of his time, was an ardent lover of the chace. In this respect he resembled Cranmer, who was so great a horseman as to be called the “rough rider,” since no steed came amiss to his fearless and practised guidance.
Abbot was hunting, in the summer of 1621, in Lord Zouch’s park of Bramsell, in Hampshire. He aimed at a deer, which, leaping up, evaded the shot, but a gamekeeper who had hidden himself behind the herd, was killed by the discharge from the lively primate’s gun. An inquest was held, and a verdict of death by “misfortune and the keeper’s own fault” was returned. It appeared that the man had been that very morning warned not to go in that direction. King James, on first hearing of this occurrence, declared that none “but a fool or knave would think the worse of Abbot for that accident, the like of which had once nearly happened to himself.”
Abbot, it seemed, had gone into Hampshire with the intention of consecrating a chapel as Lord Zouch’s, and not merely for the purposes of amusement.[[90]] On considering the matter, nevertheless, his legal advisers did not consider the verdict to have been legally drawn up. Abbot therefore wrote to Lord Zouch, requesting him to have the coroner and jury re-summoned, and the verdict re-considered, the credit of his profession being involved, and his enemies ready to slander him.[[91]] In a subsequent letter he recalled this request, declaring that it was unnecessary; that he had a clear conscience, and was anxious to do everything to give his enemies no advantages over him. In a few days, nevertheless, he went again to Lord Zouch, declaring that his unhappy accident had been a bitter potion to him, on account of the conflict with his conscience, complaining that he was the talk of men, the cause of rejoicing to the Papist and insult to the Puritan.[[92]] The King was still gracious to him, but the primate remained in seclusion, and misfortune seemed at hand.[[93]] These letters were written in August. In the October of the same year, the King appointed an inquiry into the accidental killing of the keeper in Bramsell Park, and desired three bishops and others to examine whether there had been scandal brought upon the Church or not.[[94]] The commissioners were divided, strange to say, upon the question of the archbishop’s guilt or innocence, but their decision, influenced by the strong advocacy of the Bishop of Winchester, was ultimately in his favour. The King, as the head of the Church, then absolved him, but all the new bishops were so unwilling to receive consecration at his hand, that Abbot was obliged to appoint three prelates to consecrate for him. All forfeitures and penalties for this offence were remitted, and the archbishop restored to the King’s presence. There is, however, no proof of what one looks for with solicitude, the mediation of Buckingham in favour of his friend and patron, although there is no reason, from the result, to suppose that it may not have been exerted.
This attempt to make the archbishop’s mishap a “culpable homicide,” originated in the Lord Keeper Williams, who had formed a plot for depriving Abbot. The accusation was based upon the ground that the primate had been employed in an unlawful act when the accident occurred, but Coke decreed that “by the laws of the realm, a bishop may lawfully hunt in a park; hunt he may, because a bishop, when dying, is to leave his pack of hounds to the King’s free will and disposal.”[[95]]
Such were the incidents which deprived Villiers, for a time, of the valuable counsels of Abbot. It must, however, be also remembered, when the real ignorance of Villiers is considered, and when his deficiencies and his errors are lamented as constituting in his case a national misfortune, that in his career as a courtier he wanted the needful element in all improvement, leisure. The daily existence of James was made up of toilsome pleasures,—the chase, the drama, the mask,—at which Villiers, weary, doubtless, at times, of the incessant pageant, sometimes assisted. He soon imbibed a still greater taste for display than even his crafty mother had implanted in him for ambitious purposes, and became, like most persons suddenly raised from poverty and obscurity, inordinately ostentatious and prodigal.
It is amusing, however, to find him, in the early days of his greatness, learning horsemanship. James was passionately fond of seeing others exhibit on horseback. One of his favourite places of resort was Newmarket. The King generally joined in all country amusements, drawn in a litter, a mortal inward disease even then making that gentle movement necessary; whilst the young and noble thronged around him on their steeds, set off in all the bravery of costly caparisons. Prince Henry had, during his brief career, set the fashion of a fondness for horse-racing, and James, who suffered so many of his accomplished son’s higher objects to become extinct in his grave, maintained in all its prosperity that diversion. Newmarket, henceforth, was a favourite place of resort. Amongst the late Prince’s equerries was a Frenchman named St. Antoine, whose feats are frequently the subject of comment in the newsletters of the day.