And this was no matter of surprise, if we may believe in the truth of the following remarks:—“That Villiers was no sooner admitted to stand there in his own right, but the eyes of all such as look’d out of judgement, or gazed out of curiosity, were quickly directed towards him; as a man, in the delicacy and beauty of his colour, decency and grace of his motion, the most rarely accomplished they had ever beheld.”
The emotions experienced by Villiers, as he gradually ascended higher and higher towards the eminence of worldly grandeur, are well described by Lord Clarendon, in the following words:—
“His swiftness and nimbleness in rising, may be with less injury ascribed to a vivacity than any ambition in his nature; since, it is certain the King’s eagerness to advance him, so surprised his youth, that he seemed only to be held up by the violent inclinations of the King, than to climb up by any art or industry of his own.”[[126]] It is not to be marvelled at, that the character of Villiers should suffer in this ordeal, fiercer than that of the most depressing vicissitude and adversity; and soon, therefore, indications are to be found, in the annals of the day, of a dawning selfishness and imperiousness, foreign to the simple and courteous nature of Villiers.[[127]] Still there were noble traits of a lingering greatness of spirit, which justify the partiality which every one who analyses his character must necessarily entertain for it; sometimes at variance with his better judgment. Whilst by watchful bystanders it was remarked that Villiers, the new made Viscount, “will hardly suffer any one to leap over his head,” nor would he allow the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere to be made an Earl; by others, a sacrifice of interest, proceeding from a generous scruple, is recorded.
It will be remembered by historical readers, that Sherborne Castle, the forfeited estate of Sir Walter Ralegh, had been bestowed by James upon the Earl of Somerset. When supplicated by Lady Ralegh to restore that property to her children, the monarch’s answer was, “I mean to have it for Carr;” a reply, which, as Mr. Amos justly observes, “cannot be read in the present day without indignation;” “what impressions,” he adds, “must it have produced on the contemporaries of Ralegh and Carr?”[[128]] At the trial of Somerset, this luckless possession, upon which a curse has been supposed to rest, was highly prejudicial to him; and many there were, who regarded his calamities as a judgment for this detested acquisition.
When the Earl of Somerset’s lands were given away, after his forfeiture, the estate of Sherborne was offered to Villiers; he might, perhaps, have accepted it without odium, for upon Prince Charles had been bestowed all Somerset’s estates in the north. But he refused the offer of Sherborne, according to a passage in Birch’s MSS., “in a most noble fashion; praying the King that the building of his fortunes might not be founded on the ruin of another.”[[129]] Sherborne, the value of which was at this time about eight hundred pounds yearly, but was expected to be shortly double that sum, was given to Sir John Digby, upon the payment of ten thousand pounds, and has remained ever since in the same family. The respect of Villiers towards the memory of an unfortunate man was much appreciated; already had public opinion visited with its bitterest curse, the traitor, Sir Lewis Stukeley, who was afterwards a prisoner in that very “chamber in the Tower, in which Ralegh, whom he had betrayed, had spent twelve years of misery.”[[130]]
Sir Henry Wotton compares the repetition of benefits conferred upon Villiers, to a kind of embroidering, or listing of one favour upon another. But all these preferments were, he adds, but the “faceings or fringeings of his greatness,” compared with that trust which the King shortly reposed in his favourite, when he made him “the chief concomitant of his heir apparent.”[[131]]
This important mark of respect and confidence had never been extended to the ill-fated predecessor in James’s favour, the Earl of Somerset. If Villiers were at that period of his life unworthy of the trust, James, endowed as he was with all the experience which his own vicious Court could bestow, was criminal beyond measure to place his only son, on whom the hopes of the nation rested, in contaminated society. James must, in that case, have been either grossly deceived, or immeasurably culpable. The friendship, thus commenced between the prince and the favourite, in youth, was fraught with consequences so important to this country, that few points of historical biography can offer greater domestic interest than the early intimacy between Charles and Villiers.
Charles, Prince of Wales, was eight years younger than the man whom he afterwards admitted to an intimacy such as has been rarely permitted between a monarch and a subject, and which ceased only when Villiers expired. The superstitious, when they remembered, in aftertimes, the perils of the young prince’s infancy, saw in them a type of his fate. “He was born,” says the historian Kennet, “and baptized, in somewhat of surprise and confusion, as it were beginning the world in a sort of presage how he was to end it.”[[132]] So feeble was he, that even afterwards, although in process of time there were many great ladies suitors for the keeping of the infant Prince, yet when they saw how sickly and fragile he was, their hearts failed, and none of them consented to undertake so important a charge.[[133]] Little, indeed, could it have been anticipated that the delicate boy was fated, not only to outlive his energetic and robust brother, Henry, but even to become, in times of danger, one of the hardiest and healthiest of those who fought on Edgehill, and at Naseby. The constitution of Charles was invigorated in his vicissitudes, and perfected by the toils of a soldier’s life.
That he should reign over this country was foretold by second sight. When James the First was preparing to remove from Scotland, there came to the Court an aged Highland chief, to take a solemn leave of his sovereign. The Queen and her children were present. The old man, after addressing a great deal of affectionate and sage advice to the King, turned to the children, and passing by Henry, he kissed with great ardour and deep respect the hands of his younger brother, the Duke Charles, as then he was called.
The King strove to correct what he fancied was a mistake on the part of the chief, and to direct his attention to the heir apparent, the fit object of such homage. But the Highlander heeded not those hints; he continued to gaze upon and to address the infant Charles; saying that he knew to whom he addressed himself. “This child,” he exclaimed, “will be greater than his elder brother, and will convey his father’s name and title to succeeding generations.” “This,” said Dr. Pernichief, Charles’s tutor, “was conceived to be dotage; but the event gave it the credit of a prophecy, and confirmed that some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetical spirits.”[[134]] A long period of fragility seemed to throw doubt upon the gratuitous prophecy of the aged chief. Fortunately, Sir Robert Carey, to whom the charge of the drooping child was entrusted, was an estimable person, incapable of anything deceitful, or unjust—a “plain, honest gentleman.”[[135]] Those who wished ill to him and to his wife rejoiced at this selection, for they were certain that the prince would never be reared.