One circumstance which somewhat disturbed the minds of the Court revellers, yet seemed not to lessen the number of the revels, was the fatal illness of the Queen. At the Christmas of 1618-19, the physicians began to speak doubtfully, and the courtiers to plot for leases for her lands, for the keeping of Somerset House, and for a division of the spoil of her furniture and personalities, whenever her death should take place, so confidantly was it expected. Meantime, the festivities of the season went on as usual, Hatton House being the centre of all that was gay and great, and the lady of the mansion the deepest of domestic politicians. During the Christmas she gave a grand supper, with a play, and invited all the gallants and great ladies about the Court to grace it; but the Howards, especially, were solicited and caressed, for it was Lady Hatton’s aim to “solder and link them fast again” with the Marquis of Buckingham; and to see if he would cast an eye towards Diana Cecil,[[248]] the second daughter of William, second Earl of Salisbury. This young lady was made, in order to attract the greater notice, Mistress of the Feast; but the bait proved unsuccessful. Many, doubtless, were the parents who were not unwilling to match even the fairest of their daughters with the young Marquis, “for it is like,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “there will be much angling after it, now it is decided the King wishes him to take a wife, which of divers is diversely constructed.”[[249]]
Twelfth Night was celebrated with a masque, in which Prince Charles, Buckingham, and several young noblemen and gentlemen, to the number of twelve—amongst whom young Maynard “bore away the bell” for dancing—enacted. This masque was one of Ben Jonson’s compositions; but whether it was the “Vision of Delight” repeated, or “Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue,” is not determined.[[250]] Six days afterwards, the Banqueting House at Whitehall, in which these revels had taken place, was burned down, owing, it was supposed, to the neglect of women who were appointed to sweep the room, and who held their candles too near to some of the oiled cloths and devices for the masque, which had been left by the King’s orders to be ready for Shrove Tuesday.[[251]]
The Queen had been some time ill, but hopes were entertained of her recovery until within a very short period of her death. When the danger increased, Dr. Mayerne, according to a promise he had given her, told her, twenty-four hours before her decease, that she could not recover. It was then too late for the Queen to make a will; but she wished to leave all that she possessed, with the exception of a jewel to the King of Denmark, and a casket to the Princess Elizabeth, to her son Charles, adding an assurance that her faith was free from Popery. Although, when asked if she wished to leave all she had to her son, she answered, and had again, “Yes,” her possessions were so valuable, that the people about the Court did not expect that her wishes would be followed out without the usual formalities. Meantime, whilst her body lay at Denmark House, her funeral was delayed, because the Master of the Wardrobe would not pay double prices, usually then charged when ready money could not be produced. Crowds thronged round Denmark House; and far more curiosity was expressed to see her after her death than had ever been testified during her life. The ladies were weary of waiting till the money could be raised to carry to the grave one who had left 400,000l. in jewels, 90,000l. in plate, 80,000 Jacobuses in ready money, besides a costly wardrobe.[[252]] “The will,” says the precise Mr. Chamberlain, in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, “proves to be nothing.”[[253]] The King, meantime, was dangerously ill, of an agonising disease, and obliged to be carried part of the way to Theobalds in a Neapolitan portative chair, given him by Lady Hatton; weak as he was, and even whilst the Queen was unburied, he would have his deer brought before him, that he might enjoy his wonted pleasures. The lady mourners were, meantime, quarrelling by the funeral bier for precedency at the approaching ceremonial; and, amongst the foremost of the combatants was the Countess of Nottingham, who claimed, as one of the two conditions of Nottingham’s giving up the post of Lord High Admiral, that he should be the first Earl of England, and that she, as first Countess, should step out before all others on this occasion. The expenses of the funeral were to exceed those of Queen Elizabeth’s, although money was so scarce, that some of Queen Anne’s plate would have to be coined three times to pay them. There was not even money to put the King’s and Prince’s servants in mourning; and, though Anne died on the twenty-first of March, the twenty-seventh of March found her still in ghastly state at Denmark House.[[254]] At length, on the fourteenth of May, the corpse, with Prince Charles riding before it, was carried to its resting place. The chariot and six horses, on which the Queen’s effigy was placed, and the hearse itself, were very stately, yet the funeral was pronounced to be a “poor, drawling sight.” Two hundred and fifty indigent women followed the hearse. The Countess of Arundel claimed and obtained her privilege to follow as first Countess; whilst Buckingham’s place, as pall-bearer, was supplied by the Earl of Rutland.
The Queen’s death took away all chance of that counter-influence which it is possible that Anne might have sought to exercise when the conduct of Buckingham became, as it eventually did, oppressive and overbearing. It left, also, her son, whose affectionate nature had found a return in his mother’s partiality for him, dependent wholly upon Buckingham as a mediator with his father. Shortly afterwards, one of the effects of this state of affairs was exhibited. The King, upon the Prince’s suit, granted the Marquis of Buckingham an estate of twelve hundred a year, that had belonged to the Queen; and to requite this service, Buckingham sued the King for an addition of 5,000l. a year to the Prince’s former allowance, which was also granted. It appears, however, that the estate assigned to Buckingham was given, ostensibly, for the care which the favourite had bestowed on His Majesty during a severe illness which had followed closely upon the death of Queen Anne.[[255]]
Hitherto, the young favourite had proved himself possessed of no higher qualities than those which a courtier’s life requires. He was now placed in a situation which drew forth abilities of which his enemies and his friends were alike ignorant. On the thirtieth day of January, 1618-19, Buckingham was created Lord High Admiral; a post which he at first refused to accept on account of his youth and inexperience. James would, however, admit of no excuse, and the aged Earl of Nottingham resigned that pre-eminent place, alleging as a reason, his advanced years, but, actually, for a “consideration.” According to one authority, the compensation was a pension of six hundred a year to his lady, of five hundred to his son, Charles Howard, and of two hundred and fifty to his daughter, to commence from the death of the Earl; or, as another statement gives it, the compact was made for certain benefits; namely, “a good round sum of ready money, and 3,000l. yearly pension during the Earl’s life; and after his decease, 1,000l. pension to his lady, and 500l. a year to his eldest son by her, which was to be doubled to him at his mother’s death.”[[256]]
The office of High Admiral was enjoyed by Buckingham to the close of his short life; and was maintained by energy such as had not been witnessed in the administration of naval affairs since the days of Queen Elizabeth. Little credit has been assigned to him hitherto by historians for his unwearied endeavours, not only to restore, but actually to create a navy; but the recent discoveries in the State Paper Office place his merits in this important sphere beyond dispute, as will hereafter be shown.[[257]]
He served, indeed, a master, whose confidence in him, based, perhaps, on more solid grounds than have been allowed, it was no easy task to disturb.
Buckingham would have acted wisely, had he, at this most critical period of his life, remembered the counsels given by Bacon in his famous “Letter to Sir George Villiers.” “You are as a new risen star, and the eyes of all men are upon you; let not your own negligence make you fall like a meteor.” But his youth, his sudden rise to fortune, his mother’s influence, and his own desire to elevate his family—an aim which militated against disinterested conduct—all contributed to smother the naturally generous impulses of his heart.
The King’s partiality was manifested both publicly and privately. Buckingham had been his attendant in illness; he was now his consoler in affliction; for the King was not insensible to the loss of a wife to whom, in spite of “some matrimonial wrangling,”[[258]] he had been an indulgent husband. Accordingly, when the funeral made for the Queen took place, Buckingham remained at Theobalds with his royal master.[[259]] His great object appears, at this period of his career, to have been the aggrandisement of his family. He had secured the prosperity of his elder brother, Sir John Villiers, by his marriage with the daughter of Sir Edward Coke; he now determined to effect that of his youngest brother, Sir Christopher Villiers, not by marrying him to the niece of a rich alderman, but by other methods. Already had he availed himself of his empire over the actions of Bacon,[[260]] to procure for his relatives one of those profitable sinecures which abounded in that reign. This was a monopoly for the licensing of ale houses, which Buckingham desired to engross, conjointly with Mr. Patrick Maule, for his brother. But there was an impediment—the monopoly had been deemed a grievance, and in 1617, Bacon had replied to Buckingham’s application for it in the following terms:—
“I have conferred with my Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Solicitor thereupon, and there is a scruple in it that it should be one of the grievances put down in Parliament; which, if it be, I may not, in my duty and love to you, advise you to deal in it; if it be not, I will mould in the best manner and help it forward.”[[261]] In a subsequent letter, three years afterwards, Bacon again discourages the continued solicitude expressed by Buckingham for the patent; for, in alluding to the patents “as like to be stirred in the lower house of parliament,” he mentions among them that of the ale houses; and recommending, through the “singular love and affection he bore to Buckingham,” that his Lordship, “whom God hath made in all things so fit to be beloved, would put off the envy of these things,” which, according to Bacon’s judgment, “would bear no great fruit, and rather take the means for ceasing them, than the note for maintaining them.”[[262]]