It was probably, on finding his first application, though assisted by his mother, useless, that Buckingham contrived a match between Sir Sebastian Harvey’s[[263]] only daughter and Sir Christopher Villiers. “The match,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “being not to the joy of the poor father, so much against the old man’s stomach, as the conceit thereof hath brought him near his grave already, if at least the world mistake not the true cause of his sickness.”[[264]]
The marriage was urged on, nevertheless, by the Countess of Buckingham, who found, however, that Sir Sebastian, then the Lord Mayor, a wilful and dogged man, could not by any means, either foul or fair, be brought to yield; in the agony of his spirit, the old man wished himself and his daughter dead, rather than be compelled to comply. The truth is, the young lady was only in her fourteenth year, and very small in stature, and her father did not wish her to be married until four or five years afterwards. He was, nevertheless, incessantly annoyed with messages from the King; and these he took so much to heart that he was brought to death’s door, although Buckingham and others were sent to comfort him. The Lord Mayor and aldermen had not been present at the Queen’s funeral; and the King, wishing to please Harvey, and to atone for this apparent insult, ordered that St. Paul’s Cross should mourn on Trinity Sunday, and that the Mayor and Corporation should go there as mourners; but Harvey, “sick and surfeited”[surfeited”], declined attendance; nor, when his Majesty, on the fifth of June, made his triumphant entry into London, was he well enough to receive him. In truth, the honest pride of Englishmen began to revolt against having the relatives of the favourite forced upon them as sons-in-law. The King, however, entered in state, attended by Prince Charles and all the nobility—Buckingham, of course, a conspicuous object amid the throng. James, on this melancholy occasion, looked “more like a wooer than a mourner.” He had already laid aside his weeds for Queen Anne. A fresh suit of “watchet satin, laid with a blue and white feather,” rejoiced the eyes of the company, who were glad to see him so gallant; and ill accorded with the expected appearance of an embassy of condolence from the Duc de Lorraine, with two or three thousand persons all in deep mourning.[[265]] And when it was remembered that the King had, not long ago, formally recommended, as on his death-bed, his son, his favourite, and Lord Digby—who had suffered, he said, in popularity, for the Spanish match—to his council, and had expected his decease shortly, there was something almost ludicrous in the contrast.
The desired match did not, however, prosper, not withstanding a visit from James to the Lord Mayor’s own residence, soon afterwards, to expostulate with the old man. He also sent for Sir Sebastian, his wife, and daughter, from their dinner, in Merchant Taylor’s Hall, in order to recommend Sir Christopher as a suitor; but all was in vain, Buckingham was defeated, and the young lady was eventually united to the eldest son of Sir Francis Popham.[[266]]
Disappointed in this matter, Buckingham now manifested his intentions of improving his own fortunes by a successful marriage; various objects of attraction had been offered to his gaze, but they wanted, probably, that which his extravagance rendered essential—fortune. On one occasion, we find him, with the King, visiting a house in order to admire the beauty of one of his god-daughters, but no result followed. The world, too, now talked loudly of the marriage of Lady Diana Cecil with the Earl of Oxford, whilst a richer bride was given, by common report, to Buckingham. This was the Lady Katherine Manners, the only daughter of Francis, sixth Earl of Rutland, a nobleman of great wealth; the lady was also endowed with other attractions besides fortune, proving a woman of many attainments and great spirit.
This marriage was, in every respect, desirable. It produced, amongst one of its advantages, an alliance in blood with the illustrious Sydneys. Roger, fifth Earl of Rutland, the brother of Earl Francis, having married Sir Philip Sydney’s daughter and heiress.[[267]] It cemented a union with a house already favoured by King James, who visited Belvoir Castle repeatedly, and who had constituted its two last lords successively Chief Justices in Eyre of all his forests and chases north of the Trent, beside conferring other distinctions; lastly, it offered to Buckingham a prospect of domestic happiness with a lady of considerable wit and spirit, and one whose affectionate attachment to her husband was amply testified by her letters and conduct during their union.
One drawback, however, existed. The Lady Katherine was a Roman Catholic; and, although passionately attached to Buckingham, she, for some time, refused to go to church. Through the exertions, however, of the celebrated Williams, then Dean of Salisbury, and afterwards Lord Chancellor, she was ultimately converted. It was for her benefit that he composed his work, entitled, “A Manual of the Elements of the Orthodox Religion, by an old Prebend;” only twenty copies of which were printed, and these were all presented to the Marquis of Buckingham.[[268]] Such was the success of Williams’s arguments, or the influence of the young lady’s affection for her suitor, that, shortly before her marriage, a public profession of the reformed faith was made by Lady Katherine, on her partaking of the Holy Communion at the altar of a Protestant church.[[269]]
Various were the rumours at Court concerning the progress of the engagement, which went on “untowardly;” amongst others, that the Countess of Buckingham, having taken the young lady away from her home, the Countess of Rutland, Lady Katherine’s step-mother, had refused to receive her back: the King was said to be in the plot.[[270]]
The future Duchess of Buckingham was the only child of the Earl of Rutland, by his first wife, Frances, the widow of Sir William Bevile, of Kilkhampton, Cornwall;[[271]] and, during the lifetime of her mother, she was regarded as the sole heiress of all the wealth of her father. Upon the death of the first Countess of Rutland, the Earl married again, his second lady being the daughter of the Earl of Thanet, and the widow of Sir Henry Hungerford. Two sons were the offspring of this union, but before the courtship of Buckingham, death removed them from being obstacles to Lady Katherine’s prosperity. They died in their infancy, from the effects, as it was believed in those credulous days, of wicked practices and sorcery.[[272]] It was this celebrated case which is said to have convinced King James, before sceptical on the subject, of the existence of witchcraft, of the real agency of the power of darkness.[[273]] The instruments of the foul fiend were three women in the service of the Earl of Rutland, Joan Flower, and her two daughters, who were stated to have entered into a formal contract with the devil, and to have become “devils incarnate themselves.” Being dismissed from Belvoir Castle, on account of bad conduct, they made use of all the enchantments, spells, and charms that the black art comprised.
Henry Lord Roos, the eldest born of the house of Rutland, sank under the effects of these demoniacal influences, or rather, probably, from childish terrors, in 1613.[[274]]
The Lady Katherine did not escape their machinations, having, with her brother Francis, been tortured by Flower and her accomplices.[[275]] Five years after the supposed exercise of their witchcraft, these wretched women were apprehended, and upon being rigidly examined by Lord Willoughby d’Eresby, Sir George Manners, and others, were committed to Lincoln gaol. Joan died on her way to prison, whilst wishing the bread and butter which she was eating, might choke her if she were guilty. The two daughters were tried, confessed their guilt, and were executed at Lincoln.