“There is an accident happened which breeds great stir in town, which is concerning the taking away of the Earl of Rutland’s daughter, by my Lady Buckingham. Nobody knows what to think of it, but, in my opinion, the King is in the plot, for, with all his arts, he could not persuade her to go to church, to which it may be, they think, she refuses to come by reason of her mother and father. Now, you may remember what my lord said to your lordship, that he would not marry one who did not come to church. She loveth him, and I think now he makes trial of her, whether she will forsake all the world for his sake.”[[285]]
“But the Lady Buckingham sayeth her father desired her to take her abroad with her, which she did, having his fatherly love imposed on her that she should not go out of her sight. She fell ill towards night, and rather than send her home with waiting gentlewomen, kept her that night to lie with herself, and brought her home the next day; her mother refusing to take her, so she went back, and there abided.”[[286]]
Another account states that the “Lady of Buckingham” fetched the young lady away one Sunday, without her father’s either leave or liking, “so that the next day he refused to receive her back, and Lady Katherine was obliged to take refuge with her uncle, being her nearest relation.” Neither party, it was observed, gained by this mode of dealing, which was “subject to much construction.”[[287]]
It is touching to find the Earl of Rutland, some years afterwards, excusing himself from visiting the Court, that he might bear his daughter company in her solitude at Burleigh, during the long interval in which Buckingham, attending on the King at Windsor, left her in that then remote country seat, in retirement.[[288]]
A coolness, however, continued for some time between these two noblemen; for on St. George’s day, which was observed with much solemnity at Greenwich, the now haughty Buckingham showed his resentment against the Earl of Rutland by refusing to be consorted with him in one mess; and, coupling himself with the Earl of Leicester, left his future father-in-law alone, “and yet,” as a contemporary relates, “the opinion is, the match must go on with his daughter, or else do her great wrong as well in other respects; so, for his sake and his mother’s, she is to be converted and receive the communion this Easter.”[[289]]
The marriage took place eventually, at Lumley House, a mansion built in the time of Henry the Eighth, by Sir Thomas Wyatt, on the site of the ancient Monastery[Monastery] of Crutched Friars, near Tower Hill.[[290]] The ceremonial was conducted with great privacy, probably on account of the vexatious and awkward circumstances which had previously occurred.[[291]]
It does not appear to which of his magnificent mansions the Marquis of Buckingham took his bride, after he had at last obtained possession of her hand. The man who only four years previously had appeared before a host of scoffing courtiers, in a thread-bare black suit, and whose slender allowance scarcely kept him from absolute penury, was now the owner of several stately residences. His apartments at Whitehall were held by virtue of his various offices near the King’s person. That palace was the constant residence of James the First when in London. It was, at this time, in a very ruinous state, and the Banqueting House had been recently burned down. Inigo Jones[[292]] was, indeed, employed in rebuilding it upon an extensive plan, only a portion of which was completed. It is, therefore, very unlikely that the honeymoon would be passed in the midst of noise and dust, although Whitehall, partially surrounded, as it was, by beautiful gardens, was not, by any means, devoid of that rural beauty for which the denizens of a royal metropolitan palace may now look in vain. Wanstead House, in Essex, which had escheated to the crown in 1606, upon the death of Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire, was the first residence that Buckingham could properly call his own. He obtained it by a royal grant, and the King seems to have been well repaid for that act of generosity, by the pleasure which he took in visiting his favourite there. Burleigh-on-the-Hill, or Burleigh Harrington, so called to distinguish it from Burleigh Stamford, had been bought by Buckingham from the heir-general of the Harrington family, into whose possession it had come by purchase in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was seated upon a hill, rising abruptly from the vale of Catmore, commanding a view of the country around, and protecting the village of Burleigh. At Burleigh-on-the-Hill, King James was entertained during his first journey into England; there he was received by Sir John Harrington, who was then its owner.
After Burleigh had become the possession of the Marquis of Buckingham, he made it one of the most splendid seats in the island, until it not only rivalled, but, in some respects, excelled, Belvoir.[[293]] Both the Marchioness of Buckingham and the Countess took a great interest in the place. In one of her letters to her husband, the Marchioness writes thus: “For Burly Shaw the wall is not very forward yett, and my lady” (her mother-in-law, the Countess of Buckingham) “bid me send you word that shee is gon done to look how things ar ther. Shee ses shee is about making a litell river to rune through the parke. It will be about xvi. foote broode. But shee ses shee wants money.”[[294]]
This magnificent structure, in which many a revel took place, and beneath whose roof many a masque was enacted, was not destined to remain a monument of Buckingham’s splendour. Its very strength proved its destruction; for it was, on that account, selected, during the Rebellion, as a garrison for the Parliamentarian troops, in order that they might, from that commanding station, at once harass the surrounding country, and protect their county committee. But they were unable to maintain the long line of defence which the extensive buildings presented, and therefore set them on fire, and thus, destroying the house and furniture, they deserted Burleigh.
The stables alone remained; and these alone perpetuated the magnificence of their first owner, being the finest in England. The ruins of Burleigh long served as a memento of the devastations of civil war, for the son and successor of George Villiers was unable to restore them. The estate was sold eventually to Daniel, Earl of Nottingham, who rebuilt the house, but of the structure which the princely taste of Buckingham planned, and which his lady mother embellished with her taste, little or no trace remains.[[295]]