These particulars were all given and sworn to by the physicians, two years afterwards, before a select committee of Parliament, when the Duke’s act was voted “transcendant presumption,” though most people thought that it was done without any ill intention.[[160]]
Whilst the poor King lay expiring, a strange and scandalous scene, according to Weldon, passed near his death-bed. Buckingham was coming into the chamber, when one of the servants greeted him with these words:--"Ah! my lord, you have undone all us poor servants, though you are so well provided for you need not care:" upon which the Duke kicked him. The man, enraged, caught hold of the foot which spurned him, and the Duke fell to the ground. On arising, he ran to the King’s bedside, and exclaimed, “Justice, for I am an abused man.” At which James is said to have fixed his eyes mournfully upon him, "as one who would have said, ‘not wrongfully.’"[[161]]
Such were the unwarrantable and malignant reports which strove to impute to Buckingham the foulest treachery and the deepest ingratitude.
The motive for such an action as that which his foes scrupled not to fasten upon him--and the imputation followed him through life--is difficult to be discovered. Buckingham had no reason to wish for the death of his benefactor. Loaded with obligations, omnipotent in the country, feared, if not respected, abroad, for what purpose he should destroy the source of all his superabundant blessings, it were impossible to divine. The sole reason that could be given was a fear lest the King should promote the Earl of Bristol, and grow weary of the Duke. Yet Bristol was even then in retirement and disfavour, and had only recently been in a sort of imprisonment. The charge, cruel and groundless, tends to justify Buckingham from many minor imputations, since those who could fabricate such an accusation were not likely to be fair interpreters of his ordinary conduct. Roger Coke, for instance, as we have seen, specifies the charge against Buckingham, but gives him no credit for the actual acquittal of Parliament, and is silent regarding the general opinion.
The confidence reposed by Charles in Buckingham affords another source of vindication. Charles had ever been a dutiful son; indulged, indeed, to excess, yet not spoiled by kindness. On the Friday before the King died, he had three hours private conversation with his son. Had James then entertained any suspicion of the Duke, he would, assuredly, have imparted it as a matter which lay most heavily on his mind, and, as a precaution to his son, James could not have controlled a grief so pungent as the suspicion that his favourite, the being, perhaps, the best beloved in the world, had dealt out to him the potion of death. Wilson, indeed, relates the circumstance of this last interview thus.
The King, according to his account, sent for the Prince out of his bed. Charles appeared before him; when James, arousing all his strength and energy, strove to address him; “but nature being exhausted, he had not strength to express his intentions.” That a conversation did, however, take place, rests on the testimony of a private letter addressed by Mr. Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, and written shortly after the King’s death.[[162]]
There was among the Court physicians, one named Eglesham, who had acted in that capacity for ten years; and this long attendance, in a responsible post, has been thought a sufficient guarantee for his character. Upon his evidence, chiefly, the charge against Buckingham rested; Eglesham was obliged, in consequence of his allegations against the Duke, to abscond, and remain some years absent from the country. In the pamphlet which he published, he stated that the plaster was applied to the King’s heart and chest whilst the physicians in attendance were absent at dinner: the King, after this application, which was suggested and carried into execution by the Countess of Buckingham, became faint, and was in great agony. Some of the physicians, returning after dinner, and perceiving an offensive smell from the plaster, exclaimed that the King was poisoned, and then Buckingham, entering, commanded the physicians to leave the room, sent one of them a prisoner to his own chamber, and ordered another out of the Court; whilst his mother, kneeling down, cried out to the King, with a brazen face, “Justice, sire, I demand justice!” His Majesty asked her “Justice for what?” “For that which their lives are nowise sufficient to satisfy; for having said that I have poisoned your Majesty.” “Poisoned me!” cried James, and, turning round, fainted away. On the following Sunday, Buckingham entreated two physicians who attended the King to sign a document, declaring that the powder he had given to the King was a safe and good remedy; this they refused to do.
After the King’s death, the physician who had been commanded to keep within his own apartment was set at liberty, with a caution “to hold his peace,” and the others were threatened, if they kept not “good tongues in their heads.”[[163]] The public were also horrified at hearing that the King’s body and head had swelled beyond measure; but that is by no means an unusual symptom after death.
Now the value of Eglesham’s evidence rests wholly upon his personal credit. It was stated, by Sanderson the historian, that he afterwards offered to write a recantation of his pamphlet for four hundred guineas;[[164]] but although Brodie does not consider the assertion of Sanderson, who had the statement direct from Sir Balthazar Gerbier, to be a good authority, the impression which it conveys against Eglesham is confirmed from another source. There is a letter in the State Paper Office, from one Andrew Herriott to Secretary Nicholas, in which "he marvels that Nicholas and Sir James Bagg should take into their protection Edward Yeates, who was a pirate with one Captain Herriott, a poor man’s son in Kent, a mere mountebank, only companion with Dr. Eglesham, at bed and board for many years together, insomuch as they coined many double pistolets, and yet unhanged."[[165]] This letter was written in 1627, two years after the King’s death; when Eglesham, probably from a fear of justice, had fled from Court, after he had lost the protection of the King, who was by no means scrupulous as to the character of those around him.
On Eglesham, it appears, it devolved to examine the corpse, and he did not hesitate to point to Buckingham as the King’s murderer.[[166]]