An account, preserved in the Harleian Manuscripts, represents him as having, “for his body, twenty-seven rich suits, embroidered and laced with silk and silver plushes, besides one rich satten uncut velvet suit, set all over, both suite and cloak, of diamonds, the value whereof is thought to be about one thousand pounds.” Corresponding to this extravagant attire, “a feather[“a feather] made with great diamonds, a sword girdle, hatband, and spurs, all studded with diamonds,”[diamonds,”] completed the apparel and decoration which the Duke intended to wear upon his entrance into Paris. For the wedding-day he prepared another rich suit, composed of purple satin, embroidered with rich orient pearls. Over this was worn a cloak made after the Spanish fashion, and the dress was finished with all things suitable.” “His[things suitable.” “His] other suits,” adds the narrator, “are all as rich other suits,” adds the narrator, “are all as rich as invention can frame, or art fashion. His colours for the entrance are white and watchet, for the wedding, crimson and gold.”
Buckingham’s departure was preceded by the despatching of his servants with fifty geldings and nags, and twelve coach horses. His personal retinue was consistent with all this grandeur and display; it reminds one of the gorgeous pomp of Wolsey in the height of his prosperity. Twenty privy gentlemen, seven grooms of his chambers, thirty chief women, and two master cooks constituted his own peculiar servants. Three rich suits apiece were given to each of these attendants. The inferior servants for the household consisted of twenty-five second cooks, fourteen women of the second rank, seventeen grooms to attend upon those yeomen, forty-five labourers sellerers belonging to the kitchen, twelve pages, twenty-four footmen, six huntsmen, and twelve grooms. Most of these functionaries were provided with three rich suits apiece[apiece], and to complete the establishment there were six riders with one suit apiece, and eight others to attend the stable business.
His equipages consisted of three rich coaches, velvet inside, and covered externally with gold lace all over. Eight horses and six coachmen were allotted to each coach; then there was a band of musicians, eight score in number, “all richly suited.” "There were my Lord Duke’s watermen, twenty-two in number, suited in sky-coloured taffety, all gilded, with anchovys and My Lord’s arms." These were appropriated to one barge only, and the whole of this regal retinue was, says the annalist, "at his Grace’s charge."
Eight noblemen, the Marquis of Hamilton at their head, and six gentlemen of honourable families, attended the Duke. Amongst them were his brother-in-law, the Earl of Denbigh, and one of his brothers, designated simply as “Mr. Villars.” When to these there were added twenty-four knights, of great worth, all of “whom carried six or seven pages a piece, and as many footmen,” the train amounted to six or seven hundred. Nor were those all. “When,” says the writer of this account, “the list is perfect, there will appear many more than I have named.”[[201]]
The nuptials for which some of this grand preparation was made, had, however, taken place before it was Buckingham’s fate to cross the Channel.
The day after King James’s funeral was to have witnessed the departure of Buckingham for France. This was on the eighth of May, and the future Queen was expected to be at Dover by the eleventh.[[202]] But the Duke did not arrive in Paris until the twenty-fourth; nor did Henrietta Maria land on the shores of England until the twenty-second of June.[[203]]
During the seven days that Buckingham remained at the French court, an uninterrupted succession of feasting and rejoicing occupied his time; whilst his imagination was engrossed by an object to which no man who had not been brought to the highest point of presumption by a career of prosperity would have ventured to aspire.
The painful and degrading position in which Anne of Austria was placed, under the sway of her mother-in-law, destitute as the young Queen was of all good advisers, and exposed by her youth and her attractions to the snares of the designing, in the vitiated sphere in which she moved, has been already referred to. Some additional traits of the appearance and character of a Princess whose fascinations produced a powerful effect upon Buckingham may not be deemed impertinent.
She was not then a mother; and the importance of giving birth to a future monarch of France was not permitted to her until thirteen years afterwards.[[204]] By her attendant and partizan, Madame de Motteville, a character so beautiful has been given of the Queen Consort of Louis the Thirteenth, as would inspire compassion for the sacrifice which bound her at the altar to a husband wholly unworthy of a wife so graceful and so virtuous, could an entire credence be assigned to that partial testimony.
According to her favourite, Anne had imbibed from her mother, Margaret of Austria, a lively piety and a love of virtue which were never quenched, even during her passage through the manifold temptations of her existence. She was replete, according to the same authoress, with goodness and with justice; she was neither suspicious, nor easily led wrong by persuasion; and where endeavours were made to prejudice her against any one whom she esteemed, her resistance showed the strength of her attachment. During her regency, when under the dominion of Cardinal Mazarin, that minister was often known to say that her devotion and rectitude of mind caused him embarrassment; “for she had,” observes Madame de Motteville, “sufficient aptitude of mind to know well what was right, and had she been endowed with strength of character adequate always to defend the truth, the pen of the historian could not have bestowed upon her any praise too high; but she distrusted herself, and her humility induced her to consider herself as incapable of conducting the government of the State.”[[205]]