It is a terrible state when esteem and affection are opposed; for, in a woman’s heart the latter is sure to gain the ascendancy. Allowance must, however, be made for the Duke’s almost overwhelming occupations at this time, and for the harassed state of his mind, which prevented him writing to his wife.
Upon arriving in Plymouth, Buckingham, however, experienced a greater act of friendship than any mere welcome in words. The warmest and most estimable of his friends was Sir George Goring, one of those true-hearted Cavaliers of whom Englishmen of every party may be truly proud. To Goring the Duke left, in some measure, the care of his mother, when he sailed for La Rochelle. Goring’s blessings had followed the Duke on his voyage. “My dearest Lord,” are the terms in which Goring addressed him; and he showed that he was, as he himself wrote, faithful in every point to him for whom he professed friendship.
The incident which now occurred rests on the authority of Sir Henry Wotton, the long-trusted servant of James I., and the devoted adherent of Buckingham, by whose influence he had been made Provost of Eton.
Scarcely had Buckingham set off from Plymouth, on his way to London, than a messenger, sent in haste from Goring, warned him not to take the usual road, for that his friend had authentic information that a design upon his life would be attempted on his journey. The Duke received the letter when on horseback, and, crushing it into his pocket, without the slightest sign of apprehension, rode on. He was attended by seven or eight gentlemen only; and they were merely provided with the swords they usually wore, and had no other means of defence. There was one among them, however, who was personally bound to the Duke by ties of kindness and affection; this was his nephew, the young Lord Fielding, the son of that sister who had wept when she saw that the Duke was not at chapel with the King. The most cordial union, indeed, existed between all the members of the Villiers’ family; and they were bound by gratitude as well as by affection to the Duke.
The party rode on, when, about three miles from the town, they were stopped by an aged woman, who came out of a house on the road, and asked “whether the Duke were in the company?” Buckingham was pointed out to her; and she then, coming close up to his saddle, told him that in the very next town through which he was to pass she had heard some desperate men “vow his death;” she therefore advised him to take another road, which she offered to show him.
This circumstance, added to the warning letter sent by Goring, greatly impressed those around the Duke; and they entreated him to take the old woman’s advice. But whether from his usual recklessness of consequences, or from an idea that his showing fear would provoke taunts from his enemies, does not appear; the Duke obstinately refused to comply. And yet this “strange accident,” as Wotton calls it, was the more remarkable, as it was a sort of prelude to his fate, and in itself was of importance to a man whose unpopularity before he left England was now, at his return, tenfold more general than it had ever been during his career.
As they were disputing, the Duke still resolute, his young nephew, Fielding, went up to him, and entreated him to honour him by giving him his coat and the blue ribbon of the Garter, that he might wear them through the town; and he urged his request by pleading that the Duke’s life, in which the welfare of the whole family was concerned, was the most “precious thing under Heaven.” He declared that he could so muffle himself up in the Duke’s hood, in the way his uncle was accustomed to do in cold weather, that no one could fail to be deceived--so that, attention being withdrawn, the Duke would be able to defend himself.
The Duke caught the noble-spirited youth in his arms, and kissed him. “Yet,” he said, “he would not accept that offer from a nephew whose life he valued as he did his own;” then rewarding the poor woman for her good-will to him, he gave orders to his retinue how to act in case of attack, and rode calmly onwards.
Scarcely had he entered the town, when a half-drunken soldier caught hold of his bridle, as if he wanted to beg; instantly a gentleman of the Duke’s train, though at some distance, rode up, and, with a violent thrust, severed the man from the Duke, who, with the others, galloped quickly through the streets. Either from his usual indifference to danger, or fearing, as Sir Henry Wotton says, to “resent discontentments too deep” to be allayed, no notice was taken of this incident of Buckingham’s journey to London,[[95]] nor any inquiries made as to the projected assassination.
On his return to Court, the king received him graciously; no change appeared in the outward demeanour of those who met him; but his horse regiment had been composed of the sons of the noblest families in the land, and smothered regrets for the loss of “such gallant gentlemen” were as prevalent amid the higher classes, as deep resentment was in the indignant and vehement lower orders of society.