It was the age of omens and other superstitious weaknesses; and supernatural warnings were not wanting to heighten the effect of the tragedy that was soon to be acted. Neither did they who foreboded evil to the Duke wait until after the event to bring forth their ghostly revelations. One day, some little time before the Duke’s death, he was playing at bowls with the King in Spring Gardens. Buckingham, as he usually did,even in Charles’s presence, kept his hat on, a piece of presumption which irritated a Scotsman named Wilson, who, in his wrath, tossed off the Duke’s hat, and declared he would punish impertinence wherever he met it in the same way. On looking round for this man, he had vanished, and was nowhere to be found. The courtiers marvelled at the incident, and regarded it as ominous of the Duke’s fate; but he laughed at them for their folly, and showed no fear.[[116]]
His indifference was regarded as infatuation; in fact, it proves that the Duke was, in some respects, superior to those whom he most respected. There was no lone spinster in the country more given to believe in dreams and omens than Laud; and his diary contains perpetual references to his dreams. Every slight incident had its peculiar meaning, foreshadowing some great event. Nor does Lord Clarendon rise above the tone of the times, in his relation of that famous ghost story which forms one of the most prominent incidents of Buckingham’s latest days.
Old Sir George Villiers had now been dead eighteen years, and perhaps few of his family, and certainly not his wife, who had been twice married, ever wished to see him again. There was a certain Mr. Nicholas Towse, however, living in Bishopsgate Without, London, to whom the aged knight appeared in the spirit, during the year 1627, making choice of that individual as the depositary of secrets beyond the grave, because he had known him whilst he was a boy at school in Leicestershire, near Brookesby. As a mark of friendship, therefore, the apparition of Sir George favoured Mr. Towse with his revelations, and stood one night at the foot of his bed, dressed in the costume of the time of Elizabeth. There was a candle in the room, and Mr. Towse was perfectly wakeful. On beholding Sir George, he uttered, according to his own account, the natural inquiry, “What he was, and whether he was a man?” To which the apparition answered, “No.” Then Towse, in considerable emotion, asked, “Was he a devil?” To which the apparition still answered, “No.” Then Mr. Towse, with increasing agitation, said, “In the name of God, tell me what you are?”
"I am," replied the spectre, in doublet and hose, “the spectre of Sir George Villiers, the father of the Duke of Buckingham;” adding, that because he believed Mr. Towse loved him, and was sensible of the former kindness that he had shown him, he had selected him as the bearer of a message to the Duke of Buckingham, warning him in such a manner as to prevent much mischief and present ruin to the Duke.
Whilst the apparition was speaking, Towse became more and more convinced of his identity, and more fully conscious that the long defunct master of a noble house stood before him; nevertheless, he refused to do Sir George’s bidding, saying that it would bring ridicule on him to carry to the Duke such a message. But the ghost earnestly entreated him to comply, assuring him, after the manner of ghosts, that there were certain passages in the Duke’s life known only to himself and his son, and that the revelation of these would plainly show the Duke it was no “distempered fancy, but a reality, that he wished to disclose.”
That night was one of irresolution, if not of incredulity; but, on the next, the unhappy Towse, thus picked out for so ghostly a service, promised to go to the Duke. He went, indeed, and found out Sir Thomas Freeman and Sir Ralph Bladden, the Duke’s chamberlains, by whom he was presented to the Duke. Then followed some private and agitated interviews between Buckingham and Towse, and the cautions of the ghost were fully and forcibly communicated: they related chiefly to Buckingham’s patronage of Laud, and suggested some popular acts which the Duke was to perform in Parliament--and, in short, contained advice that any reasonable man might have offered. But nothing that was said by Mr. Towse made the slightest impression on the Duke, except, when certain passages of his life were referred to, with which the ghost had primed Mr. Towse, he owned he had believed “that no living creature knew of them but himself, and that it must be either God or the devil that had revealed them.” The Duke then offered to get Mr. Towse knighted, and to have him made a burgess in the forthcoming Parliament. But Mr. Towse, finding that the obstinate favourite was deaf to his advice, left him, prognosticating that the Duke’s death would happen at a certain time--which prognostic was fulfilled.
Mr. Towse then returned to Bishopsgate Without; and, there is much reason to believe, laboured under mental malady; for the visits of the apparition were now so frequent that he grew familiar with him, “as if it had been a friend or acquaintance that had come to visit him.” And from this very unpleasant guest Towse learned to see in perspective many events that had not then dawned on England; more especially the troubles of Prynne, who was Towse’s father-in-law--which was contrary to all rule, as a ghost should keep to one subject. On the day of Buckingham’s death, also, Mr. Towse and his wife being at Windsor Castle, where Towse had an office, they were sitting in company, when he started up, exclaiming, “The Duke of Buckingham is slain!” At the very moment that these words were uttered the blow had been given. Towse dying soon after, also foretold his own death.
This narrative, thought worthy of insertion by Clarendon, and therefore not to be completely disregarded in any biography of Buckingham, is taken, however, from a letter penned at Boulogne, by one Edmund Wyndham, in 1672, twenty years after the event.[[117]][[118]] According to Lord Clarendon, Buckingham, after hearing Towse’s revelation, was observed ever afterwards to be very melancholy. That he had misgivings as to his return, we have seen; but there are few men so insensible, at such a moment, as to be quite free from presentiment of evil--more especially one on whom the eyes of the country were directed in resentment, and regarding whom the Commons was then preparing a Remonstrance.[[119]]
Felton, meantime, was intent on pursuing his scheme. The frank and kindly manner of the Duke towards his officers and soldiers at Rhé, his personal courage, and his participation in the hardships all had undergone in that expedition, had failed to propitiate the assassin, who was, in fact, stimulated by the fiercest of all incentives--political hatred, justified by the plea of religion. He set off, therefore, to Portsmouth, and, partly on horseback, and partly on foot, accomplished that journey; and perhaps the desperate state of his fortunes added to his gloomy views and reckless designs, into which one thought of self-preservation never entered. At a few miles from Portsmouth he was seen sharpening the fatal knife on a stone; he arrived at that city with the determination that, should his scheme of assassination fail for want of opportunity, he would enlist as a volunteer, in order to accomplish it eventually.
There was, of course, considerable bustle in the town; and on entering it, when the ghastly murderer stood unobserved amongst the crowd, there was too numerous a train about the Duke for Felton to reach him. Fearful of observation, he kept himself indoors one morning after his arrival; but, on the ensuing day, repaired to the house where Buckingham was staying. The Duke was at that time at breakfast, and little attention was paid by a number of suitors and applicants who were waiting for him in the antechamber, to the diminutive being who was watching, with his dark purpose, among the unconscious crowd. As there were several military men, amongst whom was the Duc de Soubise, with Buckingham, as well as Sir Thomas Fryer, much animation pervaded the conversation, in consequence of a report having reached Portsmouth that La Rochelle had been relieved. Soubise and his followers believed that this report was set on foot by some agents of the French, in order to induce the English to relax in their preparations, until the mole, which it was Richelieu’s plan to form at the mouth of the harbour, should be completed. He and the other foreigners spoke with vehemence, and in tones which the English, who were listening, deemed to be those of anger. The Duke, it appeared, was inclined to believe the report, and the eagerness of Soubise was not, therefore, to be matter of surprise, since his interests, and those of his adherents, were irrevocably engaged in the approaching expedition. At length, however, the conference ended; Soubise took his leave, and Buckingham rose to quit the chamber where he had breakfasted.