Whilst the Duke’s family were overwhelmed with anguish, another humble mourner almost sank under the blow. This was Elianore Felton, the mother of the assassin. She was a native of Durham, of which city her father had once been mayor, but she was then residing in London. On the 24th of August, in the church in St. Dunstan’s, in the Strand, an aged woman and her daughter attended afternoon service. These poor women were Elianore Felton and Elizabeth Hone, the mother and sister of Felton.
During the singing of the psalms, whilst the congregation were standing up, some disturbance took place in the church. Elianore Felton, turning to a gentleman near her, inquired what was the cause? She was told that the Duke of Buckingham was killed; upon which, although the name of the assassin was not then mentioned to her, the unhappy woman fainted.
It is probable that, knowing her son’s sentiments towards the Duke, and being aware of Felton’s fanatical opinions and moody temper, a panic, causing that sudden fainting, seized her. Her daughter, also, as the poor mother confessed in her subsequent examination, swooned also. These facts are very remarkable, and seem to show that she and her mother were aware of Felton’s intentions. No further information was gathered from these gentlewomen by those around them, until, in about half-an-hour, upon the church becoming fuller, there ran another whisper through it, purporting that a certain Lieutenant Felton, or Fenton, had killed the Duke. Then, as Elizabeth Hone confessed, she did much weep and lament, supposing that it was her brother that had done the deed. She had, however, the presence of mind to conduct her mother home, before she told her that it was her son who had committed murder, and plunged the nation into consternation, and his family into ruin.
No proof whatsoever of any conspiracy was to be elucidated from the unfortunate relations of the culprit. Debt and disappointment had, according to their evidence, driven Felton to desperation. How many of the evil accidents of life issue, as far as one can see, humanly speaking, from pecuniary mismanagement. Felton, on the Wednesday before the Duke was killed, had gone to his mother’s lodging, and told her of his intention to get the money due to him for pay from the Duke; adding, that “he was too deeply in debt to stay longer in town.” Eighty pounds, it appeared, was then owing to him. This, and the loss of his Captaincy, were all that he had alleged to his own family against the Duke; he owned to no other grievance. The mother and sister, and brothers, were, however, committed to prison, although Edmund Felton, the brother of the delinquent, affirmed that he had not seen him for ten weeks previously to the murder; that John Felton had been estranged from him, and did not let him know where he lodged. There was no attempt in the examination, which took place before Thomas Richardson and Henry Finch, to screen the culprit by a plea of insanity; all his brother said was, that his disposition was “melancholie, sad, and heavy, and of few words.”[[134]] Alone had he conceived, planned, and put into execution the deed of guilt; yet such was the hard disposition of the times, that it was proposed to extract a confession from John Felton by torture; but Charles interposed, and forbade the application of that horrible test,[[135]] and it was never again attempted in this country.
The nation was paralyzed by the death of the Minister, Admiral, and General. “During Buckingham’s presence at Court,” as Mr. Bruce, in the preface to the “Calendar of State Papers,” remarks, “he reigned there as the King’s absolute and single Minister. Every act of the Government passed by or through his will. The King was little seen or heard of on State affairs. He seldom ever attended a sitting of the Privy Council, except to carry out some object of his favourite.” The void, the loss, may easily be conceived, after the death of the Duke. Charles, however, not only entered warmly into public affairs, but into the care and concerns of those children whom his friend had solemnly bequeathed to his charge.
His first office, however, was to honour the remains of one so suddenly cut off, whilst in the prime of life. The process of embalming was then deemed indispensable; the Duke’s body, therefore, was submitted to that, happily, now disused operation; his bowels were interred at Portsmouth, where Lady Denbigh erected over them a memorial. Thus the place of his death was marked.
The corpse was then conveyed to York House, where all that could be viewed of that once noble form was exhibited underneath a hearse. Eventually it was entombed under a splendid monument in Westminster Abbey, on the north side of Henry VII.’s Chapel; and his Duchess, notwithstanding her second marriage, and his two sons, were buried in the vault beneath the tomb with their father.
The Duchess of Buckingham was near her confinement when this tragedy occurred. When Charles first visited the young widow, he promised her that he would be a “husband to her, and a father to her children.” One son alone was living at the time of the Duke’s decease. This was George, the second Duke of Buckingham of the house of Villiers. The character of this young nobleman, to whom Horace Walpole imputed “the figure and genius of Alcibiades,” has been “drawn by four masterly hands. Burnet has hewn it out with his rough chisel. Count Hamilton touched it with slight delicacy, that finishes while it seems to sketch. Dryden catched the living likeness. Pope completed the historical resemblance.” Lastly, Sir Walter Scott, in our time, has depicted this singular being with admirable skill, if not with perfect fidelity. He was scarcely a year and seven months old at his father’s death.
One daughter, Lady Mary Villiers, survived the Duke. In the third year of the reign of Charles I., Buckingham having then no male heir, caused a patent to be made, limiting to her the title of Duchess of Buckingham, in default of male issue, his infant eldest son, Charles, having died in 1626, and George not being then born.
Lady Mary’s life, so happy, seemingly, in her infancy, when, as “little Moll,” she was King James’s plaything, was not, in one respect, felicitous. Her first marriage, to Charles Lord Herbert, son and heir of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, was hastened, and performed privately in the chapel at Whitehall, because the young bride had formed an attachment to Philip Herbert, a younger son, who “did more apply himself to her,” as she stated, than the elder suitor.