As this anecdote is countenanced by so great a name, I need make no apology for inserting it, it has all the evidence the nature of the thing can admit of, and is curious in itself.
'There was an officer in the King's wardrobe in Windsor-Castle of a good reputation for honesty and discretion, and then about the age of fifty years, or more. This man had been bred in his youth in a school in the parish where Sir George Villiers the father of the Duke lived, and had been much cherished and obliged in that season of his age, by the said Sir George, whom afterwards he never saw. About six months before the miserable end of the duke of Buckingham, about midnight, this man, being in his bed at Windsor, where his office was, and in very good health, there appeared to him, on the side of his bed, a man of very venerable aspect, who fixing his eyes upon him, asked him, if he [310] knew him; the poor man half dead with fear, and apprehension, being asked the second time, whether he remembered him, and having in that time called to his memory, the presence of Sir George Villiers, and the very cloaths he used to wear, in which at that time he used to be habited; he answered him, That he thought him to be that person; he replied, that he was in the right, that he was the same, and that he expected a service from him; which was, that he should go from him to his son the duke of Buckingham, and tell him, if he did not somewhat to ingratiate himself to the people, or at least, to abate the extreme malice they had against him, he would be suffered to live but a short time, and after this discourse he disappeared, and the poor man, if he had been at all waking, slept very well till the morning, when he believed all this to be a dream, and considered it no otherwise.
'Next night, or shortly after, the same person appeared to him again in the same place, and about the same time of the night, with an aspect a little more severe than before; and asking him whether he had done as he required him? and perceiving he had not, he gave him very severe reprehensions, and told him, he expected more compliance from him; and that if he did not perform his commands, he should enjoy no peace of mind, but should be always pursued by him: Upon which he promised to obey him.
'But the next morning waking exceedingly perplexed with the lively representation of all that had passed, he considered that he was a person at such a distance from the duke, that he knew not how to find any admittance into his presence, much less any hope to be believed in what he should say, so [311] with great trouble and unquietness he spent some time in thinking what he should do. The poor man had by this time recovered the courage to tell him, That in truth he had deferred the execution of his commands, upon considering how difficult a thing it would be for him to get access to the duke, having acquaintance with no person about him; and if he could obtain admission to him, he would never be able to persuade him that he was sent in such a manner, but he should at best be thought to be mad, or to be set on and employed by his own or the malice of other men to abuse the duke, and so he should be sure to be undone. The person replied, as he had done before, that he should never find rest, till he should perform what he required, and therefore he were better to dispatch it; that the access to his son was known to be very easy; and that few men waited long for him, and for the gaining him credit, he would tell him two or three particulars, which he charged him never to mention to any person living, but to the duke himself; and he should no sooner hear them, but he would believe all the rest he should say; and so repeating his threats he left him.
'In the morning the poor man more confirmed by the last appearance, made his journey to London, where the court then was. He was very well known to Sir Ralph Freeman, one of the masters of the requests, who had married a lady that was nearly allied to the duke, and was himself well received by him. To him this man went; and tho' he did not acquaint him with all the particulars, he said enough to him to let him see there was somewhat extraordinary in it, and the knowledge he had of the sobriety and discretion of the man, made the more impression on him. He desired that by [312] his means he might be brought to the duke, to such a place, and in such a manner as should be thought fit; affirming, that he had much to say to him; and of such a nature as would require much privacy, and some time and patience in the hearing. Sir Ralph promised he would speak first to the duke of him, and then he should understand his pleasure, and accordingly on the first opportunity he did inform him of the reputation and honesty of the man, and then what he desired, and all he knew of the matter. The duke according to his usual openness and condescension told him, that he was the next day, early, to hunt with the King; that his horses should attend him to Lambeth Bridge, where he would land by five o'Clock in the morning, and if the man attended him there at that hour, he would walk and speak with him as long as should be necessary. Sir Ralph carried the man with him next morning, and presented him to the duke at his landing, who received him courteously, and walked aside in conference near an hour, none but his own servants being at that hour near the place, and they and Sir Ralph at such a distance, that they could not hear a word, though the duke sometimes spoke, and with great commotion, which Sir Ralph the more easily perceived, because he kept his eyes always fixed upon the duke; having procured the conference, upon somewhat he knew, there was of extraordinary; and the man told him in his return over the water, that when he mentioned those particulars, which were to gain him credit, the substance whereof he said he durst not impart to him, the duke's colour changed, and he swore he could come by that knowledge only by the devil, for that those particulars were known only to himself, and to one person more, who, he was sure, would never speak of it.
[313] 'The duke pursued his purpose of hunting, but was observed to ride all the morning with great pensiveness, and in deep thoughts, without any delight in the exercise he was upon, and before the morning was spent, left the field, and alighted at his mother's lodgings at Whitehall, with whom he was shut up for the space of two or three hours, the noise of their discourse frequently reaching the ears of those who attended in the next rooms and when the duke left her, his countenance appeared full of trouble, with a mixture of anger: a countenance that was never before observed in him in any conversation with her, towards whom he had a profound reverence, and the countess herself was, at the duke's leaving her, found overwhelmed in tears, and in the highest agony imaginable; whatever there was of all this, it is a notorious truth, that when the news of the duke's murder (which happened within a few months) was brought to his mother, she seemed not in the least degree surprized, but received it as if she had foreseen it, nor did afterwards express such a degree of sorrow, as was expected from such a mother, for the loss of such a son.'
This is the representation which lord Clarendon gives of this extraordinary circumstance, upon which I shall not presume to make any comment; but if ever departed spirits were permitted to interest themselves with human affairs, and as Shakespear expresses it, revisit the glimpses of the moon, it seems to have been upon this occasion: at least there seems to be such rational evidence of it, as no man, however fortified against superstition, can well resist.
But let us now enter upon the life of the son of this great man; who, if he was inferior to his father as a statesman, was superior in wit, and wanted only application to have made a very [314] great figure, even in the senate, but his love of pleasure was immoderate, which embarrassed him in the pursuit of any thing solid or praise-worthy.
He was an infant when his father's murder was perpetrated, and received his early education from several domestic tutors, and was afterwards sent to the university of Cambridge: when he had finished his course there, he travelled with his brother lord Francis, under the care of William Aylesbury, esquire. Upon his return, which was after the breaking out of the civil wars, he was conducted to Oxford, and presented to his Majesty, then there, and entered into Christ Church. Upon the decline of the King's cause, the young duke of Buckingham attended Prince Charles into Scotland, and was present in the year 1651 at the battle of Worcester, where he escaped beyond sea, and was soon after made knight of the garter. He came afterwards privately into England, and, November 19, 1657, married Mary, the daughter and heir of Thomas lord Fairfax, by whose interest he recovered all or most of his estate, which he had lost before. After the restoration, at which time he is said to have possessed an estate of 20,000 l. per annum, he was made one of the lords of the King's bed-chamber, and of the privy council, lord lieutenant of Yorkshire, and, at last, master of the horse.
In the year 1666, being discovered to have maintained secret correspondence by letters, and other transactions, tending to raise mutinies among some of his Majesty's forces, and stir up sedition among his people, and to have carried on other traiterous designs and practices, he absconded, upon which a proclamation was issued the same year for apprehending him. Mr. Thomas Carte, in his Life of the Duke of Ormond[1], [315] tells us, 'that the duke's being denied the post of president of the North, was probably the reason of his disaffection to the King; and, that just before the recess of the Parliament, one Dr. John Heydon was taken up for treasonable practices, in sowing a sedition in the navy, and engaging persons in a conspiracy to seize the Tower. The man was a pretender to great skill in astrology, but had lost much of his reputation, by prognosticating the hanging of Oliver to his son Richard Cromwel and Thurloe, who came to him in disguise, for the calculation of nativities, being dressed like distressed cavaliers. He was for that put into prison, and continued in confinement sixteen months, whilst Cromwel outlived the prediction four years. This insignificant fellow was mighty great with the duke of Buckingham, who, notwithstanding the vanity of the art, and the notorious ignorance of the professor of it, made him cast not only his own, but the King's nativity; a matter of dangerous curiosity, and condemned by a statute which could only be said to be antiquated, because it had not for a long time been put in execution. This fellow he had likewise employed, among others, to excite the seamen to mutiny, as he had given money to other rogues to put on jackets to personate seamen, and to go about the country begging in that garb, and exclaiming for want of pay, while the people oppressed with taxes, were cheated of their money by the great officers of the crown. Heydon pretended to have been in all the duke's secrets, for near four years past, and that he had been all that time designing against the King and his government, that his grace thought the present reason favourable for the execution of his design, and had his agents at work in the navy and in the kingdom, to ripen the general discontents of the [316] people, and dispose them to action, that he had been importuned by him to head the first party he could get together, and engage in an insurrection, the duke declaring his readiness to appear and join in the undertaking, as soon as the affair was begun. Some to whom Heydon unbosomed himself, and had been employed by him to carry letters to the duke of Buckingham, discovered the design. Heydon was taken up, and a serjeant at arms sent with a warrant by his Majesty's express order to take up the duke, who, having defended his house by force, for some time at least, found means to escape. The King knew Buckingham to be capable of the blackest designs, and was highly incensed at him for his conduct last sessions, and insinuating that spirit into the Commons, which had been so much to the detriment of the public service. He could not forbear expressing himself with more bitterness against the duke, than was ever dropped from him upon any other occasion. When he was sollicited in his behalf, he frankly said, that he had been the cause of continuing the war, for the Dutch would have made a very low submission, had the Parliament continued their first vigorous vote of supplying him, but the duke's cabals had lessened his interest both abroad and at home, with regard to the support of the war. In consequence of this resentment, the King put him out of the privy council, bedchamber, and lieutenancy of York, ordering him likewise to be struck out of all commissions. His grace absconding, a proclamation was issued out, requiring his appearance, and surrender of himself by a certain day.'