"In 1671 occurred that extraordinary attempt on the life of the Duke of Ormond by the ruffian Blood, of notorious memory; it is supposed at the instigation of Buckingham. There was, in fact, something so audacious and so theatrical in the idea of hanging the duke upon the gallows at Tyburn, that it could only have originated with that 'Fanfaron de crimes.' Such, at least, was the general opinion at the time. A few days after this event, Lord Ossory meeting the Duke of Buckingham in the king's chamber, the color flushed to his temples with passion, and his eyes sparkled with such ire, that the duke took refuge behind the king's chair. 'My lord,' said Ossory, stepping up to him, 'I know well that you are at the bottom of this late attempt of Blood's upon my father, and therefore I give you fair warning, if my father comes to a violent end by sword or pistol,—if he dies by the hand of a ruffian, or the more secret way of poison, I shall not be at a loss to know the first author of it; I shall consider you as the assassin; I shall treat you as such, and I shall pistol you, though you stood beside the king's chair; and I tell it you in his majesty's presence, that you may be sure I shall keep my word.' So saying, he turned upon his heel, leaving the duke so completely overawed, that he had not even spirit to utter a denial."1
1 I believe no writer has remarked the singular coincidence between the characters and fortunes of the Duke of Ormond, and his ancestor, the Earl of Ormond, of Elizabeth's time. Both were brave, popular, enthusiastically loyal, and inflexibly honest; both were accomplished courtiers, and lived to experience the ingratitude and injustice of the princes they had served; both experienced many changes of fortune, and lived to an extreme old age, so as to behold their heirs in the third generation. Both were opposed to the reigning favorites, for the enmity of the Duke of Ormond and Buckingham was at least equal to that of the Earl of Ormond and Lord Leicester. As Buckingham was believed to have instigated Blood in his attempt on the Duke of Ormond, so Leicester was known to have attempted the assassination of Ormond, by means of a hired cut-throat, who was afterwards, like Blood, forgiven and rewarded. The following anecdote is very characteristic:—The Earl of Ormond coming one day to court, met Lord Leicester in the antechamber: after the usual salutations, "My lord," said Leicester, insolently, "I dreamed of you last night!" "Indeed!" replied Ormond, "what could your lordship dream of me?" "I dreamed that I gave you a box on the ear." "Dreams are interpreted by contraries," replied the high spirited Irishman, and instantly lent him a cuff on the ear, which made the favorite stagger; for this he was committed to the tower by Elizabeth.
We will conclude by adding the character of a lady (the wife of Hyde Earl of Rochester,) of whom it is praise enough to say, that she was beautiful, rich, noble and powerful, and chose to love her husband, nurse her children, and live in obscurity.
"It is perhaps the highest eulogium that could be pronounced on the character and conduct of his fair, gentle-looking, and really amiable wife, that while her husband was treading the steep and tortuous paths of court diplomacy, rising to rank and honors, and filling the highest offices in the state, we do not even hear of her, except in her domestic relations. In the recent publication of the Clarendon papers, Lady Rochester is seldom mentioned; but from the manner in which she is alluded to, we may infer, without danger of being mistaken, that she was the excellent and submissive wife of an impatient and despotic husband; that she lived in the utmost harmony with her children and her relatives; that she frequented the court but little.
"It should seem that her days flowed along in one even course of unpretending duties and blameless pleasures: duties such as her sex and station prescribe, pleasures such as her rank and fortune permitted,—interrupted and clouded by such cares and infirmities as are the common lot of mortality. This description of Lady Rochester may appear a little insipid after the piquante adventures of a Cleveland and a Chesterfield, and others of her more brilliant and interesting contemporaries; yet there is in its repose and innocence something that not only refreshes, but sweetens the imagination: as in a garden where peonies, and pinks, and carnations, and tall lilies,
| 'And canker blooms, with full as deep a die, As the perfumed tincture of the roses,' |
flaunt to the eye and allure the sense, should we suddenly find a jasmine, trailing its light tendrils and luxuriant foliage round a lordly elm, with what delight should we appropriate its starry, unsullied blossoms, and place them in our bosom!"
CALAVAR; or The Knight of the Conquest: a Romance of Mexico. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1834.