When the noise of their murderous outrage had somewhat subsided the Duke was able to assist his mistress to perpetrate her long-deferred revenge on foolish Harry Killigrew. As the Messalina wished to be present in person when the punishment was inflicted, the ingenuity required to arrange matters to suit her made this fresh crime particularly cold-blooded. The victim, who had no suspicion, after a silence of sixteen months, of the attempt to be made on him, was to a certain extent safe owing to the very irregularities of his life, which made it difficult to know where and when to despatch him conveniently. The bravoes, however, who were employed to watch his movements were at last able to inform the Countess that one night at a certain hour, after having performed some trifling duty to the Duke of York, he would leave St. James's Palace for a house in Turnham Green. Her ladyship took her measures accordingly. Killigrew, who had fallen asleep in his coach, was suddenly, somewhere on the road, "awoke by the thrust of a sword which pierced his neck and came out at the shoulder. Before he could cry out he was flung from the vehicle and stabbed in three other places by the valets of the Countess, while"—to continue this extract from a despatch of the French Ambassador to the Minister for Foreign Affairs at Versailles—"the lady herself looked on from her own coach and six, and cried out to the assassins, 'Kill the villain!' Nor did she drive off till he was thought dead."
The darkness, however, favoured him, and it was his unfortunate servant, who was slain in defending his master, that in the hurry and excitement of the fray the Countess took for Killigrew. When she learnt that he had escaped, though badly wounded, and was thinking of demanding redress, far from being alarmed at the consequences to herself, she sent him word that he had better be satisfied with the punishment he had got, for the second time she tried to murder him she should not fail! Killigrew, growing wise by experience, like the majority of us, took the hint, and lived so circumspectly afterwards that little more was ever heard of him. It is rumoured that he succeeded his father as Court Fool in the reign of William and Mary, and was three times married, once to a peer's daughter and twice to servant-girls! But he never crossed Lady Shrewsbury's path again, and the Duke of Buckingham having explained the affair to the satisfaction of the easy-going King, the matter was hushed up.
Some time elapsed after these adventures before her ladyship again came prominently before a public to whose opinion she was so indifferent. Not so his Grace. There was scarcely ever a day of his life that he was not feverishly employed in providing the world with news associated with his name. When not getting himself thrown into the Tower for offending the King, he was caballing for power at my Lady Castlemaine's, or denouncing an unpopular Clarendon in the House of Lords; when not championing the people and Protestantism, in neither of which he believed, against despotism and Popery, both of which he despised, this prince of profligates was squandering his enormous wealth on his enormous vices. Quiet he never was. But so still was Lady Shrewsbury during the year or two in which her passions slumbered that but for the web of enchantment in which, to the world's marvel, she was known to hold the fickle, restless Duke, it might have been fancied she was engaged, like a tigress after a feast, in cleansing herself of gore. It may, however, be taken for granted that though withdrawn from view for a time it was neither from shame nor weariness nor, least of all, repentance.
Now and then from her seclusion at Buckingham's splendid palace of Clieveden on the Thames, afterwards so celebrated by Pope as "the bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love," there came strange rumours. It was whispered that as the Duke had pulled the strings of intrigue at my Lady Castlemaine's, so Louis XIV.'s agents were pulling his Grace at Clieveden by means of his mistress. The series of events which had been slowly working for the realisation of Buckingham's ambition, and the manœuvring of which he, even when most volatile, never neglected, had at last culminated in his political triumph. The Cabal ministry had juggled themselves into power, and of that corrupt crew his Grace was easily the leader. Not only the Protestant and virtuous section of England, but the ambitious French King, to both of which factors Buckingham owed his success, looked to him as a chief and a confederate respectively. This brilliant libertine was capable, had he wished, of proving himself a patriot, perhaps of changing the whole course of English history. He had something almost like genius and a great opportunity. But he who had never been true to any principle in his life, or to any person for twenty-four hours together, save Lady Shrewsbury, had neither the desire nor the will to choose between his country and his country's enemies. With diabolical cynicism, which in Buckingham sometimes resembled a sort of subtle insanity, he determined to be true to both by despising both. It was, perhaps, the difficulty of playing this double game that was its chief attraction for him. But while it was easy to hoodwink Protestant England, whose idol he was, it was not so easy to dupe Louis XIV., whose tool he was. That astute monarch, informed of the influence Lady Shrewsbury had over the unprincipled minister, had tied the great Villiers fast by bribing his mistress. It is true that Buckingham eventually snapped his bonds, but when that happened he was no longer worth the French King's consideration. The day that the French Ambassador paid the Shrewsbury her first ten thousand livres he had the satisfaction of writing to his master that she had sworn, "Buckingham should comply with the King in all things." Of course, only the vaguest suspicion of this corruption was felt by the public, but the mere fact that while the Duke openly expressed in Parliament contrition for his past evil ways he still kept Lady Shrewsbury under his roof, was sufficient not only to cause his reformation to be doubted, but to remind England that its Messalina was not yet among the damned.
It was now, when Buckingham was at the zenith of his career, that these two terrible phenomena of the Restoration decided to give the world a crowning proof of their supreme contempt of it. The nation was suddenly staggered by the news that the chief Minister of the State, though his wife was still living, had, without any pretence at secrecy, been married to the Countess of Shrewsbury! As if to emphasise the scandal the bigamous ceremony was performed according to all the rites of the Church by the Duke's chaplain, Dr. Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. To the pious when such things could be done with impunity it seemed as if they were living in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. But the impious crew that revelled at Whitehall merely laughed, and jestingly spoke of the lawful Duchess of Buckingham as the "Dowager Duchess." The sun of the Restoration had reached the meridian.
Strange to say, historians have passed over this foolish and gratuitous infamy with comparative indifference, as if the period and the notorious characters of the bigamous couple made further comment unnecessary. This may be a sufficient explanation for the profane Sprat's share in the crime, but it was something more than the mere lawless gratification of lust that forced Villiers and the Shrewsbury into bigamy. As no reason has ever been given ours can only be a guess. The agents of Louis XIV. did not often squander his money without a quid pro quo, and perhaps it does not exceed probability to suggest that before receiving French bribes Buckingham's mistress was called upon to show some proof of her influence over him? The same year his Grace went to Paris, ostensibly to represent Charles II. at the funeral of his sister, the Duchess of Orleans, but in reality to prepare the way for selling his King and country, as he had already sold himself, to France. His reception at Versailles was magnificent, and he returned laden with wealth and dignities. So favourably did he impress the French Court that Louis remarked "he was almost the only English gentleman he had ever seen!"
In the following year the virtuous public, which had indignantly predicted three years before the speedy falling-out of this precious couple, were still further scandalised to learn, in the words of Marvell, that "the Duke of Buckingham exceeds all with Lady Shrewsbury, by whom he believes he had a son, to whom the King stood godfather." We may further add that this infant, to which the courtesy title of Earl of Coventry, borne by the eldest son of the Dukes of Buckingham, had been given, died young and was buried in the family vault at Westminster Abbey!
And now, in such favour was the Duke at Whitehall, the mock Duchess returned to Court and brazenly dared to show herself about the country. Evelyn relates that at Newmarket "he found the jolly blades racing, dancing, feasting, and revelling, more resembling a luxurious and abandoned rout than a Christian country. The Duke of Buckingham was in mighty favour, and had with him that impudent woman, the Countess of Shrewsbury, and his band of fiddlers." The day of reckoning, however, came at last. Unfortunately, it did not depend on any sudden belated awakening of the moral sense in Charles II., or a revival of virtue in a country prepared to sweep away the indecencies that were outraging it. Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury were only brought to book when his political power was broken. The Restoration went on more deliriously than ever till it reached the fatal climax in 1688. With the Duke's fall the enchantment of the Shrewsbury was snapped. Called before the bar of the House of Lords, with no Duchess of Cleveland or King to stay the arm of the law now in his behalf, he was ordered to separate altogether from this woman, and each of them was required "to enter into security to the King's Majesty in the sum of ten thousand pounds apiece for this purpose."
It may be doubted whether the scathing indictment he received from his peers made any impression on him. But his day was over and, though he tried to recover the license he had so shamefully abused and the confidence of the nation he had so infamously betrayed, his star steadily continued to set. His future career was one of baffled hopes and pleasures, of ever deepening disgrace, humiliation, and even poverty. He lost everything of the wonderful store of gifts that Fortune had so bounteously bestowed on him—all, save his brilliant wit, which in a world of wits acknowledged none superior. But even wit deserted him at the end, and he died miserably enough. We have already, on an earlier page, expressed our opinion of this remarkable libertine who occupies such a prominent place in his times, and in mentioning him now for the last we can find no more fitting words in which to dismiss him than Pope's familiar lines. As the oraison funèbre of the great Buckingham they will be quoted as long as the phenomenal age in which he flourished is remembered:—
"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,