Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/87

1618.] pocketed by Ramsay, earl of Haddington, one of James's favourites, and the earl and countess set at large. Lord chief-justice Montague purchased the post of lord-treasurer, but in less than a year it was taken from him, and given to Cranfield, earl of Middlesex, who had married one of the "kindred."

Buckingham himself, in time, seemed to clothe himself with half the offices in the country. He became warden of the Cinque Ports, chief justice in Eyre of all the parks and forests south of the Trent, master of the King's Bench Office, high steward of Westminster, and constable of Windsor Castle. In his person he was lavish and showy even to tawdriness. He was skilled in dancing, and therefore kept the court one scene of balls and masques. He had his clothes trimmed at even an ordinary dance with great buttons of diamond, with diamond hatbands, cockades, and earrings; "he was yoked with manifold ropes and knots of pearl; in short, he was accustomed to be manacled, fettered, and imprisoned in jewels."



Whist the silly, doating old king was thus suffering the court to be overran with the vermin of his favourite's relatives and retainers, and all offices of government and religion, and the business and revenues of the country to be thus shamefully sold, or thrown away on them and their customers, he was as keen as ever to discover some petty delinquency. A trial for adultery took place, in which Sir Thomas and lady Lake were accused of defaming lady Exeter. The defendants produced a written instrument, purporting to be a confession of her guilt in the hand writing of the countess of Exeter herself, and that she had given it to them in the presence of lord Ross and his Spanish servant, Diego, at Wimbledon; and Sarah Swarton, a chambermaid, deposed that she had stood behind the hangings at the window where the interview took place, and saw and heard all that passed and that confession. This was a kind of case which called forth all the spirit of the detective in James. He despatched a messenger to lord Ross in Italy, who, with his man Diego, swore on the sacrament that the whole tale was a fabrication. James now professed to have discovered by indubitable signs that the instrument was a forgery, and mounting his horse without informing anyone of his object, he rode to Wimbledon, and satisfied himself, from the shortness of the hangings, that the legs of the maid would have been seen, and that therefore she was not there. The maid Swarton was condemned in the star-chamber to do penance in the church of St. Martin, and to be whipped at the cart's-tail. Sir Thomas and lady Lake were fined ten thousand pounds payable to the king, and five thousand pounds payable to the calumniated countess, and besides to be imprisoned till they made their submission.

But one of the most interesting and painful events of the reign of James, and one which does him little credit, now occurred. Sir Walter Raleigh, deprived of his beautiful estate of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, "which he had beautified with orchards, gardens, and groves, of much variety and delight," as we have seen, to gratify the favourite Carr, had remained in the Tower from the time of his trial in 1603, that is, thirteen years. His captivity was rendered