Page:EB1911 - Volume 04.djvu/748

 alone to Rotterdam in October. His subsequent negotiations with Cromwell’s government, and his readiness to sacrifice the interests of the church, separated him from the rest of Charles’s advisers and diminished his influence; while his estrangement from the royal family was completed by his audacious courtship of the king’s sister, the widowed princess of Orange, and by a money dispute with Charles. In 1657 he returned to England, and on the 15th of September married Mary, daughter of Lord Fairfax, who had fallen in love with him although the banns of her intended marriage with the earl of Chesterfield had been twice called in church. Buckingham was soon suspected of organizing a presbyterian plot against the government, and in spite of Fairfax’s interest with Cromwell an order was issued for his arrest on the 9th of October. He was confined at York House about April 1658, and having broken bounds was rearrested on the 18th of August and imprisoned in the Tower, where he remained till the 23rd of February 1659, being then liberated on his promise not to abet the enemies of the government, and on Fairfax’s security of £20,000. He joined the latter in his march against Lambert in January 1660, and afterwards claimed to have gained Fairfax to the cause of the Restoration.

On the king’s return Buckingham, who met him at his landing at Dover, was at first received coldly; but he was soon again in favour, was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber, carried the orb at the coronation on the 23rd of April 1661, and was made lord-lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire on the 21st of September. The same year he accompanied the princess Henrietta to Paris on her marriage with the duke of Orleans, but made love to her himself with such imprudence that he was recalled. On the 28th of April 1662 he was admitted to the privy council. His confiscated estates amounting to £26,000 a year were restored to him, and he was reputed the king’s richest subject. He took part in the suppression of the projected insurrection in Yorkshire in 1663, went to sea in the first Dutch war in 1665, and was employed in taking measures to resist the Dutch or French invasion in June 1666.

He was, however, debarred from high office by Clarendon’s influence. Accordingly Buckingham’s intrigues were now directed to effect the chancellor’s ruin. He organized parties in both houses of parliament in support of the bill of 1666 prohibiting the import of Irish cattle, partly to oppose Clarendon and partly to thwart the duke of Ormonde. Having asserted during the debates that “whoever was against the bill had either an Irish interest or an Irish understanding,” he was challenged by Lord Ossory. Buckingham avoided the encounter, and Ossory was sent to the Tower. A short time afterwards, during a conference between the two houses on the 19th of December, he came to blows with the marquess of Dorchester, pulling off the latter’s periwig, while Dorchester at the close of the scuffle “had much of the duke’s hair in his hand.” According to Clarendon no misdemeanour so flagrant had ever before offended the dignity of the House of Lords. The offending peers were both sent to the Tower, but were released after apologizing; and Buckingham vented his spite by raising a claim to the title of Lord Roos held by Dorchester’s son-in-law. His opposition to the government had forfeited the king’s favour, and he was now accused of treasonable intrigues, and of having cast the king’s horoscope. His arrest was ordered on the 25th of February 1667, and he was dismissed from all his offices. He avoided capture till the 27th of June, when he gave himself up and was imprisoned in the Tower. He was released, however, by July 17th, was restored to favour and to his appointments on the 15 of September, and took an active part in the prosecution of Clarendon. On the latter’s fall he became the chief minister, though holding no high office except that of master of the horse, bought from the duke of Albermarle in 1668. In 1671 he was elected chancellor of Cambridge, and in 1672 high steward of Oxford university. He favoured religious toleration, and earned the praise of Richard Baxter; he supported a scheme of comprehension in 1668, and advised the declaration of indulgence in 1672. He upheld the original jurisdiction of the Lords in Skinner’s case. With these exceptions Buckingham’s tenure of office was chiefly marked by scandals and intrigues. His illicit connexion with the countess of Shrewsbury led to a duel with her husband at Barn Elms on the 16th of January 1668, in which Shrewsbury was fatally wounded. The tale that the countess, disguised as a page, witnessed the encounter, appears to have no foundation; but Buckingham, by installing the “widow of his own creation” in his own and his wife’s house, outraged even the lax opinion of that day. He was thought to have originated the project of obtaining the divorce of the childless queen. He intrigued against James, against Sir William Coventry—one of the ablest statesmen of the time, whose fall he procured by provoking him to send him a challenge—and against the great duke of Ormonde, who was dismissed in 1669. He was even suspected of having instigated Thomas Blood’s attempt to kidnap and murder Ormonde, and was charged with the crime in the king’s presence by Ormonde’s son, Lord Ossory, who threatened to shoot him dead in the event of his father’s meeting with a violent end. Arlington, next to Buckingham himself the most powerful member of the cabal and a favourite of the king, was a rival less easy to overcome; and he derived considerable influence from the control of foreign affairs entrusted to him. Buckingham had from the first been an adherent of the French alliance, while Arlington concluded through Sir William Temple in 1668 the Triple Alliance. But on the complete volte-face and surrender made by Charles to France in 1670, Arlington as a Roman Catholic was entrusted with the first treaty of Dover of the 20th of May—which besides providing for the united attack on Holland, included Charles’s undertaking to proclaim himself a Romanist and to reintroduce the Roman Catholic faith into England,—While Buckingham was sent to France to carry on the sham negotiations which led to the public treaties of the 31st of December 1670 and the 2nd of February 1672. He was much pleased with his reception by Louis XIV., declared that he had “more honours done him than ever were given to any subject,” and was presented with a pension of 10,000 livres a year for Lady Shrewsbury. In June 1672 he accompanied Arlington to the Hague to impose terms on the prince of Orange, and with Arlington arranged the new treaty with Louis. After all this activity he suffered a keen disappointment in being passed over for the command of the English forces in favour of Schomberg. He now knew of the secret treaty of Dover, and towards the end of 1673 his jealousy of Arlington became open hostility. He threatened to impeach him, and endeavoured with the help of Louis to stir up a faction against him in parliament. This, however, was unsuccessful, and in January 1674 an attack was made upon Buckingham himself simultaneously in both houses. In the Lords the trustees of the young earl of Shrewsbury complained that Buckingham continued publicly his intimacy with the countess, and that a son of theirs had been buried in Westminster Abbey with the title of earl of Coventry; and Buckingham, after presenting an apology, was required, as was the countess, to give security for £10,000 not to cohabit together again. In the Commons he was attacked as the promoter of the French alliance, of “popery” and arbitrary government. He defended himself chiefly by endeavouring to throw the blame upon Arlington; but an address was voted petitioning the king to remove him from his councils, presence and from employment for ever. Charles, who had only been waiting for a favourable opportunity, and who was enraged at Buckingham’s disclosures, consented with alacrity. Buckingham retired into private life, reformed his ways, attended church with his wife, began to pay his debts, became a “patriot,” and was claimed by the country or opposition party as one of their leaders. In the spring of 1675 he was conspicuous for his opposition to the Test oath and for his abuse of the bishops, and on the 16th of November he introduced a bill for the relief of the nonconformists. On the 15th of February 1677 he was one of the four lords who endeavoured to embarrass the government by raising the question whether the parliament, not having assembled according to the act of Edward III. once in the year, had not been dissolved by