Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/252

 or Latin—and Greek and Latin morals. Two or three of these favourites played pernicious roles, even to disturbing the English throne. Prominent was Robert Carr, a mere groom of the stables, but of unusual beauty, brought into the eye of the king by what was not just an accident—a fall during a pageant. Of young Carr James became dotingly fond. The boy was so swiftly the recipient of estates, titles, privileges and so on, especially as Earl of Somerset, that scandal and hatred could not well have failed soon to attach to him. Carr was a thorough-going young reprobate, devoid of heart or conscience, boasting of his sovereign's very weakness him; and in time instigated the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Carr was essentially a dionian; his relations to James were of the most mercenary sort au fond. With some difficulty, he was saved from the death that he deserved. But the rest of his life passed in obscurity and want; for James had turned to a new favourite, George Villiers, a remarkably handsome young student at Cambridge. Villiers ultimately was made Duke of Buckingham; the famous "Steenie", for his royal lover. The reader need not be reminded that Buckingham was however à man of other and better traits than the fair-faced predecessor, Carr. In Buckingham's hands rested, now and then, much of the statesmanship of two successive reigns; and his murder in 1628 was rather more than a merely sentimental incident. It was à-propos of this favourite of James I that the royal Uranian himself one day declared—"I am neither a god nor an angel—and I confess to loving those dear to me more than other men. You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than any one else. Christ had his John, and I have my George!"

In the reign of Charles I, occurred the famous divorce case of Lord Audley on similisexual grounds of explicit detail, a celebrated scandal of its epoch.