culty, and found him stretched on his couch in an attitude of despair. After a deep protestation that he came to do him service, the lord-keeper urged the duke to lose no time in following the king, "to deport himself with all amiable addresses, and not to stir from his person night nor day.” The danger, he told him, was, that some persons should get access to his majesty who would push him to break utterly with the parliament; their next attempt would be, to send the duke to the Tower, after which no one could foresee the event. He enjoined him secrecy and dispatch in the prevention of the threatened danger. The duke took the counsel, hurried to Windsor, and waited on the king like his shadow. Early the next morning the prince was waiting for the lord-keeper at the house of lords, and taking him aside thanked him heartily for his faithful warning to the duke, adding, that he would oblige them further, by opening the whole of that black contrivance which had lost Buckingham, and almost himself, his father's favor. Williams answered that he only knew in general, that four days since something pernicious had been infused into his majesty by some one belonging to the household of the Spanish ambassador. The prince wondered that one who had such intimate acquaintance and good intelligence in that household could not inform him of the particulars. Williams answered, that his highness and the duke "had made it a crime to send to that house, that they were afraid to do it who were commanded by his majesty," and that for a month

past

past he had forbidden the servants of the embassy to come to him. The prince promised to make that passage open to him again without offence; but in the mean time desired to know the source of his present intelligence. Thus urged, the right-reverend politician, premising that another would perhaps blush to tell with "what heifer" he ploughed, acknowledged that he had discovered the beauty most admired by his good friend Carondelet the ambassador's secretary; and that all this information came out of her chamber; adding; "Truly, sir, this is my dark lanthorn; and I am not ashamed to inquire of a Dalilah to resolve a riddle;" for in my studies of divinity I have gleaned up this maxim, licet uti alieno peccato,”—It is lawful to avail ourselves of the sins of another. In the meantime, the prelate well knew that Carondelet himself was not impenetrable, and that if he could entice him to his house without putting him upon his guard, he might sift out what yet remained of the secret on which the prince laid so much stress. Accordingly, after a little pondering, he sent for his pursuivant, and gave him orders to arrest a certain catholic priest whom he described. This priest was the dearest friend of the Spanish secretary; and, as the lordkeeper expected, the news of his apprehension soon produced a most earnest request from this functionary to be admitted to his lordship that day, though he should never see his face again. After a discreet show of reluctance, the favor was granted. The secretary begged the discharge of his friend, ob

tained it, after much importunity, and in return betrayed to the artful questions of the lord-keeper the whole story of the plot against Buckingham, and the particulars of what had been communicated to the king.

Williams spent the rest of the night in committing to paper these charges against the duke, confronted by the best answers he was able to devise; and such was his readiness, that by seven in the morning" he had trimmed up a fair copy, which he presented to the prince in St. James's, and told him he had the viper and her brood in a box." Thus prepared, the prince and Buckingham desired a private audience of the king, and gave the paper into his hand: "he read all deliberately, and at many stops said, 'twas well, very well, and an enlivening spirit danced in his eye. Then he drew his son and Buckingham near to him, and embraced them, protesting that it sorrowed him much that he had aggrieved them with a jealousy fomented by no better than traitors; assured them the exhalations were dispersed, and their innocency shined as bright as at noon-day"."

The results of this complicated intrigue were important: the Spanish ambassador, after receiving a severe reprimand from the privy-council, quitted the kingdom in haste and anger; the king dropped all further negotiation, open or secret, with the agents of Spain, clearly perceiving that the breach had be

come irreparable; and the duke, having triumphed over the suspicions and disgusts of the easy king, and firmly established his influence over the prince and his credit with the parliament, carried every thing before him and revenged himself on all his enemies. The lord-keeper alone, by this timely piece of service, obtained some suspension at least of the sentence which the duke had secretly passed upon him.

It was at this time that the prince and Buckingham undertook the ruin of the lord-treasurer, whom they procured to be impeached by the house of commons for corruption in his office: the king was very averse to this step; and his reasons against it, as preserved by lord Clarendon, were replete with a prophetic sagacity worthy of a Cecil or a Bacon:"When this prosecution was entered upon," says the noble historian, " and that the king clearly discerned it was contrived by the duke, and that he had likewise prevailed with the prince to be well-pleased with it; his majesty sent for them, and with much warmth and passion dissuaded them from appearing further in it; and conjured them to use all their interest and authority to restrain it, as such a wound to the crown that would not easily be healed.' And when he found the duke unmoved by all the considerations and arguments and commands he had offered, he said in greater choler, By God, Stenny, you are a fool, and will shortly repent this folly, and will find that, in a fit of popularity, you are making a rod with which you will be scourged yourself: '

6

and

and turning in some anger to the prince, told him, That he would live to have his bellyful of parliament impeachments; and, when I shall be dead, you will have too much cause to remember how much you have contributed to the weakening of the crown, by the two precedents you are now so fond of;' intending as well the engaging the parliament in the war, as the prosecution of the earl of Middle

sex a,,

Finding all his warnings thrown away upon his son and that son's favorite,—he was no longer his own, the king condescended to intercede with several of the peers in behalf of the unfortunate lordtreasurer; but with small success; the prince made it a personal favor to himself to vote against him; the treasurer was little loved, and his master less feared. The acts of bribery charged upon him were few and slight, and even these were apparently not very clearly proved; yet lord Hollis alone had the courage and the equity to speak in his behalf. Besides the loss of his place, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 50,000l., declared incapable of sitting in the house of lords, and committed to the Tower during the pleasure of the king, who liberated him immediately, the only act of lenity which he was allowed to perform.

The earl of Bristol's turn came next. The duke dreaded nothing so much as that this upright and injured nobleman, with whose courage and ability

a History of the rebellion, vol. i. p. 20.

he