FullReads

[Footnote 229:
The misery of prime ministers and favourites is a portion of their fate which has not always been noticed by their biographers; one must be conversant with secret history to discover the thorn in their pillow. Who could have imagined that Buckingham, possessing the entire affections of his sovereign, during his absence had reason to fear being supplanted? When his confidential secretary, Dr. Mason, slept in the same chamber with the duke, he would give way at night to those suppressed passions which his unaltered countenance concealed by day. In the absence of all other ears and eyes he would break out into the most querulous and impassioned language, declaring that “never his despatches to divers princes, nor the great business of a fleet, of an army, of a siege, of a treaty, of war and peace both on foot together, and all of them in his head at a time, did not so much break his repose as the idea that some at home under his majesty, of whom he had well deserved, were now content to forget him.” So short-lived is the gratitude observed to an absent favourite, who is most likely to fall by the creatures his own hands have made. ]

[Footnote 230:
Sloane MSS. 4181. ]

[Footnote 231:
Gerbier gives a curious specimen of Grondomar’s pleasant sort of impudence. When James expressed himself with great warmth on the Spaniards, under Spinola, taking the first town in the Palatinate, under the eyes of our ambassador, Gondomar, with Cervantic humour, attempted to give a new turn to the discussion, for he wished that Spinola had taken the whole Palatinate at once, for “then the generosity of my master would be shown in all its lustre, by restoring it all again to the English ambassador, who had witnessed the whole operations.” James, however, at this moment was no longer pleased with the inexhaustible humour of his old friend, and set about trying what could be done. ]

[Footnote 232:
Hacket’s Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 115, pt. 1, fo. ]

[Footnote 233:
The narrative furnished by Buckingham, and vouched by the prince to the parliament, agrees in the main with what the duke told Gerbier. It is curious to observe how the narrative seems to have perplexed Hume, who, from some preconceived system, condemns Buckingham “for the falsity of this long narrative, as calculated entirely to mislead the parliament.” He has, however, in the note [T] of this very volume, sufficiently marked the difficulties which hung about the opinion he has given in the text. The curious may find the narrative in Frankland’s Annals, p. 89, and in Rushworth’s Hist. Col. I. 119. It has many entertaining particulars. ]

[Footnote 234:
Letter from J. Mead to Sir M. Stuteville, June 5, 1628. Harl. MSS. 7000. ]

[Footnote 235:
Memoirs of James II. vol. ii. p. 163. ]

[Footnote 236:
This was afterwards reduced to the sum of 1500 marks, and was collected by an assessment and fine. The old account-books of the City companies afford many items of the monies thus paid to the general fund. The Carpenters’ Company, for instance, have this entry in their books: “Paid in January, 1632, for an assessment imposed on our Companie, by reason of the death of Dr. Lambe … V. li.” ]

[Footnote 237:
Rushworth has preserved a burthen of one of these songs:–

Let Charles and George do what they can,
The duke shall die like Doctor Lambe.

And on the assassination of the Duke, I find two lines in a MS.letter.–

The shepherd’s struck, the sheep are fled!
For want of Lambe the wolf is dead!

There is a scarce tract entitled “A brief Description of the notorious Life of John Lambe, otherwise called Dr. Lambe,” with a curious wood print of the mob pelting him in the street.
]