knight of the same county, whom the Duke had lately taken into some good degree of favour, and the said Felton there had been ancient quarrels, which might perhaps still lie festering in his breast, and by continued inflammation produce this gangrenous result. Neither of these causes, however, appears adequate to the great effect. The assassin himself, not three hours before his execution, alleged to Sir Richard Greham two only inducements: the first, a certain libellous book, written by one Egglestone a Scottish physician, which represented the Duke as one of the foulest monsters upon earth, unworthy not only of life in a Christian court and under so virtuous a king, but of any room within the bounds of humanity;' the other, the remonstrance itself of the Lower House against him, which (thinking it perchance, the fairest cover) he put in the second place. Whatever were his motives, he prosecuted and achieved his enterprise in the following

manner:

In a by-cutler's shop on Tower-Hill, he purchased a tenpenny knife, the sheath of which he sewed to the lining of his pocket, that he might at any moment draw forth the blade with one hand, as he had maimed the other. This done, he reached Portsmouth, partly (as it is said) on horseback, and partly on foot, for he was in great poverty, which might perhaps have a little edged his desperation. There without any suspicion, among numbers solicitous of employment, he pressed into an inward chamber, where Buckingham was at breakfast with Monsieur de Soubes and Sir Thomas Fryer; and a little before his Grace's rising from the table, moved thence into a kind of lobby between that room and the next,

where divers were in waiting for the Duke's appearance. In this lobby, as Buckingham was passing through, the assassin with a back stroke gave him a deep wound in his left-side. The Duke, having just time to pull out the knife, sunk down under the table, and expired.*

One circumstance ensuing upon this transaction is beyond all wonder; that, within the space of not many minutes after the removal of the body into the first room, there was not a single creature remaining in either of the chambers! Usually such cases draw together a great and sudden conflux of people: but the very horror of the deed it should seem had stupified all curiosity, and so dispersed the multitude, that it is thought even the murtherer† himself might have escaped, if he had not lingered about the house below, not from any confused arrest of conscience (as has occasionally occurred in similar examples) but from pride in his own achievement, as if in effect there were little difference between being remembered by a virtuous fame and a memorable infamy.

Thus fell, at the age of thirty-six, this illustrious peer, in a moment of great recourse unto him, and general dependence upon him: the house and town,

* Before this bloody event, Sir Clement Throgmorton, a gentleman of grave judgement, had advised him to wear a privy coat. The Duke received his suggestion very kindly; but replied, "that against any popular fury a shirt of mail would be but a weak defence, and for any single man's assault, he took himself to be in no danger." So dark is destiny!

† On the trial of Felton, an attempt was made to introduce examination by torture; but the judges, to their honour (as dependent at that time, for the continuance of their offices, on the pleasure of the court) declared, that torture could not by the law of England be administered.'

full of servants and suitors; his Duchess in an upper room, scarcely yet out of bed; and the court, which had been the stage of his greatness, not above eight or nine miles from him.

As to ominous presages of his end, it is reported, that being about to take leave of the Bishop of London, whom he knew by his own eminent abilities well planted in the royal affection, after mutual courtesies he thus addressed him: "I know your Lordship hath very worthily good accesses unto the King our Sovereign, let me pray you to put his Majesty in mind to be good, as I no ways distrust, to my poor wife and children." At these words, or at his mode of uttering them, the Bishop being somewhat troubled, asked him, whether he had any secret bodings in his mind?' "No," replied the Duke, "but I think some adventure may kill me as well as another man." The day before he was assassinated, in consequence of some indisposition, the King honoured him with a visit, and found him in his bed; where, after much serious discourse, the Duke, on his Majesty's departing, embraced him in a very unusual and passionate manner, as he did also his friend the Earl of Holland, as if his soul had divined that he should see them no more. On the very day of his death, his sister the Countess of Denbigh received a letter from him, her reply to which she copiously bedewed with her tears. It ended thus: "I will pray for your happy return, which I look at with a great cloud over my head, too heavy for my poor heart to bear without torment; but I hope the great God of heaven will bless you."

The day following, her friend the Bishop of Ely, who was thought the fittest person to prepare her

mind for the doleful tidings, came to visit her: but hearing she was at rest, he waited till she should awake of herself, which she presently did with the terror of a frightful dream. Her brother seemed to pass through a field with her, in her coach; where hearing a sudden shout of the people, and asking the reason, she was told it was for joy that Buckingham was sick.' This melancholy vision she had scarcely related unto her gentlewoman, before the Bishop entered her chamber, as the chosen messenger of the Duke's death.

But the most remarkable instance of all is the celebrated story of the apparition, which is recorded by Lord Clarendon. "There was an officer in the King's wardrobe in Windsor Castle, of a good reputation for honesty and discretion, and then about the age of fifty years or more. This man had in his youth been bred in a school in the parish where Sir George Villiers, the father of the Duke, lived; and had been much cherished and obliged, in that season of his age, by the said Sir George, whom afterward he never saw.

"About six months before the miserable end of the Duke of Buckingham, about midnight, this man being in his bed at Windsor (where his office was) and in very good health, there appeared to him on the side of his bed a man of a very venerable aspect, who drew the curtains of his bed, and fixing his eyes upon him, asked him if he knew him.' The poor man, half dead with fear and apprehension, being asked the second time whether he remembered him,' and having in that time called to his memory the presence of Sir George Villiers and the very clothes he used to wear, in which at that time he seemed to be habited, he answered him, that he

thought him to be that person.' He replied, he was in the right, that he was the same, and that he expected a service from him, which was that he should go from him to his son the Duke of Buckingham, and tell him, if he did not somewhat to ingratiate himself to the people, or at least to abate the extreme malice which they had against him, he would be suffered to live but a short time.' After this discourse he disappeared, and the poor man (if he had been at all waking) slept very well till morning, when he believed all this to be a dream, and considered it no otherwise.

6

"The next night, or shortly afterward, the same person appeared to him again in the same place, and about the same time of the night, with an aspect a little more severe than before, and asked him, whether he had done as he had required of him;' and perceiving he had not, gave him very severe reprehensions, told him he expected more compliance from him, and that if he did not perform his commands, he should enjoy no peace of mind, but should always be pursued by him:' upon which he promised him to obey. But the next morning waking out of a good sleep, though he was exceedingly perplexed with the lively representation of all particulars to his memory, he was still willing to persuade himself that he had only dreamed, and considered that he was a person at such a distance from the Duke, that he knew not how to find out any admission to his presence, much less had any hope to be believed in what he should say; so with great trouble and unquietness he spent some time in thinking what he should do, and in the end resolved to do nothing in the matter.

"The same person appeared to him the third time