suc. fa. 23 Aug. 1628 (a minor) as 2nd duke of BUCKINGHAM
First sat 1 May 1660; last sat 2 July 1685
b. 30 Jan. 1628, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of George Villiers†, duke of Buckingham, and Katherine (d.1649), da. of Francis Manners†, 6th earl of Rutland. educ. Trinity, Camb. MA 5 Mar. 1642; travelled abroad 1643-7 (France, Italy).1 m. 15 Sept. 1657 Mary (d.1704), da. of Thomas Fairfax‡, 3rd Bar. Fairfax of Cameron [S]; s.p. 1s. with Anna Maria, countess of Shrewsbury. KG 1649. d. 16 Apr. 1687; admon. 2 May 1687-5 Mar. 1720.
Gent. of the bedchamber 1650-7, 1661-25 Feb. 1667, 23 Sept. 1667-2 Mar. 1674; PC 1650, 28 Apr. 1662-25 Feb. 1667, 23 Sept. 1667-21 Apr. 1679;2 master of the horse 1668-5 Mar. 1674;3 member, cttee. for foreign affairs, trade and plantations 1668;4 amb. extraordinary to France July-Sept. 1670, envoy extraordinary (jt.) to France and Low Countries June-July 1672; commr. admiralty 9 July 1673-31 Oct. 1674.
Col. regt. of horse 1651; capt. tp. of horse 1666; col. regt. of foot 1672-3; lt.-gen. 1672-3.5
Ld. lt. Yorks. (W. Riding) 5 Sept. 1661-14 Mar. 1667,6 22 Nov.1667-13 Mar. 1674;7 high steward, York ?-1683,8 Oxford 1669;9 custos rot. Yorks. (W. Riding) 1671-9; chan. Cambs. Univ. 1671-4;10 kpr. of Enfield Chase 1672-5.
FRS 1661-85;11 gov., Charterhouse 1669;12 grand master of freemasons 1674-9;13 freeman, City of London (liveryman of Merchant Taylors’ Co.) 1681.14
Associated with: Helmsley, Yorks.;15 Cliveden, Bucks.; York House, Westminster;16 Wallingford House, Whitehall.17
Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c.1675, NPG 279; line engraving by R. White, 1679, NPG D1131; mezzotint by I. Becket, aft. S. Verelst, c.1681-8, NPG D1130.
Buckingham has fascinated historians more than any other figure in the Restoration court. He has inspired a number of biographies as well as a study of the Cabal, the loose association of leading courtiers who dominated politics at the close of Charles II’s first decade on the throne. He also maintains a prominent place in a number of articles and scholarly theses.18 The cause of his appeal is no doubt in part his rare combination of political significance, ability as an author and colourful personal life. The events of January 1674, when the House of Commons took into consideration a catalogue of abuses that were being levelled against him, perhaps sums this up as well as any other episode in Buckingham’s career. The list included extorting money, apostasy, murder, adultery as well as attempted buggery. Although on this occasion, as on so many others, Buckingham succeeded in bluffing his way through the horrors that were laid to his charge, he was never able to shake off the reputation of being a man of at best loose morals, incapable of loyalty and prone to excess.19
Buckingham has come to be portrayed as the ultimate exemplar of the vicious licentiousness of the court of Charles II, an amoral rake who also possessed some of the less desirable attributes of a medieval over-mighty subject. The reputation, compounded by John Dryden’s characterization of him as Zimri in Absalom and Achitophel, is not entirely justified.20 Contrary to popular perception, Buckingham was not a wastrel and he (or more correctly those to whom he entrusted his estates) kept a vigilant eye on his finances.21 His end was not the sordid, poverty-stricken death in a dirty inn that seemed so appropriate an allegory for one of his lifestyle. Rather, he died in a state of some financial comfort in one of many properties that he owned and rented out in Yorkshire. He was popular in the north, where most of his estates lay, and in the latter part of his career he was successful in developing a following in the city of London.22 Like the king, he was witty and inquisitive if occasionally given to bouts of languor and boredom. He dabbled in chemistry and natural philosophy and had a hand in the composition of a large number of plays, poems and satires. Though he was no doubt proud of his heritage, private writings sometimes attributed to him, or possibly the work of his client Martin Clifford, revealed some contempt for the merits of hereditary nobility.23
As a politician, though, Buckingham was unreliable. His experiences both as the heir of the notorious and assassinated favourite of two kings and latterly during the Civil War and Interregnum as soldier, exile and petitioner, serves in part to explain his Janus-faced attitude. Perhaps most significant, though, was his desire to be popular. To this end he was not as interested in maintaining a consistent course as many of his contemporaries and his failure to maintain the king’s trust led to his sense of ill treatment and disappointment. This in turn contributed to the occasionally unruly behaviour that he exhibited for the remainder of his life.
Before and after the Restoration
Brought up with the future king, Prince Charles, after the assassination of his father, Buckingham was too young to fight in the first Civil War, much of which he claimed to have spent abroad. In July 1648, however, he was involved in the doomed royalist uprising in Surrey, in which his brother was killed. He escaped to the continent, was proscribed by Parliament as a traitor, and accompanied Charles II on his expedition to Scotland in 1651 (where he may have been initiated into freemasonry).24 Buckingham was seen as drawn into the ambit of the Covenanter leader Archibald Campbell, marquess, then duke, of Argyll, and then as discontented that while he was commander of the English royalists in the army that invaded England, he was not made general-in-chief. After the defeat at Worcester, he followed the king into renewed exile, but failed to establish himself as one of the king’s senior advisers. Three years before the Restoration, Buckingham, having fallen out with a number of central figures in the exiled court (the king included), returned to England and married into the family of the former parliamentarian commander, Thomas Fairfax‡, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S].25 It was a shrewd move that reunited Buckingham with the majority of his confiscated estates. The marriage was regarded by the Protector with marked suspicion as a Presbyterian scheme: shortly after the marriage, Buckingham was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower on the orders of Oliver Cromwell‡. He remained there until February 1659, when he was released on security of £20,000 provided by his father-in-law.26 By August his activities had again aroused the suspicion of the authorities and an order was sent out once more for his apprehension, though royalists were equally suspicious of him, believing that he was consorting with John Wildman‡ over a scheme involving James, duke of York.27 By the close of the year Buckingham was closely involved in royalist plotting with Fairfax, serving as commander of a troop raised to oppose the manoeuvrings of Lambert and in support of George Monck, later duke of Albemarle.28
Buckingham arrived in London in Monck’s train in January 1660. According to the French envoy, he intended to ‘vindicate Fairfax’.29 In March he was included in a list compiled by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of those peers who had remained loyal to the king in the Civil War.30 Buoyed by his change of fortune, the same month he was noted as being ‘very jocund’.31 He seems to have maintained his high spirits through to the end of April when he reassumed his Garter and declared his intention of taking his place in the Convention. Sir Allen Apsley‡ assessed that he had put aside any thoughts of stirring up trouble for Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, whom Buckingham regarded as a rival as the king’s principal adviser. If so the resolution appears soon to have been forgotten and by December 1660, Buckingham was accounted one of Clarendon’s most prominent enemies.32
Buckingham took his seat in the House of Lords on 1 May. On that day he was also named to the committee appointed to consider an answer to the king’s letter from Breda. He was thereafter present on just over half of all sitting days in the Convention. The following day (2 May) he was nominated to a further three committees, including that for settling the militia, and on 3 May he secured an order of the House to put a stop to timber felling or demolition works taking place on lands to which he laid claim and which had been confiscated from him since July 1651. Later that month, the House (with the Commons’ concurrence) ordered the return of his lands and the order was later adjusted to comprehend those estates alienated from the duke since 1648.33 Buckingham was added to the committee of privileges on 7 May and the following day he was appointed to the committee for preparing the king’s reception. On 9 May he was named to the committee established to present to the House the votes necessary to be sent with the lords that were to wait on the king and on 14 May he was added to the committee for petitions (though he had already been nominated to the committee the day after his first sitting). On 15 May he was also named to the committee for repealing ordinances made since the House’s abolition in 1649.
Although Buckingham was not among those appointed to wait on the king, on 22 May he was one of eight peers given leave to travel to Kent to be present at the king’s arrival. His reception there was distinctly cold. Neither Charles nor his inner circle had forgotten Buckingham’s abandonment of the court in exile, nor his largely unhelpful contribution to the Scottish expedition in 1651. Even so, when the king’s entourage set off, Buckingham, uninvited, took advantage of the king’s carriage having an open boot to make space for himself within it. By the time the king arrived in London, Buckingham had succeeded in restoring himself within the king’s good graces and he was by then prominent among those riding in his entourage. Even so, he was the only member of the pre-Restoration Privy Council not to be admitted to the new body.34 It was a further two years before he was restored to it.
Buckingham submitted a further petition to the Lords to be restored to his estates on 13 June 1660, which was referred to the committee for petitions. The following day, James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, reported from the committee recommending that Buckingham be restored to his lands and on 2 July the House ordered that he should be put in possession of relevant papers for the claim. Buckingham joined with John Paulet, 5th marquess of Winchester, in introducing Monck as duke of Albemarle on 13 July. On 31 July, although noted as present on the attendance list, Buckingham was marked as missing at a call of the House. His absence was a brief one and he resumed his seat on 2 August. Four days later, he was involved in a dispute with George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, when Bristol chose to recommend the claim of William Cavendish, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, for reparations over that of Buckingham, Newcastle being (according to Bristol) a man of ‘more merit’. Some ‘hot and high words’ were exchanged and the two men had to be forcibly restrained before peace was restored in the chamber.35 After this shambolic opening to his career in the House, Buckingham was no doubt glad of an opportunity of absenting himself once more for a few weeks. On 16 Aug. he was granted leave to travel to France. He attended one more day of the session on 1 Sept. and it was presumably after this date that he departed for the continent to visit his sister, the duchess of Richmond, who had just lost her son, Esmé Stuart*, duke of Richmond, to smallpox.36
Buckingham had returned to England by November, when he was described by Bartet, one of the French agents in London, as ‘a real man of pleasure, who thinks of nothing but enjoying himself.’37 Later that month it was reported that he and Bristol had been reconciled.38 Buckingham took his seat in the second part of the Convention on 7 Nov. 1660, of which he attended 14 of its 45 sitting days. On 17 Nov. he was added to the bill for restoring Thomas Howard, 23rd or 16th earl of Arundel, to the dukedom of Norfolk and on 15 Dec. he was named to a further two committees considering the bill for the due observation of the Sabbath and the Hatfield Level bill. On 18 Dec. he was named to the committee for the excise bill. Two days later he reported from the committee for the Hatfield Level bill, which was an attempt to settle legal disputes arising from the draining of Hatfield Chase in south Yorkshire by the Dutch engineer Vermuyden earlier in the century. Buckingham may have been eager to impress his authority in the area. Some of the parties had requested more time to settle the issue, so the committee recommended that an order should be made to prevent local disputes by fixing the possession of the lands as they were until a final decision could be arrived at.
At the end of December 1660 the French agent Bartet was referring to Buckingham as one of Clarendon’s last enemies over the affair of the marriage of Clarendon’s daughter to the duke of York. Buckingham wrote to Clarendon, though, at the end of January 1661: Clarendon’s elaborate reply suggests that Buckingham may have gone abroad again, and that his letter offered the chancellor an olive branch.39 The elections for the new Parliament do not appear to have found Buckingham particularly eager to press his influence in the areas where he held estates and in early January 1661 he was said to have sent down to Leominster (where he was lord of the manor) to order his agents there to suspend his interest until he gave further directions. A fortnight later it was said that his interest and that of Fitzwilliam Coningsby‡ would carry the borough ‘against all’, and in March Thomas Harley related information from the steward at Leominster that, ‘they would attend the duke of Buckingham’s directions and conform thereto.’40 In the event, Buckingham’s candidate, Ranald Grahme‡, was returned along with Coningsby’s partner, Humphrey Cornewall‡, after Grahme disputed Coningsby’s ability to stand as he was at the time imprisoned for debt.41 In the meantime, Buckingham’s principal concern continued to be his position at court and more particularly a dalliance he appears to have been engaged in with the king’s sister, Princess Henrietta Anne (Minette), whom he accompanied to France for her marriage to the duc d’Orléans.42 On his return to England, he resumed his activities in the elections and in making his own preparations for the coronation, at which he carried the orb.43
In search of office, 1661-6
Buckingham took his seat in the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on just under 53 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to at least 23 committees, including that for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament, to which he was nominated on 24 Jan. 1662. An annotated list of the members of the committee drawn up by the clerk included Buckingham’s name marked with a cross.44 In July 1661, Buckingham was noted among those expected to support Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, in his efforts to be restored to the lord great chamberlaincy.45 His support for Oxford served to confirm an earlier assessment by John Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt that the two were friends.46 Still without significant office, by the close of July 1661 Buckingham was said to have been hard at work in attempting to undermine the lord chancellor, Clarendon.47 His appointment as lord lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire that September did nothing to distract him from his feelings of being poorly rewarded by the new regime, which were exacerbated by his failure to secure the restoration of the Council of the North and with it his appointment to the presidency early in 1662. On 25 Jan. he was involved in an altercation with Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, during the House’s deliberations over the proposed restoration of the council. After Northumberland had argued that there was little enthusiasm for the court’s re-establishment, Buckingham answered that it was only ‘a few individuals, who had formerly been against the king, who were against it.’ Although the House ordered that they should lay aside their argument, Buckingham soon after left his place and walked over to Northumberland to resume the quarrel during which ‘harsh words’ were exchanged. In response, the House ordered both men to withdraw after which a fierce debate raged on how to punish the two peers. According to the French resident, the issue divided the House starkly in two, the ‘Presbyterians’ all favouring Northumberland and the ‘royalists’ Buckingham.48 Eventually, it was resolved to reprehend Buckingham for his conduct, but not to confine him to his chamber.49 The row with Northumberland may have been lent added piquancy by the fact that Parliament during the Civil War had given him custody of Buckingham’s goods to cover the expenses of the army.50
Buckingham’s continuing involvement in the affairs of his own locality was reflected in his being added to the committee for the bill for regulating cloth-making in Yorkshire in February 1662. The same month he was also added to the committee for uniformity. In April he was named to the committee to draw up a clause concerning those clergymen deprived under the bill. Buckingham’s involvement in committee work occasionally resulted in his presiding over particular pieces of business but his activities were (as in so many other aspects of his life) sporadic. On 28 Jan. he had taken the chair in a session of the committee for repealing acts but after several points were discussed the committee was adjourned and taken over by John Lucas, Baron Lucas, when it next met. Buckingham showed greater interest in the militia bill. He presided over a meeting of the committee for the bill on 22 Mar. and a further three sessions of the committee on 11, 12 and 14 April. These included a marathon session on 12 Apr. which was finally adjourned at 11.30 at night after a number of amendments had been made to the text.51
It may not be a coincidence that it was during the same month that he was finally admitted to the Privy Council. In May, he was nominated one of a sub-committee of eight peers to draw up reasons why the Lords had agreed not to employ the word ‘lord’ in conjunction with ‘lieutenant’ within the terms of the militia bill, presumably as a result of concerns about confusion of privilege in the case of a county lieutenant not being a peer. He was then one of five peers named to prepare an expedient reflecting the sense of the peers’ debate on the matter. On 14 May he reported from the committee nominated to draw up heads for a conference on the militia bill and two days later he was again named to a sub-committee to prepare amendments to a proviso within the bill. With the session expected to be brought to a conclusion imminently, on 19 May he was one of four peers directed to wait on the king to request the preservation of works made for the Great Level of the Fens until such time as Parliament could put in place legislation to protect them.
Following the close of the session, Buckingham joined the king at Portsmouth to greet the new queen.52 Later in the summer he was involved in yet another altercation, on this occasion with Prince Rupert, duke of Cumberland, over a race in which a number of courtiers, including the king, had participated. The king had to intervene personally to prevent the two men coming to blows, but blame for the argument getting out of hand was laid at Prince Rupert’s door.53 Buckingham set out for his estates in Yorkshire early in the autumn, reaching York in mid-October.54 Buckingham’s patronage of radical Dissent (already hinted at by his contacts with John Wildman during the later 1650s) is suggested by an incident of November 1662 when Buckingham was embarrassed by accusations levelled against his porter, who was reported to have said that he ‘hoped soon to trample in bishops’ and king’s blood.’55 His interest in toleration was also implied by his friendship with the earl of Bristol, which the French envoy, Comminges, noted at the beginning of 1663, though it may equally have been aimed at securing a more dominant role in the king’s counsels. Comminges referred to an obscure incident in the previous session, apparently during debates on the uniformity bill, in which Buckingham had come to Bristol’s rescue when he was under pressure as a result of his Catholicism.56 The relationship overcame a natural antagonism, given the hostility of their fathers following the failure of the Spanish match in 1623.
Buckingham returned to London in time to take his seat at the beginning of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, on which day he was appointed with the lord privy seal (John Robartes, Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor) to wait on the king with the House’s thanks for his speech, which may be indicative of his support for legislation giving effect to the 1662 Declaration of Indulgence. He was thereafter present on just over a quarter of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to five committees, in addition to the standing committees.57 On 6 Mar. he registered his proxy with Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 23 March. The following month, he survived an assassination attempt staged by one of his servants, only days after being told by a fortune teller that he would meet the same fate as his father. What was said to have been more remarkable was that the duke was found by the servant spending the night in the same chamber as his duchess.58 The attempt may have been linked to the growth of radical conspiracy in the North.59
By mid-May 1663 Buckingham was reckoned by Samuel Pepys‡ to have been one of a handful of favourites at court who had virtually ousted Clarendon from power, the others being Bristol, Ashley, Henry Bennet, soon to be promoted Baron (later earl of) Arlington and Sir Charles Berkeley, later Viscount Fitzharding [I] and earl of Falmouth.60 Buckingham was one of those nominated a commissioner for treating with the French in June.61 There is little evidence of Buckingham’s direct involvement in Bristol’s efforts to impeach Clarendon in July, though he was noted by Wharton among those thought likely to vote in favour of the impeachment.62 He was also numbered among those thought likely to screen Bristol from ruin after his plans misfired.63 Buckingham seconded Wharton’s motion designed to protect Bristol from being arrested when he was no longer protected by privilege; he was also named to the committee to consider what satisfaction was due to the lord chancellor as a result of Bristol’s false accusations.64
That summer he was also said to have been involved with advising his ‘very great friend’, Frances Stuart, not to settle for ‘any fortune that is not very great’ in response to an offer of marriage she had received from Mr Griffin (probably Edward Griffin, later Baron Griffin).65 But the late summer and early autumn was dominated by lieutenancy business. In early August, very soon after the close of the session, Buckingham was dispatched to the north to take command of forces being mustered against what appeared to be developing plans for an insurrection centred on Yorkshire. Comminges complained that his abrupt departure from London set back progress with the treaty negotiations but his handling of the situation—which only matured into some small rendezvous and no fighting—earned him some praise both at court and in the north. He appears to have succeeded in striking a fine balance between mercy and retribution for those involved and was more than ready to make the most of the plaudits he received for his efforts.66
Buckingham was absent from the opening of the new session, having previously been reported to have left town on purpose to avoid taking his seat. He may have been eager to maintain a low profile so as to avoid Bristol’s expected efforts to revive his cause against Clarendon. Buckingham’s failure to attend resulted in ‘much discourse’.67 On 4 Apr. 1664 he was noted as being absent at a call of the House and it was not until the end of the month that he finally took his seat on 26 Apr., after which he was present on 16 of the remaining days in the session (44 per cent of the whole). On 4 May the House was presented with a complaint following the arrest of one of Buckingham’s servants contrary to privilege. All those involved were ordered to appear at the bar of the House to explain their actions. Shortly before the close of the session, on 13 May, Buckingham was added as one of the managers for the conference concerning the conventicles bill. He was a manager of the subsequent conferences on the bill over the ensuing days.
Despite his success in managing the government’s response to the Yorkshire conspiracy, Buckingham remained without significant central office. A series of reports in the second half of the year suggested that he would shortly to be granted a place but rumours that he was to purchase the mastership of the horse from Albemarle that summer failed to be realized. Albemarle’s duchess was said to have rejected Buckingham’s proposal that he pay for the place in instalments of £1,000 a year for 20 years.68 Two months later, it was said that Buckingham had lost interest in the post as it was too expensive.69 A report shortly after that he had been appointed to the presidency of a revived council of the North also proved not to be the case.70 In the event the council was not called back into existence, though the rumour was sufficiently convincing to provoke another of the pretenders to the office, William Wentworth, 2nd earl of Strafford, to complain to James Butler, duke of Ormond [I] (who sat in the House as earl of Brecknock), and Clarendon that they had promised the place to him. Buckingham had greater success in his negotiations with Ormond for the marriage of his niece, Lady Mary Stuart, with Ormond’s son, Richard Butler, earl of Arran [I] (who later sat in the House as Baron Butler of Weston).71
Buckingham had been nominated one of the commissioners for proroguing parliament in August 1664. Shortly before Parliament met again in November, Buckingham was also one of a number of peers to travel to Portsmouth intending to serve as a volunteer in the fleet under the command of York.72 He returned from his brief experience of naval life and resumed his seat in the new session on 24 Nov. 1664, after which he was present on almost 40 per cent of all sitting days. Divisions among the Yorkshire gentry over the anticipated re-establishment of the council of the North continued to manifest themselves during the session, though when the northern magnate, Richard Boyle, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later earl of Burlington), waited on Buckingham on 19 Dec. Burlington noted that not a word was spoken about the matter.73 Buckingham continued to develop his northern interest and in January 1665 he was successful in securing the return to the Commons of Sir Thomas Osborne, later duke of Leeds, in a by-election at York. Osborne’s return was not without incident, though, and while he was able to report to Buckingham how most of the citizens of York were ‘very ready to give me their assistance upon your grace‘s account’, he complained of encountering opposition from some of the officers of Buckingham’s regiment.74 On 3 Feb. Buckingham was added to the committee for the Deeping Fen bill. He was named to two further committees prior to the prorogation and towards the end of February, he was one of a handful of peers to receive the particular thanks of Sir Robert Paston, later earl of Yarmouth, for his assistance in securing the passage of the Yarmouth harbour bill.75 On 1 Mar. he was nominated one of the reporters of the conference for the bill for Nicholas Tufton, 3rd earl of Thanet.
Buckingham’s brief rapprochement with Ormond seems rapidly to have descended into acrimony. Buckingham accused Ormond of failing to do all that he had promised to secure for him the presidency of the council of the North. In a letter to Ormond of 26 Apr. Buckingham complained bitterly of being ‘so long in the habit of being ill-used, that now he may well begin to think that he deserves no better usage.’76 The two quarrelled again when Ormond discovered that Buckingham intended to nominate the unborn child of his sister, the dowager duchess of Richmond, who had recently remarried, as heir to his estates, rather than his niece, Lady Arran.
Following his demonstration of willingness to serve the previous winter, Buckingham rejoined the fleet for the new campaign in April 1665. His attitude revealed much of his ability to gain popular appeal while infuriating his peers. Although he was commended by the sailors aboard the George for his ‘very noble’ behaviour whilst serving with them (in 1667 he would be accused of trying to foment rebellion among the sailors), Buckingham proved so insubordinate towards the fleet’s commanders, York, and Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich, that he was ordered ashore.77 Buckingham retreated to his estates. Over the summer, he was involved in an altercation with Henry Cavendish, styled earl of Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), while staying at Welbeck.78 He was then absent for the entirety of the next session of Parliament in October 1665.
Buckingham spent Christmas in the country at the seat of William Crofts, Baron Crofts, along with Crofts’ kinsman, Arlington.79 By the spring of 1666, he seems once again to have recovered his spirits and his popularity with the king, whom he accompanied to Newmarket in March with York, Prince Rupert and James Scott, duke of Monmouth.80 In the summer he returned to Yorkshire where he was later involved in a quarrel with Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, ‘upon some words spoken by the duke’, but a duel was averted when Buckingham demonstrated that he ‘had more mind to parley than to fight.’81 As a consequence he lost face with at least some of his adherents. It was also during this visit to the north that he was thought to have commenced what proved to be a ‘fatal amour’ with one of his guests, Lady Shrewsbury.82
The Irish Cattle Bill, 1666-7
Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 5 Oct. 1666, after which he was present on approximately 67 per cent of all sitting days. The session witnessed the early stages of what appears to have been a concerted effort by Buckingham to take a greater interest in the House’s business. The diarist John Milward‡, for example, noted Buckingham listening in on debates in the Commons on the Irish cattle bill, a measure in which he took a close interest not least as it presented an opportunity of humbling Ormond.83 At the same time he was cultivating a following in the Commons. He was able to make the most of his patronage as lieutenant in Yorkshire and ownership of lands in other counties to promote likely supporters, though his active electioneering was sporadic. Nevertheless, when Sir Henry Belasyse‡ was returned at a by-election for Great Grimsby in November 1666 on Buckingham’s interest, he joined a substantial group (by the end of the decade these numbered around 40 individuals, the majority of them representing northern constituencies) who had some association with the duke.84
As a sign of his intention to play a more prominent role in Parliament, on the opening day of the session Buckingham subjected the House to a long harangue against those involved in cheating the public revenue and proposed that those found guilty of such offences should be executed for treason. Pepys recorded that Buckingham’s proposal was greeted with mirth in the Lords. According to Sir Thomas Clifford, later Baron Clifford, ‘the House made no order, but left him to do as he thought fit, and he is now hard at it drawing up his bill and has nothing else in his head.’85 Clifford’s assessment could not have been further from the truth. On 17, 23 and 30 Oct. Buckingham was named one of the managers of a series of conferences concerning the bill for prohibiting the importation of foreign goods, but the principal focus of the session became the bill for preventing the importation of Irish cattle. The bill, which had been carried in the Commons in spite of the opposition of Clarendon, Ormond and the king, was brought up to the Lords by Edward Seymour‡, one of Buckingham’s adherents in the lower house. Buckingham then worked enthusiastically to secure the measure’s passage.86
Debates over the Irish cattle bill quickly became personal. On 26 Oct. Buckingham informed the House that he had been challenged the previous day by another of Ormond’s sons, Thomas Butler, earl of Ossory [I] (who sat in the House as Baron Butler of Moore Park), following a speech Buckingham had made in support of the bill, in which he had said that those in opposition were displaying an ‘Irish understanding’ of the issue. This challenge, Buckingham maintained, amounted to a breach of privilege as it resulted from something spoken within the chamber.87 The attack provoked Arlington into taking ‘up the bucklers’ for his brother-in-law, Ossory, requiring the House to intervene to prevent them from fighting as well.88 On 29 Oct. the House ordered Ossory to the Tower while Buckingham was handed over into the custody of Black Rod.89 Both men petitioned successfully to be released from their confinement two days later.90 Although swiftly settled, the affair may have contributed to Buckingham’s and Arlington’s growing mutual hostility.
Buckingham resumed his seat on 8 Nov. 1666 and with it his activity in pursuit of the bill. On 9 Nov. he presided over the House while it gave consideration to the second and third clauses in the bill as a committee of the whole. By the middle of the month Buckingham and Ashley had allied themselves with John Maitland, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who later sat in the House as earl of Guilford), to ensure that Scottish cattle would not be encompassed within the bill. On 17 Nov. Buckingham was again casting aspersions upon the motivation of the Irish in seeking to provide homeless Londoners with their beef. Tempers flared again and he, Ashley and Ossory were once more ordered to abide by the House’s injunction not to quarrel. According to Edward Conway, Viscount (later earl of) Conway, at the heart of Buckingham and Ashley’s motivation for driving forward the measure was their ‘implacable hatred’ towards Ormond.91 The bill eventually passed the House on 23 Nov. but without the contentious ‘nuisance’ clause that had been insisted on by the Commons, supported by Buckingham and Ashley. Following the Commons’ rejection of the change, on 17 Dec., Buckingham was one of a select committee of seven peers appointed to draw up reasons to be presented to the Commons why the Lords could not accept the use of the term ‘nuisance’ and he was then appointed one of the managers of the ensuing conferences held on 2, 9 and 14 Jan. 1667.
Besides his prominent role in the Irish cattle bill, Buckingham was also an active participant in several other areas of business. On 20 Nov. 1666 he was entrusted with the proxy of Francis Talbot, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, with whose countess Buckingham was said to have formed a relationship during the year, and on 27 Nov. he also received that of Charles Gerard, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield), which was vacated on 5 December. On 22 Nov. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning the public accounts and he was named sole manager of a further conference on the same matter six days later. He was closely involved with the manoeuvres surrounding the attempt by his kinsman, John Manners, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to secure a divorce from his wife. On 17 Nov. Buckingham was added to the committee considering the bill for illegitimating Lady Roos’s children. During a session of the committee on 26 Nov. consideration was taken of an objection made by Buckingham to Roos making use of his courtesy title, to which Buckingham also laid claim as a scion of the Manners family. On 29 Nov. the lord chamberlain (Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester) reported Buckingham’s objection, as a result of which it had been agreed to alter the wording to ‘John Manners, commonly called Lord Roos’.92 The solution failed to satisfy the parties and on 6 Dec. the House heard counsel on the matter. The business was referred back to the committee to find out an expedient satisfactory to both men. On 12 Dec., with the committee unable to do so, the dispute was put off until 21 January. The same day, the Lords received a complaint from one of the duke’s servants, George Mangie, asserting that he had been arrested in Oxford in November of the previous year, notwithstanding the fact that he was in possession of a written protection from Buckingham. The House ordered those responsible to appear at the bar to answer the complaint.93
Buckingham’s behaviour in the session was probably a concerted effort to impress upon the king his significance as a political broker. In addition to his quarrels with Ossory and Roos, Buckingham found further opportunities for his turbulent disposition in the debates concerning the Canary patent. On 29 Nov. 1666 both he and John Lucas, Baron Lucas, took exception to the procedure being employed over the dispute and the following month, he became involved in a tussle with Henry Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester, during a conference concerning the same business. Dorchester and Buckingham’s dislike of one another was well known. Having found themselves squeezed together in a crowded conference chamber, they fell to jostling for position before Buckingham seized Dorchester (one reporter mistakenly suggested that it was Edward Somerset, 2nd marquess of Worcester) by the nose and then plucked off his periwig. Both peers were conveyed to the Tower for their undignified behaviour.94 On 22 Dec. Buckingham petitioned the House (once more) to be released from confinement and on 29 Dec. he resumed his seat in the House having conveyed his thanks for his enlargement. Unlike Dorchester, he appears to have made no attempt to make his submission to the king, which caused adverse comment, and, unabashed, he continued to take a leading role in the House’s business in the new year.95 On 12 Jan. 1667, Sir Allen Brodrick‡ reported to Ormond how Buckingham ‘behaves himself with great insolency and joins throughout with all the malcontents in the House of Commons.’96 On 14 Jan. Buckingham reported the poll bill from the committee of the whole, the same day on which he was nominated one of the managers of the conference with the Commons concerning the Irish cattle bill. Addressing the lower house, Buckingham informed the Commons that the Lords had at last resolved to concede the point on the ‘nuisance’ clause in order to maintain a ‘good correspondence’ with them, while retaining their view that there were good reasons for requesting its removal. On 23 Jan. Buckingham entered his dissent at the resolution not to add a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and House of Lords to the bill for resolving disputes over property destroyed in the Great Fire.
Shortly before the close of the session, one of Buckingham’s associates, John Heydon, was arrested on a charge of treason; Henry North, Buckingham’s steward, was also arrested. Heydon’s arrest seems to have been the culmination of a concerted effort on the part of the court and in particular Arlington to damage the duke. In building up their case, the administration made use of a number of informers, among them William Leving, a former Yorkshire plotter, who were willing to testify that Buckingham had been engaged in stirring up unrest in the country and, in particular, inciting the seamen to mutiny. Heydon was a self-styled Rosicrucian, who claimed to have ‘predicted’ the Restoration, and had been in Buckingham’s train for some time. In June 1660 he had attended a dinner given by his patron for the king. Now he stood accused of casting the king’s horoscope (a treasonable activity) on Buckingham’s orders.97
Arlington’s efforts to discredit the duke proved markedly successful at first and by the end of February 1667 Buckingham had been put out of all his offices. His Yorkshire clients, Osborne and George Savile, later marquess of Halifax, laid down their commissions as deputy lieutenants in Yorkshire.98 An order was made out for Buckingham’s arrest, though he evaded capture and remained at large for the ensuing four months.99 In March, it was rumoured that he was in London incognito, attempting to win his way back into favour supported by the efforts made on his behalf by his duchess and his sister, though it was also said that his duchess had been forbidden the court because of her high-handed treatment of the king’s messenger.100 The same month, Buckingham’s hopes of a swift change in his fortunes were thwarted when a royal proclamation was issued for his discovery and apprehension, accusing him of ‘tending to raise mutinies in some of his majesty’s forces’ and of stirring up ‘sedition amongst his people, and other traitorous designs and practices’.101 Another report claimed that the ‘prosecution arises from his disarming Papists in Yorkshire.’102 On 24 Mar. Buckingham’s auditor, Stephen Monteage, was interrogated by Arlington about his receipt of a letter from Heydon, in which Heydon had insisted that Buckingham was ‘wronged, and with my life I will let the world know it.’103 Monteage responded to Arlington’s questioning with no little cheek commenting, ‘my lord I know your lordship has of a long time been my lord’s (Buckingham’s) friend, and would be glad to see him clear himself.’104
As Buckingham continued to elude arrest, a factional mêlée ensued at court. Although a number of his friends were reported to ‘bewail his ill conduct’, Andrew Marvell‡ noted in April that the king had been persuaded by others to think ‘better of him than formerly.’ Brodrick disagreed and informed Ormond that the king had declared Buckingham to be the cause of the continuing war with the Dutch.105 Both the lord chancellor and the secretary were thought to have had a hand in inventing the accusations against Buckingham but Arlington was credited with fabricating the details of the case by suborning witnesses.106
The Dutch attack on the Medway in the second week of June offered Buckingham an opportunity of returning to favour. The prosecution seems to have enhanced Buckingham’s standing, and his friends in Yorkshire may have helped to derail it by arresting the government’s chief informer, Leving, on a charge of highway robbery.107 Towards the end of the month, it was rumoured that the duke was on the point of giving himself up, which he eventually did on 28 June. He ensured that the occasion was turned into a triumph, dining en route to the Tower with Monmouth and a number of friends and accompanied by a crowd of well-wishers. This may have given rise to early reports of his almost immediate release, though these were quickly corrected.108 By way of explanation for his failure to submit earlier, Buckingham insisted that there was no limitation of time mentioned within the proclamation.109 Interrogated before the Council at the beginning of July, Buckingham protested that he had never trusted Heydon with anything, thinking him ‘so silly a fellow that I would not think it fit to trust him with a tallow candle’.110
For all his apparent confidence some reckoned that Buckingham appeared sufficiently guilty to stand in need of the king’s pardon and he was riled enough to become involved in ‘bitter and sharp’ exchanges with Arlington during the proceedings.111 The death of three of the witnesses against him, including Leving, in mysterious circumstances, suggests that there was much more to the case than met the eye. Even so, by the middle of July Buckingham had once again been granted his freedom.112 According to Pepys it was achieved through the intervention of his kinswoman, Lady Castlemaine.113 Buckingham’s reception by the king was said to have been ‘cold enough’, but his experience did nothing to dampen his exuberance.114 On 25 July he was again involved in an altercation at the Playhouse, this time with Henry Killigrew, and towards the end of the month he was said to have been one of those responsible for propagating stories that Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, was a ‘wencher’.115 Commenting on the first encounter, the countess of Strafford doubted how Buckingham could fail to avoid further difficulties, even though he had ‘got great reputation for getting the advantage of Mr Killigrew and when he was drunk too, but seriously his grace has very good fortune if after all his crimes laid to his charge he comes off without any more trouble.’116
The Fall of Clarendon, 1667-8
Buckingham’s restoration to favour coincided with Clarendon’s fall from grace. Buckingham appears at first to have attempted to convince the lord chancellor to join with him in opposition to Arlington, but the efforts made by Martin Clifford and Clarendon’s secretary, Matthew Wren‡, to win over the lord chancellor met with a firm refusal.117 Although it was reported in August that Buckingham and Albemarle were working together to reconcile the king with Clarendon, Henry Savile‡ insisted that the duke was ‘very far from having any correspondence with the chancellor.’118 In any case, Clarendon proved unwilling to enter into Buckingham’s scheme. The lord chancellor’s obduracy forced Buckingham to look to Arlington instead.119 He was thereafter at the head of those demanding Clarendon’s impeachment, though he was also responsible for preventing Clarendon’s incarceration in the Tower, arguing that ‘parliament would be offended by such violence and that the hatred it had for him (Clarendon) would be replaced by compassion for the change in his fortunes’. Instead he advocated Clarendon being confined to his country estate to remove him from the scene.120
By September 1667, Buckingham’s star had returned, dramatically, to the ascendant.121 During the latter part of the summer ‘great endeavours’ had been made to bring about ‘a reconciliation between the duke of Buckingham and the Lord Arlington.’122 Similar efforts to effect a rapprochement with York in October proved unavailing, though, as York remained for the time being loyal to his father-in-law.123 Restored to ‘all his places and employments again’, with the exception of the lieutenancy of the West Riding which remained in Burlington’s hands until the end of October, Buckingham was reported by the French envoy, Ruvigny, to be at the head of ‘the most respected’ party in Parliament, ‘the martyr of this assembly’ and an advocate of a policy intent on humbling the Dutch following their successful assault on the fleet at anchor in the Thames.124 In reality, Buckingham’s position remained as malleable as ever and he strove to maintain a correspondence, whether openly or covertly, with most parties.
However mercurial he may have remained, Buckingham’s clear intention was to take on himself the management of Parliament, working closely with his Commons allies, Edward Seymour, Sir Robert Howard‡ and Sir Richard Temple‡. In return they expected places in the administration at the expense of the old order headed by Clarendon.125 Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 10 Oct. 1667, after which he was present on 57 per cent of all sitting days. Named to each of the standing committees on 11 Oct., he was thereafter named to a further 19 committees during the course of the session as well as a manager in a series of conferences concerning the proceedings against Clarendon.126 Reported to be ‘taking all the credit in both chambers’ for the king’s decision to dismiss Clarendon from office and his concession to allow Parliament free rein to seek out those responsible for the country&rsquos financial plight, Buckingham was also said to be one of the prime movers of a similar assault on Ormond. Both Buckingham and Ashley had backed the unsuccessful petition of Alderman Barker against Ormond in the Privy Council on 11 October. Even so, efforts were made by those responsible for patching up the accommodation between Buckingham and Arlington to reconcile Buckingham with Ossory, though Ossory remained unwilling to consider friendship with a professed enemy of his father.127 In addition, Buckingham may still have been open to an alliance with Clarendon against Arlington as he and Clarendon were reported to be ‘frequently together, locked up’ in the middle of October.128 He was also at pains to maintain his relationship with the French envoy, assuring him of his commitment to the French alliance.129 By 20 Oct., when the king finally agreed to allow Clarendon’s impeachment to proceed, such possibilities had receded into the background and Buckingham and his allies turned their hands to composing the articles to be presented against the disgraced lord chancellor.130 On 23 Oct. he demanded that the thanks of both Houses and the king’s response to the exclusion of Clarendon from state affairs should be entered in the Journal, though this was opposed by York and referred to the committee for privileges.131 On 31 Oct. he reported from the committee for privileges, which he had chaired two days previously, concerning the summoning of John Sheffield, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), underage.132 A number of queries concerning the matter were referred to the judges for their opinion. The following month, the Commons decided to impeach Clarendon.
The French envoy was in no doubt that Buckingham had played a crucial role in bringing around certain members of the lower House to agree.133 This view was supported by John Nicholas‡, who related that, &lsquothe d[uke] of Bucks is the great man who carries all before him, and has as it’s said undertaken to his majesty by his interest in the House of Commons to make them do whatsoever he shall desire.’134 Pepys also reckoned that by the middle of the month Buckingham, in association with Bristol, had succeeded in all but monopolizing the king’s ear.135 At the heart of Buckingham’s success was his ability to convince the king that he alone was capable of controlling the Commons and ensuring that supply was voted. In the event he was unable to make good on these promises, proving incapable of holding together the alliance of members who had united to bring down Clarendon.136
In the Lords, Buckingham chaired two sessions of the committee considering the trials of peers bill on 7 and 9 November.137 A week later, on 16 Nov., he reported the committee’s conclusions to the House. The same month he was also said to have joined with Bristol in encouraging Lady Dacres to submit a bill before the House for the restoration of Sutton Court, which had been leased to Sir Edward Nicholas‡.138 Although unsuccessful in his efforts to direct impeachment proceedings against Ormond, Buckingham’s continuing dominance of affairs led to rumours that he would replace Ormond as lord steward.139 His central position at court also encouraged the French envoy, Ruvigny, to recommend the payment of douceurs to keep the duke amenable to the French interest.140
On 20 Nov. 1667 Buckingham voted in favour of committing Clarendon on an unspecified charge of treason.141 He then entered his protest when the motion was rejected.142 In all, 29 peers protested against the decision, and Ruvigny, writing on 22 Nov., referred to this group as a ‘party’, led by Buckingham and Albemarle and backed by the king himself, who were determined to ‘get rid of monsieur the chancellor (Clarendon) completely and vigorously to oppose the plans of those who would like to save him’. Buckingham and his parliamentary allies, Ruvigny wrote, had ‘vigour, the people and the government’ on their side. Others were beginning to fear the effect of their success. Ruvigny also told Louis XIV that Ashley and Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, were intent on establishing a ‘third party in Parliament’ under the leadership of Northumberland, which it was hoped might counterbalance Buckingham’s following. Arlington was said to be ‘of this concert’, being apprehensive of Buckingham’s ‘brusque and haughty manner’, and doubtful of his ability to control the duke.143 On 22 Nov. Buckingham was one of seven peers named to prepare heads for a conference concerning the proceedings against Clarendon, of which he was named one of the managers on 25 November. With the Commons and the Lords at an impasse over the question of Clarendon’s commitment, on the 27th, according to Ruvigny, Buckingham ‘surprised the assembly’ by opposing the Commons’ request for a further conference. His reason, Ruvigny thought, was to enable the Commons:
to show the people that they had done their duty in accusing the chancellor of England, but [that] there are friends who are his accomplices and are turning all their efforts towards saving him against the security and intention of the king of England and to the prejudice of the public.144
With the stakes in the contest apparently rising alarmingly – according to Ruvigny, Buckingham had been told by the king to raise the militia in Yorkshire, and there were signs of unrest ‘in the provinces’ – Clarendon slipped away into exile on 30 November.145 On 4 Dec. Buckingham was named a manager of the conference to deliver Clarendon’s petition, which the House had concluded to be scandalous and seditious, to the Commons. Presenting the petition to the Commons, Buckingham (perhaps ironically) requested that once they had perused it, it should be returned to the Lords, ‘they being willing to keep the original for the excellency of the style.’146
The succession to Clarendon and the Shrewsbury affair, 1668
In the month after Clarendon’s departure, the struggle for power continued. Buckingham was said to be ‘much in esteem’ with some of the old republicans and he made no secret of his encouragement of their ambitions.147 According to Pepys, Buckingham’s return to favour had given new heart to the nonconformists, who ‘do expect to have their day now soon’. As well as his associates in the City of London, Buckingham was believed to be at the centre of a court ‘cabal’ dominated by men with Presbyterian sympathies, including Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Albemarle and Robartes.148 Although it was reported that Buckingham was attempting (once more) to forge a reconciliation with York, he, Arlington and Albemarle were also said to be pressing the king to move against Clarendon’s relatives, being people ‘offensive to parliament’.149 Buckingham was one of the principal advocates in the Lords of the public accounts bill, which Pepys reckoned to be ‘senseless, impracticable, ineffectual… foolish’.150 At least one of those appointed to the public accounts commission, John Wildman, was well known as one of Buckingham’s adherents; only recently released from incarceration as a result of Buckingham’s intercession he was said to have become the duke’s secretary.151 The proposal to include Wildman in the commission was attacked in the Commons by some of Clarendon’s supporters. Pepys noted that Sir John Talbot‡ ‘did fly out and very hot in the business of Wildman’s being named’, while Ruvigny reported that some members declared it ‘beyond astonishment that a person of quality, recently appointed by the king of England to his most secret counsels, should take for one of his principal servants a man who was always against the king’s service and in Cromwell’s entourage.’152
Ruvigny reported in the middle of the month that Buckingham was coming under attack because he had become ‘suspect to the Spanish faction’. Certainly, while alliance with the enemies of France had been important in the movement against Clarendon, Buckingham seems to have been keen (as he would continue to be) to forge an alliance with France, telling the ambassador at the beginning of 1668 Buckingham that although high in the king’s trust, he was not yet sufficiently established in council to sustain the project for binding England and France closer in alliance.153 Buckingham’s interest was said by some to be more reputation than reality.154 In the elaborate negotiations with the various continental powers both Buckingham and Arlington sought to extract concessions from Ruvigny: reports reached his ears even that Buckingham might in consequence be tempted to join Arlington’s pro-Spanish party.155 Buckingham’s new political prominence was threatened by the intervention of his lurid personal life, the latest scandal being caused by his duel with the husband of his long-term paramour, Lady Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury, having long tolerated the affair, appears finally to have cracked early in 1668, possibly egged on by his kinsman, Sir John Talbot (who also happened to be one of Buckingham’s creditors at that point). Whatever the reason for the timing, he challenged Buckingham to a duel and threatened ‘to pistol him wherever he met him’ if the duke declined to fight.156 Efforts to prevent the affray came unstuck when both the king and Albemarle failed to act, each believing the other to be engaged in separating the protagonists.157 The resulting bout was fought out by Buckingham and Shrewsbury on 21 Jan. 1668 accompanied by two seconds apiece. The onslaught left one of Buckingham’s seconds dead on the field, Shrewsbury seriously injured and all the combatants wounded to a greater or lesser degree.158 The melodramatic story of the countess watching the whole proceeding disguised as a page and then cavorting in bed with Buckingham while he was still dressed in a shirt dashed with her husband’s blood, served to add to the popular preoccupation with the affair.159 Despite this, it was reported early on that the king was satisfied that Buckingham had been forced to participate as a result of Shrewsbury’s threats and within days of the duel it was thought ‘certain’ that he would be pardoned for the affray. At least one commentator thought this appeared ‘a little strange among sober men’. A second duel between Oxford and Charles Sackville, styled Lord Buckhurst (who became earl of Middlesex in 1675 and 6th earl of Dorset in 1677), arising from the previous bout was narrowly averted in late January.160
Buckingham’s pardon (which was granted at the close of January, then stopped through Robartes’s interposition and ordered to be redrafted early the next month, finally passing at the end of February) took on greater significance with the House set to resume on 6 February.161 Prior to taking his seat, Buckingham informed Ruvigny ‘in great secrecy’:
that there are certain people in this country, rich, clever and well-concerted, who are not in parliament but are in close correspondence with it through their friends and relations, who are resolved to change the face of the court and instil in it conduct which would be beneficial to the nation, and to restore to it the esteem it has lost through the ministry of certain people who are entirely incapable of governing this kingdom.162
Buckingham took his seat on the first day after the adjournment, before he was in receipt of his pardon. His ability to do so emphasized his dominance at this stage. Pepys thought that Parliament would be likely to ‘fall heavy on the business’ of the pardon. But Conway argued that Buckingham was the leader of a ‘great interest’ in the kingdom being at the head of ‘the fanatics’: ‘the king complies with him out of fear, the Commons are swayed by him as a favourite and a premier minister; he himself thinks to arrive to be another Oliver.’ Another correspondent echoed Conway’s assessment and concluded that ‘the duke of Buckingham is the great favourite, and his cabal are Major Wildman, Dr Owen, and the rest of that fraternity, so that some say we are carried in Oliver’s basket.’163 The view was not universal and some thought that Buckingham had already shot his bolt. By the middle of February 1668, Ruvigny reported that Buckingham and ‘his friends’ in Parliament had been discredited through the efforts of Arlington; Ossory wrote to his father Ormond following the failure of the efforts to introduce a triennial bill that ‘my lord of Buckingham’s friends that are called the undertakers do daily lose ground and did the king withdraw his countenance from them would be very insignificant.’164
Buckingham was missing at a call of the House on 17 Feb. but he resumed his place two days after. At the heart of the policies aimed at by Buckingham and his allies was a moderating religious programme represented by a comprehension bill to ease the position of some Protestant dissenters. The measure was supported by one of Buckingham’s clerical associates, John Wilkins, later bishop of Chester, but the pre-emptive hostility expressed in the House of Commons towards comprehension during a debate on 10 February, and the ensuing efforts in there to pass a conventicle act to replace the 1664 act set to expire in May underlined the limits to Buckingham’s influence in the lower House. His ‘undertaking’ had disintegrated almost as soon as it had met. On 24 Feb. Ruvigny was concluding that Buckingham had ‘lost much of his credit at court and Parliament through the shortcomings of his conduct, which has never been controllable, and by the skill of Isola’ (the imperial ambassador).165 Ruvigny reported a few days later that Arlington, perhaps hoping that Buckingham could be removed from England, had offered Buckingham the viceroyalty of Ireland, and Isola had suggested he take a command in the imperial army.166 It was also reported that Buckingham and Albemarle had entered into ‘a confederacy offensive and defensive’ in opposition to Ormond.167 While Buckingham insisted, disingenuously, that as a kinsman of Ormond he would not contribute to Ormond’s removal, by the beginning of March the rumour that Buckingham was either to replace Ormond as lord lieutenant or succeed him at court as lord steward had gained ground. It was believed that, if it was the former, he would delegate the post to John Berkeley, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. The charged political atmosphere was further highlighted by rumours of another duel ‘designed between the duke of Buckingham and my Lord Halifax [as Sir George Savile had now become] or Sir W[illiam] Coventry‡’, which had been averted by the interposition of the king and Arlington.168
Shrewsbury died on 16 March. On the 18th, William Prynne‡ moved in the Commons for a bill to be drawn up stripping duellists of their estates. He was answered by Buckingham’s associate, Sir Thomas Littleton‡, who urged that although the affair was a sad one, Buckingham had been granted a pardon and the matter was effectively closed. Littleton then turned his attention to a fresh assault on the bishops, clearly indicating the policy Buckingham and his faction were eager to advance.169 As well as spirited defence from men like Littleton, Buckingham also benefitted from an autopsy carried out on Shrewsbury which indicated the cause of death to have been consumption rather than the wound he had received in the duel.170 Even so, Buckingham proceeded to test the patience of wider society by bringing home the now widowed Lady Shrewsbury two months later and by treating his duchess with callous disregard. When she protested at the unsuitability of both wife and mistress living under the same roof, Buckingham was said to have answered ‘Why, Madam, I did think so; and therefore have ordered your coach to be ready to carry you to your father’s.’171
Throughout these domestic dramas, Buckingham continued to be active in the House. On 24 Apr. he was named, ironically enough, to the committee for the bill to prevent duels. At the end of the month he chaired a session of the committee for privileges considering the East India Company’s petition to the Commons. The Company’s complaint concerned the actions of Thomas Skinner, who had lodged a case with the Lords seeking compensation from them the previous year. The Lords had finally found in Skinner’s favour in March 1668 triggering the Company’s petition in which they protested at the use of the upper chamber for an original cause. Buckingham reported to the House from the privileges committee on 1 May.172 He was probably keen to exploit the dispute between the two Houses over Skinner as a way of preventing progress on the conventicle bill, which had passed the Commons in April. Disagreements over the Skinner case dominated the closing days of the session and continued to divide the Houses until 1670.173
Buckingham was one of three peers appointed to wait on the king to request deferring the prorogation for a few days to enable the House to bring to a conclusion its privilege dispute with the Commons.174 On 6 May he reported back to communicate the king’s desire for supply to be dispatched as soon as possible and giving leave for the session to continue for a further few days. On 8 May, Buckingham was nominated one of the managers of the conference with the Commons concerning their dispute over Skinner, which he opened with a lengthy speech, later printed. In it he insisted that:
If we are in the wrong, we and our predecessors have been so for these many hundred of years, and not only our predecessors, but yours too: this being the first time that ever an appeal was made in point of judicature, from the Lords House to the House of Commons.
Claiming that ‘a greater interest does oblige us at this time, rather to join in the preservation of both our privileges, than to differ about the violation of either’, he argued that ‘the dispute at present is not between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, but between us and Westminster Hall’. He concluded with a warning that ‘if you do not allow us in some cases to try men without juries, you will then absolutely take away the use of impeachments, which I humbly conceive you will not think proper to have done at this time.’175 On his return to the House from the conference, Buckingham was reported to have urged the Lords in response to a speech by Bristol not to be ‘cozened of their privileges’.176
The session ended a few days later with the divisions between the Houses unresolved. Buckingham and his adherents were blamed by the king for the turmoil of the previous two sessions of Parliament. Sir Richard Temple, in his memorandum discussing the reasons for the chaos of the previous session, noted that the anti-Clarendonian coalition had been divided by the competition between Buckingham and Arlington, which had been egged on by Ormond and Roger Boyle, earl of Orrery‡, and had been ‘too much countenanced by the king’. In spite of this, Buckingham was at last able to secure a significant place at court around the end of May by purchasing the mastership of the horse from Albemarle for £20,000, or £10,000 plus certain lands. The move prompted a rumour that more changes would soon follow.177
During the summer Oxford reported, implausibly, that a new friendship had been struck between Buckingham and Ormond.178 Even he thought it was unsustainable and it appears clear that it was at best a temporary truce: at the end of June Ormond queried how far he would be able to rely upon Arlington’s support, ‘whenever my Lord of Buckingham and I should come to declared enmity’.179 The death in July of Buckingham’s niece, Lady Arran, removed the most obvious tie binding the two men together. Their relationship was further worsened by Buckingham’s appointment as one of the commissioners for examining the government of Ireland.180 Although Buckingham insisted that he would be ‘actuated by no animosities’ against him, by the close of the month it was openly appreciated that he was Ormond’s ‘great enemy’.181 In August 1668 there were new reports that Buckingham would succeed Ormond as lieutenant of Ireland, though Ormond found it hard to believe that Buckingham would give up his place in England in return for one which, ‘though great, is yet remote from spectators.’182 Besides his continuing interest in the affairs of Ireland, Buckingham also appears to have been intent on emulating his father by asserting his interest within the admiralty. Pepys reckoned Buckingham to be one of his enemies and by the end of August was daily in expectation of being turned out of his place.183
The French treaty and the lieutenancy of Ireland, 1668-9
The new French ambassador, Colbert de Croissy, dispatched by Louis XIV to try to negotiate a new treaty of friendship with Charles II to overcome the cooling in relations caused by France’s alliance with the Dutch and by Arlington’s Triple Alliance earlier in the year, made a particular point of visiting Buckingham early in his embassy (though he had waited a long time for Buckingham to visit him). When they did meet, at the beginning of September, Buckingham was full of apparent enthusiasm for the treaty project, and effusive in his professions of service to the French king, though he would blow hot and cold on the subject of the treaty over the next year.184 As Colbert discovered, the major issue of the late summer and early autumn of 1668 was whether to allow Parliament to sit in November. wrote to Louis XIV on 7 Sept. about how the issue was ‘often discussed’ between Arlington and Buckingham; and how recently,
the king having done me the honour of coming to dine with me, and brought them with him, on rising from dinner, they spent two whole hours walking, just the two of them, in my garden, speaking of what should be done, and did not even follow the king when he left. I knew that they were speaking only of this affair, and that the duke of Buckingham has so far shown great repugnance at the dissolution of this Parliament, thinking to have enough credit with it to carry his sentiments, although it is said that this is very much diminished.185
This remarkable scene of apparent harmony and cooperation did not belie the continued existence of a rivalry between the two for the king’s favour and the position of principal minister, with the position of Ormond and succession to the office of lord treasurer being particular bones of contention. Others, including York and Lauderdale (who was said to have been reconciled with Buckingham through the mediation of Lord Keeper Bridgeman) were still seen as taking sides in the contest.186 However, both men seem to have come to believe that neutralizing other threats (particularly York, and the return of Clarendon) was more important than their rivalry, or at least were accepting the king’s insistence that they work together: Arlington, the ambassador reported in early October, was seeking to detach himself from Ormond, in order to consolidate a better relationship with Buckingham.187 Although in September it was reported that it was through Buckingham’s interest that Wilkins had been promoted to the bishopric of Chester, a subsequent report suggested that it was the joint interest of Buckingham and Arlington that had prevailed against the wishes of the archbishop of Canterbury (Gilbert Sheldon) and Herbert Croft, bishop of Hereford, who had proposed William Sancroft, later archbishop of Canterbury.188 Buckingham was unable to secure the office of secretary of state for another client, Sir Robert Howard, Arlington proving on this occasion ‘too hard for him’; according to Pepys, though, writing at the end of October, both men were worried about York persuading the king to allow Clarendon’s return. And yet Pepys also noted at the beginning of November that Buckingham was ‘carrying all before him’, and was concerned by the possibility of him securing York’s dismssal.189 It was at about this time that Buckingham began to travel everywhere accompanied by a body of musketeers, apparently claiming to fear, assassination at the instigation of York.190
Buckingham was at this time unusually active in attempting to assert his control over policy. With Lord Keeper Bridgeman, he was holding talks with Lauderdale on the subject of Anglo-Scottish Union. He was talking regularly to the French ministers in London, both in person and through his secretary, Ellis Leighton, assuring them of his intention to secure an Anglo-French alliance and of his disinclination to see Parliament recalled. He was said to be meeting with Wildman and other former commonwealthmen, hiding his association with this last group from the king by allowing rumours to circulate that he was out wenching.191 By early November, in contradiction to the French ambassador’s report two months earlier, it was being reported that Buckingham and his party favoured a dissolution and the summoning of a new Parliament, which would expropriate Church lands in order to overcome the king’s current financial plans.192
Such a change of mind and the impracticality of the scheme might have been one factor affecting the delicate balance of factions at the end of 1668, with the king perhaps beginning to recognize that Buckingham could offer little in terms of control over the present Parliament. In December 1668, he was not only snubbed by York but also by the king, who took his brother’s part and criticized Buckingham for failing to meet his obligations (presumably referring to his inability to extract satisfactory supply from Parliament as he had promised).193 The new French ambassador, Charles Colbert, marquis de Croissy, also seemed increasingly distrustful of Buckingham’s promises.194 The duke’s chief antagonist, however, was said to be Lady Castlemaine, who was clearly unswayed by bonds of kinship and was reported to be working with the duke and duchess of York in the interests of the Hyde family. Consequently in January 1669 Buckingham and Arlington failed to displace Henry Hyde, styled Viscount Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon), as lord chamberlain to the queen and replace him with their protégé Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland.195 They had more success with Ormond, who angrily confronted the king over Buckingham and his campaign against him in early February. In the middle of the month Ellis Leighton told the French ambassador that Buckingham and Arlington had reached a pact, based on Arlington undertaking to abandon the lord lieutenant. Ormond was indeed removed from the lieutenancy on the day of Leighton’s conversation with the ambassador, although the beneficiary was not Buckingham, but Robartes. Buckingham was also said to be the subject of strong solicitations from the Dutch ambassador.196
In March 1669, Buckingham’s play, The Country Gentleman, provoked Sir William Coventry, who was transparently ridiculed in it, into challenging the duke to a duel.197 Coventry was committed to the Tower for plotting the death of a member of the Privy Council, in spite of ‘all the solicitations of the duke of York, for whom Coventry had previously acted as secretary, who is extremely mortified by it’.198 Pepys predicted that Buckingham had by now gone so far that he must become unstuck. Colbert reported that everyone was ‘amazed’ that he ‘should take his enmities to such extremes.’ Though he did not come unstuck, his manoeuvres met with little success. In mid-March it was reported, inaccurately, that Bishop Wilkins was to be translated to Winchester and made lord treasurer through Buckingham’s agency.199 As a result of a meeting at Newmarket the same month, Arlington and Buckingham appear to have agreed to co-operate to bring down Baptist May‡, keeper of the privy purse, perhaps an attempt to strengthen their access to the king; May, however, survived in post for the remainder of the reign.200 Buckingham was reported to have returned to London in private at the close of the month, and he had still not appeared again at court by the beginning of April, occasioning ‘much discourse’. His absence may have been on account of poor health as it was reported later in the month that he had been suffering from an ague, or it may have been symptomatic of a sense of disgruntlement, possibly linked to the discussion, going on at around the same time, as to whether or not a new Parliament would be summoned. Arlington and Buckingham were thought to favour dissolving the Cavalier Parliament and summoning a new assembly, while York and Albemarle were believed to prefer continuing the current one.201 Negotiations continued throughout April, with Buckingham said to be both courting members of Parliament as well as pressing for the summoning of a new assembly.202 The following month, he was again distracted from affairs by the actions of his mistress, Lady Shrewsbury, who was said to have attempted to have Henry Killigrew killed.203 Although Buckingham was broadly successful in convincing the court that he had not been party to the assault on Killigrew and the scandal did not prevent him from playing host to a great feast attended by the king, York and the visiting grand duke of Tuscany, the affair was said once again to have damaged his standing with the king.204 In July, the king was said to have remarked that while Lauderdale could give him reassurance about Scotland and Arlington had pulled off the remarkable coup of the Triple Alliance, Buckingham could keep himself in ‘the good graces of the king only by the charm of his personality.’205
Nevertheless, the king did not visibly withdraw his favour from Buckingham, and the tension between Buckingham and other members of the court, in particular York, continued over the summer, and may have grown as a meeting of Parliament drew nearer.206 Buckingham was said to have been intent on persuading the king to dissolve his marriage to Queen Catharine (and thereby to attempt to ensure a legitimate heir who would prevent York’s eventual succession). He believed that ‘his advocacy of it is going well’ but in the middle of June he was critical of the king’s lack of resolution both on this score and over the treaty with France.207 In early July he was telling Colbert that nothing would be decided in the business of the treaty before the ‘dispositions of this great assembly (Parliament) are known’.208 At the end of July Ormond noted the emergence of a cabal surrounding Buckingham which apart from his familiar allies—Sir Thomas Osborne and Bishop Wilkins—also included Orrery, the latter ‘very well liked’ by Buckingham and thought by some to be on the point of being appointed lord treasurer, with the support of both Buckingham and York.209 In August, Buckingham was waited on by representatives from the city of Oxford, who had elected him its lord steward following the death of Thomas Howard, earl of Berkshire.210 The move was intended to counterbalance Ormond’s authority as chancellor of the University. During the remainder of the decade the city of Oxford persisted in identifying itself with figures inimical to the university and to the court.211
With Parliament due to meet again in October, speculation about the unstable state of court politics remained at a high level.212 Colbert and Ralph Montagu, later duke of Montagu, related that Arlington had reconciled with York to the detriment of Buckingham; Edward Arden, writing to Miles Stapylton, reported that Arlington’s star was falling and that Buckingham’s ally, Orrery, was to replace him; Buckingham’s uncertain health at the time no doubt helped fuel rumours that he was the one in decline.213 At the close of September the king held at least two sessions of the council at Buckingham’s bedside, with Ormond in attendance.214 In mid-October Buckingham and Arlington were said to be ‘pecking one at the other’ though they were shortly afterwards compelled to reconcile once more on the king’s orders.215 The staged rapprochement fooled no one. By the end of the month it was reported that the king had asked Bishop Wilkins to make another attempt to bring them together.216 Within a few weeks they were once again said to be at loggerheads.217
Buckingham took his seat the first day of the new session, on 19 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on 35 per cent of all sitting days. On 25 Oct. he was named to the committee to consider the decay of trade and fall of rents and on 6 Nov. to that for considering the report presented by the commissioners for accounts. On 10 Nov. he intervened in the debate over the bill sent up from the Commons for taking away the Lords’ privileges to try original causes. He argued that the bill before them should either be amended to the Lords’ satisfaction or thrown out and that a committee should then be nominated to draw up a new bill for regulating the peers’ privileges (which had previously been suggested by William Widdrington, 2nd Baron Widdrington). Buckingham was seconded in the last point by a number of peers, including York, and the bill was duly rejected by all bar two.218 At the close of the month he offered firm support to the revised trials of peers bill, which provided for peers to be proceeded against by the whole House rather than selected peers nominated by the king. He was opposed in this by his former client, Halifax, and by York.219 An attempt in the Commons to bring charges of treason against Buckingham’s ally, Orrery, in the Commons was dropped once the king had secured an undertaking from Buckingham and Orrery that they would not then seek their revenge on Ormond, who was thought to have inspired the attack.220
By the time the session was brought to a close in December 1669, Buckingham was said by the earl of Sandwich to be at the head of an interest in the House which comprised Charles Howard, 2nd earl of Berkshire, John Carey, 2nd earl of Dover, Widdrington, and Bristol as well as eight members of the Commons: Lord Buckhurst, Sir Thomas Osborne, Lord Vaughan, Sir Frescheville Hollis, Edward Seymour, Sir Robert Howard and Sir Richard Temple. Buckingham’s ‘party’, Sandwich noted, ‘of itself is found not so strong in the House of Commons as was supposed, and only is strong when in point of accounts, liberty of conscience, or trade, the country gentlemen or the Presbyterians join with them but they dare not undertake anything alone’. His interest in the Lords, Sandwich estimated ‘not to be great’.221 According to Colbert, the king had been prevailed upon by Buckingham to prorogue Parliament in order to thwart an effort made by Robartes to send witnesses to depose against Orrery.222 Buckingham was also said to have been behind an order to put out Henry Coventry‡ from his place as a groom of the bedchamber at the end of December (possibly related to Coventry’s intervention in the Commons on 18 Nov. in which he called for ‘commissioners with power to enquire into the designs of persons, who would alter the Government, and persuade dissolving of Parliaments’).223 Buckingham’s success did not come without criticism and he faced complaints over his disturbingly populist approach.224 On the death of Albemarle Buckingham attempted to secure the keepership of Hampton Court, which he claimed was a perquisite of the master of the horse; it went, however, to the countess of Castlemaine instead. He also laid claim to rooms in the Cockpit, though he was unsuccessful in acquiring the former.225
The French and the Cabal, 1670-1
The king’s decision to recall Robartes from Ireland early in 1670 and replace him with Berkeley of Stratton, which was done without consulting Buckingham, was said to have left the duke disgruntled at missing out again on securing the lieutenancy for himself.226 His disappointment coincided with a prolonged period of poor health. At the end of January 1670 he took a house in Surrey to enable him to recuperate.227 At the end of the month it was said that the king had been to visit him and had succeeded in extracting from him an undertaking to participate constructively in the coming session.228 Buckingham returned to court at the beginning of February, but by 5 Feb. he was said once more to be sick. By the middle of the month he was complaining to Colbert that he expected no good to come from the new session.229 It was in fact the most successful since the early days of the Parliament, with the king trading a new conventicle bill for supply. Buckingham was absent from its opening on 14 Feb. 1670. He was still missing at a call a week later and on 4 Mar. he registered his proxy with Berkshire, which was vacated when he at last took his seat the following day. 230 He proceeded to attend on 57 occasions (35 per cent of the whole) during which he was named to 15 committees.231 Among them was the committee appointed on 19 Mar. to consider the Roos remarriage bill, a measure which was said to have been encouraged by Buckingham and supported by the king but opposed by York and the queen.232 Said once more to be high in the king’s favour and ‘more than ever the enemy of milord Arlington’, Buckingham spoke in the House in favour of the bill on 28 Mar. (on which day he may also have been entrusted with Conway’s proxy, which was vacated on 3 Dec.) and the measure passed by 42 votes to 35 (though without proxies being employed).233 Buckingham received the proxy of Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh, the following day and on 30 Mar. he was named one of the reporters of the conference for the conventicle bill. He continued to serve as one of the managers of the subsequent conferences on the same matter over the next few days.234
Following the adjournment in April 1670, Buckingham was once again at Newmarket in the king’s company by which time government was reported to be in the hands of a cabinet comprising Buckingham, Orrery, Lauderdale, the lord keeper (Bridgeman) and Sir John Trevor‡.235 Another report listed Lauderdale, Ashley and Arlington among those now backing Buckingham and his faction.236 Despite this, Buckingham was not sufficiently trusted by the king to be one of the signatories of the secret treaty of Dover. Instead, unaware of the secret treaty, he was commissioned to negotiate a parallel treaty in combination with Ashley and Lauderdale, which made no mention of the secret treaty’s undertaking to return England to Catholicism—the famous ‘traité simulé’. Employing Buckingham in this manner had the desired effect of flattering the duke into thinking he was at the heart of affairs while also shielding the king’s true policy from general view.237 In June, through the interposition of the king’s sister, the duchesse d’Orléans, Buckingham, Arlington and York were (again) temporarily reconciled.238 The same month Buckingham stood godfather to Nell Gwynn’s son, Charles Beauclerk, later duke of St Albans.239 In July, he offered to undertake a mission to France as ambassador extraordinary to condole with the king and duc d’Orléans following the sudden death of the duchesse.240 The proposal was strenuously opposed by York and also by Buckingham’s associate, Osborne who feared that it was not in the duke’s best interests. Nevertheless, the king seized on the opportunity and Buckingham, insisting on the importance of the mission for his own career’s sake, departed at the close of July.241 He then remained in France for the majority of the following month, engaging in further negotiations with the French relating to the traité simulé.242 On Buckingham’s return, discussion of his mission concentrated largely upon his receipt of a bejewelled sword as a gift from the French king.243 Colbert reported to his master the striking change in the duke’s attitude following the embassy and how ‘I see every day the effect of the promises he came to make me to press not only for the conclusion of the treaty, but also for its execution’.244 No mention was made of Buckingham’s reputed faux pas of neglecting to escort back to England Louise de Kéroualle, though it was an oversight that she (later duchess of Portsmouth) was said never to have forgotten.245
Buckingham remained engaged in the treaty process into the autumn, when he pressed to be permitted to return to France to conclude the negotiations ‘in the face of everyone’s opposition’.246 Besides his renewed enthusiasm for promoting closer relations with France, Buckingham was also engaged in negotiations with the Scots concerning the proposed treaty of union, during which he surprised one of the participants by displaying greater than expected sympathy to some of the Scots’ demands concerning the preservation of their laws.247
Buckingham took his seat in the session following the adjournment on 24 Oct. 1670, on which day he introduced the king’s son, James Scott, as duke of Monmouth. Absent at a call on 14 Nov., by the close of the year Buckingham’s enthusiasm for the alliance with France was perceived to have waned in the face of broad popular opposition.248 As well as being discontented with the direction of foreign policy Buckingham also seems to have been associating with murky elements attached to the dissenters and may have been behind Thomas Blood’s foiled attempted kidnapping or murder of Ormond in December.249 Noticeably he was absent from the chamber on 14 Jan. 1671 when a committee was named to investigate the assault on the lord steward. Discontent with the French treaty helped to fuel an increasingly petulant session and by early February Buckingham found it necessary to defend himself from accusations of being too close to the French, trying to deflect the charge onto Arlington.250 He appealed to the House to uphold his privilege after some of his servants were assaulted by deer poachers at Whaddon Chase.251
On 11 Feb. Buckingham was named to the committee for the bill for exporting beer and on 7 Apr. to the committee for the game bill. Later that month, on 18 Apr., he was added as a manager of the conference with the Commons concerning the additional impositions on foreign commodities. His reputation was further diminished when he scandalized society in March by arranging to have his recently deceased bastard son by the countess of Shrewsbury interred in the Villiers family vault in Westminster Abbey under the honorific title of earl of Coventry.252 Before the session ended, he was active in asserting the Lords’ claims to privilege and the competence of the upper House to alter money bills.253 The earl of Sandwich’s account of the dispute over the foreign excise bill suggested that it was a result of the Arlington-Buckingham competition: it was Arlington’s court party in the Commons who whipped up the row with the Lords,
finding this a great advantage to render the duke of Bucks ill with the king, to lay the blame of the loss of the bill upon him, and the country party, finding a difference at court, were glad to blow the coal. Besides that magnifying the house of Commons (whom Clifford and Arlington governs) did make those persons considerable and of great power with the king, which if the house of peers had been suffered to control them, the peerage wouold have lessened their power and interest, and Buckingham and Ashley and the nobles would have grown most in the king’s esteem.254
By the end of the session on 22 April 1671, Colbert reported that Buckingham, unable to ‘desist from the affectation of pleasing the people, although his way of life and his talent are against it… has declaimed in all sorts of company that he finds himself against the alliance with France.’255 Nevertheless, shortly before the close of the session he submitted, through Colbert, a request to wait on the French king and in the middle of the month it was reported that he was to join John Belasyse, Baron Belasyse, in travelling to France on a diplomatic mission.256 Continuing fractious relations with Arlington were no doubt behind rumours that Buckingham was to replace his rival as lord chamberlain and in mid-May it was reported that he was to be elected chancellor of Cambridge University. Buckingham set about courting the university’s fellows by rejecting the king’s offer of guaranteeing him the chancellorship and declaring that he would instead throw himself on the good graces of the university.257
In May 1671, Buckingham finally took a major step towards sorting out his chaotic affairs by placing his extensive (though heavily indebted) estates in trustees headed by the banking partnership of Sir Robert Clayton‡ and John Morris. Although his gross annual income was said to be in the region of £19,600, making him one of the richest peers in the country on paper, one estimate set his debts at £123,140.258 As a result of the corruption of Buckingham’s chamberlain and the ad hoc manner in which the duke managed his own expenses it was several years before they were able to sort out his real level of indebtedness. When they did, they worked it out at more than £135,000. Thereafter, they were able to bring matters under control, making the duke solvent by 1676.259
After the turbulent session that had just passed, the duke and York were said to be in uncharacteristic agreement against a further recall of Parliament. Although towards the end of July another reconciliation with Arlington was staged, by September it was reported that Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale were now ranged against Arlington and the duchess of Cleveland (as the countess of Castlemaine now was). By October, it was reported that Buckingham had declared himself opposed to the current Parliament’s ever meeting again.260 A duel with Oxford resulting from a quarrel between the men at Newmarket towards the close of the month was averted by the king’s intervention.261
The Third Anglo-Dutch War, 1672-4
While at Newmarket Buckingham had assured Colbert of his continuing good intentions towards France, but by the middle of November he was said not to be ‘so fierce for the French as formerly’. In December, when further international developments relating to the role of the Swedes and Danes were discussed, it was reported that, ‘Buckingham, Arlington, Clifford, Ashley and Lauderdale are the junto about this grand affair’ and at the close of the year, these five were appointed commissioners to negotiate with the French ambassador.262 At the beginning of 1672 Buckingham’s fortunes were thought to be once more in decline, having lost ground to Arlington and Clifford and fallen out with Ashley.263 He was frustrated in his ambitions to be awarded a significant military command in the conflict with the Dutch that broke out that February. Buckingham seems to have been present, and contributed to the discussion, at the meeting of the foreign affairs committee in Arlington’s lodgings that discussed the Declaration of Indulgence on 7 Mar., and at the meeting on 28 Mar. when a draft of the Declaration was discussed, though he did not attend all of the meetings on the subject and his views do not emerge clearly from the minutes.264 Despite his failure to obtain a military command, he was dispatched to the continent in the summer with Arlington and Halifax as part of an unsuccessful embassy to bring the war (which had failed to achieve its objectives) to an early conclusion.265 The French ambassador, Colbert, seems to have believed that by this trip Buckingham had been let into the secret of the secret treaty.266 Following their return to England, both Buckingham and Arlington were offered rich gifts by Colbert in the hopes that ‘when the need arises they will give proofs of the gratitude they expressed to me.’267 The following month (September), Buckingham was said to have purposely avoided attending a meeting of the council at which it was debated whether or not to postpone summoning Parliament, so that he could insist that any decision to delay the next sitting was not made with his agreement. He was certainly not at the meetings of the foreign affairs committee that month when the subject was debated.268
By the opening of 1673, Buckingham was said to have recovered his enthusiasm for the war with Holland.269 It was even rumoured that he would be commissioned a lieutenant general.270 At some point during the previous year a rejoinder to a pamphlet by Slingsby Bethel‡ appeared, A Letter to Sir Thomas Osborne, generally attributed to Buckingham. Bethel had advocated a close alliance with the Dutch against the French. Buckingham’s pamphlet concurred in some of what Bethel wrote (part of which chimed closely with the views of Arlington), ‘that we ought to keep a good correspondence with Spain, that we should hinder the ruin of Flanders, and that we are to use our utmost endeavours to preserve the command of the Baltic Sea from falling into the hands, either of the king of Denmark, or the king of Sweden’, as well as with Bethel’s view that there was much that united the English and Dutch, but insisted that at the heart of England’s security was her trade and as such the Dutch were obvious rivals. The solution, as Buckingham saw it, was to ensure English supremacy at sea. The pamphlet constituted a defence of the rationale for war against the Dutch.271
Buckingham took his seat in the House for the new session on 4 Feb. after which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. On 1 Mar. he was nominated to the sub-committee (of eight peers) appointed to consider a vote of thanks to the king, from which he reported the same day and he was then one of three ordered to wait on the king to discover when the House might attend him. He was then named to a further three committees during the remainder of the session, which was dominated by criticism of the conduct of the war and by consideration of the Declaration of Indulgence 272 According to Gilbert Burnet, later bishop of Salisbury, both Buckingham and Berkeley of Stratton recommended to the king use of the army to eject members of either House who raised opposition to the Declaration. Although not listed among those present at the meeting of the foreign affairs committee on 12 Feb., which discussed how to respond to the Commons’ rejection of the Declaration, a contribution by him is apparently recorded, though what he said is not clear. In the event the king was forced to withdraw the declaration. In its place Parliament hurried through the test act, barring Catholics from holding office. Buckingham was careful to ensure that he fulfilled the legal obligation to take the sacrament at St Margaret’s Westminster a few weeks after the close of the session.273 On 20 Oct. 1673 he was named a commissioner for proroguing Parliament.
During the summer of 1673, Colbert reported that York and Buckingham had become linked with Clifford and Lauderdale, amid rumours of Arlington being eclipsed by Buckingham’s former client, Sir Thomas Osborne, who succeeded as lord treasurer that year.274 According to Reresby, Buckingham was the ‘main instrument’ in procuring the office for Osborne once Clifford had been forced out under the terms of the Test Act.275 York and Buckingham were expected to lead the assault on the Netherlands during the next campaigning season as respectively general and lieutenant general.276 In spite of Buckingham’s previously well-publicized hostility towards the Catholic religion, in June 1673 it was said that he had found difficulty in recruiting forces for the expected campaign against the Dutch on the grounds that he was thought to be a Papist. He was thus compelled to take the sacrament again at York to reassure the local people of his continuing commitment to the Church of England.277 As the war continued to progress poorly for the English forces, he also made a point of distancing himself from the French alliance. Neither of these seems to have helped his reputation. He antagonized the other commanders in the army by arriving late for the muster and was in turn snubbed by being superseded by the Huguenot professional soldier, Frederick Herman Schomberg, later duke of Schomberg.278
In July it was rumoured that Buckingham would quit his post of master of the horse and be replaced by Monmouth. The choice of Monmouth as his replacement was in itself a disappointment as Buckingham was said to have preferred the claims of ‘Don Carlos’ (Charles Fitzcharles, earl of Plymouth), the king’s bastard by Catherine Pegge.279 Ormond claimed that reports of Buckingham laying down his places were false and that Buckingham was in fact intent on seeking once more the restoration of the council of the north.280 The following month Buckingham approached his former client, the new treasurer Viscount Latimer (as Osborne had recently been created) in the hopes of securing appointment to the governorship of the Isle of Wight.281 Buckingham’s increasingly distant relations with his former client appear to be confirmed by the progress of the by-election held in York in September 1673. Although Buckingham wrote to the corporation recommending Latimer’s son, insisting that to ignore young Osborne would be a personal affront to him,282 the corporation appeared to be influenced by reports that Buckingham had redirected his interest in favour of Sir Henry Thompson‡. Osborne subsequently withdrew and his replacement, Sir John Hewley, was soundly beaten by Thompson at the polls.283
Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 27 Oct. 1673 and attended on one further occasion before the brief 4-day session was prorogued. In spite of reports of Buckingham’s retirement to the country and desire to break with the French, he continued to offer his services in return for substantial funds. These he undertook would be used to purchase members to support his faction in Parliament.284 By November relations between Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale had once more collapsed. Asserted to be a prominent member of the faction comprising Lauderdale, Latimer and Sir Edward Seymour‡ in opposition to Arlington, Shaftesbury (as Ashley had since become), Anglesey, Ormond and York, in reality Buckingham’s hold over Latimer had dwindled. He continued to play a double game, assuring Colbert of his commitment to the French alliance, while insisting to his followers in the Commons that he was intent on breaking the tie. By the end of November 1673, Colbert was convinced that Buckingham had overplayed his hand and assessed that he had ‘almost no friends left in Parliament, since among the five hundred voices of which the lower chamber is composed, there are perhaps not even ten who favour the duke’.285 In December Buckingham’s efforts to have Arlington impeached came to nothing.286 Although it Montagu, who was sent to the Tower on 3 Dec. for quarrelling with Buckingham in the king’s presence, Sir Ralph Verney reckoned that it would be prudent for Buckingham to retire to France as he was bound to face assault from all sides in the coming session.287
In the run-up to the opening of the new session in January 1674, Buckingham seems to have decided that Parliament’s suspicion of the French alliance needed to be met head-on. Writing to the French king, de Ruvigny reported Buckingham’s claim that he had ‘already won influential people to your majesty’s cause’, and the assurance of ‘his emissaries’ that ‘the town of London says loudly that if you do not act against religion and the freedom of England there would be nothing more advantageous for it than your alliance.’288 From a subsequent conversation with Ruvigny, the ambassador gathered that he had managed to convince Shaftesbury, Berkshire and Charles Howard, earl of Carlisle, to forsake Spain and join his pro-French grouping.289 Much of this seems to have gone out of the window as soon as Buckingham took his seat in the House on 7 Jan. (after which he was present on half of all sitting days) and was at once brought under pressure from a petition delivered to the House by the relatives of the slaughtered earl of Shrewsbury, who sought redress for the scandalous behaviour of Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury.290 Although Buckingham attempted to assure the House that he had done all in his power ‘to remove from her [Lady Shrewsbury’s] spirit the passion she had felt for him’, Ormond, Bristol, Anglesey and Berkshire all combined to attack his conduct. With the king unwilling to interpose, Buckingham again considered retreating to France, but he was almost at once faced with a more serious attack from the Commons, who were intent on impeaching both him and Lauderdale. They had prepared an address comprising 14 articles against Buckingham ranging from buggery to fraud. On 13 and 14 Jan. Buckingham appeared at the bar of the Commons to answer the charges against him, thereby attracting further attacks in the Lords on the grounds that they had infringed the privilege of the peerage. Buckingham’s uncharacteristically nervous first appearance did not help his cause. One newsletter writer described the Commons’ surprise ‘at the loose, shallow and immethodical representation he made’.291 During his address on the second day Buckingham apologized for his previous performance, asking the Commons to consider ‘the condition I am in, in danger of passing, in the censure of the world, for a vicious person, and a betrayer of my country.’ Attempting to redirect some of the criticisms towards Arlington, he appealed to them to believe him innocent of the charges against him:
I am sure I have lost as much Estate as some men have gotten; (and that is a big word). I am honest, and when I appear otherwise, I desire to die. I am not the man that has gotten by all this; yet after all this I am a grievance: I am the cheapest grievance this house ever had; and so I humbly ask the pardon of the House for the trouble I have given.292
Buckingham saved himself from impeachment, but the Commons nevertheless resolved to request the king that he strip Buckingham of his employments, and remove him from his own presence and counsels, though in their debates it was acknowledged that the duke’s post of master of the horse was a freehold as he had it by purchase and recognized that he might need to be compensated for being forced to part with it.293 The Lords too came down heavily on Buckingham and his mistress, ordering both of them on 6 Feb. to enter into a bond of £10,000 to remain apart.294 Although Ruvigny was still hopeful at the end of January 1674 that Buckingham might yet ‘return to favour’, according to Sir Ralph Verney the king was now so disgusted by the duke’s behaviour that he could not even bring himself to talk to him and that as a result Buckingham was ‘quite out’.295
Once more Buckingham thought of retiring to France, though Ruvigny attempted to dissuade him, ‘because of the difficulties there would be in giving him all the treatment he could wish for.’296 He set about divesting himself of his offices. He sold the mastership of the horse to Monmouth, to whom he was also expected to relinquish the chancellorship of Cambridge. His place in the bedchamber went to Latimer’s brother-in-law, Robert Bertie, 3rd earl of Lindsey, for £6,000. Buckingham’s lord lieutenancy was granted to Latimer himself, in spite of efforts made by Strafford to secure it. Buckingham was said to have obtained a pension of £1,600 a year in compensation to add to a former annual grant of £4,000 on the Irish establishment.297 Buckingham, aggrieved at his treatment, wrote later that year wrote to Danby (as Latimer had since become) emphasizing his achievements as master of the horse and insisting that ‘if I have not served the king better than ever he was served before when it cost him £3,000 a year more… I will be contented to pass the rest of my life for as errant an ass and as errant a knave as any of those that have taken upon them to censure me.’298
Prevented from seeing out his days in France, in March, Buckingham determined to retire to his estates in Yorkshire instead.299 By the middle of the summer, his interest seemed to have all but disappeared. In September, Sir John Reresby‡ confided to his memoirs that the cause of Buckingham’s fall from favour was the king’s mistress, Louise de Kéroualle, duchess of Portsmouth; Buckingham’s appearance before the Commons, which had annoyed both king and House of Lords, was also cited as a reason for his sudden decline.300 Nevertheless, Buckingham’s retirement was neither complete nor likely to be permanent. He continued to press Ruvigny to see to it that a pension promised to Berkshire would be honoured by the French.301 He supported an effort to move the Buckinghamshire assizes to the county town, though it was acknowledged that his intervention would have little or no impact.302 By the close of the year, though, rumours circulated that his friends were again angling to secure his return to favour at the expense of Ormond. In December it was thought that he had returned to town to see his new satirical play The Rehearsal, in which he squared off against both literary rivals such as Dryden and political enemies like Arlington, performed before the king, duke of York and other members of the court.303 In advance of the new parliamentary session, Buckingham wrote to one of his stewards asking him to ensure that his debts were paid as he anticipated that his creditors, encouraged by some of his adversaries, planned to petition the House. Buckingham professed to be bewildered by this, not least because he had only recently made efforts to put his finances on a more even footing by settling his estates in trustees, though he was ‘fully satisfied of the extraordinary parts of my enemies in these generous kind of contrivances.’304
The ‘Country’ Opposition: 1675-8
Buckingham returned from his sojourn in the country to take his seat in the House on 13 Apr. 1675, determined to take a leading role in the opposition developing against Danby and his alliance with the Church. Present on 93 per cent of all sitting days, he joined with Shaftesbury and Halifax in speaking against the passage of the non-resisting test act promoted by Danby. In the epic account of the fight against the Test associated with the earl of Shaftesbury and probably written by John Locke, the Letter from a Person of Quality, Buckingham was praised as ‘general of the party’ opposing the bill; Baxter wrote of him as having been one of those to have spoken best on the issue; and Andrew Marvell after the end of the session described to a friend how ‘never were poor men exposed and abused, all the session, as the bishops were by the duke of Buckingham upon the Test; never the like, nor so infinitely pleasant: and no men were ever grown so odiously ridiculous’. Marvell would later, in his Account of the Growth of Popery, singled out Shaftesbury and Buckingham as between them doing as much as all the other opponents of the bill put together. Buckingham subscribed to all of the protests against the bill: on 21 Apr. against the resolution that the non-resisting bill did not encroach upon the privileges of the Lords; on 26 Apr. against the bill’s committal to the whole House; three days later against the resolution that the previous protest had reflected on the honour of the House. During the debates in committee on 30 Apr. he treated the House to a speech of ‘eloquent and well-placed nonsense’ to demonstrate the absurdity of the oath being proposed; and four days later, he subscribed to the fourth protest, at the resolution to include Members of Parliament and Lords within the scope of the bill’s first enacting clause.305 On 18 May he was named to the committee for the bill to prevent the importation of foreign manufactures and on 2 June he was nominated a reporter of a second conference concerning a privilege dispute with the Commons over the arrest of Sir John Churchill and others. On 3 June, the day appointed by the House to hear the objections of Buckingham and Denbigh to the petition of Robert Danvers to be recognized as Viscount Purbeck, no counsel appeared for either peer and the House ordered Denbigh’s petition dismissed and Buckingham to pay £20 costs.
During the autumn 1675 session, Buckingham remained a prominent figure in the country opposition, apparently in close concert with Shaftesbury. Having taken his seat in the House on 13 Oct. 1675, he was then present on just over three quarters of all sitting days. On 14 Oct. he was named to the committee for the bill to explain the bill concerning Popish recusants. Excused at a call on 10 Nov, he resumed his seat the following day and on 16 Nov. he announced to the House that he intended to introduce a bill to ease the lot of Protestant dissenters, closely relating his arguments to the right to liberty and property:
It is certainly a very uneasy kind of life to any man, that has either christian charity, good nature, or humanity, to see his fellow subjects daily abused, divested of their liberties and birth-rights, and miserably thrown out of their possessions and free-holds, only because they cannot agree with others in some opinions and niceties of religion, which their consciences will not give them leave to consent to, and, which even by the consent of those who would impose them, are no way necessary to salvation.306
In the heated atmosphere arising out of the disputes between Lords and Commons over Sherley v. Fagg, it is perhaps surprising that Buckingham did not apparently become embroiled in the arguments that erupted on 20 Nov. between several members of the House, though he joined with Shaftesbury in seconding the motion put forward by Shaftesbury’s associate Charles Mohun, 3rd Baron Mohun, for an address to the king for Parliament to be dissolved.307 He then subscribed the protest when the motion was rejected. On 22 Nov. Parliament was prorogued once more.308 It did not meet again until the spring of 1677. Buckingham’s 16 Nov. speech was later printed in Amsterdam together with a speech of Shaftesbury’s on the Sherley v. Fagg dispute and the votes at the end of the session for dissolving Parliament. Late the following month one of the correspondents of Sir Joseph Williamson‡ noted the arrival of a packet boat from Holland and how they were ‘well stored with speeches and votes’ including those of Buckingham and Shaftesbury: ‘so that no endeavours are wanting to make the court odious to the people’.309
The French had, for the moment, written Buckingham off as a useful ally: in the middle of the autumn session Ruvigny confided to the French king that little ‘except shows of spirit’ could be hoped for at the moment from its handful of usual allies, particularly Buckingham, ‘who is so involved in the cabal of the best minds in the Lords who are called the confederates, that he dare not act in another manner for fear of being discovered and of losing by this means the belief that these men have in him.’310 Early the following year, a ‘flying report’ claimed that Buckingham had once again kissed the king’s hand, though Sir Ralph Verney could ‘hardly believe it’, and by April 1676 Buckingham was again retired from court, although advice prepared for the new French ambassador suggested that even if he was ‘distanced from affairs, he will still be important, not only because he will easily reconcile himself with the king his master… but because he has many friends in his own right.’311 Buckingham continued to profess his attachment to the French in correspondence with the new ambassador, Courtin, but seemed more intent on his new alliances with opposition figures.312 In the absence of Parliament over the fifteen month prorogation, both he and Shaftesbury turned their sights on the City of London. Buckingham bought a house formerly belonging to one of his creditors’ relatives; in June he was believed to have been behind the speech made by Francis Jenks at the election for new aldermen in the City, calling for the summoning of a new Parliament; it was said that Buckingham even intended to stand for election as an alderman himself. The king dubbed his erstwhile companion ‘Alderman George’, but though he subjected Jenks to interrogation, he failed to establish the direct link between him and Buckingham that he was after.313 When Thomas Garway was interviewed by Joseph Williamson in early October about what Buckingham had said when taking a cup of tea at Garway’s coffee-house with Major Wildman and others, Williamson was keen to hear whether he had drunk to Jenks’s health. He had not, at least not in Garway’s presence; though he had drunk a health to a ‘new Parliament, and to all those honest gentlemen of it that would give the king no money’.314 The Jenks affair, though, did open cracks in his alliance with Shaftesbury, who was irritated with his wayward ally for precipitating the issue, ‘judging their business was not yet ripe’; according to Charles Hatton it ‘occasioned great feuds amongst their partisans’. Reports in October that Buckingham’s supporters had taken to wearing green ribbons in their hats in imitation of their patron, who was said to have drunk the health of ‘all that would not give money and were for a new Parliament’ in Garroway’s coffee house, were later dismissed as being the result of a misunderstanding. Buckingham himself does not appear to have been a member of the Green Ribbon Club.315
Buckingham was reported to have suffered ‘a generous fit’ of the gout at the opening of 1677.316 Well in advance of the new session, it was widely known that both he and Shaftesbury now believed Parliament to be dissolved by virtue of the 15-month prorogation and intent on making a demonstration early in the session.317 On 15 Feb. Buckingham took his seat bedecked ‘in great bravery in liveries of blue but all diversified’ and launched into a lengthy diatribe on the reasons why the current session was invalid. Excusing himself for having ‘often troubled your lordships with my discourse’ he now assured them that ‘I never did it with more trouble to myself than at this time for I scarce know how to begin what I have to say to your lordships.’ He cited statutes from the time of Edward III, which showed, he claimed, that Parliament should be held at least once a year, the same argument that had previously been advanced by Jenks.318 Buckingham was seconded by Shaftesbury and also by Wharton and James Cecil, 3rd earl of Salisbury; he was opposed by Danby, with whom Buckingham had ‘high and bitter clashings’.319 After the House resolved to put aside the debate, John Frescheville, Baron Frescheville, seconded by Richard Arundel, Baron Arundel of Trerice (both associates of Danby), moved that Buckingham should be called to the bar to answer for his reflections on the legitimacy of the Parliament.320 Further debate was then adjourned to the following day when it was ordered that the four peers should be attached, but Buckingham, ‘foreseeing which way the vote would go, slunk out of the house, and winged with fear… leaped into a pair of oars and made them put off in all haste.’321 (John Verney added that the duke paused first to ‘make water’ before taking to the river.322) On 17 Feb. black rod declared that he could not find the missing peer, but, a little later Buckingham resumed his place, insouciantly and provocatively claiming that ‘his ague made him retreat’ the previous day.323 The House ordered his immediate withdrawal and he was then brought to the bar and commanded to kneel. Buckingham at first refused to do so, but was assured by the lord chancellor (Heneage Finch, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham) that the other three peers had all submitted to kneel and so he gave way. There followed a moment of great tension as the lord chancellor demanded of the House whether Buckingham should be sent to the Tower. He was greeted by a pregnant pause of six or seven minutes, eventually broken when Ormond moved for his old rival to be conveyed to the Tower. There was then further silence as no one else appeared willing to second the motion. This was at last broken when Lauderdale suggested that in such cases, where a motion was made with none speaking against it, it should pass for an order of the House. Buckingham was ordered, therefore, to the Tower. Like his fellows, he requested to be accompanied there by his cook and butler. His demand was granted, but attracted sufficiently opprobrious comments from the lord chancellor that Buckingham was provoked into cautioning him to mind what he said, before stalking out.324
In contrast to his triumphal march to the Tower in 1667, Buckingham now appears to have attracted little sympathy from the London citizenry.325 He seems to have spent the initial period of his incarceration experimenting with his chemistry laboratory, which he had also secured permission to bring with him to his confinement.326 He also continued to take an interest in family politics. Early in March Buckingham’s kinsman, Denbigh, secured the House’s permission to wait on the duke to confer with him about a renewed effort by Robert Danvers to be recognized as Viscount Purbeck. The title of Purbeck had been conferred on Buckingham’s uncle, John Villiers†, but he had died without legitimate issue: Danvers was generally accepted to be the son of the first viscount’s wife and her lover Sir Robert Howard‡. Granting him the title clearly had implications for the wider Villiers clan and on 7 Mar. Denbigh communicated to the Lords Buckingham’s wish that no further proceedings should be held on the claim until he was able to attend; a stay in proceedings for the time being was ordered.327 Buckingham was noted as missing at a call of the House on 9 March. An attempt on 20 Mar. by George Booth, Baron Delamer, seconded by Clarendon (as Cornbury had since become) and Halifax to have the four peers released came to nothing. On 16 Apr., though, Buckingham was successful in seeking to have his privilege upheld following the seizure of some of the goods belonging to one of his servants.328
Despite their joint action in February and their joint incarceration, Buckingham was reckoned merely ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury in the latter’s assessment in May.329 The same month, Buckingham employed Middlesex (as Buckhurst had since become) to petition the king for his release.330 Although on this occasion a decision was deferred, at the end of June he was permitted out for a few days to inspect the progress of his building works at Cliveden.331 At the close of the following month, having made ‘a very full submission’, he was again permitted out on license.332 A combination of Nell Gwynne, Middlesex, John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester, and other members of the so-called ‘merry gang’ were credited with obtaining his enlargement to enable him to recover from a series of illnesses he had contracted in the Tower’s damp conditions. Danby also may have played a role, though he was later dismayed by the speed with which Buckingham was once more welcomed back at court.333
Following his release, Buckingham considered taking a house in St James’s. As early as 2 Aug. it was said that the king and he had been ‘very merry’ one night at Rochester’s lodgings, where Buckingham was then staying, and there was speculation that he would soon be returned to favour and even restored to office as lord steward. Although it was later reported that his enemies had ensured that he was once more forbidden the court, in mid-November he was nevertheless said to have dined with the king again, this time at Nell Gwynne’s residence.334
When the House reassembled on 28 Jan. 1678, an attempt by the lord chancellor to protest at the release from the Tower of three of the peers (Wharton, Salisbury and Buckingham) without making satisfaction to the House was curtailed by Berkshire interrupting and seeking to deliver a petition from Buckingham, in which he offered his submission and desired to be readmitted to his place.335 He resumed his seat the same day and was thereafter noted to be ‘as brisk as ever’, though he does not appear to have been nominated to any committees during the remainder of the session.336 On 16 Feb. he was missing from the attendance list, but not among those noted as absent at the call held that day, so presumably he took his seat after the roll had been taken. The following month, he was again notified by the House of the claim being lodged by Robert Danvers alias Villiers to the viscountcy of Purbeck, so that he could prepare his opposition to Danvers’ pretensions, but no further progress was made in the peerage claim during the session.337
By early February 1678 Buckingham was said to be back in favour. It was reported that he had been seen walking in the park with the king and later that month, it was noted that he was once more in frequent attendance at court.338 Buckingham’s restoration to favour was said to have irritated Monmouth. Buckingham refused to reconcile with his former client, Danby, whom he lambasted as ‘a man who is ungrateful and ignorant.’339 Not long after, it was reported that Buckingham was working with Nell Gwynne to drive Danby out of office and to bring in Laurence Hyde, later earl of Rochester, in his stead.340 They were also said to have been attempting to recruit Secretary Coventry and the duchess of Cleveland (the former Lady Castlemaine) to their cause.341 His contribution to the debate on 16 Mar. on the Commons’ address for an immediate declaration of war against France ranged him still with the country opposition, including Shaftesbury, Halifax and Clarendon against Danby (Buckingham having first, mockingly, supported a motion by one of the bishops for the appointment of a fast day).342 The following month, on 4 Apr., he was among the majority who found Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter following his trial before the peers for the death of Nathaniel Cony.343
Following the brief prorogation in May which provided the opportunity to conclude a settlement with France, Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 23 May 1678, of which he attended 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 5 June both his and Robert Danvers’ counsel were heard concerning the Purbeck viscountcy, but debate was then adjourned to the following Friday. Ten days later, Buckingham complained to the House of a paper containing information ‘scandalous to the memory of his father and the honour of his family’, which he accused Danvers of writing. Danvers refused to answer the charge and was ordered to withdraw. The following month, on 5 July, Buckingham registered his dissent at the resolution to ascertain the relief of the petitioner in the cause Darrell v. Whichcot.
By the middle of the summer, it was believed that Buckingham would shortly be sent abroad as an ambassador (though details of the embassy remained unclear).344 Such rumours coincided with reports that Buckingham was already in France in a private capacity.345 Said to have been there in disguise, according to at least one newsletter, ‘the cause of his going is yet a mystery’.346 Henry Savile wrote on 27 Aug. that he was in Paris incognito: ‘some will have it upon a politic account, but others give him no better errand than the pursuit of a lady’.347 A few weeks later he wrote again, supposing that ‘by this time my Lord Buckingham’s voyage hither is unriddled in the coffee house, and that, as it often happens upon other occasions, his great business is found to be no business at all.’348 It is possible that Buckingham had offered himself to the French as their contact in England, even a proposal for a French force under his command in the event of England finding itself in need of a strong martial force to maintain order.349 His appearance at the prorogation day on 29 Aug. confused the gossip-mongers—Shaftesbury, clearly ignorant of his colleague’s activities, professed it to be ‘a great comfort’ to learn that Buckingham was still in the country—but it failed to quieten the rumours.350 Buckingham denied that he had been in Paris, but he was contradicted by ‘several letters from Paris’, according to one correspondent, who also wrote that his denials only served to make people ‘the more suspicious’.351
The Popish Plot and the Crisis, 1678-81
Buckingham returned to the House for the autumn, and final session of the Parliament on 22 Oct. 1678, of which he attended approximately two thirds of all sitting days. Towards the end of the month, complaint was made to the House once again of a breach of his privilege, when it was related how one of his servants, Robert Feilding, had been arrested by one of the Westminster bailiffs even though Feilding was in possession of Buckingham’s protection.352 Order was made for Feilding to be released and the following day (29 Oct.) the House took evidence from Francis Snape, Feilding’s creditor, who claimed that Buckingham had undertaken to withdraw the protection if the debt were found to be just. Further progress in examining the case was interrupted by the investigation into the Popish Plot which dominated the session, although on 7 Nov. Buckingham secured Snape’s his release from the custody of black rod, where he had languished since appearing before the House a fortnight previously.
Buckingham was an active in several of the committees investigating the Plot, demonstrating the kind of nervous energy with which he could occasionally turn his mind to business, although Buckingham’s interest in prosecuting the plot stemmed from his desire to tap the popular mood rather from the kind of convinced anti-catholicism that drove some of his allies at the time, especially Shaftesbury and Monmouth. On 23 Oct. Buckingham was named to the committee appointed to examine papers relating to the conspiracy and the following day to the committee for examining constables. On 28 Oct. he was instrumental in the decision to appoint a sub-committee to examine witnesses concerning the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and was also to the fore in nominating other members to sit on the committee with him, among them Shaftesbury and Halifax.353 The same month both he and Shaftesbury spoke in favour of sending Coleman’s information to the Commons for their inspection, even though it was understood to be imperfect.354 Both Buckingham and Shaftesbury’s activities in seeking out those involved in the Plot was later condemned by some who appeared before them, notably Mary Gibbons, one of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s neighbours. In response to her testimony that the death of Godfrey was probably suicide Gibbons claimed that Buckingham rounded on her declaring, ‘if you were a man, I would sheathe my sword in your heart’s blood, for you have undone all the business by endeavouring to take off the report that Sir Edmund was murdered by the papists.’355 Gibbons was not alone in depicting Buckingham at this time as tense and excited. A French pamphlet composed the following year related how in response to Oates’s efforts to have the queen accused of being part of the Plot, Buckingham vented in exasperation, ‘This rascal will spoil our business. He can’t govern himself.’356
Buckingham was named a reporter of the conference for the preservation of the king’s person on 1 Nov. 1678 and on 26 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the bill for raising the militia. Two days later, he was successful in moving the House on behalf of the earls of Dorset (as Middlesex had since become) and Pembroke, who had been arrested following a quarrel, but who had now agreed to be reconciled and the House accordingly ordered the two men to be released.357 On 9 Dec. Buckingham was appointed a manager of the conference for disbanding forces and on 20 Dec. he entered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the committee’s amendments to the disbanding bill. On 23 Dec. he was one of four peers nominated to attend the king to inform him about the information of Miles Prance, who claimed to be able to make a discovery about the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The same day he entered his dissent at the decision not to require Danby to withdraw following the reading of the impeachment articles against him. Three days later he voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill and on 27 Dec. he voted in favour of committing Danby. He had already made the most of information provided by his agent, Ellis Leighton, to spread reports that Danby had taken bribes from the French.358
After the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament Buckingham actively employed his interest on behalf of opposition candidates in the elections of February/March 1679 for the new assembly. He was said at this point to be in constant contact with Shaftesbury and Monmouth, though the relationship would break down over the course of the year, with Shaftesbury suspicious of Buckingham’s tendency to look to France and Buckingham of Shaftesbury’s sponsorship of Monmouth.359 On 4 Feb. he wrote to Thomas Wharton, later marquess of Wharton, thanking him for giving him the opportunity of offering his support to John Hampden‡, even though Hampden was unknown to him, and undertaking to be at Aylesbury for the county election.360 He attended the poll accordingly the next day at which both Wharton and Hampden were returned before returning to the town of Buckingham, where he attempted to employ his interest on behalf of his old associate John Wildman along with Sir Peter Tyrrell‡. Although the duke threatened the town with his displeasure if they failed to return his preferred candidates, he later withdrew his support from Wildman on discovering that he was unlikely to win. He then directed his effort to the elections at Oxford, where he recommended the re-election of Brome Whorwood‡, who was returned along with a former mayor, William Wright‡.361
In March, however, Buckingham performed one of his by now habitual disappearing acts, and was absent from public view for the next two months, and thus from the first two months of the new Parliament.362 Rumours abounded over the cause. According to Sir Richard Temple‡, whose election for the town of Buckingham the duke had opposed, Buckingham had absconded ‘for private offences and sins’. He certainly seems to have been in negotiation with the king for a new pardon in return for which he offered to discover designs against the government. He was also engaged in an ongoing feud with Danby and with Danby’s son, Edward Osborne‡, styled Viscount Latimer. According to Barillon the duke was concerned that Danby intended to bring sodomy charges against him.363 One result of his absence was his omission from the new Privy Council. Another was that he missed witnessing Danby’s resignation. Missing at a call of the House on 9 May, in the middle of the month he put an end to the conjecture by reappearing in London and on 17 May he took his seat in the House, after which he was present on a further seven days (13 per cent of the whole session).364 On 20 May he spoke in the debate about the right of bishops to sit in cases of blood, arguing that acts could be made without the concurrence of the spiritual lords and that according to Magna Carta, peers could only be tried by peers.365 Three days later, he entered two dissents, first at the resolution to proceed with the trials of the five lords before that of Danby and second at the resolution that the Lords would give no other answer with regard to the bishops’ voting.366 On 27 May he dissented again at the Lords’ insistence on the bishops’ right to remain in court until sentence was pronounced.
Following the close of the Parliament, Buckingham was again active in the elections of August 1679. At the end of July both Buckingham and John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace, had appeared in support of Sir Ralph Verney at the Abingdon assizes, where Verney had a lawsuit pending, and the following month it was reported that Buckingham had at last found his old client, Wildman, a safe seat at Abingdon.367 At the close of the month, Buckingham appeared with William Paget, 7th Baron Paget, in support of Hampden and Thomas Wharton for the Buckinghamshire election and when their opponents attempted to wrong-foot them by transferring the poll from Aylesbury to Buckingham, he ‘marched at the head of the electors from Aylesbury to Winslow and the following morning from Winslow to Buckingham’, where they succeeded in securing Hampden and Wharton’s returns. He once more offered his support to Sir Peter Tyrrell for the town of Buckingham, this time unsuccessfully.368 He also appeared at Brentford in September in support of Sir William Roberts‡, bt., one of the sitting members for Middlesex.369 In early September Buckingham also promoted the cause of his associate, Francis Jenks, in the London shrieval election as part of an attempt to seize control of the corporation but Jenks was defeated by a court candidate.370
Buckingham’s hyper-activity at the elections had at least again aroused the king’s irritation. There were rumours that he had been involved in more than just electioneering, at least during the king’s serious illness of late August, which brought James back from exile. A story that Buckingham, Shaftesbury and Radnor (as Robartes had since become) had plotted to promote Monmouth as heir but that they had been rebuffed when they attempted to recruit Oxford to their cause may have assumed more than actually happened; but Buckingham certainly held conversations with Monmouth’s lieutenant, Sir Thomas Armstrong, concerning an attempt to take control of the London common council.371 In September Buckingham was said to be ‘in great displeasure with the king’; it was also reported that he was to be proceeded against for sedition. In October Buckingham was said to have sought sanctuary overseas and to be in Holland, even attempting to instigate a Presbyterian uprising.372 Certainly he characteristically went to ground, with little heard of him for several months.
There was clearly not enough evidence to proceed against Buckingham, though a series of moves against him in early 1680 were clearly coordinated. At the beginning of 1680, he, Lovelace and Thomas Wharton were all put out of the Buckinghamshire commission of the peace, and over the ensuing weeks, Buckingham was removed as a justice in practically every county to which he had previously been appointed. In February reports circulated of accusations being levelled against him by a variety of witnesses, including his erstwhile associate, Colonel Blood.373374 That these latest charges (foreshadowed by the rumours of the previous year) had been fabricated is indicated by the arrest in January of Edward Christian, a former steward who had since migrated to become one of Danby’s clients, on suspicion of suborning witnesses to appear against the duke.375 In April a grand jury was presented with an indictment against Buckingham for attempted buggery. Barillon appears to have thought that it was inspired by Danby to keep Buckingham away from the Lords.376 Buckingham entered a counter-suit against those involved for perjury and forgery. On 6 May, the proceedings on the buggery charge opened at Hicks Hall but, having heard all the witnesses against him ‘with great solemnity’, the grand jury brought in the bill ignoramus, thus enabling Buckingham to proceed with his counter-suit.377 In preparing the duke’s case, according to Daniel Finch (later 2nd earl of Nottingham), his agents were ‘more than ordinary diligent and officious in it, and not without considerable expense to him’.378 On 21 May the trial of the conspirators was heard in Westminster Hall, with the jury finding against the accused without bothering to adjourn to deliberate.379 Over the summer Buckingham actively pursued those who had contributed to his danger and embarrassment. In July he was expected to appear at the Buckingham assizes ‘in great splendour’ where he had submitted two or three cases including a case for scandalum magnatum against Howard, a local barber, who had declared that Buckingham’s accusers had spoken the truth. On 20 July Buckingham was awarded £1,000 damages from Howard, but John Verney questioned why Buckingham was so intent on proceeding against such ‘mean folk’. Sir Ralph Verney, who had served as jury foreman, was confident that the duke would not concern himself with recovering the money, but Howard decided not to put this to the test and removed himself to London ‘to enter himself of the king’s Lifeguards to secure his person’ from Buckingham.380
Buckingham was unwell in the autumn. Although on 12 Oct. it was reported that he had recovered ‘with the help of the Jesuits’ powder’, when the new Parliament was finally allowed to sit on 21 Oct. he was absent and he was still noted as missing at a call of the House on 30 October.381 He was still away on 11 Nov., when the Lords agreed to raze the account of the proceedings against him, Shaftesbury, Salisbury and Wharton from the Journal. He finally took his seat on 22 Nov., ‘the first day his sickness would permit him.’382 He was thereafter present on 39 per cent of all sitting days and named to four committees.383 Buckingham’s late appearance in the session meant that he avoided the initial proceedings relating to exclusion. His own attitude appears to have been in favour of limitations rather than exclusion, not least because he was on far from good terms with either of the likely alternatives to York. The day after he resumed his place he proposed the formation of a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. He voted in favour of his own motion, and subscribed the protest when it was defeated (Monmouth, and other opposition peers, also subscribed it; Shaftesbury did not).384 On 26 Nov. he took over from the lord privy seal (Anglesey) in chairing a session of the committee concerning Protestant dissenters. He reported the committee’s findings the following day but subsequent sessions of the committee were chaired by other members of the House.385 On 7 Dec. he was entrusted with Lovelace’s proxy, which was vacated when Lovelace resumed his seat on 14 December. The same day Buckingham joined with the majority in finding William Howard, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.386
At about the same time as the verdict on Stafford the sheriff of London and Buckingham’s political ally, Slingsby Bethel, provocatively exercised his right to propose him to be free of the City.387 After some opposition by a number of court loyalists in the corporation, Buckingham was duly admitted to the Merchants Taylors’ company in March 1681. Later the same year it was even suggested that he might be elected sheriff.388 Despite his interest in decisive intervention in city politics, Buckingham’s involvement in the election contests in February was unreliable and possibly over-ambitious (Sir Ralph Verney said the duke was ‘an active man and loves to be doing everywhere’). He was expected initially at Aylesbury, but failed to appear: it was hoped that he would be present at Buckingham, but Sir Ralph Verney, even though he ‘caused daily inquiry to be made’, failed to track him down. He turned out to have gone to Oxford, marching into the city on the evening of 3 Feb. Buckingham in a torchlight procession to assist with the election of Brome Whorwood‡ and William Wright‡ the following day. Despite more appeals being sent to get him to come to the Buckingham poll, on 7 Feb. it was reported that he had been in hiding at College Hill and although on 9 Feb. it was reported once more that he was expected at Buckingham, he failed again to be present for the election.389 Buckingham’s non-appearance in Buckinghamshire may have been owing to his efforts at Southwark on behalf of Bethel and Edward Smyth, but these proved unsuccessful, with Sir Richard How‡ and Peter Rich‡ being returned instead. A pre-sessional forecast compiled by Danby listed Buckingham as an opponent of the former lord treasurer’s request to be bailed from the Tower. In the event, perhaps disappointed at his inability to influence events, the duke failed to take his seat in the Oxford Parliament even though he was said to have been present in the city and lodging with William Wright.390
Buckingham’s activities in the elections to the Exclusion Parliaments appear to have lost him the king’s friendship once and for all. Cold-shouldered at court, Buckingham persisted in his efforts to court the city of London instead. He then spent the summer continuing to pursue his enemies. In June, Edward Christian, who had been found guilty of conspiring against Buckingham the previous year, appealed to Danby for his assistance, being fearful that Buckingham intended to proceed against him for scandalum magnatum. The following month, in spite of his former undertakings to the contrary, Buckingham initiated proceedings against Howard for non-payment of the £1,000 damages that had been awarded against him.391 Howard appealed to Sir Ralph Verney to intercede with Buckingham on his behalf, but Verney was unable to locate the duke and wrote to Howard that ‘I fear your enemies have so incensed him (Buckingham) against you that I shall not prevail with him for your releasement’.392 Buckingham’s move against Howard was thought to be in retaliation for the arrest of one Barton by Sir Richard Temple.393 By late summer negotiations were in train between Temple and Verney with Buckingham’s agents over the case; but at the end of September both Howard and Barton were still in custody and Verney, having waited on the duke, was unable to give Howard cause to hope for a speedy release. Howard was still in gaol more than three years later.394
Impotence and decline
In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament Buckingham himself might have felt under threat. In June 1681, Danby wrote to the king warning of the role played by Whittaker, Buckingham’s former solicitor, ‘if not his master also’ in a conspiracy against the crown.395 During the summer, Whittaker, who had boldly indicted the bishop of London for praemunire in February, was committed to the Tower on a charge of treason.396 The indictment of Shaftesbury for treason that winter also implied difficulty for the duke. One of the witnesses to depose against Shaftesbury alleged that it had been one of Shaftesbury’s pronouncements that Buckingham had as much right to the crown as the king by virtue of his descent from Edward IV. In February 1682 one of Buckingham’s servants was discovered murdered in London and in July his cook was executed at Tyburn, having been convicted of murdering his counterpart in the employment of Louis de Duras, 2nd earl of Feversham.397
By then, however, Buckingham had become rarely mentioned and politically irrelevant. At the beginning of 1683, he was said to be engaged in talks with Monmouth and Halifax about forging a new alliance.398 However, the reports that he had secured an annuity of £4,000 in compensation for the loss of the mastership of the horse in May, and that in July he was one of a group of peers who had kissed the king’s hand suggests he was no longer involved in serious opposition politics.399 A measure of his unimportance was the fact that he was passed over by the city of York, whose corporation chose to elect the young Charles Lennox, duke of Richmond, as their high steward instead of Buckingham whom they considered ‘not so able to serve them’ as Richmond. Buckingham’s response icily thanked them for their ‘politic obliging and generous letter.’400
During the summer of 1683, Buckingham became engaged in a case with his kinsman, Rutland (as Lord Roos had since become), over the collection of tithes at Helmsley, though it was not until the following year that the cause came to trial at king’s bench. Buckingham attended the trial in person but then proceeded to sabotage his own case by openly mocking his counsel and suggesting that the man had been poorly briefed.401 The case continued until the next year, when Buckingham held up proceedings by insisting on his privilege (as did Thomas Sprat, bishop of Rochester, who was also a party in the case; he was also one of Buckingham’s trustees and probably served as a chaplain). Rutland was again successful in 1686 when the court of exchequer found for him once more against the duke.402
Although Buckingham had all but retired from court life and retreated to his northern estates by the time of the king’s death, there were still occasional rumours during the final years of Charles II’s reign of his return to favour. In 1681 it was reported that he might go to France as ambassador and three years later there was talk of him taking up the office of viceroy in the West Indies.403 He also retained an active interest in toleration and soon after the accession of James II published a pamphlet on the issue. His contribution, A Short Discourse upon the Reasonableness of Men’s having a Religion, or Worship of God, may have been deliberately designed to provoke debate in print and was perhaps co-ordinated with William Penn, with the aim of promoting liberty of conscience. Over the course of the year Buckingham’s piece was subjected to attack on a variety of fronts. Buckingham issued a rejoinder to one of these and was defended in other works.404
Buckingham took his seat in the new Parliament on 23 May 1685, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He seems to have played no part, on either side, during the Monmouth rebellion and there is little reason to believe that he would have welcomed a Monmouth victory. While his relations with James II had frequently been strained, Buckingham was informed the following year by William Penn that James was now ‘so changed in his opinion of his [Buckingham’s] ability to serve him, that he desires it’ and how the king ‘was not willing it should be thought he had not more esteem for the duke of Buckingham than a mere indifference.’405 No more appears to have been made of the overture.
The remainder of Buckingham’s life appears to have been a steady physical decline. Reports circulated in early March 1687 that he had fallen seriously ill while staying on his estates in Yorkshire. Although he rallied a fortnight later and was expected back in London, rumours spread of his demise at York early in April.406 Although these were premature, he fell sick again soon after while out hunting and was forced to take refuge in the house of one of his tenants in Kirkby Moorside. On 15 Apr. he was sufficiently well to give orders relating to a cause in which he was engaged in the court of exchequer, but he then suffered a further relapse and died the following day.407 Having initially been interred in the local church at Kirkby Moorside, Buckingham’s corpse was later removed and reinterred in the family vault at Westminster Abbey.408
In spite of last minute efforts made by his kinsmen to persuade him to settle his affairs, Buckingham died intestate and with no legitimate heir. It was also speculated that Buckingham had died a Catholic, though this was contradicted by reports that he had been prevailed upon by his relatives, among them James Hamilton, styled earl of Arran [S] (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and Brandon), to receive the sacrament from an Anglican clergyman prior to his death.409 Buckingham’s religious views were undoubtedly difficult to gauge. Through his career he had courted dissenters and advocated liberty of conscience but he seems also to have maintained Anglican chaplains. Thomas Sprat was probably one; another such may have been Hugh Davis, author of a defence of the 1662 church settlement: De Jure Uniformitatis Ecclesiasticae, as well as a collector of songs and an associate of some in Buckingham’s artistic circle.410 The king communicated the news of Buckingham’s demise to the Prince of Orange, commenting ‘what will become of his encumbered estate nobody as yet can know and besides, there will be several pretenders to it.’411 There were indeed rumours that the titular Viscount Purbeck was likely to succeed to his earldom or to the marquessate of Buckingham.412 Administration of his estate was expected to be awarded to his duchess, amid rumours that he had made a settlement granting to her £100,000. Eight months after his death and shortly after Buckingham’s estate was claimed by Purbeck as the duke’s heir at law, it was reported that the young man’s pretence had been stymied by the late discovery of a will in which Buckingham settled his estate, reputed to be worth £5,000 a year, on a kinsman, Sir William Villiers.413 In fact, administration of the duke&#rsquo;s estates passed to the trustees he had appointed in 1671 to oversee his affairs. Over the next few years, the estates were gradually dismembered as large parcels of land were sold off to satisfy the demands of his creditors. This continued a process that had already been long underway at the time of the duke’s death. The principal trustee of his estate, Sir Robert Clayton, made the most of his position managing the sales. In 1693, Nottingham was said to have been about purchasing one estate for £90,000 and two years later, Thomas Wharton was believed to be on the point of buying Whaddon Chase.414 Purbeck never inherited the title either: the dukedom of Buckingham was later revived (though with an addition to the title of Normanby to prevent any future disputes) for Mulgrave.
By the time of his death, the world in which Buckingham had flourished had all but evaporated. Most of his associates and principal rivals (with the exception of Danby) had either died or retreated into retirement or exile. Buckingham’s commitment to the causes he championed has usually been regarded with scepticism, but that should not detract from their significance. In the commonplace book once thought to have been his but still believed to reflect some of his views, under the entry for politician the writer noted of such a person, ‘he puts men into places, as they do stones into slings, only to fling them out again’: a telling perception of Buckingham’s own experience.415 Nevertheless, his achievement as both court politician and parliamentarian should not be overlooked. A compelling orator and a sporadically enthusiastic legislator, he was a figure whom the king and numerous other figures in court, Parliament and beyond, whatever their true opinions of the man, found impossible to ignore.
R.D.E.E.- 1 Buckingham: Public and Private Man ed. C. Phipps, 4-5.
- 2 Bodl. Carte 217, f. 409.
- 3 CSP Dom. 1667-8, pp. 411, 435.
- 4 Carte 72, f. 615.
- 5 Hatton corresp. i. 95.
- 6 TNA, SP 29/42/62.
- 7 Add. 36916, f. 5.
- 8 Reresby mems. 301-2.
- 9 HP Commons 1660-90, i. 360.
- 10 Carte 38, ff. 136-8; Tanner 157, f. 21.
- 11 Hunter, Royal Society, 172.
- 12 G.S. Davies, Charterhouse in London, (1921) 354.
- 13 M.K. Schuchard, Restoring the temple of vision (2002) 722.
- 14 Carte 222, f. 266; G. de Krey, London and the Restoration, 212.
- 15 VCH North Yorks. i. 485-505.
- 16 CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 500.
- 17 Reresby Mems. 46; Carte 79, ff. 130-1.
- 18 Winifred, Lady Burghclere, George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham, 1628-1687, (1903); H. Chapman, Great Villiers: A Study of George Villiers second duke of Buckingham, (1949); J.H. Wilson, A Rake and his Times, (1954); M. Lee, The Cabal, (1965); B. Yardley, The Political career of George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham (1628-87) (Oxford D.Phil, 1989).
- 19 PA, HL/PO/RO/1/54.
- 20 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 1-2, 9.
- 21 F. Melton, ‘A Rake refinanced: the fortune of George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, 1671-1685’, HLQ, 51 (1988), 299-300.
- 22 Knights, Pols and Opinion , 221.
- 23 Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings associated with George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham ed. R.D. Hume and H. Love, 2 vols. (Oxford 2007), i. pp. vii-ix, ii.143-4, 152, 215; Phipps, Buckingham,180.
- 24 Schuchard, Restoring the temple of vision, 509-10.
- 25 CCSP v. 736; Reresby Mems. 24.
- 26 Verney ms mic. M636/16, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 21 Feb. 1659.
- 27 CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 101-2; CCSP, iv. 160, 189-9, 204-6, 215, 232.
- 28 HMC 6th Rep. 466.
- 29 TNA, PRO 31/3/106, p. 36.
- 30 Carte 81, f. 63.
- 31 Bodl. Clarendon 71, f. 96.
- 32 Clarendon 72, ff. 80, 88, 240; PRO 31/3/108, pp. 135-9.
- 33 PRO 31/3/107, pp. 30-1; LJ xi. 24-5.
- 34 PRO 31/3/107, pp. 66, 77, 85; HMC Le Fleming, 24-5.
- 35 HMC 4th Rep. 155, 177.
- 36 HEHL, HA 7645, Gervase Jacques to Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon, 1 June 1660.
- 37 PRO 31/3/108, pp. 54-5.
- 38 Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/1/6/64.
- 39 Add. 34727, f. 102.
- 40 Add. 70123, Samuel Shilton to Edward Harley, 7, 21 Jan. 1661; Add. 70009, f. 40.
- 41 HP Commons 1660-90, i. 265.
- 42 PRO 31/3/109, pp. 21-4.
- 43 Chapman, Great Villiers, 112.
- 44 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss fb 159, no. 16.
- 45 Carte 109, f. 317.
- 46 Mordaunt letter book, 39-40.
- 47 Pepys Diary, ii. 142.
- 48 PRO 31/3/110, pp. 53-8.
- 49 Chatsworth, Cork mss misc box 1 (diary of the earl of Burlington).
- 50 CJ, iii. 369, 395.
- 51 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 117-18, 204, 240, 244-5.
- 52 Reresby Mems. 40.
- 53 PRO 31/3/110, p. 205.
- 54 Carte 222, ff. 4-5.
- 55 CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 552.
- 56 PRO 31/3/110, pp. 487, 490.
- 57 LJ xi. 494-5, 496-7, 497-8, 505-6, 560-1.
- 58 PRO 31/3/111, p. 94; Verney ms mic. M636/19, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 2 Apr. 1663.
- 59 R.L. Greaves, Deliver Us from Evil, 178.
- 60 Pepys Diary, iv. 137.
- 61 PRO 31/3/112, p. 12; Carte 221, f. 54.
- 62 Carte 81, f. 224.
- 63 Carte 77, f. 524.
- 64 Carte 33, f. 34, Carte 32, f. 716.
- 65 Savernake mss 11B, countess of Devonshire to Lord Bruce, 20 Aug. 1663.
- 66 PRO 31/3/112, p. 128; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 69, 73.
- 67 NLW, Wynn of Gwydir, 2391.
- 68 Bodl. Tanner 47, ff. 189-90.
- 69 PRO 31/3/113, p. 289.
- 70 Add. 75359 (unbound), Henry Cavendish, Viscount Mansfield, to Sir George Savile, 16 Sept. 1664.
- 71 Carte 33, f. 716; Carte 49, f. 267.
- 72 CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 56; NAS, GD 406/1/2586.
- 73 Chatsworth, Cork mss, misc. box 1 (diary of earl of Cork and Burlington).
- 74 Eg. 3328, f. 12; Browning, Danby, ii. 18.
- 75 Add. 27447, f. 338.
- 76 Carte 34, ff. 160-1.
- 77 HMC Hastings, ii. 149; Carte 49, ff. 300-1; HEHL, HA 10664; Add. 75359 (unbound), Henry, earl of Ogle, to Sir George Savile, 22 Apr. 1665.
- 78 Reresby Mems. 56.
- 79 Carte 46, f. 235.
- 80 Verney ms mic. M636/20, G. Gaell to E. Verney, 13 Mar. 1666.
- 81 Reresby Mems. 59-61.
- 82 Reresby Mems. 58-60.
- 83 Milward Diary, 22.
- 84 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 66-7; HP Commons 1660-90, i. 617, ii. 95, 107, 176, 191, 199, 292-3, 374, 407, 427, 429, 444, 534, 564, 570, 597, 608, 692, 713, 731, 775, iii. 34, 68, 277, 301, 306, 323, 338, 397-8, 409, 441, 498, 628, 672, 713-14, 721, 759.
- 85 Pepys Diary, vii. 309; CSP Dom. 1666-7, pp. 185-6.
- 86 Edie, ‘The Irish Cattle Bills’, 26-7; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 88-9.
- 87 Carte 46, f. 392.
- 88 Carte 217, f. 348.
- 89 Chatsworth, Cork mss misc. box 2 (Burlington’s diary).
- 90 Carte 46, f. 394; Carte 72, f. 110.
- 91 Carte 35, f. 126.
- 92 Milward Diary, 46; Carte 72, f. 114; mss North c. 4, ff. 126-7.
- 93 LJ xii. 44-5.
- 94 HMC Portland, iii. 303; Add. 70010, f. 355; Carte 46, f. 428.
- 95 Bodl. mss North c.4, ff. 124-5.
- 96 Carte 35, f. 246.
- 97 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 99-101; Browning, ‘Danby’, ii. 31-4; Schuchard, Restoring the temple of vision, 583, 595; R.L. Greaves, Enemies under his Feet, 44-5, 266-7, n. 153.
- 98 Add. 28040, f. 3; Chatsworth, Cork mss misc. box 2 (diary of earl of Cork and Burlington).
- 99 Clarendon 85, ff. 96-7.
- 100 CSP Dom. 1665-6, p. 552; Verney ms mic. M636/21, M. Elmes to Sir R. Verney, 21 Mar. 1667.
- 101 TNA, ZJ, 1/1 no. 137 (London Gazette, 7-11 Mar. 1667).
- 102 CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 568.
- 103 Add. 27872, f. 6.
- 104 Add. 27872, f. 9.
- 105 Carte 222, ff. 150-1, Carte 103, ff. 258-9, Carte 215, f. 341.
- 106 Lee, Cabal, 22; Add. 27872, f. 12.
- 107 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 102.
- 108 Add. 75376, ff. 7-9; Add. 7535, ff. 87-8 (provisional) (Add. 75354), letter 17; CSP Dom. 1667, p. 246 Add. 75356 (unbound), Graham to Burlington, 29 June, 9 July 1667; Verney ms mic. M636/21, M. Elmes and Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 29 June 1667; HMC Lindsey, 367-8.
- 109 CSP Dom. 1667, p. 246.
- 110 Add. 27872, f. 13.
- 111 Add. 75354, ff. 91-2; HMC Lindsey, 368; Pepys Diary, viii. 330.
- 112 Savile Corresp. 18; Carte 222, ff. 162-3; Greaves, Enemies under his Feet, 45.
- 113 Pepys Diary, viii. 342.
- 114 Carte 220, f. 259.
- 115 Verney ms mic. M636/21, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 25 July 1667; Pepys Diary, viii. 364-5.
- 116 Add. 75356 (unbound), countess of Strafford to countess of Burlington, 31 July 1667.
- 117 Lee, Cabal, 23.
- 118 Pepys Diary, viii. 401-2; Savile Corresp. 20.
- 119 Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 313; Pepys Diary, ix. 361.
- 120 PRO 31/3/116, p. 92.
- 121 HMC Lindsey, 370.
- 122 Eg. 2539, ff. 118-19.
- 123 PRO 31/3/116, pp. 126-30.
- 124 Add. 75359 (unbound), earl of Ogle to Sir George Savile, 20 Sept. 1667; Savile Corresp. 21; Chatsworth, Cork mss misc. box 1 (earl of Burlington’s diary). Add. 36916, f. 6; PRO 31/3/116, Ruvigny to Lionne, 19/29 Sept. 1667; PRO 31/3/116, pp. 89-90, 95-7.
- 125 Clayton Roberts, ‘Sir Richard Temple’s Discourse on the Parliament of 1667-1668’, HLQ, xx. 137.
- 126 LJ xii. 117-19, 124-5, 128-33, 138, 142-5, 147, 157, 160, 169-71, 173-6.
- 127 PRO 31/3/116, pp. 112-13; Carte 220, ff. 296-8, 300-1.
- 128 Carte 68, ff. 634-5.
- 129 PRO 31/3/116, p. 115.
- 130 Hutton, Restoration, 282; Miller, James II (2000), 52.
- 131 PRO 31/3/117, pp. 1-2.
- 132 PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/2, p. 27.
- 133 PRO 31/3/117, pp. 23-4.
- 134 Eg. 2539, f. 140.
- 135 Pepys Diary, viii. 530, 532-3.
- 136 C. Roberts, ‘Sir Richard Temple’s discourse’, HLQ, xx. 137.
- 137 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 199, 202.
- 138 Eg. 2539, f. 135.
- 139 Carte 36, f. 25.
- 140 PRO 31/3/117, pp. 31-2.
- 141 Clarendon 85, f. 434.
- 142 Add. 36916, f. 27; Carte 36, f. 89; Carte 59, ff. 258-9.
- 143 PRO 31/3/117, pp. 39-41.
- 144 PRO 31/3/117, p. 46.
- 145 PRO 31/3/117, pp. 39-41, 47.
- 146 HMC Somerset, 103; Add. 36916, f. 34.
- 147 CSP Dom. 1667-8, p. 89; G. de Krey, London and the Restoration, 97.
- 148 Pepys Diary, viii. 585.
- 149 Carte 217, f. 435; PRO 31/3/118, pp. 14-15.
- 150 Pepys Diary, ix. 8.
- 151 Verney ms mic. M636/22; Carte 47, f. 174.
- 152 Pepys Diary, viii. 577; PRO 31/3/117, p. 68.
- 153 PRO 31/3/118, pp. 17-18.
- 154 Tanner 45, f. 247.
- 155 PRO 31/3/118, pp. 33-7.
- 156 Verney ms mic. M636/22, M. Elmes to Sir R. Verney, 23 Jan. 1668; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 152-3, 312.
- 157 Pepys Diary, ix. 27.
- 158 Add. 36916, f. 58; Tanner 45, f. 254; Carte 222, ff. 178-9; Verney ms mic. M636/22, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 23 Jan. 1668.
- 159 Chapman, Great Villiers, 148.
- 160 Add. 36916, ff. 59-60; Verney ms mic. M636/22, [Sir N. Hobart] to Sir R. Verney, 24 Jan. 1668; Carte 36, f. 125.
- 161 Add. 36916, ff. 62, 63, 77; Verney ms mic. M636/22, M. Elmes to Sir R. Verney, 29 Jan. 1668.
- 162 PRO 31/3/118, pp. 51-2.
- 163 Pepys Diary, ix. 53; CSP Dom. 1667-8, pp. 238, 258-9.
- 164 PRO 31/3/118, pp. 65-6; Carte 220, ff. 354-5.
- 165 PRO 31/3/118, pp. 65-6, 70-2; Carte 220, ff. 344-6, 354-5.
- 166 PRO 31/3/118, pp. 75-6.
- 167 Carte 36, f. 195.
- 168 Carte 220, f. 356, Carte 36, f. 212; Verney ms mic. M636/22, Dr W. Denton to [Sir R Verney], 5 Mar. 1668; Pepys Diary, ix. 462.
- 169 Add. 36916, f. 85; Milward Diary, 230-1.
- 170 Add. 36916, ff. 86, 88.
- 171 Chapman, Great Villiers, 148; Pepys Diary, ix. 201.
- 172 PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/2, ff. 44-6; Stowe 303, ff. 12-19.
- 173 Swatland, 132-3.
- 174 LJ xii. 240-2; Stowe 303, ff. 22-31.
- 175 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/15; BL, 8122 g 9, ‘the duke of Buckingham’s speech on a late conference’; Leics. RO, DG 7 [Finch uncalendared] Box 4956 P.P. 18 (i) pp. 26-33.
- 176 Leics. RO, DG 7 [Finch uncalendared] Box 4956 P.P. 18 (i), pp. 33-6.
- 177 C. Roberts, ‘Sir Richard Temple’s Discourse’, HLQ, xx. 137-44; Add. 36916, ff. 101, 103; Verney ms mic. M636/22, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 28 May 1668; M636/22, Sir R. Burgoyne to Sir R. Verney, 1 June 1668; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 139.
- 178 Carte 215, Carlingford to Ormond, 13 June 1668.
- 179 Carte 48, f. 268.
- 180 Verney ms mic. M636/22, M. Elmes to Sir R. Verney, 9 July 1668; Add. 36916, ff. 111-12; Carte 51, f. 427.
- 181 Carte 36, f. 406; Verney ms mic. M636/22, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 25 July 1668.
- 182 Carte 215, f. 518, Carte 49, f. 596.
- 183 Pepys Diary, ix. 266, 295.
- 184 PRO 31/3/119, pp. 86-9.
- 185 PRO 31/3/119, pp. 91-3.
- 186 PRO 31/3/120, pp. 3-4; Pepys Diary, ix. 319.
- 187 PRO 31/3/120, pp. 10-11.
- 188 Tanner 44, f. 37, Tanner 314, f. 71; Add. 36916, f. 115.
- 189 Add. 36916, f. 114; Pepys Diary, ix. 341, 346-8.
- 190 Life of James II, i. 440.
- 191 Pepys Diary, ix. 347-8, 360.
- 192 Add. 36916, f. 119.
- 193 PRO 31/3/120, Colbert to Louis XIV, 14 Dec. 1668.
- 194 PRO 31/3/121, p. 9.
- 195 PRO 31/3/121, pp. 22-3.
- 196 PRO 31/3/121, p. 41. 47-8.
- 197 PRO 31/3/121, pp. 63-4; Add. 36916, f. 128.
- 198 Add. 36916, f. 129; PRO 31/3/121, p. 65.
- 199 Pepys Diary, ix. 473, 485; PRO 31/3/121, pp. 70-2.
- 200 PRO 31/3/121, pp. 81-3.
- 201 Add. 36916, ff. 134, 136; PRO 31/3/121, p. 100; PRO 31/3/122, p. 5.
- 202 Verney ms mic. M636/23, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 14 Apr. 1669.
- 203 PRO 31/3/122, p. 27; Verney ms mic. M636/23, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 27 May 1669.
- 204 NAS, GD 406/1/9790; PRO 31/3/122, p. 32.
- 205 PRO 31/3/122, pp. 68-9.
- 206 PRO 31/3/122, pp. 85-7.
- 207 PRO 31/3/122, p. 55.
- 208 PRO 31/3/122, pp. 74-5.
- 209 Verney ms mic. M636/23, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 28 July 1669; Carte 50, f. 58; PRO 31/3/122, pp. 98-9, 109-110.
- 210 Add. 36916, f. 141.
- 211 HMC Le Fleming, 66.
- 212 Verney ms mic. M636/23, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 20 Sept. 1669.
- 213 PRO 31/3/123, pp. 2-3; HMC Buccleuch, i. 441; DUL (Palace Green), Cosin letterbook 5a, 37; Verney ms mic. M636/23, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 22 Sept. 1669.
- 214 PRO 31/3/123, p. 9.
- 215 Verney ms mic. M636/23, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 13 Oct. 1669; PRO 31/3/123, p. 20.
- 216 PRO 31/3/123, pp. 30-1.
- 217 Verney ms mic. M636/23, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 16 Nov. 1669.
- 218 Harris, Sandwich, ii. 307-9.
- 219 PRO 31/3/123, pp. 57-8.
- 220 PRO 31/3/123, p. 63.
- 221 Life of Edward Montagu, ii. 311-12.
- 222 PRO 31/3/123, pp. 74-5.
- 223 PRO 31/3/124, p. 96; Grey, i. 174.
- 224 PRO 31/3/124, pp. 92-3.
- 225 Verney ms mic. M636/23, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 5 Jan. 1670, Sir R. to E. Verney, 6 Jan. 1670; Add. 36916, f. 161; CSP Dom. 1670, p. 4.
- 226 PRO 31/3/124, p. 101; Bodl: Ms Eng. lett. c. 210, f. 125.
- 227 Add. 36916, f. 162.
- 228 PRO 31/3/124, p. 118.
- 229 Add. 36916, f. 164; PRO 31/3/124, p. 123.
- 230 LJ xii. 291-2.
- 231 LJ xii. 316-17, 355-6, 366-7, 373-4, 379, 381-2, 400, 426-7, 439-40, 480-1, 490-1, 493-9.
- 232 PRO 31/3/124, pp. 146-7, 154-5.
- 233 PRO 31/3/124, pp. 157-8; Life of Edward Montagu, ii. 324-33.
- 234 LJ xii. 338, 339.
- 235 Add. 36916, ff. 179-80.
- 236 Carte 37, f. 572.
- 237 Williamson letters, i. i-ii; R. Hutton, ‘The making of the secret treaty of Dover, 1668-70’, HJ xxix. 308.
- 238 Verney ms mic. M636/23, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 4 June 1670.
- 239 Add. 36916, f. 183.
- 240 Verney ms mic. M636/24, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 14 July 1670.
- 241 PRO 31/3/125, p. 220; Add. 36916, f. 187; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 169.
- 242 Add. 36916, f. 189.
- 243 DUL (Palace Green), Cosin letterbook 5a, 84-5; Verney ms mic. M636/24, H. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 15 Sept. 1670.
- 244 PRO 31/3/125, p. 256.
- 245 Chapman, Great Villiers, 181-2.
- 246 PRO 31/3/125, p. 268.
- 247 NLS, ms 7004, f. 163.
- 248 PRO 31/3/125, p. 299.
- 249 A. Marshall, ‘Colonel Thomas Blood and the Restoration political scene’, HJ xxxii. 565-6.
- 250 PRO 31/3/126, pp. 23-24.
- 251 LJ xii. 499-501; HMC 9th Rep. pt. ii. 1.
- 252 Add. 36916, f. 214.
- 253 Add. 36916, f. 221.
- 254 Harris, Sandwich, ii. 334-5.
- 255 PRO 31/3/126, pp. 38-9.
- 256 PRO 31/3/126, pp. 45, 47.
- 257 Add. 36916, ff. 221, 222; Tanner 44, ff. 256, 259.
- 258 F. Melton, ‘A Rake refinanced: the fortune of George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, 1671-1685’, HLQ, li. 301.
- 259 Buckingham writings, eds. Hume and Love, i. p. xli; HLQ, li. 300.
- 260 PRO 31/3/126, pp. 65, 67, 74-5 Verney ms mic. M636/24, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 14 Sept. 1671, M636/24, Dr Denton to Sir R. Verney, 22 Sept. 1671, M636/24, Dr Denton to Sir R. Verney, 2 Oct. 1671.
- 261 Add. 36916, f. 232.
- 262 PRO 31/3/126, p. 119; Verney ms mic. M636/24, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 16 Nov. 1671, M636/24, Sir R. to E. Verney, 28 Dec. 1671; Add. 36916, f. 235.
- 263 Hatton corresp. i. 76.
- 264 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 194-5, 196-7; Buckingham writings, eds. Hume and Love, i. p. xxxvii; TNA, SP 14/177 ff. 12, 22.
- 265 Add. 28040, f. 6; Verney ms mic. M636/25, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 22 June 1672; Hatton corresp. i. 93.
- 266 W.D. Christie, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, ii. 86.
- 267 PRO 31/3/127, p. 93.
- 268 PRO 31/3/127, p. 101; SP 177, f. 82, 84v.
- 269 PRO 31/3/128, pp. 10, 11, 13.
- 270 Verney ms mic. M636/25, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 24 Feb. 1673.
- 271 Buckingham writings, eds. Hume and Love, ii. 37-48.
- 272 LJ xii. 543-4, 548-50.
- 273 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 202-3; Burnet, History ed. Airy, ii. 11; HMC Le Fleming, 100-1; SP 177 f. 143.
- 274 PRO 31/3/128, pp. 76-7.
- 275 Reresby Mems. 88.
- 276 PRO 31/3/128, p. 73; NLS, ms 7006, f. 25.
- 277 Verney ms mic. M636/26, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 9 June 1673.
- 278 PRO 31/3/128, pp. 82, 88-90; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 205.
- 279 Verney ms mic. M636/26, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 17 July 1673.
- 280 Carte 50, f. 100.
- 281 HMC 9th Rep. 449.
- 282 HMC 9th Rep. 449.
- 283 HP Commons 1660-90, i. 489-90.
- 284 PRO 31/3/129, ff. 36, 47-52.
- 285 PRO 31/3/129, ff. 74-6.
- 286 Chapman, Great Villiers, 204.
- 287 Add. 70119, T. to Sir E. Harley, 5 Dec. 1673; Add. 25117, f. 153; Verney ms mic. M636/27, E. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 8 Dec. 1673.
- 288 PRO 31/3/130, ff. 1-4.
- 289 PRO 31/3/130, ff. 16-17.
- 290 Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 8 Jan. 1674; Add. 25117, f. 164; Bodl: Tanner 42, f. 71.
- 291 PRO 31/3/130, ff. 31-3, 38-40; PA, HL/PO/RO/1/54 PA.
- 292 Works of his grace, George Villiers, late duke of Buckingham, 2 vols, (1715), i. 198.
- 293 Grey, Debates, ix. 253-80; NLW, Wynn of Gwydir, 2676; Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 15 Jan. 1674, 7 Feb. 1674; Add. 28040, f. 9.
- 294 LJ xii. 628; PRO 31/3/130, ff. 67-76.
- 295 Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 12 Feb. 1674.
- 296 PRO 31/3/130, ff. 79-84,107-10, 115.
- 297 Bodl. ms Film 293, Folger lib. Newdigate mss, LC 22, 23; Add. 25117, f. 172; Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 9 Mar. 1674, M636/28, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 20 Mar. 1674; Add. 33589, ff. 236-7.
- 298 Eg. 3328, ff. 107-10.
- 299 PRO 31/3/130, ff. 118-120.
- 300 Reresby Mems. 93.
- 301 PRO 31/3/131, ff. 17-20.
- 302 Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 13 July 1674.
- 303 Carte 38, ff. 179, 221; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 191.
- 304 CBS, D 135/A1/3/4.
- 305 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 223; Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, iii. 167; J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Toleration and other Writings ed. J.R. and P. Milton, 372; A. Marvell, Account of the Growth of Popery (1678), 31.
- 306 Two Speeches. I. The Earl of Shafsbury’s Speech… II. The D. of Buckingham’s Speech (1675), 13.
- 307 Verney ms mic. M636/29, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 22 Nov. 1675; Carte 72, ff. 292-3.
- 308 LJ xiii. 33; Bodl. ms Eng. hist. e. 710, ff. 14-15.
- 309 HMC Lords, n.s. xi. 495; CSP Dom. 1675-6, pp. 404, 456; BL, LR 41 d 12, State Tracts being a collection of several treatises relating to the government, (1693); Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 227.
- 310 PRO 31/3/132, ff. 44-5.
- 311 Verney ms mic. M636/29, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 17 Feb. 1676; PRO 31/3/132, ff. 61-74.
- 312 PRO 31/3/132, ff. 120-1.
- 313 PRO 31/3/133, ff. 11-13; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 228-9; G. de Krey, London and the Restoration, 144-5, 148; CSP Dom. 1676-7, p. 194.
- 314 CSP Dom. 1676-7, pp. 352-3.
- 315 Haley, Shaftesbury, 409; Hatton corresp. i. 133; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss File N, folder 10810; T. Harris, ‘Green Ribbon Club’, ODNB.
- 316 HMC Rutland, ii. 37.
- 317 Haley, Shaftesbury, 414-16.
- 318 HMC Rutland, ii. 38-9; Bodl. ms Eng. misc. c. 300, ff. 127-32.
- 319 HMC Rutland, ii. 38-9.
- 320 Carte 79, ff. 37-8; Carte 80, ff. 785-7; Add. 32095, ff. 1-20; Browning, Danby, i. 215.
- 321 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 6, Box 1, folder 23, anon to ‘My Lord’, 16 Feb. 1677.
- 322 Verney ms mic. M636/30, J. Verney to E. Verney, 19 Feb. 1677.
- 323 HMC Rutland, ii. 38-9.
- 324 Add. 27872, ff. 30-2; Tanner 285, f. 171; ms Eng. hist. c. 300, ff. 135-6.
- 325 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 233.
- 326 Verney ms mic. M636/30, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 19 Mar. 1677.
- 327 LJ xiii. 60.
- 328 Verney ms mic. M636/30, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 23 Mar. 1677.
- 329 Haley, ‘Shaftesbury&rsquos Lists of Lay Peers, 1677-8’, BIHR, xliii. 92-5.
- 330 Marvell ed. Margoliouth, ii. 194.
- 331 Savile Corresp. 50; Add. 70120, A. Marvell to Sir E. Harley, 30 June 1677.
- 332 Verney ms mic. M636/30, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 23 July 1677.
- 333 HMC Portland, iii. 355; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 237-8.
- 334 Carte 79, ff. 112-13, 114. Verney ms mic. M636/30, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 2 Aug. 1677; Hatton corresp. i. 157.
- 335 Carte 228, ff. 90, 106; Add. 33278, f. 52.
- 336 Morrice, Ent’ring bk. ii. 41; Verney ms mic. M636/31, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 31 Jan. 1678.
- 337 LJ xiii. 183, 191.
- 338 NLI, ms 2371, no. 4196; HEHL, HM 30314 (100).
- 339 HMC Ormond, n.s. iv. 106.
- 340 Browning, Danby, ii. 344.
- 341 Add. 39757, f. 102.
- 342 HEEL, HA Parliament Box 4 (8); Browning, Danby, i. 268; HMC Ormonde n.s. iv. 416.
- 343 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/19.
- 344 Carte 103, f. 228.
- 345 HEHL, HM 30315 (153, 155).
- 346 Carte 103, f. 225-6, 227.
- 347 Savile Corresp. 69-70.
- 348 Savile Corresp. 73.
- 349 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 240, 243, 246.
- 350 Herts. ALS, DE/P/F24, Shaftesbury to Sir William Cowper, 8 Sept. 1678.
- 351 HEHL, HM 30315 (156); Carte 103, f. 226.
- 352 LJ xiii. 306; HMC Lords i. 45-6.
- 353 HMC Lords i. 46; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 243-4.
- 354 Verney ms mic. M636/32, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 1 Nov. 1678.
- 355 CSP Dom. 1683 (Jan. to June), p. 125.
- 356 HMC Lords i. 99.
- 357 LJ xiii. 385-7.
- 358 Carte 81, f. 405; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 245.
- 359 Add. 28047, ff. 47-8; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 248.
- 360 Carte 79, f. 179.
- 361 Verney ms mic. M636/32, Sir R. Verney to J. Verney, 5 Feb. 1679, M636/32, A. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 6 Feb. 1679, M636/32, E. to J. Verney, 13 Feb. 1679.
- 362 Verney ms mic. M636/32, Sir R. Verney to [?], 10 Mar. 1679.
- 363 Knights, Pols and Opinion, 138; HMC Lindsey, 403; Verney ms mic. M636/32, E. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 13 Mar. 1679; Verney ms mic. M636/32, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 20 Mar. 1679; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 247.
- 364 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 248; Verney ms mic. M636/32, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 19 May 1679.
- 365 Carte 81, ff. 561 ff.
- 366 LJ xiii. 586-7, 594.
- 367 Verney ms mic. M636/33, Sir R. Verney to J. Verney, 14 July 1679, M636/33, Sir R. to J. Verney, 17 July 1679, M636/33, Sir R. to J. Verney, 28 July 1679, M636/33, Dr Denton to Sir R. Verney, 6 Aug. 1679.
- 368 Verney ms mic. M636/33, W. Grosvenor to J. Verney, 20 Aug. 1679, M636/33, W. Grosvenor to J. Verney, 21 Aug. 1679; HP Commons 1660-90, i. 136.
- 369 Verney ms mic. M636/33, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 8 Sept. 1679.
- 370 Knights, Pols. and Opinion, 221; HP Commons 1660-90, i. 313.
- 371 Glos. Archives, Lloyd Baker mss, D3549/2/2/1, no. 31; Knights, Pols. and Opinion, 221.
- 372 Hatton corresp. i. 194; Verney ms mic. M636/33, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 22 Sept. 1679, M636/33, J. to Sir R. Verney, 18 Sept. 1679, M636/33, J. to Sir R. Verney, 16 Oct. 1679; Carte 228, f. 157; Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 251.
- 373 Carte 228, f. 146; Verney ms mic. M636/34, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 15 Jan. 1680.
- 374 HMC Lords i. 172-93; Add. 75360, Sir W. Hickman to Halifax, 1 Feb. 1680; A. Marshall, ‘Colonel Thomas Blood’, HJ xxxii. 572.
- 375 HMC Lindsey, 419.
- 376 A. Marshall, ‘Colonel Thomas Blood’, 572.
- 377 Morrice, Ent’ring bk. ii. 227; Add. 75360, Sir W. Hickman to Halifax, 8 May 1680.
- 378 HMC Finch, ii. 75-8.
- 379 Add. 75360, Sir W. Hickman to Halifax, 22 May 1680.
- 380 Verney ms mic. M636/34, Sir R. Verney to J. Verney, 12 July 1680, M636/34, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 17 July 1680, M636/34, Sir R. to J. Verney, 22 July 1680, M636/34, E. to J. Verney, 28 Oct. 1680.
- 381 Hatton corresp. i. 238.
- 382 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 250.
- 383 LJ xiii. 682-7, 710-11, 723-6.
- 384 Carte 81, f. 669; LJ xiii. 683.
- 385 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 374-5.
- 386 Bodl. Rawl. A183, f. 62.
- 387 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 257.
- 388 G. de Krey, London and the Restoration, 209, 212, 227.
- 389 Verney ms mic. M636/35, Sir R. Temple to Sir R. Verney, 3 Feb. 1681, M636/35, Sir R. Verney to Sir R. Temple, 4 Feb. 1681, M636/35, Sir R. Verney to Sir R. Temple, 5 Feb. 1681, M636/35, Sir R. Verney to Sir R. Temple, 7 Feb. 1681, M636/35, Sir R. Verney to Sir R. Temple, 9 Feb. 1681, M636/35, W. Coleman to Sir R. Verney, 14 Feb. 1681; Wood, Life and Times, ii. 516.
- 390 Carte 222, ff. 248-9, 254; HP Commons 1660-90, i. 416; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 1, Box 1, folder 6, Yard to Poley, 10 Feb. 1681 Beinecke Lib. Osborne mss, Danby pprs. box 2; Wood, Life and Times, ii. 522.
- 391 Carte 222, f. 264; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 231-2; Add. 28051, ff. 105-6; Verney ms mic. M636/35, Sir R. Temple to Sir R. Verney, 17 July 1681.
- 392 Verney ms mic. M636/35, Sir R. Verney to H. Howard, 20 July 1681.
- 393 Verney ms mic. M636/35, Sir R. Temple to Sir R. Verney, 29 July 1681; M636/35, Sir R. Verney to Sir R. Temple, 1 Aug. 1681.
- 394 Verney ms mic. M636/35, Sir R. Verney to H. Howard, 5 Aug. 1681, M636/35, H. Howard to Sir R. Verney, 14 Sept. 1681, M636/36, Sir R. Verney to H. Howard, 29 Sept. 1681, M636/39, H. Howard to Sir R. Verney, 25 Dec. 1684.
- 395 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 6, Box 1, folder 18, Danby to the King, 27 June 1681.
- 396 HMC Ormond, n.s. vi. 95-6; Knights, 290.
- 397 POAS, ii. 497; Haley, Shaftesbury, 679; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 146, 165, 208.
- 398 NAS, GD 157/2681/25; Verney ms mic. M636/37, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 14 Mar. 1683.
- 399 Add. 75361, Strafford to Halifax, 22 May 1683; Bodl. ms Eng. lett. d. 72, f. 37.
- 400 Carte 216, f. 319.
- 401 HMC Rutland, ii. 82.
- 402 Belvoir Castle mss, letters xix, f. 218; HMC Rutland, ii. 107.
- 403 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 255.
- 404 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 4-5; Buckingham writings, eds. Hume and Love, ii. 87-9, 92-5.
- 405 NAS, GD 406/1/10,038.
- 406 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 42, ff. 131, 141, 157, 159.
- 407 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 23; Verney ms mic. M636/41, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 21 Apr. 1687; Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 42, f. 171; NAS, GD 406/1/3447; VCH North Yorks. i. 511-17.
- 408 Longeat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 42, ff. 174, 210-11; NAS, GD 406/1/3473.
- 409 Add. 75376, f. 62; Add. 28569, f. 63.
- 410 D. Mateer, ‘Hugh Davis’s commonplace book: a new source of 17th-century song’, Royal Musical Assoc. Chronicle, xxxii (1999), 67-8.
- 411 CSP Dom. 1686-7, p. 413.
- 412 NAS, GD 406/1/3467.
- 413 Verney ms mic. M636/41, Lady P. Osborne to Sir R. Verney, 26 Apr. 1687; Add. 70081, newsletter, 3 Jan. 1688.
- 414 Yardley, ‘Buckingham’, 313, 320; Verney ms mic. M636/47, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 4 Oct. 1693, M636/48, Sir R. to J. Verney, 11 Aug. 1695.
- 415 Buckingham writings, eds. Hume and Love, ii. 226.