The Wits and Beaux of Society Part 4

And now the fruits of his adversity, not, we hope, too late, began to appear. Like Lord Rochester, who had ordered all his immoral works to be burnt, Buckingham now wished to retrieve the past. In 1685 he wrote the religious works which form so striking a contrast with his other productions.

That he had been up to the very time of his ruin perfectly impervious to remorse, dead also to shame, is amply manifested by his conduct soon after his duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury.

Sir George Etherege had brought out a new play at the Duke of York's Theatre. It was called, 'She Would if she Could.' Plays in those days began at what we now consider our luncheon hour. Though Pepys arrived at the theatre on this occasion at two o'clock--his wife having gone before--about a thousand people had then been put back from the pit. At last, seeing his wife in the eighteen-penny-box, Samuel 'made shift' to get there and there saw, 'but lord!' (his own words are inimitable) 'how dull, and how silly the play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few people pleased in it. The king was there; but I sat mightily behind, and could see but little, and hear not at all. The play being done, I went into the pit to look for my wife, it being dark and raining, but could not find her; and so staid, going between the two doors and through the pit an hour and a half, I think, after the play was done; the people staying there till the rain was over, and to talk to one another. And among the rest, here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly in the pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley, and Etheridge the poet, the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour, and had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, nor could so much as sing a ketch in it; and so was mightily concerned, while all the rest did, through the whole pit, blame the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something very roguish and witty; but the design of the play, and end, mighty insipid.'

Buckingham had held out to his Puritan friends the hope of his conversion for some years; and when they attempted to convert him, he had appointed a time for them to finish their work. They kept their promise, and discovered him in the most profligate society. It was indeed impossible to know in what directions his fancies might take him, when we find him believing in the predictions of a poor fellow in a wretched lodging near Tower Hill, who, having cast his nativity, a.s.sured the duke he would be king.

He had continued for years to live with the Countess of Shrewsbury, and two months after her husband's death, had taken her to his home. Then, at last, the d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham indignantly observed, that she and the countess could not possibly live together. 'So I thought, madam,'

was the reply. 'I have therefore ordered your coach to take you to your father's.' It has been a.s.serted that Dr. Sprat, the duke's chaplain, actually married him to Lady Shrewsbury, and that his legal wife was thenceforth styled 'The d.u.c.h.ess-dowager.'

He retreated with his mistress to Claverdon, near Windsor, situated on the summit of a hill which is washed by the Thames. It is a n.o.ble building, with a great terrace in front, under which are twenty-six niches, in which Buckingham had intended to place twenty-six statues as large as life; and in the middle is an alcove with stairs. Here he lived with the infamous countess, by whom he had a son, whom he styled Earl of Coventry, (his second t.i.tle,) and who died an infant.

One lingers still over the social career of one whom Louis XIV. called 'the only English gentleman he had ever seen.' A capital retort was made to Buckingham by the Princess of Orange, during an interview, when he stopped at the Hague, between her and the Duke. He was trying diplomatically to convince her of the affection of England for the States. 'We do not,' he said, 'use Holland like a mistress, we love her as a wife.' '_Vraiment je crois que vous nous aimez comme vous aimez la votre_,' was the sharp and clever answer.

On the death of Charles II., in 1685, Buckingham retired to the small remnant of his Yorkshire estates. His debts were now set down at the sum of 140,000. They were liquidated by the sale of his estates. He took kindly to a country life, to the surprise of his old comrade in pleasure, Etherege. 'I have heard the news,' that wit cried, alluding to this change, 'with no less astonishment than if I had been told that the Pope had begun to wear a periwig and had turned beau in the seventy-fourth year of his age!'

Father Petre and Father Fitzgerald were sent by James II. to convert the duke to Popery. The following anecdote is told of their conference with the dying sinner:--'We deny,' said the Jesuit Petre, 'that any one can be saved out of our Church. Your grace allows that our people may be saved.'--'No,' said the duke, 'I make no doubt you will all be d.a.m.ned to a man!' 'Sir,' said the father, 'I cannot argue with a person so void of all charity.'--'I did not expect, my reverend father,' said the duke, 'such a reproach from you, whose whole reasoning was founded on the very same instance of want of charity to yourself.'

Buckingham's death took place at Helmsby, in Yorkshire, and the immediate cause was an ague and fever, owing to having sat down on the wet gra.s.s after fox-hunting. Pope has given the following forcible, but inaccurate account of his last hours, and the place in which they were pa.s.sed:--

'In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, The floors of plaster and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw; The George and Garter dangling from that bed, Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies:--alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure and that soul of whim!

Gallant and gay, in Claverdon's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love, Or, just as gay, at council in a ring Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry King.

No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more, Then victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.'

Far from expiring in the 'worst inn's worst room,' the duke breathed his last in Kirby Moorside, in a house which had once been the best in the place. Brian Fairfax, who loved this brilliant reprobate, has left the only authentic account on record of his last hours.

The night previous to the duke's death Fairfax had received a message from him desiring him to prepare a bed for him in his house, Bishop Hill, in York. The next day, however, Fairfax was sent for to his master, whom he found dying. He was speechless, but gave the afflicted servant an earnest look of recognition.

The Earl of Arran, son of the Duke of Hamilton, and a gentleman of the neighbourhood, stood by his bedside. He had then received the Holy Communion from a neighbouring clergyman of the Established Church. When the minister came it is said that he inquired of the duke what religion he professed. 'It is,' replied the dying man, 'an insignificant question, for I have been a shame and a disgrace to all religions: if you can do me any good, pray do.' When a Popish priest had been mentioned to him, he answered vehemently, 'No, no!'

He was in a very low state when Lord Arran had found him. But though that n.o.bleman saw death in his looks, the duke said he 'felt so well at heart that he knew he could be in no danger.'

He appeared to have had inflammation in the bowels, which ended in mortification. He begged of Lord Arran to stay with him. The house seems to have been in a most miserable condition, for in a letter from Lord Arran to Dr. Sprat, he says, 'I confess it made my heart bleed to see the Duke of Buckingham in so pitiful a place, and so bad a condition, and what made it worse, he was not at all sensible of it, for he thought in a day or two he should be well; and when we reminded him of his condition, he said it was not as we apprehended. So I sent for a worthy gentleman, Mr. Gibson, to be a.s.sistant to me in this work; so we jointly represented his condition to him, who I saw was at first very uneasy; but I think we should not have discharged the duties of honest men if we had suffered him to go out of this world without desiring him to prepare for death.' The duke joined heartily in the beautiful prayers for the dying, of our Church, and yet there was a sort of selfishness and indifference to others manifest even at the last.

'Mr. Gibson,' writes Lord Arran, 'asked him if he had made a will, or if he would declare who was to be his heir? but to the first, he answered he had made none; and to the last, whoever was named he answered, "No."

First, my lady d.u.c.h.ess was named, and then I think almost everybody that had any relation to him, but his answer always was, "No." I did fully represent my lady d.u.c.h.ess' condition to him, but nothing that was said to him could make him come to any point.'

In this 'retired corner,' as Lord Arran terms it, did the former wit and beau, the once brave and fine cavalier, the reckless plotter in after-life, end his existence. His body was removed to Helmsby Castle, there to wait the d.u.c.h.ess' pleasure, being meantime embalmed. Not one farthing could his steward produce to defray his burial. His George and blue ribbon were sent to the King James, with an account of his death.

In Kirby Moorside the following entry in the register of burials records the event, which is so replete with a singular retributive justice--so const.i.tuted to impress and sadden the mind:--

'Georges Villus Lord dooke of Buckingham.'

He left scarcely a friend to mourn his life; for to no man had he been true. He died on the 16th of April according to some accounts; according to others, on the third of that month, 1687, in the sixty-first year of his age. His body, after being embalmed, was deposited in the family vault in Henry VII.'s chapel.[7] He left no children, and his t.i.tle was therefore extinct. The d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham, of whom Brian Fairfax remarks, 'that if she had none of the vanities, she had none of the vices of the court,' survived him several years. She died in 1705, at the age of sixty-six, and was buried in the vault of the Villiers'

family, in the chapel of Henry VII.

Such was the extinction of all the magnificence and intellectual ascendency that at one time centred in the great and gifted family of Villiers.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Dryden.]

[Footnote 2: The day after the battle at Kingston, the Duke's estates were confiscated. (8th July, 1648.)--Nichols's History of Leicestershire, iii. 213; who also says that the Duke offered marriage to one of the daughters of Cromwell, but was refused. He went abroad in 1648, but returned with Charles II. to Scotland in 1650, and again escaped to France after the battle of Worcester, 1651. The sale of the pictures would seem to have commenced during his first exile.]

[Footnote 3: Sir George Villiers's second wife was Mary, daughter of Antony Beaumont, Esq., of Glenfield, (Nichols's Leicestershire, iii.

193,) who was son of Wm. Beaumont, Esq., of Cole Orton. She afterwards was married successively to Sir Wm. Rayner and Sir Thomas Compton, and was created Countess of Buckingham in 1618.]

[Footnote 4: This incident is taken from Madame Dunois' Memoirs, part i.

p. 86.]

[Footnote 5: The duke became Master of the Horse in 1688; he paid 20,000 to the Duke of Albemarle for the post.]

[Footnote 6: The duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury took place 17th January, 1667-8.]

[Footnote 7: Brian Fairfax states, that at his death (the Duke of Buckingham's) he charged his debts on his estate, leaving much more than enough to cover them. By the register of Westminster Abbey it appears that he was buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel, 7th June, 1687.]

COUNT DE GRAMMONT, ST. EVREMOND, AND LORD ROCHESTER.

De Grammont's Choice.--His Influence with Turenne.--The Church or the Army?--An Adventure at Lyons.--A brilliant Idea.--De Grammont's Generosity.--A Horse 'for the Cards.'--Knight-Cicisbeism.--De Grammont's first Love.--His Witty Attacks on Mazarin.--Anne Lucie de la Mothe Houdancourt.--Beset with Snares.--De Grammont's Visits to England.--Charles II.--The Court of Charles II.--Introduction of Country-dances.--Norman Peculiarities.--St. Evremond, the Handsome Norman.--The most Beautiful Woman in Europe.--Hortense Mancini's Adventures.--Madame Mazarin's House at Chelsea.--Anecdote of Lord Dorset.--Lord Rochester in his Zenith.--His Courage and Wit.--Rochester's Pranks in the City.--Credulity, Past and Present.--'Dr. Bendo,' and La Belle Jennings.--La Triste Heritiere.--Elizabeth, Countess of Rochester.--Retribution and Reformation.--Conversion.--Beaux without Wit.--Little Jermyn.--An Incomparable Beauty.--Anthony Hamilton, De Grammont's Biographer.--The Three Courts.--'La Belle Hamilton.'--Sir Peter Lely's Portrait of her.--The Household Deity of Whitehall.--Who shall have the Caleche?--A Chaplain in Livery.--De Grammont's Last Hours.--What might he not have been?

It has been observed by a French critic, that the Memoires de Grammont afford the truest specimens of French character in our language. To this it may be added, that the subject of that animated narrative was most completely French in principle, in intelligence, in wit that hesitated at nothing, in spirits that were never daunted, and in that incessant activity which is characteristic of his countrymen. Grammont, it was said, 'slept neither night nor day;' his life was one scene of incessant excitement.

His father, supposed to have been the natural son of Henry the Great, of France, did not suppress that fact, but desired to publish it: for the morals of his time were so depraved, that it was thought to be more honourable to be the illegitimate son of a king than the lawful child of lowlier parents. Born in the Castle of Semeac, on the banks of the Garonne, the fame of two fair ancestresses, Corisande and Menadame, had ent.i.tled the family of De Grammont to expect in each successive member an inheritance of beauty. Wit, courage, good nature, a charming address, and boundless a.s.surance, were the heritage of Philibert de Grammont.

Beauty was not in his possession; good nature, a more popular quality, he had in abundance:

'His wit to scandal never stooping, His mirth ne'er to buffoonery drooping.'

As Philibert grew up, the two aristocratic professions of France were presented for his choice: the army, or the church. Neither of these vocations const.i.tutes now the ambition of the high-born in France: the church, to a certain extent, retains its _prestige_, but the army, ever since officers have risen from the ranks, does not comprise the same cla.s.s of men as in England. In the reign of Louis XIII., when De Grammont lived it was otherwise. All political power was vested in the church. Richelieu was, to all purposes, the ruler of France, the dictator of Europe; and, with regard to the church, great men, at the head of military affairs, were daily proving to the world, how much intelligence could effect with a small numerical power. Young men took one course or another: the sway of the cabinet, on the one hand, tempted them to the church; the brilliant exploits of Turenne, and of Conde, on the other, led them to the camp. It was merely the difference of dress between the two that const.i.tuted the distinction: the soldier might be as pious as the priest, the priest was sure to be as worldly as the soldier; the soldier might have ecclesiastical preferment; the priest sometimes turned out to fight.

Philibert de Grammont chose to be a soldier. He was styled the Chevalier de Grammont, according to custom, his father being still living. He fought under Turenne, at the siege of Trino. The army in which he served was beleaguering that city when the gay youth from the banks of the Garonne joined it, to aid it not so much by his valour as by the fun, the raillery, the off-hand anecdote, the ready, hearty companionship which lightened the soldier's life in the trenches: adieu to impatience, to despair, even to gravity. The very generals could not maintain their seriousness when the light-hearted De Grammont uttered a repartee--

'Sworn enemy to all long speeches, Lively and brilliant, frank and free, Author of many a repartee: Remember, over all, that he Was not renowned for storming breaches.'

Where he came, all was sunshine, yet there breathed not a colder, graver man than the Calvinist Turenne: modest, serious, somewhat hard, he gave the young n.o.bility who served under him no quarter in their shortcomings; but a word, a look, from De Grammont could make him, _malgre lui_, unbend. The gay chevalier's white charger's prancing, its gallant rider foremost in every peril, were not forgotten in after-times, when De Grammont, in extreme old age, chatted over the achievements and pleasures of his youth.

Amongst those who courted his society in Turenne's army was Matta, a soldier of simple manners, hard habits, and handsome person, joined to a candid, honest nature. He soon persuaded De Grammont to share his quarters, and there they gave splendid entertainments, which, Frenchman-like, De Grammont paid for out of the successes of the gaming-tables. But chances were against them; the two officers were at the mercy of their _maitre d'hotel_, who asked for money. One day, when De Grammont came home sooner than usual, he found Matta fast asleep.

Whilst De Grammont stood looking at him, he awoke, and burst into a violent fit of laughter.

'What is the matter?' cried the chevalier.

'Faith, chevalier,' answered Matta, 'I was dreaming that we had sent away our _maitre d'hotel_, and were resolved to live like our neighbours for the rest of the campaign.'

'Poor fellow!' cried De Grammont. 'So, you are knocked down at once: what would have become of you if you had been reduced to the situation I was in at Lyons, four days before I came here? Come, I will tell you all about it.'

'Begin a little farther back,' cried Matta, 'and tell me about the manner in which you first paid your respects to Cardinal Richelieu. Lay aside your pranks as a child, your genealogy, and all your ancestors together; you cannot know anything about them.'