“Aye, your Grace,” agreed one elderly goldsmith. “The country has been too long under the mismanagement of incompetent old men.”
Another leaned forward and hammered his fist on the table. “When Parliament convenes next time he’ll be impeached! We’ll call the old rascal to task for his crimes!”
“But, gentlemen,” protested Buckingham mildly, gnawing at his mutton-joint, “the Chancellor has handled matters as honestly and as capably as his faculties would permit.”
There was a storm of protest at this. “Honest! Why, the old dotard’s bled us white! Where else did he get the money for that palace he’s building!”
“He’s been as great a tyrant as Oliver!”
“His daughter’s marriage to the Duke made him think he was a Stuart!”
“He hates the Commons!”
“He’s always been in cabal with the bishops!”
“He’s the greatest villain in England! Your Grace is too generous!”
Buckingham smiled and made a faint deprecatory gesture, shrugging his broad shoulders. “I’m no match for you, gentlemen. It seems I’m outnumbered.”
He had not yet finished his meal when the King’s officers arrived—he had sent an earlier messenger than the little boy, whom he had merely used as a dramatic device to arouse their interest and sympathies. Two of them entered the room, out of breath and excited, obviously very much surprised to find his Grace actually sitting there, eating and drinking and talking. They approached to place him under arrest, but he gave them a negligent wave of his hand.
“Give me leave to finish my dinner, sirs. I’ll be with you presently.”
Their eyes consulted one another, dubiously, but after hesitating a moment they backed off and stood meekly waiting. When he was done he wiped his mouth, washed off his fork and put the case back into his pocket, shoved aside his pewter-plate and got up. “Well, gentlemen, I go now—to surrender myself.”
“God go with your Grace!”
As he started for the door the two officers sprang forward and would have taken his arms, but he motioned them aside. “I can walk unassisted, sirs.” Crestfallen, they trailed after him.
There was an explosion of shouts and cheers as Buckingham appeared in the doorway, grinning broadly and raising one hand to them in greeting. The crowd in the street had now grown to monstrous size. It was packed from wall to wall and for a distance of several hundred yards in both directions all traffic had come to a standstill. Coaches were stalled, porters and car-men and sedan-chair carriers waited with more patience than usual; all nearby windows and balconies were full. This man, accused of treason against King and country, had become the nation’s hero: because he was out of favour at Court he was the one courtier they did not blame for all their recent and present troubles.
There was a coach waiting for him at the door and Buckingham climbed into it. It was but little over half-a-mile to the Tower and all along the way he was greeted with clamorous shouts and cries. Hands reached out to touch his coach; little boys ran in his wake; girls flung flowers before him. The King himself had not been greeted more enthusiastically when he had returned to London seven years before.
“Don’t worry yourselves, good people!” shouted Buckingham. “I’ll be out in a trice!”
But at Court they thought otherwise and in the Groom Porter’s lodgings they were betting great odds that the Duke would lose his head. The King had stripped him of his offices and bestowed most of them elsewhere. His enemies, and they were numerous and powerful, had been unceasingly active. He had, however, at least one ardent supporter—his cousin, Castlemaine.
Just three days earlier Barbara and her woman Wilson had been driving along Edgware Road in the early evening, returning from Hyde Park. All at once a lame tattered old beggar appeared from some hiding-place and dragged himself before the coach, forcing it to stop. The coachman, swearing furiously, leaned down to strike him with his whip but before he could do so the beggar had reached the open window and was hanging onto the door, holding a dirty palm toward the Countess.
“Please, your Ladyship,” he whined. “Give alms to the poor!”
“Get out of here, you stinking wretch!” cried Barbara. “Throw him a shilling, Wilson!”
The beggar hung on stubbornly, though the coach had started to move again. “Your Ladyship seems mighty stingy for one who wears thirty thousand pound in pearls to a play-house.”
Barbara glared at him swiftly, her eyes darkened to purple. “How dare you speak to me thus? I’ll have you kicked and beaten!” She gave his wrist a sudden hard rap with her fan. “Get off there, you rogue!” She opened her mouth and let out a furious yell. “Harvey! Harvey, stop this coach, d’ye hear!”
The coachman hauled at his reins and as the wheels were slowing the beggar gave her a grin, displaying two rows of beautiful teeth. “Never mind, my lady. Keep your shilling. Here—I’ll give you something, instead.” He tossed a folded paper into her lap. “Read it, as you value your life.” And then, as the coach stopped and the footmen ran to grab him he dodged swiftly, no longer limping, and was gone. He turned once to thumb his nose at them.
Barbara watched him running away, glanced at the paper in her lap and then suddenly unfolded it and began to read. “Pox on this life I’m leading,” she whispered. “Expect me in two or three days. And see that you do your part. B.” She gave a gasp and a little cry and leaned forward, but he was gone.
Barbara was scared. She had heard the rumours too—his Majesty’s patience was at an end and this time Buckingham must suffer for his treacherous impertinence. Exile was the easiest punishment they saw for him. And she knew her cousin’s malice well enough to realize that if he went down he would drag her with him. Every time she saw Charles she begged him, frantically, to believe that the Duke was innocent, that it was a plot of his enemies to ruin him. But he paid her scant attention, merely asking her with lazy amusement why she should be so concerned for a man who had done her very little good and some harm.
“He’s my cousin, that’s why! I can’t see him abused by scoundrels!”
“I think the Duke can hold his own with any scoundrel that ever wore a head. Don’t trouble yourself for him.”
“Then you will hear him out and forgive him?”
“I’ll hear him out, but what will happen after that I can’t say. I’d like to see how well he can defend himself—and I don’t doubt he’ll entertain us with some very ingenious tale.”
“How can he defend himself? What chance has he got? Every man in your council wants to see him lose his head!”
“And I doubt not he has similar hopes for them.”
The hearing was set for the next day and Barbara was determined to get some kind of promise from him, though she knew that the King regarded promises much as he did women—it should not be too much trouble to keep them. As usual, she sought to gain her ends by the means to which he was least amenable.
“But Buckingham’s innocent, Sire, I know he is! Oh, don’t let them trick you! Don’t let them force you to prosecute him!”
Charles looked at her sharply. He had never, in his life, done anything he actually did not want to do, though he had done many things to which he was indifferent in order to buy his own peace or something else he wanted. But he had endured years of stubborn conflict with a domineering mother and hated the mere suggestion that he was easily led. Barbara knew that.