Letter from Sir Edward Harwood to Sir Dudley Carleton. State Paper Office. Domestic, 1618-19.
The office of High Admiral was enjoyed by Buckingham to the close of his short life; and was maintained by energy such as had not been witnessed in the administration of naval affairs since the days of Queen Elizabeth. Little credit has been assigned to him hitherto by historians for his unwearied endeavours, not only to restore, but actually to create a navy; but the recent discoveries in the State Paper Office place his merits in this important sphere beyond dispute, as will hereafter be shown.[257]
Birch’s MSS., British Museum, 4173. Letter of Oct. 3, 1618.
He served, indeed, a master, whose confidence in him, based, perhaps, on more solid grounds than have been allowed, it was no easy task to disturb.
Buckingham would have acted wisely, had he, at this most critical period of his life, remembered the counsels given by Bacon in his famous “Letter to Sir George Villiers.” “You are as a new risen star, and the eyes of all men are upon you; let not your own negligence make you fall like a meteor.” But his youth, his sudden rise to fortune, his mother’s influence, and his own desire to elevate his family—an aim which militated against disinterested conduct—all contributed to smother the naturally generous impulses of his heart.
The King’s partiality was manifested both publicly and privately. Buckingham had been his attendant in illness; he was now his consoler in affliction; for the King was not insensible to the loss of a wife to whom, in spite of “some matrimonial wrangling,”[258] he had been an indulgent husband. Accordingly, when the funeral made for the Queen took place, Buckingham remained at Theobalds with his royal master.[259] His great object appears, at this period of his career, to have been the aggrandisement of his family. He had secured the prosperity of his elder brother, Sir John Villiers, by his marriage with the daughter of Sir Edward Coke; he now determined to effect that of his youngest brother, Sir Christopher Villiers, not by marrying him to the niece of a rich alderman, but by other methods. Already had he availed himself of his empire over the actions of Bacon,[260] to procure for his relatives one of those profitable sinecures which abounded in that reign. This was a monopoly for the licensing of ale houses, which Buckingham desired to engross, conjointly with Mr. Patrick Maule, for his brother. But there was an impediment—the monopoly had been deemed a grievance, and in 1617, Bacon had replied to Buckingham’s application for it in the following terms:—