These meetings had their natural consequence.  One leaves Lauderdale, Arlington, Ashley, and Clifford, to their fate.  But the career of Villiers inspires more interest.  He seemed born for better things.  Like many men of genius, he was so credulous that the faith he pinned on one Heydon, an astrologer, at this time, perhaps buoyed him up with false hopes.  Be it as it may, his plots now tended to open insurrection.  In 1666, a proclamation had been issued for his apprehension—­he having then absconded.  On this occasion he was saved by the act of one whom he had injured grossly—­his wife.  She managed to outride the serjeant-at-arms, and to warn him of his danger.  She had borne his infidelities, after the fashion of the day, as a matter of course:  jealousy was then an impertinence—­constancy, a chimera; and her husband, whatever his conduct, had ever treated her with kindness of manner; he had that charm, that attribute of his family, in perfection, and it had fascinated Mary Fairfax.

He fled, and played for a year successfully the pranks of his youth.  At last, worn out, he talked of giving himself up to justice.  ’Mr. Fenn, at the table, says that he hath been taken by the watch two or three times of late, at unseasonable hours, but so disguised they did not know him; and when I come home, by and by, Mr. Lowther tells me that the Duke of Buckingham do dine publickly this day at Wadlow’s, at the Sun Tavern; and is mighty merry, and sent word to the Lieutenant of the Tower, that he would come to him as soon as he dined.’  So Pepys states.

Whilst in the Tower—­to which he was again committed—­Buckingham’s pardon was solicited by Lady Castlemaine; on which account the king was very angry with her; called her a meddling ‘jade;’ she calling him ‘fool,’ and saying if he was not a fool he never would suffer his best subjects to be imprisoned—­referring to Buckingham.  And not only did she ask his liberty, but the restitution of his places.  No wonder there was discontent when such things were done, and public affairs were in such a state.  We must again quote the graphic, terse language of Pepys:—­’It was computed that the Parliament had given the king for this war only, besides all prizes, and besides the L200,000 which he was to spend of his own revenue, to guard the sea, above L5,000,000, and odd L100,000; which is a most prodigious sum.  Sir H. Cholmly, as a true English gentleman, do decry the king’s expenses of his privy purse, which in King James’s time did not rise to above L5,000 a year, and in King Charles’s to L10,000, do now cost us above L100,000, besides the great charge of the monarchy, as the Duke of York has L100,000 of it, and other limbs of the royal family.’

In consequence of Lady Castlemaine’s intervention, Villiers was restored to liberty—­a strange instance, as Pepys remarks, of the ‘fool’s play’ of the age.  Buckingham was now as presuming as ever:  he had a theatre of his own, and he soon showed his usual arrogance by beating Henry Killigrew on the stage, and taking away his coat and sword; all very ‘innocently’ done, according to Pepys.  In July he appeared in his place in the House of Lords, as ‘brisk as ever,’ and sat in his robes, ‘which,’ says Pepys, ’is a monstrous thing that a man should be proclaimed against, and put in the Tower, and released without any trial, and yet not restored to his places.’