he entered the lists himself, and quickly succeeded in ousting Killigrew
from his place in my lady's favour. To the tavern-sot thus succeeded the
most splendid noble in England, a man who, in his record of gallantry,
was no mean rival to the Countess herself. To be thus displaced by the
man to whom he had boasted his conquest was a bitter blow to the
libertine's vanity; to be cut dead by Lady Shrewsbury, who had no longer
any use for him, roused him to a frenzy of rage in which he assailed her
with the bitterest invectives; "painted a frightful picture of her
conduct, and turned all her charms, which he had previously extolled,
into defects." The Duke's warnings were powerless to stop his
vindictive tongue; even a severe thrashing, which resulted in Killigrew
begging abjectly for his life from his successful rival, failed to teach
him prudence. His slanders grew more and more venomous until they
brought on him a punishment which nearly cost him his life.

But before Killigrew's tongue was thus silenced, the wooing of the Duke
and the Countess was marred by a tragedy, to which our history happily
furnishes no parallel. The Countess's husband had hitherto looked on
with seeming indifference, while lover after lover succeeded each other
in his wife's favour. But even the Earl's long forbearance had its
limits; and these were reached when he saw the insolent coxcomb,
Buckingham, a man whom he had always detested, usurp his place. He
screwed up his laggard manhood to the pitch of challenging the Duke to a
duel, which took place one January morning in 1667, and of which Pepys
tells the following story:

"Much discourse of the duel yesterday between the Duke of Buckingham,
Holmes and one Jenkins, on one side, and my Lord Shrewsbury, Sir John
Talbot and one Bernard Howard, on the other side; and all about my Lady
Shrewsbury, who is at this time, and hath for a great while, been a