fondness permitted him to indulge in every caprice, and to cultivate
those agreeable talents which were natural to him. His person was
beautiful, and his manners insinuating. In a word, he was adapted to
become a courtier. The fortunate opportunity soon presented itself; for
James saw him, and invited him to court, and showered on him, with a
prodigal hand, the cornucopia of royal patronage.

Houssaie, in his political memoirs, has detailed an anecdote of this
duke, only known to the English reader in the general observation of the
historian. When he was sent to France, to conduct the Princess Henrietta
to the arms of Charles I., he had the insolence to converse with the
Queen of France, not as an ambassador, but as a lover! The Marchioness
of Senecy, her lady of honour, enraged at seeing this conversation
continue, seated herself in the arm-chair of the Queen, who that day was
confined to her bed; she did this to hinder the insolent duke from
approaching the Queen, and probably taking other liberties. As she
observed that he still persisted in the lover, "Sir," she said, in a
severe tone of voice, "you must learn to be silent; it is not thus we
address the Queen of France."

This audacity of the duke is further confirmed by Nani, in his sixth
book of the History of Venice; an historian who is not apt to take
things lightly. For when Buckingham was desirous of once more being
ambassador at that court, in 1626, it was signified by the French
ambassador, that for reasons _well known to himself_, his person would
not be agreeable to his most Christian majesty. In a romantic threat,
the duke exclaimed, he would go and see the queen in spite of the French
court; and to this petty affair is to be ascribed the war between the
two nations!