II.--George Villiers's Inheritance.--Two Gallant Young
Noblemen.--The Brave Francis Villiers.--After the Battle of
Worcester.--Disguising the King.--Villiers in Hiding.--He
appears as a Mountebank.--Buckingham's Habits.--A Daring
Adventure.--Cromwell's Saintly Daughter.--Villiers and the
Rabbi.--The Buckingham Pictures and Estates.--York
House.--Villiers returns to England.--Poor Mary
Fairfax.--Villiers in the Tower.--Abraham Cowley, the
Poet.--The Greatest Ornament of Whitehall.--Buckingham's Wit
and Beauty.--Flecknoe's Opinion of Him.--His Duel with the Earl
of Shrewsbury.--Villiers as a Poet.--As a Dramatist.--A Fearful
Censure!--Villiers's Influence in Parliament.--A Scene in the
Lords.--The Duke of Ormond in Danger.--Colonel Blood's
Outrages.--Wallingford House and Ham House.--'Madame
Ellen.'--The Cabal.--Villiers again in the Tower.--A
Change.--The Duke of York's Theatre.--Buckingham and the
Princess of Orange.--His last Hours.--His Religion.--Death of
Villiers.--The Duchess of Buckingham.


Samuel Pepys, the weather-glass of his time, hails the first glimpse of
the Restoration of Charles II. in his usual quaint terms and vulgar
sycophancy.

'To Westminster Hall,' says he; 'where I heard how the Parliament had
this day dissolved themselves, and did pass very cheerfully through the
Hall, and the Speaker without his mace. The whole Hall was joyful
thereat, as well as themselves; and now they begin to talk loud of the
king.' And the evening was closed, he further tells us, with a large
bonfire in the Exchange, and people called out, 'God bless King