made advances to the handsome incognito. What a triumph to a man like
Villiers, to have intrigued with my Lord Protector's sanctified
daughter! But she inspired him with disgust. He saw in her the
presumption and hypocrisy of her father; he hated her as Cromwell's
daughter and Ireton's wife. He told her, therefore, that he was a Jew,
and could not by his laws become the paramour of a Christian woman. The
saintly Bridget stood amazed; she had imprudently let him into some of
the most important secrets of her party. A Jew! It was dreadful! But how
could a person of that persuasion be so strict, so strait-laced? She
probably entertained all the horror of Jews which the Puritanical party
cherished as a virtue; forgetting the lessons of toleration and
liberality inculcated by Holy Writ. She sent, however, for a certain
Jewish Rabbi to converse with the stranger. What was the Duke of
Buckingham's surprise, on visiting her one evening, to see the learned
doctor armed at all points with the Talmud, and thirsting for dispute,
by the side of the saintly Bridget. He could noways meet such a body of
controversy; but thought it best forthwith to set off for the Downs.
Before he departed he wrote, however, to Mistress Ireton, on the plea
that she might wish to know to what tribe of Jews he belonged. So he
sent her a note written with all his native wit and point.[4]

Buckingham now experienced all the miseries that a man of expensive
pleasures with a sequestrated estate is likely to endure. One friend
remained to watch over his interests in England. This was John Traylman,
a servant of his late father's, who was left to guard the collection of
pictures made by the late duke, and deposited in York House. That
collection was, in the opinion of competent judges, the third in point
of value in England, being only inferior to those of Charles I. and the
Earl of Arundel.