st rank with respect and
reverence, were greatly scandalised to see how entirely Buckingham
indulged his own humours in the presence of the Prince. He allowed
himself to use playful nicknames, such as might have been often
applied in the hunting-seats of James or in letters to him, but which
at other times appeared very much out of place. He remained sitting
when the Prince was standing: in his presence he had indeed the
audacity to consult his ease by stretching his legs on another chair.
The Prince appeared to find this quite proper: Buckingham was for him
not so much a servant as an equal and intimate friend. It would have
been impossible to say which of the two was the chief cause of the
alienation which arose between them and the Spaniards. Rumour made the
favourite responsible for this estrangement: better informed people
traced it to the Prince himself. The intimacy formed during their
previous association had been made still closer by the policy which
they pursued since their return from Spain. Many persons hoped
notwithstanding that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, an
alteration would take place with the change of government. But on the
first entry of Charles I into London, Buckingham was seen sitting by
him in his carriage in the usual intimate proximity. His share in the
marriage of the King increased their friendship: they both equally
agreed even in the subsequent change of policy. Buckingham had allied
himself most closely with the leaders of the Puritan opposition in
Parliament: by their support principally he had broken up the party
favourable to Spain. But in return for these services he had now not
the least intention of doing justice to their claims. If it had
depended on him, still greater concessions would afterwards have been
granted in favour of the Catholics than in fact were made; for
Catholic sympathies were very strongly represented in his family: he
himself had far less feeling in favour of Anglican orthodoxy than the
King. And when the rights of the prerogative were called in question,
he again espoused them most zealously, seeing that his own power
rested on their validity. He looked at the Parliamentary constitution
from the point of view of a holder of power, who wishes to avail
himself of it for the end before him without deeming himself bound by
it, so soon as it becomes inconvenient to him. He cared only for
success in his immediate object: all means of obtaining it seemed
fai