ess was soon commuted
into that of an easy confinement during a few years in the Tower.

[Sidenote: Villiers.]

The fall of Somerset seemed to restore the old system of rule; and for a
short time the Council regained somewhat of its influence. But when the
Queen gave her aid in Somerset's overthrow she warned Archbishop Abbot
that it was only the investiture of a new favourite with Somerset's
power. And a new favourite was already on the scene. It had only been
possible indeed to overthrow the Earl by bringing a fresh face into the
court. In the autumn of 1614 the son of a Leicestershire knight, George
Villiers, presented himself to James. He was poor and friendless, but
his personal beauty was remarkable, and it was by his beauty that he
meant to make his way with the king. His hopes were soon realized.
Queen, Primate, Councillors seized on the handsome youth to pit him
against the favourite; in spite of Somerset's struggles he rose from
post to post; and the Earl's ruin sealed his greatness. He became Master
of the Horse; before the close of 1616 he was raised to the peerage as
Viscount Villiers, and gifted with lands to the value of eighty thousand
pounds. The next year he was Earl of Buckingham; in 1619 he was made
Lord High Admiral; a marquisate and a dukedom raised him to the head of
the English nobility. What was of far more import was the hold he gained
upon the king. Those who had raised the handsome boy to greatness as a
means of establishing their own power found themselves foiled. From the
moment when Somerset entered the Tower, Villiers virtually took his
place as Minister of State. The councillors soon found themselves again
thrust aside. The influence of the new favourite surpassed that of his
predecessor. The payment of bribes to him or marriage to his greedy
kindred became the one road to political preferment. Resistance to his
will was inevitably followed by dismissal from office. Even the highest
and most powerful of the nobles were made to tremble at the nod of this
young upstart.

[Sidenote: His character.]

"Never any man in any age, nor, I believe, in any country," says the
astonished Clarendon in reviewing his strange career, "rose in so short
a time to so much greatness of honour, power, or fortune, upon no other
advantage or recommendation than of the beauty or gracefulness of his
person." Such, no doubt, was the general explanation of his rise among
men of the time; and it would have been