well had the account been true.
The follies and profusion of a handsome minion pass lightly over the
surface of a nation's life. Unluckily Villiers owed his fortune to other
qualities besides personal beauty. He was amazingly ignorant, his greed
was insatiate, his pride mounted to sheer midsummer madness. But he had
no inconsiderable abilities. He was quick of wit and resolute of
purpose; he shrank from no labour; his boldness and self-confidence
faced any undertaking which was needful for the king's service; he was
devoted, heart and soul, to the Crown. Over James his hold was that of a
vehement and fearless temper over a mind infinitely better informed,
infinitely more thoughtful and reflective, but vague and hesitating
amidst all its self-conceit, crowded with theories and fancies, and with
a natural bent to the unpractical and unreal. To such a mind the
shallow, brilliant adventurer came as a relief. James found all his wise
follies and politic moonshine translated for him into positive fact. He
leant more and more heavily on an adviser who never doubted and was
always ready to act. He drew strength from his favourite's
self-confidence. Rochester had bent before greatness and listened more
than once, even in the hour of his triumph, to the counsels of wiser
men. But on the conceit of Villiers the warnings of Abbot, the counsels
of Bacon, were lavished in vain. He saw no course but his own; and the
showy, audacious temper of the man made that course always a showy and
audacious one. It was this that made the choice of the new favourite
more memorable than the choice of Carr. At a moment when conciliation
and concession were most needed on the part of the Crown, the character
of Villiers made concession and conciliation impossible. To James his
new adviser seemed the weapon he wanted to smite with trenchant edge the
resistance of the realm. He never dreamed that the haughty young
favourite, on whose neck he loved to loll, and whose cheek he slobbered
with kisses, was to drag down in his fatal career the throne of the
Stuarts.

[Sidenote: The Spanish marriage.]

As yet the temper of Villiers was as little known to the country as to
the king. But the setting up of a new favourite on the ruin of the old
had a significance which no Englishman could miss. It proved beyond
question that the system of personal rule which was embodied in these
dependent ministers was no passing caprice, but the settled purpose of
the king.