g of July 7, the Parliamentary Colonel Rich, "eminent
for praying but of no fame for fighting," surprised the town with a
troop of horse. There was a general scrimmage. No one was ready to
receive them. Lord Holland and a number of his followers made the best
of their way out of the town, never offering to charge the enemy. Most
of the footsoldiers and some of the officers "made shift to conceal
themselves until they found means to retire to their close mansions in
London."[88]

But Francis Villiers alone seems to have made a stand. At the head of
his troop, his horse having been killed under him, he

got to an oak-tree in the highway about two miles from
Kingston, where he stood with his back against it, defending
himself, scorning to ask quarter, and they barbarously
refusing to give it; till with nine wounds in his beautiful
face and body, he was slain.[89]

So died Francis Villiers, in the twentieth year of his age--"This
noble, valiant and beautiful youth," says Fairfax. "A youth of rare
beauty and comeliness," says Clarendon. And so ended the unhappy fight
of Kingston. Dalbeer defended himself till he was killed. Lord Holland
with a hundred horse, wandered away and was caught at an inn at St.
Neot's in Hertfordshire and thence sent prisoner to Windsor, of which
place he had but lately been constable. The Duke of Buckingham reached
London, and hid until he could escape to Holland "where the prince was;
who received him with great grace and kindness."[90] And in six months
the king for whom young Francis had died, was led out to execution at
Whitehall.

Lord Francis' body was brought by water from Kingston up the Thames to
York House in the Strand; and was then embalmed and laid in his father's
vault in Henry the Seventh's Chapel.

The late duke's magnificent monument, and the position in which it was
placed, gave rise to much comment at the time. No monument had been
erected to King James. And when Charles the First sent for Lord Weston
"to contrive the work of the tomb" for his favorite, Lord Weston,
putting into words the opinion of the greater part of England "told his
Majesty that not only our nation, but others, would talk of it, if he
should make the duke a tomb, and not his father."[91]

The tomb, however, was made. Henry the Seventh's Chapel for the first
time was opened to a person not of royal lineage. And by the irony of
fate, this burial of a royal favorite paved the way for t