When Killigrew perceived
that he was supplanted by Villiers, he became frantic with rage, and
poured out the bitterest invectives against the countess. The result was
that, one night, returning from the Duke of York's apartments at St.
James's, three passes with a sword were made at him through his chair,
and one of them pierced his arm. This, and other occurrences, at last
aroused the attention of Lord Shrewsbury, who had hitherto never doubted
his wife: he challenged the Duke of Buckingham; and his infamous wife,
it is said, held her paramour's horse, disguised as a page. Lord
Shrewsbury was killed,[6] and the scandalous intimacy went on as before.
No one but the queen, no one but the Duchess of Buckingham, appeared
shocked at this tragedy, and no one minded their remarks, or joined in
their indignation: all moral sense was suspended, or wholly stifled; and
Villiers gloried in his depravity, more witty, more amusing, more
fashionable than ever; and yet he seems, by the best-known and most
extolled of his poems, to have had some conception of what a real and
worthy attachment might be.
The following verses are to his 'Mistress':--
'What a dull fool was I
To think so gross a lie,
As that I ever was in love before!
I have, perhaps, known one or two,
With whom I was content to be
At that which they call keeping company.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87