'
But this brilliant career was soon checked. The varnish over the hollow
character of this extraordinary man was eventually rubbed off. We find
the first hint of that famous coalition styled the _Cabal_ in Pepys's
Diary, and henceforth the duke must be regarded as a ruined man.
'He' (Sir H. Cholmly) 'tells me that the Duke of Buckingham his crimes,
as far as he knows, are his being of a cabal with some discontented
persons of the late House of Commons, and opposing the desires of the
king in all his matters in that House; and endeavouring to become
popular, and advising how the Commons' House should proceed, and how he
would order the House of Lords. And he hath been endeavouring to have
the king's nativity calculated; which was done, and the fellow now in
the Tower about it.... This silly lord hath provoked, by his ill
carriage, the Duke of York, my Lord Chancellor, and all the great
persons, and therefore most likely will die.'
One day, in the House of Lords, during a conference between the two
Houses, Buckingham leaned rudely over the shoulder of Henry Pierrepont
Marquis of Dorchester. Lord Dorchester merely removed his elbow. Then
the duke asked him if he was uneasy.
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