'Yes,' the marquis replied, adding,
'the duke dared not do this if he were anywhere else.' Buckingham
retorted, 'Yes, he would: and he was a better man than my lord marquis:'
on which Dorchester told him that he lied. On this Buckingham struck off
Dorchester's hat, seized him by the periwig, pulled it aside, and held
him. The Lord Chamberlain and others interposed and sent them both to
the Tower. Nevertheless, not a month afterwards, Pepys speaks of seeing
the duke's play of 'The Chances' acted at Whitehall. 'A good play,' he
condescends to say, 'I find it, and the actors most good in it; and
pretty to hear Knipp sing in the play very properly "All night I weepe,"
and sung it admirably. The whole play pleases me well: and most of all,
the sight of many fine ladies, amongst others, my Lady Castlemaine and
Mrs. Middleton.'
The whole management of public affairs was, at this period, intrusted to
five persons, and hence the famous combination, the united letters of
which formed the word 'Cabal:'--Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley,
and Lauderdale. Their reprehensible schemes, their desperate characters,
rendered them the opprobrium of their age, and the objects of censure to
all posterity.
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