He attended with Holles before the Justices early on the morrow, announcing himself able to confirm out of his own knowledge the truth of the account which the Colonel gave of his relations with the attainted Tucker. To that his grace added the assertion that he was ready--if more were needed--to stand surety for the loyalty of this suspected man whom he now pronounced his friend. More was not needed. The sycophantic court bent the knee before this great gentleman who enjoyed the close friendship of his King, and even professed regret that certain reckless and malicious statements should have deceived it into troubling the peace of Colonel Holles, and putting His Grace of Buckingham to the present inconvenience. The Colonel’s antecedents, which, without Buckingham’s protection, might have been the gravest source of trouble, were not so much as touched upon. There was in all this nothing in the least unreasonable. Had the offence of which Colonel Holles was suspected been anything less than treason, it is not to be supposed that the Duke would have been able to carry matters with quite so high a hand. But it was utterly unthinkable that His Grace of Buckingham, whose loyalty stood so high, whose whole life bore witness to his deep attachment to the House of Stuart, and who was notoriously one of His Majesty’s closest and most intimate companions, should offer to stand surety for a man against whom the merest suspicion of disloyalty would be justified. Thus at the outset was Holles delivered from his worst peril. Next he was informed that, since service of any distinction in England was almost out of the question for his father’s son, Buckingham would supply him with letters to several high-placed friends of his own in France, where a capable soldier well recommended need never lack employment. If Colonel Holles made the most of the opportunity thus afforded him, his future should be assured and his days of adversity at an end. This Holles clearly perceived for himself, and the reflection served to stifle any lingering qualms of conscience over the unworthy nature of the immediate service to which he was committed and to assure him that he would, indeed, have been a fool had he permitted any mawkish sentimentality to deprive him of this the greatest opportunity of all his life. In this resolve to send Holles out of England the moment the service required of him should be accomplished, Buckingham again reveals his astuteness. Further, he reveals it in the fact that to assist the Colonel he placed at his disposal four of the French lackeys in his pay. It was his intention to repatriate them, packing them off to France together with Holles, as soon as the thing were done.