The object of that nobleman in the long journey which he was even then taking was to forward the great schemes of one to whom he was devoted with a warmth and sincerity of attachment very rare even then, rarer still now. The famous Duke of Buckingham, favorite of two kings, and ruler for a time of both king and people, was a man of great and daring enterprise, of bold and courageous action, but of small foresight and of less discretion. Unfortunate in action, from causes which he often could not control, he was great in purpose and even obstinate in resolution. The fault was generally a want of capacity for detail, and a miscalculation of the means in his power as proportioned to the end he had in view. For the first time in life, however, he had now considered his steps well and devised each move on the political chess-board accurately. Whatever were his motives, (none has discovered them, nor, perhaps, ever will,) his present object was to humble France and to raise England at her expense; and, while he himself prepared eagerly for a war in which he was not fitted for command, his most intimate friend and confidant, Lord Montagu, was intrusted with the execution of that great political scheme which is the only bright point in Buckingham's career as a statesman. His task was, in the first place, to unite every discontented person and party in France against the crown, to combine Huguenots with dissatisfied Catholics, a turbulent nobility with a turbulent people, and to disunite the powers, wherever they might be, which supported the throne. But in the next place came the still more important part of the scheme. It was to bring together all the foreign enemies of France, a discordant and heterogeneous body, and to direct their efforts in one concentrated torrent against a kingdom already distracted by internal feuds. Few men could have been better fitted for these tasks; but in some respects Lord Montagu was wanting. He was somewhat too confiding; though politic, he was not sufficiently reserved; though clear-sighted, he was not observant of small particulars. Hitherto he had been successful in all he had attempted; and now, by Edward's bedside, he spoke with some satisfaction of all he had done:--how he had remained in France in despite of the terrible minister who then already ruled the destinies of that great country; how he had passed from house to house and castle to castle, giving consistency to plans and direction to purposes which had previously been vague and undefined; how he had obtained written assurances of co-operation and support from many of the most powerful nobility and the most influential factions in France; how his efforts in Spain and Lorraine and Savoy were all on the eve of triumph.