Rupert's next duty was to bring the Queen to Oxford, a matter of no slight importance; for not only was her personal safety at stake, but also that of her money, arms, and troops. Essex, as well as the Prince, set out to meet Her Majesty, and it was Rupert's object to keep his own troops always between Essex and the Queen. On July 1st he quartered at Buckingham, and early in the next morning some of his men were attacked by those of Essex, at Whitebridge. Rupert was in the act of shaving when the noise of the skirmish came to his ears. Half-dressed and half-shaved, as he was, he dashed out without a moment's delay, charged and scattered his foes, and then quietly returned to resume his toilet. Throughout this march he {111} kept Essex on perpetual duty, harassing him by day and night, until, after some dexterous manoeuvring, he left him unexpectedly on Brickhill, and himself joined the Queen at Stratford-on-Avon. That night, says tradition, Queen and Prince were the guests of Shakespeare's grand-daughter. If this was really the case, Rupert doubtless regarded his hostess with deep interest; for all the Palatines could quote Shakespeare. On July 13th the King came to meet his wife at Edgehill, and King, Queen and Prince slept at Wroxton Abbey. On the following day they entered Oxford in safety. The Queen's arrival considerably changed the condition of the University. The colleges were populated no more by scholars, but by ladies and courtiers; Oxford was no longer a mere garrison, it was also a court. Chief among the noble ladies who attended the Queen, was the beautiful young Duchess of Richmond, only daughter of the King's dead friend, "Steenie," Duke of Buckingham. She it was whom her father had once destined to be Rupert's sister-in-law, as the bride of his brother Henry. But ere the bride was ten years old, both her father and her intended bridegroom had died untimely deaths, and the fair Mary Villiers was therefore brought up in the Royal family as the adopted daughter of the King. For her father's sake, and for her own, she had always been a petted favourite of her royal guardian, who called her "The Butterfly", a name derived from an incident which occurred when the lady was eleven years old. Once, dressed in her widow's weeds--she had been a widow at eleven--she had climbed a tree in the King's private garden, and had been nearly shot as a strange bird. But the courtier sent to shoot her perceived his error in time, and, at her own request, sent her in a hamper to the King, with a message that he had captured a beautiful butterfly alive; and the name clung to her ever after.[21] The King's affection for her and for the Duke of {112} Richmond made it seem good to him to unite them in marriage, and the arrangement appears to have pleased all parties. Mary had disliked her boy-husband, Lord Herbert;[22] but the Duke she seems to have regarded with favour. Possibly his quiet and