Here was one of those “gallant spirits who aimed at the public liberty more than at their own interest; and who yet, when the Government which they served, or the prerogative which they held sacred, was attacked, were fierce in defence of the King and his authority; supporting,” says Arthur Wilson, “the old English honour, they would not let it fall to the ground.”[324] Footnote 324: Wilson, p. 162. In spite of this acknowledged loyalty, the Earl of Oxford was accused by a man named White, henceforth called Oxford-White, of having spoken against the King; and was committed to the Tower, where he was long imprisoned, until, on account of his known bravery, he was made one of Buckingham’s Vice-Admirals on the English coast. A letter, addressed to Buckingham, whilst the Earl was under this disgrace, appealing to the King, to the favourite’s own conscience, whether he had ever harboured any treasonable thoughts, obtained for him, perhaps, this tardy justice:—“If it shall please the King,” wrote the gallant Vere, “to line me out my path to death (the period we must all travel to) by imprisonment, I shall be far from repining at the sentence, but with all humbleness will undergo it, and employ my heartiest prayers for the long continuance of his health and happiness.”[325] Footnote 325: Cabala. The persecution of Vere reflects infinite dishonour upon Buckingham—but that bright star was fast losing the purity of its lustre. Buckingham was an altered man. Unbounded prosperity was changing the once generous foe into an avenger. Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, was the next subject of the Marquis’s wrath. Upon this brave peer the King’s favours had hitherto been showered down, and he had been endeared to the people by his friendship for the unfortunate Earl of Essex, on whose account he had suffered confinement in the reign of Elizabeth. On the accession of James, Lord Southampton was brought from “the prison to the palace.”[326] His lands had been forfeited to the crown: they were immediately restored. On the meeting of the first Parliament called by James, the Earl was restored by a bill, read after the recognition of the King, to his titles.[327] The rest of this nobleman’s life was spent in promoting worthy objects, to some of which even the lettered attached ridicule. For instance, his patronage of colonization, his sending ships to America for the purpose of discovery and traffic, excited the ridicule of some of the caustic geniuses of the day. Yet Lord Southampton received many tributes from the learned; and such was his protection of letters, that he was called “learning’s best favourite.”[328] It was, however, his highest praise that he was the patron and friend of Shakspeare. Footnote 326: Brydges’s Peers of James I., p. 324. Footnote 327: Ibid, 326. Footnote 328: By Richard Braithwayte in the dedication of his Scholar’s Medley.—See Brydges’s Peers, p. 325.