The event was accomplished in the following manner:—The Queen and Prince being in the King’s bedchamber, it was contrived that Villiers,[84] who was near, should be summoned on some pretext, and when the “Queen saw her own time, he was asked in.” “Then,” says an historian, “did the Queen speak to the Prince to draw out the sword and to give it her; and immediately, with the sword drawn, she kneeled to the King, and humbly beseeched His Majesty to do her that especial favour as to knight this noble gentleman, whose name was George, for the honour of St. George, whose feast was now kept. The King at first seemed to be afraid that the Queen should come too near him with a naked sword, but then he did it very joyfully, and it might very well be that it was his own contriving, for he did much please himself with such inventions.”[85] Footnote 84: State Paper, Domestic, 1616. Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton. Footnote 85: See Nichols’s Progresses, vol. iii., p. 80. By a page in that work, it appears that Villiers’ appointment to the Royal Chambers, and his being knighted, took place on successive days, the ceremony of knighthood being performed at Somerset House. It must have been a strange scene, for Somerset, who was at hand, entreated of the King that his rival might only be made a Groom of the Chamber; but Abbot, and others whom the Archbishop does not name, stood at the door and plied the Queen with messages that she would “perfect her work, and cause him to be made a gentleman,” and Her Majesty, as we have seen, prevailed. Nor were these honours, in the case of Villiers, attended with the expense which usually lessened their value; on the contrary, a pension of a thousand pounds was added to maintain the dignity of knighthood.[86] Footnote 86: Life of Bishop Goodman, vol. i., p. 223. The termination of this incident, so important in the life of Villiers, is related by Archbishop Abbot; Villiers at this time called him “father.” The professions which he made to his reverend patron were then doubtless sincere; but gratitude was not the only good seed which political feuds and evil counsels stifled in the breast of Villiers.