But there were other circumstances palpably concurring to close the shameless career of Somerset, and abundantly accounting for his fall, without attributing much importance to the adventitious appearance of George Villiers at Court. The discovery of his guilt by Secretary Winwood[101] was preceded by such a long course of public and private profligacy, that it is no wonder that Somerset should see, in the prosperity of a young man whose reputation was unstained by a single crime, an earnest of his own downfall, and that he should employ the greater precaution to avert the coming storm. His efforts were, however, unavailing. His sending away the apothecary who administered the poison to Overbury to France; his disgracing all who spoke of the death of that unfortunate man, hoping by such arbitrary acts to smother the remembrance of that crime; his tyrannical investigation, by his warrant as a privy counsellor, of all trunks, chests, and libraries in which he suspected that any letters relative to that dark business might be concealed; all were proofs confirmatory of that dark and foul plot the recollection of which permitted to the terror-stricken Somerset not one moment of comfort. He now began to act as a friendless and desperate man, who, feeling that the ground is slipping from beneath his feet, tries to hoard up wealth as a resource. He undertook no intercession with the King without large bribes; and every new occurrence brought him what is termed by the authors of the tract entitled “The First Fourteen Years of King James’s Reign,” a fleece of money.[102] Offices about the Court were all for the highest bidder, and even the King’s letters were bought and sold; no plunder was obtained without purchase, so that Somerset was soon known to be as notorious a bribe-taker as his mother-in-law, the Countess of Suffolk. The high-born and the highly-principled saw with disgust, now ill-concealed, the minion leaning on the King’s cushion even in public, and treating their haughty and influential class with rash scorn, disdaining even that respect which was imperatively due to the Primate, Abbot, whose popularity was at that time in its zenith. Many suspected that beneath this arrogant bearing, stimulating an impolitic cupidity of gain, there lurked secret fears and a stricken heart, a horror of the past and a dread of the future; and conjectured, as well they might, that Somerset was never more to know repose of mind—nor, perhaps, long to enjoy personal security.[103] Footnote 101: