That the fortunes of Villiers were ensured by the awful disclosures of guilt which ensued, there can be no doubt. It is worthy of remark, how vitiated must have been the state of that society, the highest in rank, the foremost in fashion, in which crimes so fearful, compassed and aided by associates of the lowest and most infamous description, could be ascribed to individuals, and yet those individuals continue to hold their position in society. It is true that, during that interval which must have been to the guilty Earl and Countess of Somerset a season of incessant fear and anguish, reports had been “buzzing about Somerset’s ears, like a rising storm upon a well-spread oak;” but he had considered himself to be too firmly planted in the King’s regard ever to be up-rooted. And perhaps, had Villiers not come forward opportunely to redeem the national credit, and to save a remnant of the King’s character from utter reprobation and contempt, England might have been still enslaved, until the close of James’s reign, by the extortionate Earl and his haughty and murderous Countess. Meantime, Villiers continued to profit by the delinquencies of his rival. He profited in the way most gratifying to an honourable mind. No intrigues to supplant, no efforts to hasten the ruin of the Earl, are recorded to his discredit. He set, at this period of his career, a bright, though unhappily a transient, example of what a royal favorite might prove. He repudiated, not only the avarice, but the over-bearing of Somerset.