No instance of great dereliction from propriety being recorded, it may be safely inferred that at this time public decorum was, at all events, not outraged by Villiers, whatever the private course of his existence may have been; and however humiliating it is to reflect that a character so noble, so incapable of baseness, of such fair promise, may yet have been tinged with vices that infallibly brush away much of the finest attributes of virtuous youth, it must, at the same time, be allowed, that to remain incorrupt in the reign of James, would have argued almost super-human strength of character. “Nothing,” relates Arthur Wilson, “but bravery and feasting, the parents of debauchery and rioting, flourished among us. There is no theme for history where men spill more drink than blood.” And he justly remarks that the boasted Halcyon days of peace cease to be a blessing when they “bring a curse” with them; the curse of licentious pleasures and disgraceful idleness; and that thus war is more happy in its effects than peace, “if it takes the distemper that grows by long surfeit without destroying the body.”[147] Footnote 147: Wilson’s History of the Reign of James I. In spite, however, of the animadversions of foes, and the still more injurious temptations proffered by unworthy friends, the public character of Buckingham maintained for some time its integrity. His errors, real or imputed, were not at first such as to lower him in the eyes of society. He appeared, as Lord Clarendon observes, “the most glorious star that ever shined in any court; insomuch that all nations persecuted him with love and wonder, as fast as the King with fancy; and to his last he never lost any of his lustre.”[148] Footnote 148: Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, p. 194. His mother assisted in the aggrandizement of her favourite son. It was her office to teach his kindred, as fast as they came up to the metropolis, “to put on a court dress and air.” The King, who had hitherto hated women, soon began to have his palace crowded with the female relations of Villiers; “little children did run up and down the royal apartments like rabbit-starters about their burrows.” And the monarch, who could never endure his queen or his own family near him, made no remonstrance at this inconvenience, whilst the censorious, who decided that the favourite had no merit except that “he looked well, dressed well, and danced well,” were outrageous in their wrath. So well, indeed, did he “look,” that James, more and more enchanted with that open and beaming countenance, gave him the name of “Steenie,” in allusion to one of the pictures in Whitehall, by an Italian master, representing the first martyr, Stephen.