During all this time, the pestilence was raging with fearful results; yet the people could not find in their hearts to leave London when the brave doings in celebration of the Queen’s arrival went on. It was observed that “in all these shews and feastings, there hath been such excessive bravery on all sides, as bred rather a surfeit than delights in them that saw it, and it were more fit and would better become us to compare and dispute with such pompous kind of people in iron and steel, than in gold and riches, wherein we come not near them.” In addition to this insulting remark, one even still more disparaging to the strangers was publicly thrown out. The accession even of the high-bred Frenchwomen was considered to add little to the grace of the courtly revels at York House or elsewhere. Her retinue appears to have inspired neither admiration nor respect. “The Queen hath brought, they say, such a poor, pitiful sort of women, that there is not one worth the looking after, saving herself and the Duchess of Chevreuse, who, though she be fair, paints foully. Among her priests you would little look for M. Sausy, that went an ambassador to Constantinople when we were at Venice, and is now become a _padre del oratorio_.”[260] Footnote 260: Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, June 25.--State Papers inedited. The public heard with disgust that two hundred pounds a day were allowed for the maintenance of the Duc and Duchesse de Chevreuse, in Denmark House, “for victuals and comforts.”[261] Buckingham, meantime, passed the remainder of the year 1625 at Hampton Court, his duchess staying at Burgleigh, where her father, the Earl of Rutland, remained to solace her retirement, for we find him excusing himself from attendance at Court on that plea.[262] Buckingham experienced considerable inconvenience from the absence and illness of the Earl of Purbeck, who, of all his brothers, seems to have enjoyed the most of his confidence; referring to him all suitors who were obliged, to adopt the quaint phrase of the time, to “come in at that door.”[263] Footnote 261: Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, June 25.--State Papers inedited. Footnote 262: State Papers, for 1625. Footnote 263: Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, Jan. 1, 1619-20. CHAPTER VI. UNJUST APPRECIATION OF BUCKINGHAM’S CHARACTER--HIS ENERGY IN RESPECT TO THE NAVY--SIR WALTER RALEGH’S WORKS ON MARITIME AFFAIRS--PRINCE HENRY’S PREDILECTION FOR THEM--HIS MINIATURE SHIP--HIS DEATH--LORD NOTTINGHAM’S NEGLECT AND VENALITY--HIS POWERS--£60,000, YEARLY, ALLOTTED FOR THE NAVY--BUCKINGHAM’S EFFORTS--EXAMPLE SET BY RICHELIEU--IGNORANCE OF SHIP-BUILDING IN THOSE DAYS--BUCKINGHAM DRAWS UP A PLAN OF DEFENCE--FEAR OF THE SPANISH ARMADA--THE DUKE PROPOSES TO FORM A COMPANY FOR THE WEST, AS WELL AS THE EAST INDIES--PLAN OF TAXATION--ALSO OF DEFENCE ON SHORE. =CHAPTER VI.=