It was, indeed, remarkable that the agents most employed in the Duke’s service were men who had raised themselves from all but menial stations. Sir Robert Graham, whose name so often occurs in the correspondence of this period, was “an underling of low degree” in Buckingham’s stable. Cottington was originally a clerk to Sir Charles’s Cornwallis’s secretary, when Cornwallis was ambassador in Spain. The letters of Endymion Porter, also raised from mediocrity, are very characteristic of the confidential servant of a great man, who, like himself, was of easy principles. Among expressions of affection and grief for absence from his wife, Olive, and allusions to their little son George, are mingled a protestation that Endymion did not kiss the innkeeper’s daughter at Boulogne. “Alas! alas! sweet Olive!” thus he writes, "why should you go about to afflict me! Know that I live like a dying man, and as one that cannot live long without you. My eyes grow weary in looking upon anything, as wanting that rest they take in thy company and sight of thee. "We live very honest, and think of nothing but our wives. I thought to have sent you a token of some value, but find my purse and my goodwill could not agree, and considering that my letter would be welcome to you, I leave to do it only this ring, which I hope you will esteem, if it be not for love, I think for charity. The conceit is that it seems two as you turn it, and ’tis but one. “Sweet Olive! remember what it is to be sad, and forget not home. In our poverty, we will live as richly as they that have the greatest plenty, and bread with thy company shall please me better than the greatest dainties in the world without it.”[15] Footnote 15: State Papers, May 28, 1623. Olive Porter was, it seems, a humble relation of the Duchess of Buckingham, who addresses her as “Cousin,” and who appears, by Endymion’s letters, to have provided for Mistress Porter, since, in one of his singular epistles, after hoping that there may be nothing more said of any unkindness between them, Endymion sends his wife a jewel worth some hundred pounds, telling her that “she might pawn it if she had no more credit, but that Lady Buckingham had promised to supply her wants.” Certain conduct of Mrs. Porter’s prompts jealousy, and Endymion hints that, in his absence, “his wife has been merry with other young men,” a charge which not even the most scandalous could adduce against the pensive and irreproachable Duchess of Buckingham. It was the lot of Endymion Porter to accompany Prince Charles on a very interesting occasion; in the month of July, whilst the dispensation was daily expected, Charles grew weary of the uniform Court gaieties, during which he saw nothing but the Infanta, on whom his eyes were incessantly fastened, as the inquisitive courtiers remarked.