The public, meantime, could not fail to interpret the real temper of the King’s Council by circumstances apparently trivial. In the course of the winter, there arrived from France a nobleman skilled in falconry, with a present of fifteen or sixteen cast-off hawks, some ten or twelve horses, and the same number of setters. He was accompanied by a numerous train, splendidly accoutred, and made his entry into London by torchlight. He was to remain until he had instructed the people in the kind of falconry in which he excelled, he and his troop costing the King from twenty-five to thirty pounds daily. Under this guise, probably, some political mission was couched; for James, although now fast declining, braved the advice of his physicians, and travelled to Newmarket on purpose to see these foreign hawks fly. He had put off the masque on Twelfth Night, on account, as he had assigned, of his indisposition; but actually because of the competition about precedence between the French and Spanish ambassadors, who could not be accommodated in his presence.[71] Footnote 71: Ibid, 960. Thus did every variation in Buckingham’s plans appear to prosper. That he could so work upon James’s mind as to obliterate from it the cherished scheme of years, seems, indeed, a marvellous effect of his influence. For his ingratitude in this matter to the King, who had entrusted to him, as the object next his heart, the completion of the Spanish treaty, the Duke has justly been blamed. Could he, as Bishop Hacket asks, be deemed “execrable in point of honour and conscience? Did he do it the best for the King? Did he think the Spanish alliance would be fruitful in nothing but miseries, and that it would be a thankful office to lurch the King in his expectation of it? Evil befall such double diligence!” “Or did this great lord do it for the best for himself? I believe it. If the hope of the match died away, he lookt to get the love of the most in England; but if it were made up, he lookt for many enemies, for he had lost the love of the best in Spain. Let the Duke have his deserved praise in other things, great and many, but let fidelity, loyalty, and thankfulness hide their face, and not look upon this action.”[72] Footnote 72: Life of Keeper Williams, 138. The blame of this conduct was attributable, according to the same writer, more to those who worked upon the flexible temper of Buckingham than to his own wishes. But no one has a right to throw off his own shoulders, or to place on those of another, the deliberate violation of solemn engagements. “For it is,” as the Bishop remarks, “not man, God that made the law: he that kindled the fire, let him make retribution.”