Such is the view taken of the redeeming services performed to society by a man who had much in his public career to be forgiven. With respect to the acts to which he prompted Charles, to screen himself, no defence can be offered: but for the general bearing of that King’s conduct towards his Parliament, he must be deemed irresponsible, since his death neither changed his Sovereign’s line of principle, nor moderated his actions. Buckingham was less a man of evil intentions than of expediency; to get out of a difficulty, he imperiled the freedom of the people, and the safety of the Crown, when he might bravely have courted inquiry, and profited by counsel. It was one of his great misfortunes that he never made a true and worthy friendship with any man so nearly his equal as to be able frankly to advise him against what Clarendon calls the “current, or rather the torrent, of his passions.” He was surrounded by needy brothers, and influenced by an ambitious, unscrupulous mother. One faithful friend would not only have saved him from many perils, but might have prompted him to do “as transcendant worthy actions” as any man in his sphere. In spite of prosperity, he was of a persuadable nature; he was naturally candid, just, and generous; no record remains of the temptation of money leading him to do any unkind action. “If,” says Lord Clarendon, “he had an immoderate ambition, it doth not appear that it was in his nature, or that he brought it to the Court, but rather found it there. He needed no ambition, who was so seated in the hearts of two such masters.” No man was more vilified in his private life than Buckingham. Like all persons of weak principles and impulsive nature, he was at once engaging and disappointing; warm-hearted one instant, selfish the next; the idol of his family, whom he befriended unceasingly; the object, during his life, of his young wife’s most devoted affection, which he often forgot or betrayed. Nevertheless, whilst his moral character was sullied by many blemishes, it was free from the unblushing profligacy of some of his predecessors, and superior to the hypocritical sensuality of his contemporary, Richelieu. Happily for the age, the almost blameless early career of Charles enforced that virtue should be respected, and that vice, where it existed, should remain concealed. Buckingham probably owed to this necessity much of what, at all events, may be endowed with the praise of decorum.