The step which Buckingham took, on his arrival in London, was to ask immediately for a public audience with the King and Lords in Council. Then he plunged at once into the subject about which the country was in a ferment. He “delivered a clear account of the passages, descending even to the good and bold actions of private soldiers.” He extolled the patience of the army, and “the fair opportunity offered of turning their sufferings into glory, if their virtue had been seconded with the power and succours designed for it.” He named every officer in terms of great praise; and if both officers and men were sensible of “the honours and obligations done them by the Duke, they would,” Conway wrote, “live with their swords, or die with them in their hand, to pay him that duty.” The King, also, put the “right interpretation on the Duke’s actions.” This open way of forestalling criticism, and, perhaps, impeachment, was certainly as sagacious as it was fearless. The Duke, before leaving the coast, had provided carefully for the soldiers who were sick and wounded, and amongst whom a fearful infectious disease prevailed, so that those in whose houses men were billeted died of the same malady. A storm soon damaged fifteen or sixteen of those fated ships which had returned from Rhé: and such was the poverty of the State, that, so late as the fifth of January, 1620, we find the sailors, who had deserved so much from their country, ill from want of clothes.[98] There was no money for their pay, which was in arrears; there arose, of course, a mutinous spirit among them. The sailors were so destitute of clothing, that they would not do their duty in their ships, and many fell dead into the harbours. Still money could not be raised, although every possible expedient to obtain it was employed by the King. Among others who supplied him was Sir Francis Crane, Garter King-at-Arms, to whom Charles gave certain royal manors for security, to the extent of seven thousand five hundred pounds. Footnote 98: State Papers, vol. xc., No. 5. The Court was now both dull and partially deserted; the beautiful masques of Ben Jonson were no longer called into requisition: they had been discontinued since 1626, and were not resumed until two years after Buckingham had ceased to exist; and the only diversion specified for the Christmas festivity of this, his last Christmas, was “a running masque,” to be performed on a Sunday, hastily got up, and of no particular note.[99] Footnote 99: State Papers, vol. xc., No. 10.