Footnote 109: Parallel between Essex and Buckingham--“Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.” But there were dangers lurking in his path which no defence could avert. Personal danger did not appal him. Slander did not affect him. Yet a forgotten, morbid, disappointed man was the instrument of destiny; and even in this crisis Buckingham seems never to have shrunk from the assassins, even in imagination: he knew that he had already escaped great perils--and that consciousness gave him security. CHAPTER III. FELTON--HIS CHARACTER--UNCERTAINTY OF HIS MOTIVES--CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH HE WAS BROUGHT INTO CONTACT WITH BUCKINGHAM--MOTIVES OF HIS CRIME DISCUSSED--THE REMONSTRANCE--THE FATE OF LA ROCHELLE--BUCKINGHAM’S UNPOPULARITY--RETURNS TO RHE--MISGIVINGS OF HIS FRIENDS--INTERVIEW WITH LAUD--WITH CHARLES I.--HIS FAREWELL--HE ENTERS PORTSMOUTH--FELTON--THE ASSASSINATION--ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM SIR D. CARLETON AND SIR CHARLES MORGAN--THE KING’S GRIEF. CHAPTER III. Whilst all these events were pending, dark designs were being formed and cherished in the distempered mind of one far from the Court, and probably wholly forgotten by him to whose destiny he gave the final stroke. Hitherto Buckingham had escaped all bodily harm. He had rallied speedily from illness, and was in the full vigour of his life; he had returned unhurt from the perilous service at Rhé; he had repeatedly crossed the Channel, and tracked even the great ocean when the science of navigation, as well as of ship-building, was imperfect, and when a thousand dangers encompassed his course: he had escaped the pestilence by which the army lost many of its best men. And yet his days were numbered.