Sales catalogue 513: Maggs Bros

Date:
1928
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/70
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 513: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    his policy without mentioning his name. On the 8th Coke named him. ‘‘ I think,’’ he said,. ‘‘ the Duke of Bucks is the cause of all our miseries, and till the king be informed thereof, we shall never go out with honour, or sit with honour here. That man is the grievance of grievances.’’ Selden proposed that his impeachment should be re- newed. The commons proceeded to draw up a remonstrance, in which Buckingham’s demerits were set forth, and on the 7th Charles gave his assent to the petition of right in due form. After the king’s acceptance of the petition of right the commons voted five subsidies, which enabled Buckingham to complete his pre- parations for a new expedition intended to relieve Rochelle. Yet, though they dropped the proposal to impeach the favourite, they com- pleted their remonstrance, in which his excessive power was declared to be the principal cause of the evils under which they suffered. They further declared that no man could manage ‘‘ so many and weighty affairs of the kingdom as he hath undertaken, besides the ordinary duties of those offices he holds,’’ finally expressing a desire that he might no longer continue in office, or “‘ in his place of nearness and counsel about ’’ the ‘‘ sacred person ’’ of the king. Charles stood by his overbearing subject. On 16th June he commanded all docu- ments relating to the sham prosecution of Buckingham in the Star- chamber in 1626 to be taken off the file, ‘‘ that no memory thereof remain of the record against him which may tend to his disgrace.’’ On the 17th, when the commons appeared with their remonstrance, he prohibited Buckingham from answering, though the duke begged to be allowed to speak in his own defence. Buckingham was murdered at Portsmouth by John Felton, a dis- charged officer, who, meditating on his own wrongs, had found in the remonstrance of the House of Commons an inspiration to the deed as ridding the earth of a tyrant. He had acted, he believed, as the champion of God and his country.—(D.N.B.)
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