endid
personage of the time of Charles the First, remarkably handsome, and
dressed in robes of state, lies on the tomb beside his fair wife.
Allegorical figures stand at the four corners. The recumbent effigies
are in brass, richly gilded. Behind their heads kneel three children, a
boy and two girls, beautifully carved in marble; and above this trio an
exquisite child leans on his elbow, tired out with grief and fallen
gently asleep.

Standing beside this tomb, Dean Stanley says:

We seem to be present in the Court of Charles as we look at
its fantastic ornaments ("Fame even bursting herself, and
trumpets to tell the news of his so sudden fall") and its
pompous inscriptions calling each State in Europe severally
to attest the several virtues of this "Enigma of the
World."[80]

Who, we may well ask, is this man who lies buried among the tombs of the
kings of England, in state far exceeding that accorded to many
sovereigns?

Every one who has read the history of the reigns of James the First and
Charles the First will remember the most famous, and perhaps most
dangerous of all the court favorites who helped to bring ruin upon
England--George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

His story reads like a chapter out of the _Arabian Nights_:

Never any man in any age, nor, I believe, in any country or
nation, rose in so short a time to so much greatness of
honour, fame, and fortune, upon no other advantage or
recommendation than the beauty and gracefulness of his
person.[81]

Young and exceedingly handsome, George Villiers, the son of a
Leicestershire squire, was taken into favor by James the First, on the
disgrace of his first favorite, the Earl of Rochester. In an incredibly
short space of time "Steenie," as his royal masters called him, rose
through every rank of the peerage to a dukedom, and to the actual
direction of English policy. Haughty, reckless, selfish, his only good
quality was his personal bravery.

This was the man whose evil influence made itself felt throughout
England, who plunged the country into disastrous wars and encouraged
King Charles in those fatal measures which at last brought him to the
scaffold. When Charles the First came to the throne in 1625, Buckingham
was at the height of his glory and power. In vain did Parliament
remonstrate with the king. In vain did they petition him again and again
to rid himself of a favorite who was becoming more hated a