d, and thought of the absent.

The intelligence which he had soon to communicate was all-important.
York House was to be occupied again; and Cromwell and his coadjutors had
bestowed it on Fairfax. The blow was perhaps softened by the reflection
that Fairfax was a man of generous temper; and that he had an only
daughter, Mary Fairfax, young, and an heiress. Though the daughter of a
Puritan, a sort of interest was attached, even by Cavaliers, to Mary
Fairfax, from her having, at five years of age, followed her father
through the civil wars on horseback, seated before a maid-servant; and
having, on her journey, frequently fainted, she was so ill as to have
been left in a house by the roadside, her father never expecting to see
her again.

In reference to this young girl, then about eighteen years of age,
Buckingham now formed a plan. He resolved to return to England
disguised, to offer his hand to Mary Fairfax, and so recover his
property through the influence of Fairfax. He was confident of his own
attractions; and, indeed, from every account, he appears to have been
one of those reckless, handsome, speculative characters that often take
the fancy of better men than themselves. 'He had,' says Burnet, 'no sort
of literature, only he was drawn into chymistry; and for some years he
thought he was very near the finding of the philosopher's stone, which
had the effect that attends on all such men as he was, when they are
drawn in, to lay out for it. He had no principles of religion, virtue,
or friendship; pleasure, frolic, or extravagant diversion, was all he
laid to heart. He was true to nothing; for he was not true to himself.
He had no steadiness nor conduct; he could keep no secret, nor execute
any design without spoiling it; he could never fix his thoughts, nor
govern his estate, though then the greatest in England. He was bred
about the king, and for many years he had a great ascendant over him;
but he spoke of him to all persons with that contempt, that at last he
drew a lasting disgrace upon himself. And he at length ruined both body
and mind, fortune and reputation, equally.'

This was a sad prospect for poor Mary Fairfax, but certainly if in their
choice

----'Weak women go astray,
Their stars are more in fault than they,'

and she was less to blame in her choice than her father, who ought to
have advised her against the marriage. Where and how they met is not
known. Mary was not attractive in person: s