More on Fairholt's book

The introduction of Fairholt's collection of poems on Buckingham and his execution (23 years in the future, in terms of this blog), is interesting for more than including the schedule of Buckingham's gifts from the crown. It also explains most of what is known about "Doctor" John Lambe, the quack and astrologer whom Buckingham seems to have occasionally consulted.

I'm working on a web edition of Fairholt's book. It should be ready this week.

One couplet in an epitaph on Buckingham struck me this evening. It is

Live ever, Felton, thou hast turn'd to dust
Treason, ambition, murther, pride and lust.

(Felton, of course, was the assassin of the Duke of Buckingham.)

However unfair that may be to the memory of George Villiers (as Gardiner will show us six volumes from
now), it is as comprehensive a condemnation as can be.

I beg pardon for these consecutive interruptions of a tour that has yet to begin. I still intend a short historiographical comment, and then to commence the walks that Samuel Gardiner has laid out.