heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

242 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
Professor Gervinus, in his Shakespeare Commentaries, page 819, very
justly and fully delineates his character. "In the character of the Duke
of Buckingham, we look again," he says,
" on the age of the great armed
" nobility, with their pretensions and rebellions, which were the soul of
" the history under the houses of York and Lancaster, though (in this play)
"the physiognomy of the age seems wholly changed compared to the
" character of that earlier epoch. The noise of arms has ceased, the
" prominent personages are men of education, mind, and well-won merit.
"The Duke himself has kept up with the change of the time; he is not
" merely an ambitious man of the sword, he is learned, wise in council,
" rich in mind, and a fascinating orator."
We are told that he appeared in arms against the Cornish men who
befriended Perkin Warbeck that he was a constant ;
companion of King
Henry VIII. in his revels at Greenwich and Richmond, and, on one
occasion, declined jousting with him. On another the King gave him a
horse. Shakespeare makes Henry say of him :
" This gentleman is learned, and a most rare speaker,
To nature none more bound his :
training such
That he may furnish nnd instruct great teachers,
And never seek for aid out of himself."*
One of the gentlemen (in Act II. Sc. i) comparing him with Wolsey,
says:
"All the commons
Hate him perniciously, and, o' my conscience,
Wish him ten fathoms deep: this Duke as much
They love and dote on : call him bounteous Buckingham,
The mirror of all courtesy."
His object seems to have been (with Norfolk, Surrey, and Abergavenny)
to maintain the old authority of the nobles, as against Wolsey, who is a
thorn in their eyes. Buckingham regards
it insufferable that
" This butcher's cur is venom-mouthed, and I
Have not the power
to muzzle him :
A beggar's book
Outworths a noble's blood.
This holy fox,
Or wolf, or both, for he is equal ravenous
As he is subtle : and as prone to mischief
As able to perform it."t
He was only watching his opportunity to denounce to the King
"This top proud fellow,
Whom from the flow of gall I name not, but
From sincere motions, by intelligence
And proofs as clear as founts in July, when
We see each grain of gravel, I do know
To be corrupt and treasonous."
' Act I. Sc. 2. + Act I. Sc. i.