The heady wine of power had gone to his brain, and so addled it
that, as John Chamberlain tells us, there was presently a touch
of craziness in him--of the variety, no doubt, known to modern
psychologists as megalomania He lost the sense of proportion, and
was without respect for anybody or anything. The Commons of
England and the immensely dignified Court of Spain--during that
disgraceful, pseudo-romantic adventure at Madrid--were alike the
butts of this parvenu's unmeasured arrogance But the crowning
insolence of his career was that tragicomedy the second act of
which was played on a June evening in an Amiens garden on the
banks of the river Somme.
Three weeks ago--on the 14th May, 1625, to be precise--Buckingham
had arrived in Paris as Ambassador Extra-ordinary, charged with
the task of conducting to England the King of France's sister,
Henrietta Maria, who three days earlier had been married by proxy
to King Charles.
The occasion enabled Buckingham to fling the reins on to the neck
of his mad vanity, to indulge to the very fullest his crazy
passion for ostentation and magnificence. Because the Court of
France was proverbially renowned for splendour and luxury,
Buckingham felt it due to himself to extinguish its brilliance by
his own.
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