Buckingham did not dissemble his annoyance. “May one inquire his name?” he asked, and the question was a demand.
Albemarle hesitated. He realized the danger to Holles in naming him at this unfortunate juncture. Buckingham might go to any lengths to have him removed, and there was that in Holles’s past, in his very name, which would supply abundant grounds. “His name would not be known to your grace. He is a comparatively obscure soldier, whose merits, however, are fully known to me, and I am persuaded that a fitter man for the office could not be found. But something else will, no doubt, offer within a few days, and then....”
“It is not a question of something else, your grace, but of this. I have already obtained His Majesty’s sanction. It is at his suggestion that I am here. It is fortunate that the person you had designated for the command is obscure. He will have to give way, and you may console him with the next vacant post. If your grace requires more explicit instruction I shall be happy to obtain you His Majesty’s commands in writing.”
Albemarle was checkmated. He sat there grim and impassive as if he were carved of stone. But his mind was a seething cauldron of anger. It was always thus. The places of trust, the positions demanding experienced heads and able hands that England might be served to the best advantage by her most meritorious sons, were constantly being flung away upon the worthless parasites that flocked about Charles’s lecherous Court. And he was the more angered here, because his hands were tied against resistance by the very identity of the man he was appointing. Had it been a question of any other man of Holles’s soldierly merit, but of such antecedents as would permit the disclosure of his name, he would clap on his hat and step across to the palace to argue the matter with the King. And he would know how to conduct the argument so as to prevail against the place-seeking insolence of Buckingham. But, as it was, he was forced to realize that he could do none of this without perhaps dooming Holles and bringing heavy censure fruitlessly upon himself. “Oddsfish!” the King would cry. “Do you tell me to my face that you prefer the son of a regicide to the friend of my friend?” And what should he answer then?