On the twenty-seventh of August, 1616, the ceremony of this double creation took place.
On this occasion, the preface to the patent was composed by Lord Bacon, who, on sending it to the King, observed that he had not used in it “glaring terms,” but drawn it according to His Majesty’s instructions. It was determined that the two creations, those of Baron Whaddon and Viscount Villiers, should take place at the same time, the former being intended to secure the estates of Whaddon, the latter, to preserve the name of Villiers in the appellation of the favourite. This appears to have been the especial will of James. “For the name,” writes Bacon to Villiers, on sending him his patent for the title of Viscount, “His Majesty’s will is law in these things; and to speak truth, it is a well-sounding name both here and abroad, and being even a proper name, I will take it for a good sign that you shall give honour to your dignity, and not your dignity to you. Therefore, I have made it ‘Viscount Villiers;’ and as for your Barony, I will keep it for an Earldom, for though the latter had been more orderly, yet that is as usual, and both alike good in law.”
The patent, however, was again altered. It is possible that Bacon may have imagined that the associations connected with Whaddon, and relating to a nobleman generally compassionated,[121] might have rendered Villiers unpopular: at all events he changed it to Blechly; and Villiers received the patent of Lord Blechly, of Blechly.[122]
According to Carte, Villiers was obliged to pay 11,000_l._ to Sir Rowland Egerton, who had married Lord Grey’s sister, and also to procure Sir Rowland the patent of Baronetcy. But this is discredited by Sir Egerton Brydges. See Men of Fame, vol. i., p. 79.
“I have sent you,” Bacon thus wrote, “now, your patent of creation of Lord Blechly of Blechly, and of Viscount Villiers. Blechly is your own, and I like the sound of the name better than Whaddon; but the name will be laid aside, for you wish to be called Viscount Villiers. I have put them both in a patent, after the manner of the patent of arms where baronies are joined; but the chief reason was, because I would avoid double prefaces, which had not been fit; nevertheless, the ceremony of robing, and otherwise, must be double.”[123]