In August, 1623, the Duchess of Buckingham—this would be Buckingham's wife and not his mother, the Countess of Buckingham—wrote to Conway:—

"SIR,[53]

"My sister and myselfe have seene a letter writt from you to Sir John Keyesley concerning my Brother Purbeck, by his ma^ties command and doubt not but his ma^tie hath bin informed with the most of his distemper. Wee have bin with him the moste parte of this weeke at London, and have found him very temperate by which wee thinke hee is inclining towards his melancholye fitt, which if hee were in, then hee might be perswaded any wayes, which at this instant hee will not, he standeth so affected to the cittee and if there should be any violent course taken with him, wee thinke he would be much the worse, for it, and drive him quite besides himselfe. Therefore wee hould it best to intreat Sir John Keysley and som other of his friends to beare him companie in London and kepe him as private as they can for three or four dayes till his dull fitt be upon him, and then hee may bee had any whither. This in our judgment is the fittest course at this present to be taken with him which we desire you will be pleased to let his Ma^ty. knowe and I shall rest.

"Your assured loving friend, "(Signed) K. BUCKINGHAM."

From this it would appear either that when Purbeck was in one of his "melancholye fitts," he was quite tractable, but, at other times, he was rather unmanageable; or that, when well, he refused to be ordered about, but when ill, was too poorly to make any resistance. Conway[54] replied as follows:—

"MOST GRATIOUS,

"I have represented to his Ma^tie. your Letter, and he doth gratiously observe those sweete and tender motions which rise in your minde, suitable with your noble, gentle and milde disposition, in which you excell your sex: especially where force or restraint should be done to the brother of youre deare Lorde.

"And I cannot expresse soe finely as his Ma^tie. did, how much he priseth and loveth that blessed sweetness in you, and you in it. But I must tell your Grace his Ma^tie. prays you, not to thinke it a little distemper which carryed him to those publique actes, and publique places, and to consider how irremediable it is, when his intemperance hath carryed him to do some act of dishonour to himselfe, which may, and must, reflect upon his most noble Brother, beyond the follies and disprofits which he dayly practiseth. And that your Grace will not only bee to suffer some sure course to bee taken for the conveying of him into the country, but that you will advise it and assist it with the most gentle (yet sure) wayes possible. That he may be restrayned from the power and possibility of doing such acts as may scorne him, or be dangerous to him: which these wayes of acting can never provide for. For his Ma^tie. sayeth there cannot bee soe much as 'whoe would have thought it,' which is the fooles answere, left for an error in this: for whoe would not thinke that a distempered minde may doe the worst to be done. His Ma^tie. therefore once more prayes you that his former directions to Sir John Ersley may bee put in execution and the safest and surest for the goode of the unfortunate noble person, and honor of youre deare Lorde, his Ma^ties. dearest servant.

"This is that I have in charge. My faith and duty calls for this profession that noe man is more bound to study and endeavour the preservation of the honor and good of those that have interest in my noble patron than myselfe: nor noe man more bound and more ready to obey your commandments than

"Your Grace's most humble servant.

"ALDERSHOT. 30 August 1623."

The chief object aimed at by Conway and, as will be seen presently, by the King, was to prevent any scandal or gossip about Purbeck's behaviour injuring "his Ma^ties. dearest servant," Buckingham. Purbeck's personal interests evidently counted for very little, if for anything.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] P. 444

[43] Woolrych's Life of Sir Ed. Coke, p. 150. His authority for this statement is Camden, Ann. Jac., p. 45.

[44] Letter quoted by Woolrych.

[45] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXIII., No. 52.

[46] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CXII., No. 1.

[47] S.P. Dom., James I., No. 18.

[48] Stonyhurst MSS., Angliae, Vol. VII. And Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, Series I., p. 532.

[49] At a subsequent conference King James was present (Diary of the English College at Rome. The names of the Alumni, No. 181). Also Records of the English Province of the S.J., Series I., p. 533. The Countess of Buckingham subsequently became a Catholic, and her son, the Duke, obtained leave from the King for Father Percy to "live on parole in her house," which became his home in London for ten years (Ibid., p. 531).

[50] Biog. Brit., notice of Sir E. Coke. Footnote.

[51] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CXXXI, No. 24.

[52] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CXXVII., No. 35. Chamberlain to Carleton, 19th January, 1622. James I., 1619-23, p. 337. The price paid is said to have been L3,000. See Gardiner, Vol. IV., Chap. XL., p. 279. Lord Wallingford was made Earl of Banbury, and the subsequent claim to this title became as curious as that to the title of Purbeck, which will be shown later.

[53] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLI., No. 86.

[54] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLI., No. 87, 30th August, 1623.



CHAPTER VIII.

" ... wed to one half lunatic." Taming of the Shrew, II., I.

Poor Purbeck seems to have had many amateur keepers. The King gave orders to a Sir John Hippisley to remove him from the Court, in September, 1623; and on the and Sir John wrote to Conway:—[55]

"NOBLE SIR,

"I have received the King's command and your directions in your letters to bring my Lord of Purbecke out of London which I have done and have made no noise of it and have done all I could to give no scandal to the Duke or Viscount: He is now at Hampton Court, but is not willing to go any further till the king send express commande that he shall not staye here.

"Sir I have obeyed all the King's commandes and that without any scandal to the Duke,"—always the point of main importance—"now my humble request to you is that I may be free from entering any farther in this business and that I may come and kiss his Maj^tes hand for now I am fit.... There is one Mr. Aimes that knoweth my Lord of Purbecke and fitte to be employed by rate he hath power to persuade him. I beseech you grant me fair of this and you shall have it me

"To be your faithfull servant ever to be commanded

"(Signed) JO: HIPPISLEY.

"HAMPTON COURT "this 2 of September."

From this it is very clear that Hippisley did not want to have anything more to do with a disagreeable business; and the question presents itself whether it was because he disliked acting as keeper to a lunatic, or because he did not think Purbeck so mad as was pretended, if mad at all, and objected to having a hand in a shady transaction.

In the same month, the King wrote himself to Purbeck.[56] The letter is almost illegible; but its purport appears to be to urge Lord Purbeck, out of consideration for Buckingham, as well as for his own good, to go to, and to stay at, whatever place might be appointed for him by the Earl of Middlesex.

During the summer of the following year (1624), Purbeck seems to have recovered his sanity; but only for a time, although a considerable time. Chamberlain wrote[57] to Carleton:—

"MY VERY SWEETE LORD:

" ... The Viscount Purbecke followed the court a good while in very goode temper, and there was speech of making him a marquis that he might go before his younger brother but I heare of late he is fallen backe to his old craise and worse....

"Yo^r Lo^ps most assuredly "at command,

"(Signed) JOHN CHAMBERLAIN."

This shows that, if Purbeck was insane, his insanity was intermittent; and it could not have been chronic; for in later years we read that he was managing his own affairs and that he married again, some time after the death of Frances.

From the following letter, written by Lady Purbeck to Buckingham, and unfortunately undated, it would seem that Buckingham had driven her from her home, when she had become the subject of a certain amount of vague scandal, but, so far as was then known, or at least proved, of nothing more; and that he had contrived that she should have none of the wealth which she had brought to her husband. As will be seen, she was apparently penniless, except for what she received from her mother or her friends.

"My Lord[58]:—Though you may judge what pleasure there is in the conversation of a man in the distemper you see your brother in; yet, the duty I owe to a Husband, and the affection I bear him (which sickness shall not diminish) makes me much desire to be with him, to add what comfort I can to his afflicted mind, since his only desire is my company; which, if it please you to satisfy him in, I shall with a very good will suffer with him, and think all but my duty, though I think every wife would not do so. But if you can so far dispense with the laws of God as to keep me from my Husband, yet aggravate it not by restraining me from his means, and all other contentments; but, which I think is rather the part of a Christian, you especially ought much rather to study comforts for me, than to add ills to ills, since it is the marriage of your brother makes me thus miserable. For if you please but to consider, not only the lamentable estate I am in, deprived of all comforts of a Husband, and having no means to live of; besides falling from the hopes my fortune then did promise me; for you know very well, I came no beggar to you, though I am like so to be turn'd off.

"For your own honour and conscience sake, take some course to give me satisfaction, to tye my tongue from crying to God and the world for vengeance, for the unwilling dealing I have received, and think not to send me again to my Mother's, where I have stayed this quarter of a year, hoping (for that Mother said you promised) order should be taken for me; but I never received a penny from you. Her confidence in your nobleness made me so long silent; but now, believe me, I will sooner beg my bread in the streets, to all your dishonours, than any more trouble my friends, and especially my Mother, who was not only content to afford us part of the little means she hath left her, but whilst I was with her, was continually distempered with devised Tales which came from your Family,"—this refers to certain scandalous stories about her own conduct—and withal lost your good opinion, which before she either had, or you made shew of it; but had it been real, I can not think her words would have been so translated, nor in the power of discontented servants' tales to have ended it.

"My Lord, if the great Honour you are in can suffer you to have so mean a thought as of so miserable a creature as I am so made by too much credulity of your fair promises, which I have waited for performance of almost these five years: and now it were time to despair, but that I hope you will one day be yourself, and be governed by your own noble thoughts, and then I am assured to obtain what I desire, since my desires be so reasonable, and but for mine own, which whether you grant or not, the affliction my poor husband is in (if it continue) will keep my mind in a continual purgatory for him, and will suffer me to sign myself no other but your unfortunate sister

"F. PURBECK."

This letter may be taken as evidence of Purbeck's lunacy. On the other hand it might possibly, if not plausibly, be argued that it may only mean that he was in a very bad state of bodily health accompanied by great mental depression. Some readers of these pages may have experienced the capabilities of a liver in lowering the spirits.

As Lady Purbeck says, her mother had now "lost the good opinion" of Buckingham, and undoubtedly this was because she had refused to increase his brother's allowance. So early as 28th November, 1618, John Pary wrote to Carleton,[59] regretting that he had not applied to Lady Bedford to use her influence in order to obtain a certain appointment, instead of applying to Lady Elizabeth, who had fallen out with Buckingham, and now had no influence whatever with him.

Lady Elizabeth, therefore, after having risen by her own skill to be one of the most influential women in England—perhaps the most influential—and that in the face of enormous difficulties, was beginning to fall from her high estate. And besides the bitter disappointment of the loss of influence and of royal smiles, a grievous and humiliating family sorrow was in store for her.

These pages do not constitute a brief on behalf of Lady Purbeck. It is desired that they should do her justice—full justice; but too little is recorded of her personal character to permit any attempt to portray it in detail, or even to make a bold sketch of its principal features. Of her circumstances it is much easier to write with confidence. We have already learned much about them. We have seen that she was brought up in an atmosphere of perpetual domestic discord, ending in a physical struggle between her father and her mother for the possession of her person: that she was afterwards flogged until she consented to make a marriage contract with a man much older than herself, whom she disliked intensely—a form of marriage which was no marriage, as her will for it was wanting and she was literally forced into it, if any girl was ever forced into a marriage.

An old husband hateful to a young wife would become yet more unattractive if he became insane, or eccentric, or even an irritable invalid. Then his change of religion would most likely annoy her extremely. Whether a husband leaves his wife's religion for a better or a worse religion, it is equally distasteful to her.

Her condition would be made still further miserable when she was turned out of her own home, and practically robbed of her own possessions, luxuries and comforts. From what we have seen of her mother, it is difficult to believe that she was a tenderhearted woman, to whom a daughter would go for consolation in her affliction: nor could that daughter place much confidence in a mother who had once deceived her with a forged letter. To her father, who had treated her with great brutality and had sold her just as he might have sold a beast among his farm stock, she would be still less likely to turn for comfort or for counsel. Add to all this that, as the wife of an official in Prince Charles's household, and as the sister-in-law of the reigning favourite, she was a good deal at the Court of James I. at a time when it was one of the most dissolute in Europe; and it will be easy to recognise that her whole life had been spent in unwholesome atmospheres.

When we consider the position of a very beautiful girl of between twenty-one and twenty-four, who had had such an education, had endured such villainous treatment, and was now placed under such trying conditions, we can but feel prepared to hear that some or other of the usual results of bad education, bad treatment, and bad surroundings exhibited themselves, and surely if trouble, and worse than trouble, was ever likely to come of a marriage that had been an empty form, Lady Purbeck's was one after which it might be expected.

And it came! Near Cripple Gate, at the North Wall of London, in October, 1624, was born a boy named Robert Wright. More than a century later the Vicar of the Parish was asked to refer to his registers about this event, and he sent the following reply:—[60]

"London, April 10 1740.

SIR,

"I have searched my Parish Register according to your directions and have found the following Entry concerning Robert Wright.

"Christening in October 1624.

"Robert, Son of John Wright, Gentleman, of Bishopthorpe in Yorkshire, baptised in the Garden House of Mr. Manninge at the upper end of White Cross Street ... 20th.

"I am, Sir, "Your very humble servant, "WILL NICHOLLS, "Vicar of St. Giles's Cripplegate."

The father of this boy was, in reality, Sir Robert Howard, the fifth son of the Earl of Suffolk, the Earl to whose vigilance the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot is attributed by some authorities. But Suffolk had incurred the enmity of Buckingham, had been deprived of the office of Lord Treasurer, had been tried for peculation in the discharge of it, and then condemned in the Star Chamber to imprisonment in the Tower and a fine of L30,000. When he was liberated, he was told that two of his sons, who held places in the King's household, were expected to resign them; but Suffolk, in very spirited letters to the King and to Buckingham (Cabala, pp. 333, 334), protested against this. The whole family, therefore, was in bad odour at Court and with Buckingham at this time.

Sir Robert Howard was a brother of the first Earl of Berkshire, who married a niece of Lady Elizabeth Hatton. It may possibly have been through this connection by marriage that Sir Robert Howard became acquainted and intimate with Lady Purbeck; and, to make a long story short, let it be observed here that, in relation to the boy who was christened Robert Wright, Lady Purbeck had had what, among the lower classes, is euphemistically termed "a misfortune."

FOOTNOTES:

[55] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLIII., No. 6.

[56] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLII, No. 13.

[57] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXX., No. 54, 24th July, 1624.

[58] Cabala, Sive Scrinia Sacra, etc., p. 318.

[59] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CIII., No. 111.

[60] Coles' MSS., Vol. XXXIII., pp. 17, 18.



CHAPTER IX.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Henry VI., 2, IV., 2.

Although Robert Wright was baptised in October, 1624, the date of his birth is uncertain. He may have been born many months before his baptism; but his being christened at a private house rather points the other way. Anyhow, proceedings were instituted against Sir Robert Howard and Lady Purbeck, long before the child was christened. In The Diary of Archbishop Laud occurs the following entry for the year 1624:—

"Januar. 21. Friday. The business of my Lord Purbeck, made known unto me by my Lord Duke." This business of my Lord Purbeck may refer exclusively to his insanity, or reputed insanity; but it seems more probable that it has reference to the Howard-Purbeck scandal.

A letter[61] from the Lord Keeper, Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, to Buckingham, and written on 11th March, 1624, shows that the proceedings against Sir Robert Howard and Lady Purbeck were in full swing at that date.

"May it please your Grace,

"Sir Robert Howard appeared yesterday, and continues obstinate in his refusal to swear. When we came to examine the Commission for our Power to fine him for his Obstinacy, we found, that Sir Edward Coke (foreseeing, out of a prophetical Spirit, how near it might concern a Grand-Child of his own), hath expunged this Clause (by the Help of the Earl of Salisbury) out of the Commission, and left us nothing but the rusty Sword of the Church, Excommunication, to vindicate the Authority of this Court. We have given him day until Saturday next, either to conform, or to be excommunicated. She hath answered wittily, and cunningly, but yet sufficient for the Cognisance of the Court: Confesseth a Fame of Incontinence against her and Howard; but saith, it was raised by her Husband's Kindred. I do not doubt, but the Business will go on well; but (peradventure) more slowly, if Howard continue refractory, for want of this power to fine and amerce him."

That Lady Purbeck "answered wittily," or, as would now be said, "cleverly" in court, is not to be wondered at; for was she not the daughter of a father who had been the cleverest barrister of his day, and of a mother who was more than a match for that cleverest of barristers?

A couple of days later the same correspondent wrote[62] to the Duke: "For your Brother's Business, this is all I have to acquaint your Grace with: Sir Robert Howard appeared, yesterday, at Lambeth, pretended want of Council (the Doctors being out of Town) desired respite until to-morrow, and had it granted by my Lord's Grace. Most men think he will not take his Oath at all; I do incline to the contrary Opinion, because, to my knowledge, he hath sent far and near, for the most able Doctors in the Kingdom, to be feed for him, which were great folly, if he intended not to answer. He is extreamly commended for his closeness and secrecy by the major part of our Auditors (the He and She Good-fellows of the Town,) and though he refuseth to be a Confessor, yet he is sure to dye a Martyr, and most of the Ladies in Town will worship at his Shrine. The Lady Hatton, some nine days since was at Stoke, with the good Knight her Husband, for some counsel in this particular; but he refused to meddle therewithal, and dismist her Ladiship, when she had stayed with him very lovingly half a quarter of an hour."

There had been some sort of reconciliation between Coke and Lady Elizabeth in July, 1621, says Woolrych in his life of Coke, "a reconciliation effected through the mediation of the King." It was not, however, cordial; for "we have good reason to suppose that they lived apart to the day of Coke's death," says Campbell. At any rate they were now on speaking terms, though that was about all; for, as we have just seen, Coke refused to meddle in a matter upon which he was eminently qualified to give an opinion, and he got rid of his wife after an interview of seven minutes and a half, instead of giving her the leisurely and lengthy advice and instructions which were the least that she might have expected from him. Sympathy, of course, she could not have hoped for.

The proceedings against the two delinquents would appear to have been in abeyance during the rest of the year; but in January, 1625, Sir John Coke—the Secretary of State, not one of the Cokes of Sir Edward's family—wrote[63] to Buckingham, saying that the King, although so ill as scarcely to be able to sign his name, had put it to the warrant sent by the Lord Chief Justice for authority to examine into Lady Purbeck's business. This warrant, however, James either issued with certain qualifications, or else privately advised Buckingham only to act upon with prudence, as may be inferred from the following letter,[64] written on February the 11th, by Buckingham to the Lord Chief Justice:—

"I have moved the P. for a warrant from his ma^tie for the commitment of Sir Ro. Howard and my sister Purbeck, but his ma^tie hath out of his gracious and provident care of me dissuaded me in this lest upon it coming to a publique hearing it might be thought that I had gained power more by the way of favour than by the wayes of justice.... I desire you to acquaint this bearer Mr. Innocent Lanier all the particulars of this matter for I know him to be very honest, and discreete and secret." The part of the letter immediately following is illegible, but presently it goes on to say that Lanier[65] is much trusted by his brother Purbeck; that Lanier will not otherwise be able to keep his brother with him; and that, if he leaves, Sir Robert and Lady Purbeck "by their crafty insinuations will draw from him speeches to their advantage."

Now, if Purbeck were still insane, or anything near it, no "speeches drawn from him" could have had any effect for the advantage of Lady Purbeck and Sir Robert. And it is clear from this letter that Lady Purbeck was even at that time on good terms with her husband and able to influence him. A reader might have been tempted to imagine that Purbeck's "melancholy fitts" of insanity were the result of misery about his wife's infidelity; but, if she could still "draw from him speeches to her advantage," this cannot have been the case. The prosecution of Lady Purbeck was pretty clearly at the instigation of Buckingham and not of Purbeck. There is just a possibility that Purbeck had refused to proceed against her, and that Buckingham represented him as mad in order to act in his place, as his brother, and divorce Lady Purbeck; although such a theory is not supported by strong evidence. There is, however, this evidence in its support, that Purbeck acknowledged the boy christened Robert Wright as his own son some years later.

It is true that, fifty years afterwards, in a petition to the House of Lords[66] by Lord Denbigh against a claim made by a son of Robert Wright, it is stated that Lord and Lady Purbeck had not lived together as man and wife for two years before the birth of Robert Wright; and that Lord Purbeck "was entrusted in the hands of physicians for the cure of a melancholy distemper, occasioned by the cruelty and disorders of his wife." But this claimed absence of two years, or anything approaching two years, is very questionable, if not very improbable; and although there is not much doubt as to the real parentage of Robert Wright, Purbeck may have lived with his wife sufficiently near the birth of the boy to imagine himself his father. Indeed, as the following letter will show, she was so far at Court, as to be living in Prince Charles's house so late as February, 1625, a year after the birth of the boy. Moreover, as we have seen, Lord Purbeck held office in Prince Charles's household, and from this it might be inferred that Purbeck and Lady Purbeck were then together. This is the more likely because in the following letter Buckingham expresses a fear that his "brother will be also every day running to her and give her occasion to worke on him by the subtlty of her discourse." And if the husband and wife had access to each other when the proceedings against the latter had gone so far, they are much more likely to have been together during the year preceding the birth of the boy.

All this only affects the question whether Purbeck discredited his wife's fidelity. Nothing has been said above in favour of the theory that she was faithful.

Buckingham experienced considerable difficulties in the prosecution of Lady Purbeck. On 15th February, 1625, he wrote[67] from Newmarket to the Lord Chief Justice:—

"MY LORD,

"I understande you are not yet resolved to committ my sister Purbeck who (if she be at Libbertie) will be still plotting and devising with her ill counsellors to cover and conceal the truth and fowlness of her crime and my brother will be also every day running to her and give her occasion to worke on him by the subtlty of her discourse. It is known that His Ma^tie was tender (at the first mention of this business) of the hande of a Lady of her quallity but sure [if] he hath fully understood the proofs and truth of her fault and how dishonorably she hath carryed herself he would have no more support showen to her than to an ordinary Lady in the like case for that she hath by her ill carriage forfyted that hande."

Things were not going so well now as they had been with Buckingham. Within twelve months he was to be impeached in the House of Commons; and, although still high in the royal favour, his King may not have been so completely his servant at this time as he had been formerly. Buckingham continues:—

"It is likewise very unfit she should remayne in the Prinses house for defying which I thinke much aggravates her crimes and his highness often speaks in distast of her continuance there. You are well acquainted with the proof which is against her, so as I shall not nede to tell you how much it reminds me to be carefull in the prosecution of her faulte but I assure you there is nothing that more sollisits my minde. I ... thanke you for the paynes you have always taken in this business, which my earnest desire is to have to be fully discovered and that you will for much oblige me by the continuance of the care and diligence therein as that she may be tymely prevented in her cunning endeavours to hinder the discovery of the truth of the facts whereof she stands justly accused which (in my opinion) cannot be done but by her present commitment.

"And Sir, I rest, "Your very loving friend.

"Upon syght of the pregnancy of the proofes and the guiltiness of Sir Rob. Howard and my sister, I desire that you will committ them to prison with little respect, from where I heare Sir Rob. Howard is, for an Alderman's House is rather an honour than disparagement to him and rather a place of entertainment to him than a prison." It will be observed that, although the accused persons had not yet been tried, Buckingham wished them to be put into a place of punishment; a place of mere detention would not satisfy him.

Lanier, who, as Buckingham said in a letter quoted above, was much trusted by his brother, seems to have been trusted by Purbeck without reason, as he was evidently in the employment of Buckingham.

A letter[68] written by Buckingham to Coventry, the Attorney-General, and to Heath, the Solicitor-General, contains the following:—

"I perceive by your paper I have read how much I am beholding, and do also understand by Innocent Larnier and others of the persons themselves and my Lo: Chiefe justice have taken in the business concerning the Lady Purbeck for which I thanke you:... but I did hope you would have more discovered before this.... I desire you to say what you think fitt to be done in the matter of the divorce of my brother and to notify me your opinion thereupon and (if you thinke it fitt to be proceeded in that) what is the speedyest worke that may be taken therein."

It was probably of this letter that Buckingham wrote[69] to Heath, the Solicitor-General, on 16th February, 1625, from Newmarket:—

"I have written a letter to yourself and to Mr. Attorney regarding the business of the Lady Purbeck showing that I desire you principally only to aggravate her crimes that the Lady by my humble and your like kind favour may yet be kept in prison, before the returne to towne, for other my brother who hopes to be going soune will not be kept from her and she will (if he should meet with her) so worke on him by her subtilty and that shee will draw from him something to the advantage of her dishonourable cause and to her end." Here again is evidence that Purbeck "will not be kept from" his wife; and that, if they meet "shee will draw something to the advantage of her" case in the divorce suit. In what form could this something come? Is it possible that Buckingham may have thought that she might induce Purbeck to appear as a witness in her favour? Or that she might persuade him to stop the suit if he should happen to be sane enough to do so when it came on?

The next letter has an interest, first, because it shows that Lady Purbeck's child was really in the custody of Buckingham. Nominally it was probably in that of Purbeck; but, if Purbeck as a lunatic was in the custody of Buckingham, what was in Purbeck's custody would be in Buckingham's custody. Presently, however, we shall hear of the child being with its mother in her imprisonment at the house of an Alderman.

Innocent Lanier to Buckingham.[70] "May it please your grace,

"Appon my returne to London, I presently repayred to my Lo: Chiefe Justice, where I found Mr. Attorney and Mr. Solicitor.... I have heer inclosed fore your Grace ther letter which before it was sealed they showed mee, being something contrary to their resolution last nyghte, w^ch was, to have sent for Sr. Ro: Howard this morning, and so to comitt him closs in the Fleett, but of this I presume ther letter will give yor. Grace such satisfaction that I shall need neither to write more of it, nor of what is yett past. They much desier yor. Grace's coming to towne wch. I hope wilbe speedy as it wilbe materiall. I finde them resolved to deale roundly in this Busnes as yor. Grace desiers and are this morning in the examination of divers witness the better to Inform themselves agaynst my Ladies coming this afternoone. The next Day, they Intend to fall uppon Lambe and Frodsham. My Lady uppon the receipt of my lo: Chiefe Justice letter is something dismayed but resolved to prove a new lodging, and new keepers. The Childe, and Nurse, must remayne with us till farther directions, having nothing more at this present to aquaynt yor. Grace of, wth. my humblest duty I take leave.

"Yor. Grace's most humble and "obedient Servant, "(Signed) I. LANIER.

"DENMARK HOUSE. "Feb. 19, 1625."

"Enclosed. Att. Gen. Coventry and Sol. Gen. Heath to Buckingham.

"Have consulted with Sir Henry Martin on Lady Purbeck's business, and think the best plan would be to have the case brought before the High Commission Court, which can sit without delay, in the vacation, and when the crime is proved there, the divorce can be obtained by ordinary law. Think it unadvisable to send the culprits to prison, as it is unusual for persons of their rank but advise that they may be confined in the houses of Aldermen, where in fact they would probably be more closely restrained than in prison."

The last statement sounds curious; especially as we saw, a few pages ago, that Buckingham wrote: "an Alderman's house is rather an honour than disparagement," and "rather a place of entertainment than a prison."

Buckingham now sought a fresh weapon against his sister-in-law. A couple of scoundrels, mentioned in Lanier's letter, and named Frodsham and Lambe, men suspected of sorcery, offered to give evidence to the effect that Lady Purbeck had paid them to help her to bewitch both Purbeck and Buckingham. On the 16th of February, 1625, Buckingham wrote[71] to Coventry, the Attorney-General:—

"I perceive by the paper I have received how much I am beholding to you and do also understand by Innocent Lanier and others of the paynes [you] and my lo. Chief Justice, have taken in the business concerning the Lady Purbeck for which I thanke you ... but I did hope that you would have some more discovered before this tyme. If Lambe and ffrodsham may escape the one by saying what he did was but jugglinge and the other by seeming to affect to be thought a juggler I believe all that hath been already discovered of the truth of this business will be deluded. I do therefore desire that you will take some sound course with them to make them speake more directly and truly to the point and to bout (?) them from their shifts, for Lambe hath hitherto by such means played mock with the world to preserve himself. I desire you to acquaint Innocent Lanier (who is appointed by my brother to sollicit this business) with all the particulars and publique speeche that he may the better know how to imploy this paynes for the discovering of the knot of this villany. I desire you to say well what is fitt to be done in the divorce of my brother and to notify me your opinions thereon and (if you thinke it fitt to be pursued in this) what is the speediest work that may be taken therein. And you discover the best serving friend.

"I rest, &c.

"NEWMARKET."

If this was true it would seem that Purbeck himself suspected that he had been bewitched.

Yet on that very same day Buckingham wrote to Heath, the Solicitor-General, expressing his opinion that, unless Lady Purbeck were put in prison, Lord Purbeck would not "be kept from her," which does not look as if he can have been afraid lest she should bewitch him. The letter runs:—

"I have written a letter to yourself and Mr. Attorney concerning the business of the Lady Purbeck which I desire you on whose love to me I principally rely to aggravate and ayre the crimes of that Lady and her dealings with Lambe and the like, so soon as yet she may be before my coming to London committed to some prison for otherwise my brother who hopes to be going hence, will not be kept from her and she will (if he should come to her) so worke on him by her subtilty as that she will draw from him something to the advantage of her dishonourable ends and to his prejudice. Iff ffrodsham and Lambe once feele or be brought to feare their punishment I believe they will unfold much more than they yet have, for it seems they have but boath sported in their examinations, &c."

This letter, again, proves that Lord Purbeck was on good terms with Lady Purbeck, and that Buckingham was striving to keep them apart; and it adds still further support to the theory that it was not Lord Purbeck but Buckingham who was trying to divorce Lady Purbeck, by "aggravating and airing her crimes."

Buckingham himself was suspected of having dealings with Lambe on his own account; for Arthur Wilson says, in his Life of James I.:[72] "Dr. Lamb, a man of an infamous Conversation, (having been arraigned for a Witch, and found guilty of it at Worcester; and arraigned for a Rape, and found guilty of it at the King's Bench-Bar at Westminster; yet escaped the Stroke of Justice for both, by his Favour in Court) was much employed by the Mother and the Son," i.e., by the Duke of Buckingham and his mother. If this be true, Buckingham's conduct towards Lady Purbeck, in connection with Lambe, does not seem to have been very straightforward.

Lambe's "favour in Court," however, proved no protection to him in the streets. Whitelock writes[73] in 1632: "This Term the business of the Death of Doctor Lamb was in the King's Bench, wherein it appeared that he was neither Dr. nor any way Lettered, but a man odious to the Vulgar, for some Rumors that went of him, that he was a Conjurer or Sorcerer, and he was quarrelled with in the Streets in London, and as the people more and more gathered about him, so they pelted him with rotten Eggs, Stones, and other riff raff, justled him, beat him, bruised him, and so continued pursuing him from Street to Street, till they were five hundred people together following him. This continued three hours together until Night, and no Magistrate or Officer of the Peace once showed himself to stop this Tumult: so the poor man being above eighty years of age, died of this violence, and no Inquisition was taken of it, nor any of the Malefactors discovered in the City."

On the 26th of February Chamberlain wrote[74] to Carleton:—

"The Lady Purbecke w^th her young sonne, and Sr. Robert Howard are committed to the custodie of Generall Aldermen Barkham and Freeman to be close kept. When she was carried to Sergeants ynne to be examined by the new L. Chiefe Justice and others she saide she marvailled what those poore old cuckolds had to say to her. There is an imputation laide on her that with powders and potions she did intoxicate her husbands braines, and practised somewhat in that kinde upon the D. of Buckingham. This (they say) is confest by one Lambe a notorious old rascall that was condemned the last sommer at the Ks. bench for a rape and arraigned some yeare or two before at Worcester for bewitching my L. Windsor ... I see not what the fellow can gaine by this confession but to be hangd the sooner. Would you thinke the Lady Hattens stomacke could stoupe to go seeke her L. Cooke at Stoke for his counsaile and assistance in this business?"

It would appear that Buckingham really believed Lady Purbeck to have possessed herself of some powers of witchcraft and that he felt considerable uneasiness on his own account, as well as on his brother's, in connection with it; for he seems to have consulted some other sorcerer, with the object of out-witching the witchery of Lady Purbeck. In some notes[75] by Archbishop Laud for a letter to Buckingham, the following cautious remarks are to be found:—

"I remember your Grace when I came to you on other busyness told me you were gladd I was come, for you were about to send for me, that you calld me asyde into the gallerye behind yo^r lodgings bye the back stayres. There you told me of one that had made a great offer of an easy and safe cure of your G. brother the Ld. Purbecke.

"That it much trobbled you when he did but beginne to express himselfe because he sayde he would doe it bye onlye touchinge his head with his hands[76] w^ch made yo^r Grace jealous in as much as he mentioned noe Naturall Medicine.

"Upon this yo^r Gr. was pleased to aske what I thought of it. I answered these were busynesses which I had little looked into. But I did not believe the touch of his hand, or any mans els could produce such effects.

"Your G. asked farther if I remembered whether you might not entertayne him farther in discourse to see whether he would open or express any unlawfull practises; w^ch I thought you might for it went no farther than discourse.

"And to mye remembrance your Grace sayde that he offered to laye his hand on your head sayinge, I would doe noe more than thiss; And that thereupon you started backe, fearinge some sorcerye or ye like, and that you were not quiett till you had spoken with me about it. This, or much to this effect is the uttermost I can remember that passed at ye time."

Buckingham had evidently felt some scruples about meddling with the Black Art, and had consulted Laud on the question. It is also pretty plain that Laud was anxious not to offend Buckingham, yet, at the same time, wished to guard against any possibility of being accused of approving, or even of conniving at, witchcraft. These notes occur in a "draft of a speech, in the handwriting of Bishop Laud, and apparently intended to be addressed to the House of Commons, by the Duke of Buckingham. It has not been found that this latter speech was ever actually spoken."

So far as accusations against Lady Purbeck of witchcraft were concerned, Buckingham must have found that he had no case; for, in a letter[77] to Carleton, written on 12th March, 1625, Chamberlain says that the charge of sorcery had been dropped; but that Lady Purbeck was to be prosecuted for incontinency. He adds that Sir Robert Howard was a close prisoner in the Fleet in spite of the advice given by the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General three weeks earlier—and that Lady Purbeck was a prisoner at Alderman Barkham's, had no friends who would stand bail for her, and was asking Buckingham to let her have a little money with which to pay her counsel's fees. Eleven days later Chamberlain again wrote[78] to Carleton, saying that Lady Purbeck was acquitting herself well in the Court of High Commission; that a servant of the Archbishop's had been committed for saying that she had been hardly used, and that she called this man one of her martyrs. He also states that Sir Robert Howard had been publicly excommunicated at St. Paul's Cross, for refusing to answer.

How long the delinquents were kept in captivity is very doubtful. Little else is recorded of either of them during the next two years; but, at the time of their trial in 1627, they would seem to have been at liberty. The reason of this long interval between the trial in the Court of High Commission in 1625 and that before the same Court in 1627 seems inexplicable.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] Cabala, p. 281.

[62] Cabala, p. 282.

[63] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXII, No. 79.

[64] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXIII, No. 41

[65] Innocent Lanier was one of the King's musicians.

[66] MSS. of the House of Lords, 228, 30th April, 1675. Hist. Com. MSS., Ninth Report, Part II., p. 50.

[67] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXIII, No. 52.

[68] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXIII, No. 65, 16th February, 1625.

[69] Ibid., No. 66.

[70] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXIV., Nos. 7 and 7.1.

[71] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXIII, No. 65.

[72] Camden, Complete History of England, Vol. II., p. 791 (ed. 1719).

[73] Memorials of the English Affairs, etc., p. 17.

[74] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXIV., No. 47.

[75] S.P. Dom., Charles I., Vol. XXVI., No. 30.

[76] This looks like an anticipation of Mesmer.

[77] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. CLXXXV., No. 48.

[78] S.P. Dom., James I., No. 99.



CHAPTER X.

"Let us give great Praise to God, and little Laud to the Devil."

(Grace said by the Court Jester, Archie Armstrong, when he had begged to act as chaplain, in the absence of that official, at the dinner-table of Charles I. Archbishop Laud was little in stature.)

The following account of the trial of Lady Purbeck in 1627 is given by Archbishop Laud:—[79]

"Now the Cause of Sir Robert Howard was this: He fell in League with the Lady Viscountess Purbeck. The Lord Viscount Purbeck being in some weakness and distemper, the Lady used him at her pleasure, and betook her self in a manner, wholly to Sir Robert Howard, and had a Son by him. She was delivered of this Child in a Clandestine way, under the Name of Mistress Wright. These things came to be known, and she was brought into the High-Commission, and there, after a Legal Proceeding, was found guilty of Adultery, and sentenced to do Pennance: Many of the great Lords of the Kingdom being present in Court, and agreeing to the Sentence."

A marginal note states that there were present Sir Thomas Coventry, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, the Earls of Manchester, Pembroke, Montgomery and Dorset, Viscount Grandison, five Bishops, two Deans and several other dignitaries, clerical and legal.

Laud continues: "Upon this Sentence she withdrew her-self, to avoid the Penance. This Sentence passed at London-House, in Bishop Mountains time, Novemb. 19. An. Dom. 1627. I was then present, as Bishop of Bath and Wells."

The sentence in question was that Lady Purbeck was to be separated from her husband, and that she should do penance, bare-footed, and clad in a white sheet, in the chapel of the Savoy; but a decree of divorce was not given.

No attempt shall be made here to excuse or palliate the sins of Lady Purbeck; but it may be observed in relation to Laud's mention of her having been found guilty of adultery by the Court, that, although she might be guilty of that offence according to the civil law, she was not guilty of it morally; because her so-called marriage was no marriage at all, since she was forced into it against her will.

It cannot be a matter for surprise that Lady Purbeck "withdrew herself" rather than do penance, barefooted, in a white sheet in a fashionable church, and before a crowded congregation, for a crowd there would certainly have been to enjoy the spectacle of the public penance of a Viscountess. For some time her place of withdrawal or, to speak plainly, her place of hiding, was undiscovered. As we have seen, she was sentenced on the 19th of November. She was not arrested; but she was commanded to "present herself" on a certain Sunday at the Savoy chapel, to perform her public penance. As might have been expected, she did not present herself, to the great disappointment of a large congregation, and she thereby exposed herself to arrest. The officials did not discover her place of retreat until about Christmas. The following story of an incident that then happened in connection with this matter is told by Sir John Finett.[80]

A serjeant-at-arms, accompanied by other officers of justice and their men, proceeded to the house in which Lady Purbeck was concealed, and at once guarded every door into the street; but admittance was refused, and the Countess of Buckingham sent "a gentleman" to the "Ambassador of Savoy," whose garden adjoined that of the house in which Lady Purbeck was staying, to beg the Ambassador that he would allow the officers to pass through his house and garden into the garden of Lady Purbeck's house of refuge "for her more easy apprehension and arrest that way."

The Ambassador refused, considering it an indignity to be asked to allow men of such a type a free passage through his house, and feeling horrified at the idea of lending assistance to "the surprise and arrest of a fair lady, his neighbour." After many protests, however, he consented to the entrance of one constable into his garden, and the man was to avail himself of an opportunity which, said the Ambassador, would occur at dinner-time, of passing into the garden of the next house and arresting Lady Purbeck.

In the meantime the Ambassador called his page, "a handsome fair boy," and, with the help of his attendants, dressed him in women's clothes. He then ordered his coach to be brought round, and when it came, his attendants, ostentatiously, but with a show of great hurry and fear of discovery, ran out of the house with the sham-lady and "thrust her suddenly into" the carriage, which immediately drove off.

The constable, congratulating himself upon his sharpness in discovering, as he thought, the escape of Lady Purbeck, at once gave the alarm to his followers outside. The coach "drove fast down the Strand, followed by a multitude of people, and those officers, not without danger to the coachman, from their violence, but with ease to the Ambassador, that had his house by this device cleaned of the constable."

While all this turmoil was going on in the Strand, Lady Purbeck went quietly away to another place of hiding; but her escape got the gallant and kind-hearted Ambassador into great trouble. Buckingham was enraged when he heard of the trick. Sir John Finett shall himself tell us what followed. Buckingham, he says, declared that "all this was done of designe for the ladies escape, (which in that hubbub she made), to his no small prejudice and scorn, in a business that so nearly he said concerned him, (she being wife to his brother), and bringing him children of anothers begetting; yet such as by the law (because begotten and born while her husband was in the land) must be of his fathering.

"The ambassador for his purgation from this charge, went immediately to the Duke at Whitehall, but was denied accesse: Whereupon repairing to my Lord Chamberlain for his mediation, I was sent to him by his lordship, to let him know more particularly the Duke's displeasure, and back by the ambassador to the Duke with his humble request but of one quarter of an hours audience for his disblaming. But the duke returning answer, that having always held him so much his friend and given him so many fair proofs of his respects, he took his proceeding so unkindly, as he was resolved not to speak with him. I reported this to the ambassador, and had for his only answer, what reason cannot do, time will. Yet, after this the Earls of Carliel and Holland interposing; the ambassador, (hungry after his peace from a person of such power, and regarding his masters service and the public affairs), he a seven night after obtained of the duke an interview in Whitehall garden, and after an hours parley, a reconciliation."

As has just been seen, the officers of the law lost sight of Lady Purbeck. So also, for the present do we; but we know what became of her; for she was taken by Sir Robert Howard to his house at Clun, in the extreme south-west of Shropshire, where a small promontory of that county is bordered by Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Herefordshire. It is probable that, so long as she was far away from the Court and from London, Buckingham and the authorities took no trouble to find her or her paramour, and almost connived at their escape.

During their absence from our view, it may add to the interest of our story to observe the conditions at that time of some of the other characters who have figured in it, and to consider certain circumstances of the period at which we are halting. Looking back a little way, we shall find that King James, who we noticed was so ill as to be only just able to sign an order connected with the proceedings against Lady Purbeck, died in March, 1625, and that the very correct Charles I. was King during the subsequent proceedings.

Going further back still, we find that Bacon, who had succeeded in overthrowing Coke, was himself overthrown in 1621, three years after the marriage of Coke's daughter to Sir John Villiers, and shortly after Bacon himself had been created Viscount St. Albans. Bacon was impeached on charges of official corruption, and his old enemy, Sir Edward Coke, who was then a member of Parliament, was to have had the pleasure of conducting the impeachment. Coke, however, was deprived of that gratification by Bacon's plea of Guilty, and was obliged to content himself with attending the Speaker to the bar of the House of Lords when judgment was to be prayed, and with hearing the Chief Justice, by order of the Lords, condemn Bacon to a fine of L40,000, incapacity ever to hold any office again, exile from Court, and imprisonment in the Tower during the King's pleasure.

It was generally supposed that the exultant Coke would now be offered the Great Seal; but, to the astonishment of the world and to Coke's unqualified chagrin, the King proclaimed Williams, "a shrewd Welsh parson," as Lord Campbell calls him, Lord Keeper in the place of Bacon. After this disappointment, Coke became even fiercer against the Court than he had been before Bacon's disgrace. Bacon's fine was remitted, "the King's pleasure" as to the length of his imprisonment was only four days, he was allowed to return to Court, and he was enabled to interest himself with the literary pursuits which he loved better than law and almost as much as power; but he was harassed by want of what, perhaps, he may have loved most of all, namely money, and he died in 1626, five years after his fall and condemnation.

Although Buckingham was at the summit of his glory, everything did not go well with him during the period at which he was scheming to rid his brother of Lady Purbeck. In 1623 he went to Spain with Prince Charles to arrange a marriage with the Infanta, a match which he failed to bring about. In 1626 he was impeached, though unsuccessfully, by the House of Commons. In 1627 he commanded an expedition to the Isle of Rhe against the French, on behalf of the Huguenots, and completely failed in the attempt. In 1628 a new Parliament threw the blame upon him of all the troubles and drawbacks from which the country was then suffering; and, in August, the same year, he was murdered by an assassin less than twelve months after he had succeeded in his proceedings against Lady Purbeck.

It was not until shortly after the death of Bacon that his rival, Sir Edward Coke, reached the zenith of his fame as a politician. Only a few months before the death of Buckingham, Coke framed the celebrated Petition of Rights, a document which has often been spoken of as the second Magna Charta. He had gained little through his attempt to bribe Buckingham by giving his daughter and her wealth to Buckingham's brother, and he was now exasperated against the royal favourite and that favourite's royal master. "In the House of Commons, Sir Ed. Coke," says Whitelock in his Memorials[81] "named the Duke to be the cause of all their miseries, and moves to goe to the King, and by word to acquaint him." Rushworth writes[82] more fully of this speech of Coke's. "Sir Edward Cook spake freely.... Let us palliate no longer; if we do, God will not prosper us. I think the Duke of Buckingham is the cause of all our miseries; and till the King be informed thereof, we shall never go out with honour, or sit with honour here; that man is the Grievance of Grievances: let us set down the causes of all our disasters, and all will reflect upon him." And Coke was as bitter against the King. A little later Charles I. had issued a warrant for a certain commission, when, in a conference with the Lords, Coke moved[83] "That the Warrant may be damned and destroyed."

After the prorogation of Parliament which soon followed, Coke retired into private life and lived at Stoke Pogis, where he is supposed to have encouraged his neighbour, Hampden, in his plots against the Court.

In the year 1632 Lady Purbeck left Sir Robert Howard to live with and take care of her father. She probably went to him on hearing that he had been seriously hurt by a fall from his horse. In his diary[84] Coke thus describes this accident: "The 3rd of May, 1632, riding in the morning in Stoke, between eight and nine o'clock to take the air, my horse under me had a strange stumble backwards and fell upon me (being above eighty years old) where my head lighted near to sharp stubbles, and the heavy horse upon me." He declares that he suffered "no hurt at all;" but, as a matter of fact, he received an internal injury.

Lord Campbell says that, from this time "his only domestic solace was the company of his daughter, Lady Purbeck, whom he had forgiven,—probably from a consciousness that her errors might be ascribed to his utter disregard of her inclinations when he concerted her marriage. She continued piously to watch over him till his death."

Lady Elizabeth was never reconciled to her husband. On the contrary, she seems to have been very anxiously awaiting his death in order to take possession of Stoke Pogis. Garrard, in a letter[85] to Lord Deputy Strafford written in 1633, says: "Sir Edward Coke was said to be dead, all one morning in Westminster Hall, this term, insomuch that his wife got her brother, Lord Wimbledon, to post with her to Stoke, to get possession of that place; but beyond Colebrook they met with one of his physicians coming from him, who told her of his much amendment, which made them also return to London; some distemper he had fallen into for want of sleep, but is now well again." Lady Elizabeth's keen disappointment may be readily imagined.

It is not likely that the couple of years spent by Lady Purbeck with her father can have been very pleasant ones. He was bad-tempered, ill-mannered, cantankerous and narrow-minded, and he must also have been a dull companion; for beyond legal literature he had read but little. Lord Campbell says: "He shunned the society of" his contemporaries, "Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, as of vagrants who ought to be set in the stocks, or whipped from tithing to tithing."

Nor can Lady Purbeck have found him a very tractable patient. He had no faith in either physicians or physic. Mead wrote[86]to Sir Martin Stuteville: "Sir Edward Coke being now very infirm in body, a friend of his sent him two or three doctors to regulate his health, whom he told that he had never taken physic since he was born, and would not now begin; and that he had now upon him a disease which all the drugs of Asia, the gold of Africa, nor all the doctors of Europe could cure—old age. He therefore both thanked them and his friend that sent them, and dismissed them nobly with a reward of twenty pieces to each man." Doubtless a troublesome invalid for a daughter to manage.

At last it became apparent that the end was rapidly approaching, and then Lady Purbeck was subjected to a most embarrassing annoyance. Two days before her father's death she was summoned from his bedside to receive Sir Francis Windebank, the Secretary of State, who had arrived at the house, accompanied by several attendants, bringing in his hand an order from the King and Council to search Sir Edward Coke's mansion for seditious papers and, if any were found, to arrest him.

Sir Francis, on hearing the critical condition of Sir Edward, assured Lady Purbeck that he would give her father no personal annoyance; but he insisted on searching all the rooms in the house except that in which Coke was lying; and he carried away every manuscript that he could find, including even Sir Edward's will—a depredation which subsequently caused his family great inconvenience. It is believed that Coke was kept in ignorance of this raid upon his house, probably by the care and vigilance of Lady Purbeck. Thus his last hours were undisturbed, and on the 3rd of September, 1634, in the 83rd year of his age, died one of the most disagreeable men of his times, but the most incorruptible judge in a period of exceptional judicial corruption.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] The History of the Troubles and Tryal of the most Reverend Father in God, and Blessed Martyr, William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Wrote by Himself, during his Imprisonment in the Tower: London, R. Chiswell, 1695, p. 146.

[80] Finetti Philoxenis, London, 1636, p. 239.

[81] P. 10.

[82]Historical Collections, p. 607 (ed. 1659).

[83] Rushworth's Collections, p. 616.

[84] Campbell, Vol. I., p. 334.

[85] Strafford Letters, I., p. 265.

[86] Harleian MS. 390, fol. 534.



CHAPTER XI.

"The circle smil'd, then whisper'd, and then sneer'd, The misses bridled, and the matrons frown'd; Some hoped things might not turn out as they fear'd: Some would not deem such women could be found, Some ne'er believed one half of what they heard: Some look'd perplex'd, and others look'd profound." Don Juan, ix., 78.

Soon after the death of Sir Edward Coke, up to the date of which event his daughter had apparently been taking care of him with great filial piety for two years and living a virtuous life, she came to London. About this coming to London Archbishop Laud must be allowed to have his say,[87] albeit not altogether a pleasant say:—

"They," i.e., Sir Robert Howard and Lady Purbeck, "grew to such boldness, that he brought her up to London and lodged her in Westminster. This was so near the Court and in so open view, that the King and the Lords took notice of it, as a thing full of Impudence, that they should so publickly adventure to outface the Justice of the Realm, in so fowl a business. And one day, as I came of course to wait on his Majesty, he took me aside, and told me of it, being then Archbishop of Canterbury; and added, that it was a great reproach to the Church and Nation; and that I neglected my Duty, in case I did not take order for it. I made answer, she was a Wife of a Peer of the Realm; and that without his leave I could not attach her; but that now I knew his Majesty's pleasure, I would do my best to have her taken, and brought to Penance, according to the sentence against her. The next day I had the good hap to apprehend both her and Sir Robert; and by order of the High-Commission-Court, Imprisoned her in the Gate-House and him in the Fleet. This was (as far as I remember) upon a Wednesday; and the Sunday sevennight after, was thought upon to bring her to Penance. She was much troubled at it, and so was he."

In the Strafford Papers[88] there is a letter to the Lord Deputy from Garrard, in which he says that, after Lady Purbeck's sentence some years earlier, she had evaded it by flight and had "not been much looked after since;" but that "this winter she lodged herself on the Water side over against Lambeth, I fear too near the road of the Archbishop's barge; whereof some complaint being made, she had the Sergeant at Arms sent with the warrant of the Lords and the Council to carry her to the Gate-House, whence she will hardly get out until she hath done her penance. The same night was a warrant sent signed by the Lords, to the Warden of the Fleet, to take Sir Robert Howard at Suffolk House, and to carry him to the Fleet; but there was never any proceeding against him, for he refused to take the oath ex-officio, and had the Parliament to back him out, but I fear he will not escape so now."

It is open to those who may like to do so to take Laud's words as meaning that Lady Purbeck and Sir Robert Howard were again living together in immorality. Possibly that may have been Laud's meaning. If it was, he may have been mistaken. The world is seldom very charitable and, when Sir Robert and Lady Purbeck were both in London—which was comparatively a small place in those days—the gossips would naturally put the worst construction on the matter. If the very proper Charles I. heard such rumours, he would most likely believe them; so also would Laud.

From the meagre evidence existing on the question, there is much—the present writer thinks most—to be said in favour of the theory that the relations of Lady Purbeck to Sir Robert Howard were, at this time, perfectly innocent, and that they had been so ever since she had left him to live with her father, two years earlier. To begin with, is it likely that if, after so long a separation, the pair had wished to resume their illicit intercourse, they would have chosen London as the place in which to do so? Sir Robert may, or may not, have obtained for Lady Purbeck her lodging. If he did, there was not necessarily any harm in that.

Then the fact of Lady Purbeck's returning openly to London looks as if she was conscious of innocence since she had left Sir Robert a couple of years earlier, and as if she believed that the innocence of her recent life was generally known. And, indeed, she might naturally suppose that because, as Garrard wrote, she "had not been much looked after" by the authorities, when she had gone into the country to continue her offence many years earlier, she was perfectly safe in returning to London now that she was living a life of virtue.

Sir Robert Howard, says Garrard's letter, was sought for and taken at Suffolk House, the London home of his brother, whereas Lady Purbeck was taken at, and living at, a house "on the Water side, over against Lambeth." This does not absolutely prove that they were not living together; but it is certainly evidence in that direction.

Again, although it is possible that the King and Laud may have believed in the revival of the criminal intercourse between Lady Purbeck and Sir Robert, it is equally possible that they did not, and that they merely considered it "boldness" and a "thing full of Impudence" to "publickly adventure to outface the Justice of the Realm," when a woman under sentence to do public penance for grave immorality—a woman who had fled to a remote part of the country to escape from that penance—came back to London and took up her quarters "so near the Court, and in so open view," as if nothing had happened; and that, as the sentence had never been repealed, they thought it ought to be executed.

It might even be contended that the conduct of the King and Laud looks in favour of the innocence of Lady Purbeck, at that time; for, if they had had any evidence of a fresh offence, far from being content with executing the sentence for the old transgression, they would probably, if not certainly, have prosecuted her again for the new one, and have either added to the severity of the first sentence, or passed a second to follow it, as a punishment for the second crime.

Be all this as it may, one thing is certain, namely, that the King and Laud were determined to carry out the sentence which had been passed some seven or eight years earlier, now that the escaped convict had had what Laud calls the "Impudence" to come to the capital; and it appears that Sir Robert was to be proceeded against in the Star Chamber upon the old charge.

Apart from any concern on his own account, Sir Robert was greatly distressed that Lady Purbeck should be exposed to public punishment for an offence of the past, of which he himself was at least equally guilty. In the hope of saving her from it, he took into his counsel "Sir ... of Hampshire," some friend whose name is illegible in Laud's MS.

We must now turn attention, for a little time, elsewhere. The first Earl of Danby was a man of great respectability, and he had distinguished himself in arms, both on sea and on land. He was a Knight of the Garter and the Governor of Guernsey, and he had been Lord President of Munster. He had always done those things that he ought to have done, with as great a regularity as his attainted elder brother, Sir Charles Danvers, had done those things that he ought not to have done.

This paragon of a bachelor, at the age of sixty-two, received a visit at his Government House in Guernsey from a youth who requested a private interview. This having been granted, the boy, to the astonishment of Lord Danby, proclaimed himself to be his Lordship's cousin, Frances, Lady Purbeck.[89]

In a former chapter we saw that Lady Purbeck had escaped from punishment through the medium of a boy dressed up like a woman. The process had now been reversed: for she had escaped from the Gate-House—a woman dressed up like a boy. The Sir Somebody Something of Hampshire, says Laud, "with Money, corrupted the Turn-Key of the Prison (so they call him) and conveyed the Lady Forth, and after that into France in Man's Apparel (as that Knight himself hath since made his boast). This was told me the Morning after the escape: And you must think, the good Fellowship of the Town was glad of it." Lady Purbeck, however, did not go first into France. As we have seen, she went to Guernsey and placed herself under the protection of her old cousin, Lord Danby.

That old cousin must have wished devoutly that she had placed herself anywhere else. For the Governor of one of the King's islands to receive and to shelter a criminal flying from justice was a very embarrassing position. On the other hand, to refuse protection to a helpless lady, and that lady a kinswoman, much more to betray her into the hands of her enemies, would have been an act from which any honourable man might well shrink. The possibility that it might be discovered in the island that he was entertaining a woman in male attire must also have been an annoying uncertainty to the immaculate Governor of Guernsey. Over the details of this perplexing situation history has kindly thrown a veil; indeed, we learn nothing further about Lady Purbeck's proceedings until we read, in the already noticed letter of Garrard's, that she landed at St. Malo, whence she eventually went to Paris.

It seems safe to infer that whatever protection and hospitality her relative, Lord Danby, may have afforded to Lady Purbeck, he was heartily glad to get rid of her. If she had originally intended to go to Paris, she would scarcely have made the long voyage of nearly two hundred miles out of her way to Guernsey, and the most natural explanation of that voyage is that she had hoped and expected to obtain concealment, hospitality, and a refuge in the house of her relative. Instead of conceding her these privileges for any length of time, Lord Danby evidently speeded the parting guest with great celerity.

While all this was going on, Sir Robert Howard remained under arrest in London. Laud, writing of Lady Purbeck's escape, says: "In the mean time, I could not but know, though not perhaps prove as then, that Sir Robert Howard laboured and contrived this conveyance. And thereupon in the next sitting of the High-Commission, Ordered him to be close Prisoner, till he brought the Lady forth. So he continued Prisoner about some two or three months."

It may be observed here that some years later, in fact in the year 1640, Sir Robert Howard turned the tables upon Laud for this transaction. "On Munday, December 21," wrote Laud in 1640, "upon a Petition of Sir Robert Howard, I was condemned to pay Five Hundred Pounds unto him for false Imprisonment. And the Lords Order was so strict, that I was commanded to pay him the Money presently, or give Security to pay it in a very short time. I payed it, to satisfie the Command of the House: but was not therein so well advised as I might have been, being Committed for Treason." Laud was at that time a prisoner in the Tower, only to leave it for execution. In addition to this L500, Sir Robert was ordered to have a fine of L250 paid to him by the sorcerer, Lambe, and another fine of L500 by a man named Martin;[90] so altogether, the Long Parliament assigned him,L1,250 damages.

In a letter to the Lord Deputy, dated 24th June, 1635,[91] Garrard says: "Sir Robert Howard, after one month's close imprisonment in the Fleet, obtained his liberty, giving L2,000 bond never more to come at Lady Purbeck, wherein he stands bound alone; but for his appearance within 30 days, if he be called, two of his brothers stand bound for him in L1,500, so I hope there is an end of the business."

On the 30th of July, 1635, the same correspondent wrote of Lady Purbeck's being "in some part of France, where I wish she may stay, but it seems not good so to the higher powers: for there is of late an express messenger sent to seek her with the Privy Seal of his Majesty to summon her into England, within six weeks after the receipt thereof, which if she do not obey, she is to be proceeded against according to the laws of this Kingdom."

In a letter[92] from the "Rev. Mr. Thomas Garrard to the Lord Deputy," dated 27th April, 1637, there is an announcement which may surprise some readers:—

"Another of my familiar acquaintance has gone over to that Popish religion, Sir Robert Howard, which I am very sorry for. My Lady Purbeck left her country and religion both together, and since he will not leave thinking of her, but live in that detestable sin, let him go to that Church for absolution, for comfort he can find none in ours."

Now, "the Reverend Mr. Garrard" can scarcely have known what Sir Robert would, or would not, "leave thinking of," and, as to his living "in that detestable sin," he and his fellow-sinner had not been even in the same country for nearly two years at the time when Garrard was writing; and, as we have already shown, the unlikelihood of their having committed the sin in question for another couple of years before that may be more than plausibly argued. And it should be remembered that these two people could have no object in becoming Catholics, unless they received the benefits of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church; and as Catholics, they would believe that their confessions would be sacrileges, their absolutions invalid, and their communions the "eating and drinking their own damnation," unless they confessed their immoralities among their other sins, with a firm purpose never to commit them again.

It is clear, therefore, that when they became Catholics Sir Robert Howard and Lady Purbeck must have determined never to resume their illicit intercourse; and, so far as is known, they never did so. In a letter to Secretary Windebanke written from Paris, in July, 1636, Lord Scudamore, after saying something about Lady Purbeck, adds: "She expects every day Sir Robert Howard here:" but this must have been mere gossip, for Scudamore cannot have been in the confidence of that fugitive from England, Lady Purbeck, as he was English Ambassador at Paris; moreover, he was a particular ally of Archbishop Laud,[93] therefore, not likely to have relations with an escaped prisoner of Laud's; although, as we shall presently find, another, although very different, friend of Laud took her part. Nor is there anything to show that Sir Robert Howard went to Paris.

Respecting the matter of Sir Robert's submission to the Catholic Church, the Reverend Mr. Garrard was perfectly right in saying: "Let him go to that Church for absolution, for comfort he can find none in ours." Whether the Catholic religion is the worst of religions or the best of religions, it is the religion to which those in grievous trouble, whether through misfortune or their own fault, most frequently have recourse; a religion which offers salvation and solace even to the adulterer, the thief, the murderer, or the perpetrator of any other crimes, on condition of contrition and firm purpose of amendment.[94]

FOOTNOTES:

[87] History of the Troubles and Tryal of Archbishop Laud (ed. 1695), p. 146.

[88] Vol. I., p. 390, 17th March, 1635.

[89] Strafford Papers, Vol. I., p. 447. Letter from Garrard to the Lord Deputy, dated 30th July, 1635.

[90] Lingard, Vol. VII., Chap. V.

[91] Strafford Letters, Vol. I., p. 434.

[92] Ibid., Vol. II., p. 72.

[93] "The remarkably studious, pious, and hospitable life he led, made him respected & esteemed by all good men, especially by Laud, who generally visited him in going to & from his Diocese of St. David's & found his entertainment as kind and full of respect as ever he did from any friend" (Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages, p. 483).

[94] In Coles' MSS., Vol. XXXIII., p. 17, may be found the following note, after a mention of Lady Purbeck: "Sir Robert Howard died April 22, 1653, and was buried at Clunn in Shropshire, leaving issue by Catherine Nevill, his Wife, 3 sons, who, I presume, he married after the Lady Purbeck's death which happened 8 years before his own. The Epitaph in my Book in Folio of Lichfield, lent me by Mr. Mitton. Sir Robert was 5th Son to Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, Lord Treasurer of England."



CHAPTER XII.

"O must the wretched exile ever mourn, Nor after length of rolling years return?" DRYDEN.

Lady Purbeck was not to be left in peace in Paris. As Garrard had said, a writ was issued commanding her to return to England upon her allegiance, and it was sent to Paris by a special messenger who was ordered to serve it upon her, if he could find her. The matter was placed in the hands of the English Ambassador, and he describes what followed in a letter[95] from Paris to the Secretary of State in England:—

"Rt. Honble.

"Your honours letters dated the 7th March—I received the 21 the same style by the Courrier sent to serve his Majesties writt upon the Lady Viscountesse Purbecke. They came to me about 11 of the clock in the Morning. Upon the instant of his coming to me I sent a servant of myne own to show him the house, where the Lady lived publiquely, and in my neighbourhood."

The business in hand, it will be observed, was not to arrest Lady Purbeck, but simply to serve the writ upon her: a duty which proved not quite so simple as might be supposed. On arriving at the house in which Lady Purbeck was living, "the Courrier taking off his Messengers Badge knocked at the doore to gett in. There came a Mayd to the doore that would not open it, but peeped through a grating and asked his businesse. He sayd, he was not in such hast but he could come againe to-morrow. But the Mayd and the rest of the household having charge not to open the doore, but to suche as were well knowne, the Messenger could not gett in."

This first failure would not in itself have much alarmed the Ambassador; but he says: "In the afternoone, I understood that the Lady had received notice 15 days before, that a privy seale was to come for her, which had caused her ever since to keep her house close."

This made him nervous, and he tried to push the matter with greater speed.

"We endeavoured by severall ways," he wrote, "to have gotten the Messenger into the house. But having considered and tryed till the next day in the afternoone, we grew very doubtfull that the Messenger might be suspected and that the Lady might slip away from that place of her residence that night."

Unless the writ could be properly served upon her, proceedings against her could not be carried out in England, and, once out of the house in which she now was known, or at least believed, to be, so slippery a lady, as she had already proved herself, would be very difficult to find. To effect an entrance into the house and to serve the writ upon her personally was evidently impossible, and the only alternative was to make sure that she was in the house and then to put the writ into it in such a way that she could not avoid learning of its presence. Therefore, says the Ambassador, "I directed this Bearer to put the Box with the Privy Seale in it through some pane of a lower window into the house and leaving it there to putt on his Badge, and knocking at the doore of the house, if they would not suffer him to enter, then to tell that party, whoe should speak to him at the dore, that he was sent from the K. of Grate Britaine to serve his Majesties Privy Seale upon the Lady Viscountess Purbeck, and that in regard he could not be admitted in, he had left the Privy seale in a Box in such a place of the house, and that in his Majesties name he required the Lady Purbeck to take notice thereof at her perill." So far as getting the Privy Seal inside the house was concerned, all went well. "The Messenger being there, found an upper windowe neath the casements open, and threw up the Box with the Privy seale in it through that windowe into a Chamber, which some say is the Ladies Dining Roome, others, that it is a Chamber of a Man servant waiting upon her."

The writ was now safely lodged in the house; but the Ambassador had ordered the messenger to take care to call the attention of some one in it to the fact that the writ was there. Unfortunately, says the Ambassador, this part of his instructions had been neglected. "The Courrier returnes to me. And finding that he had forgotten to speake at the dore as I had directed him, I caused him presently to returne and to discharge himself in such sort as is above mentioned, which he will depose he did."

This was done, but even then something was still left undone; for it yet remained to be proved that Lady Purbeck was actually in the house at the time when the writ was thrown into it. The Ambassador conceived the idea of obtaining such proof by means of a female witness. For this purpose, he very ingeniously contrived to find a sister of one of Lady Purbeck's servants, and, no doubt by the promise of a heavy bribe, he persuaded her to go to the house, to ask to be admitted in order to speak with her sister, to find out, when there, if Lady Purbeck was in the house, and, if possible, to see her. This ruse was singularly successful, for, as will be seen, the first person whom the girl saw was Lady Purbeck herself.

"A woman being sent to the house under Colour of speaking with a sister of hers the Ladies servant, the Ladye herselfe came downe to the dore, and opening it a little, soe that the woman saw her, she sayd her sister should have leave to go home to her that night. And therefore the Lady was in the house at the same time that the place of her residence was served. She hath lived in that house about a month, and there are (as I am informed) no other dwellers in it but herself."

The writ had now been served, although not into the very hands of Lady Purbeck yet it was hoped sufficiently in order to satisfy the law. But all was not yet smooth. The Ambassador wrote:—

"The morrow after this was done, about midnight, there came some officers with two coaches and 50 archers to divers houses to search for the Lady being directed and instructed by a warrant from the Cardinal that whereas there was a Messenger sent from England to offer some affront to your Lady Purbeck in diminution of this Kings jurisdiction, that therefore they should find out the sayd Lady and protect her."

This intervention on the part of the French Government made Lord Scudamore fear lest l'affaire Purbeck might lead to international complications, and he presently adds: "Coming to the knowledge of this particular this Morning I thought good to hasten the Messenger out of the way."

Fortunately for Lady Purbeck, she was not without a friend in Paris. About a year before she went there, a curious character had arrived in the person of Sir Kenelm Digby, a son of the Sir Everard Digby who had been executed for having been concerned in the Gunpowder Plot. Sir Kenelm was well known, both at home and abroad. He had stayed at Madrid with his relative, the Earl of Bristol, at the time when Prince Charles had gone to Spain to woo the Infanta. He had been a brilliant ornament at the Court of Charles I.; but, like all the relations of Bristol, he had been hated by Buckingham. Armed with letters of marque, he had raised a fleet and ravaged the Mediterranean in the character of a privateer. He was literary, philosophical, metaphysical and scientific. When he came to Paris his beautiful wife had been dead a couple of years, and the smart courtier had thrown off his hitherto splendid attire, had clothed himself in black of the very plainest, and had allowed his hair and beard to grow as they would, ragged and untrimmed. Shortly before the arrival of Lady Purbeck in Paris, Sir Kenelm had declared himself a Catholic; and the fact that both he and Lady Purbeck had submitted themselves to the Catholic Church may have formed a bond of union between them. Sir Kenelm soon contrived to interest Cardinal Richelieu in Lady Purbeck's case, and not only Richelieu but also the King and the Queen of France.

A certain "E.R." wrote[96] to Sir R. Puckering: "The last week we had certain news that the Lady Purbeck was declared a papist." And then he went on to say that Louis XIIIth and the Queen of France, as well as Cardinal Richelieu, had sent messages or letters to Charles I., begging him to pardon Lady Purbeck and to allow her to return to England. He also said that the French Ambassador at St. James's was "very zealous in the business." Shortly afterwards he added: "It is said she is altogether advised by Sir Kenelm Digby, who indeed hath written over letters to some of his noble friends of the privy council, wherein he hath set down what a convert this lady is become, so superlatively virtuous and sanctimonious, as the like hath never been seen in men or women; and therefore he does most humbly desire their lordships to farther this lady's peace, and that she may return into England, for otherwise she does resolve to put herself into some monastery. I hear his Majesty does utterly dislike that the lady is so directed by Sir Kenelm Digby, and that she fares nothing better for it."

Of course anybody would naturally sneer at the suggestion that the convert to a religion other than his own could possibly be remarkable for either virtue or sanctity: but there is no visible reason for sympathising with the sneers of (E.R.), or for doubting Sir Kenelm Digby's evidence respecting Lady Purbeck.

It may be a question whether Lady Purbeck ever intended "to put herself into some monastery," in the sense of becoming a nun. She did, however, put herself into a monastery in a very different way. It was, and still is, the custom in some convents to take in lodgers or boarders, either for a short time, for a long time, or even for life. The peace, the quiet, the regularity, and the religious services and observances at such establishments are attractive to some people, especially to those who are in trouble or difficulty. The disadvantages are that, although the lodgers are perfectly free to go where they please and to do what they please, they can generally only get their meals at rigidly appointed hours, that the convent doors are finally closed at a fixed time, usually a very early one; and that after that closing time there is no admittance. Practically the latter arrangement precludes all possibility of society in an evening, and the present writer knows several Catholics of the most unimpeachable orthodoxy, zeal, piety and virtue, who have tried living in convents and monasteries, as boarders, both in Rome and in London, and have given it up simply on account of those inconveniences. It was, therefore, very unjust to speak ill of Lady Purbeck for not having lived in a convent "according to that strictness as was expected," because she left it. But this was done in the following letter:[97] "The Lady Purbeck is come forth of the English Nunnerie. For, the Lady Abbess being from home, somebody forgott to provide the Lady Purbeck her dinner, and to leave the roome open where she used to dine at night, expostulating with the Abbess, they agreed to part fairely, which the Abbess was the more willing unto in regard the Lady Purbeck did not live according to that strictness as was expected. Car. Richelieu helped her into the Nunnerie."

It may be inferred from this letter that Lady Purbeck left the convent for the simple reason that she was not comfortable in it—even the "superlatively virtuous" do not like to be dinnerless—and that, either because she was unpunctual, or because she was inclined to make complaints, the Abbess was relieved when she took her departure. But by Scudamore's own showing they parted "fairely;" or, as we should now say, good friends.

Among Sir Kenelm Digby's English correspondents, while he was in Paris, was Lord Conway, a soldier as devoted to literature as to arms, and a general who always seemed fated to fight under disadvantages. Shortly after the time with which we are at present dealing, he was defeated when in command of the King's troops at Newcastle. Meanwhile, Sir Kenelm was endeavouring to "fit him withal," in the matter of "curious books," from Paris. As the letter[98] from Sir Kenelm to Lord Conway, about to be quoted, has something in it about Lord Wimbledon, it may be well to note that he was a brother of Lady Elizabeth Hatton and therefore an uncle of Lady Purbeck.

After observing that England has been singularly happy in producing men like King Arthur and others who performed actions of only moderate valour or interest, which subsequent ages mistook for great achievements, he says:—

"But none will be more famous and admirable to our Nevewes(?) than the noble valiant and ingenious Peer, the Lord Wimbledone, whose epistle[99] exceedeth all that was ever done before by any so victorious a generall of armies or so provident a governor of townes, I only lament for it that it was not hatched in a season when it might have done the honor to Baronius,[100] his collections, to have bin inserted among them.

"Here is a Lady that he hath reason to detest above all persons in the worlde, if robbing a man of all the portion of witt, courage, generousnesse, and other heroicall partes due to him, do meritt such an inclination of the minde towardes them that have thus bereaved them: for surely the Genius that governeth that family and that distributeth to each of them their shares of natures guiftes was either asleepe, or mistooke (or somewhat else was the cause) when he gave my Lady of Purbecke a dubble proportion of these and all other noble endowments, and left her poore Uncle, so naked and unfurnished: Truly my lord to speake seriously I have not seen more prudence, sweetinesse, goodnesse, honor and bravery shewed by any woman that I know, than this unfortunate lady sheweth she hath a rich stock of. Besides her naturall endowments, doubtlessly her afflictions adde much: or rather have polished, refined and heightened what nature gave her: and you know vexatio dat intellectum. Is it not a shame for you Peeres (and neare about the king) that you will let so brave a lady live as she doth in distress and banishment: when her exile serveth stronger but to conceive scandalously of our nation, that we will not permit those to live among us who have so much worth and goodnesse as this lady giveth show off....

"Yo. Lo: most humble and affectionate "servant, "KENELM DIGBY."

Sir Kenelm, like Scudamore, was on a friendly footing with Lady Purbeck's chief enemy, Archbishop Laud, but in a very different sense. When Sir Kenelm was a boy Laud had been his tutor, and a friendship had sprung up between the master and the pupil which was not broken by the conversion of the pupil to a religion greatly disliked by the master. Subsequently, Sir Kenelm gave evidence in favour of his old tutor, before the Committee appointed to prepare the prosecution of Laud at his trial, and he sent kind messages to Laud in the Tower. Unlike Scudamore, however, he was no admirer of Laud's religion or of his ecclesiastical policy, if indeed of any of his policy.

Although Sir Kenelm Digby, the King and the Queen of France, Cardinal Richelieu, and the French Ambassador at the Court of St. James's did their best to obtain forgiveness for Lady Purbeck, Charles I. was long obdurate. At first, as we have seen, he had sent a writ commanding her to return at once to her native country for punishment. When he had withdrawn that writ, he for some time refused to allow her to return at all, for any purpose. But troubles were brewing for Charles himself, and, after Lady Purbeck had spent an exile of some length in Paris, she was permitted to come to England, without any liability to stand barefoot in a white sheet for the amusement of the congregation in a fashionable London church on a Sunday morning.

FOOTNOTES:

[95] S.P. For., Charles I., France. Scudamore to Coke, 25th March—4th April, 1636. This letter was addressed to Sir John Coke, the Secretary of State.

[96] Court and Times of Charles I. By D'Israeli, Vol. II., p. 242.

[97] S.P., Charles I., France. Scudamore to Windebank, I/121 July, 1636.

[98] S.P. Dom., Charles I., Vol. CCCXLIV., No. 58. Sir Kenelm Digby to Edward Lord Conway and Kilultagh, 21/31 January, 1637.

[99] Wimbledon was Governor of Portsmouth and the letter in question was probably one mentioned by Walpole in his Royal and Noble Authors, to the Mayor of Portsmouth "reprehending him for the Townsmen not pulling off their hats to a Statue of the King Charles, which his Lordship had erected there." Such an "epistle" might well excite the derision and contempt of Sir Kenelm.

[100] The author of Annales Ecclesiastici.



CHAPTER XIII.

"To err is human, to forgive divine." POPE.

Concerning Lady Purbeck's life, after her return to England, we have the following evidence from Coles' Manuscripts. Let us observe, first, that in the extract there is a mistake. It was not Lady Purbeck, but the wife of her son, whose maiden name was Danvers. Anybody who may choose to discredit the whole, on account of this error, can do so if he pleases; but it is certain that Lord Purbeck "owned the son" and that the son's grandson, "the Rev. Mr. Villiers," claimed "the Title of Earl of Bucks." Therefore we see no reason for doubting the statement that Lord Purbeck "took his Wife again." The "after 16 years" would seem to tally with the undoubted facts.

"[101]Lady Purbeck's name Danvers; absent from Husband 16 years: had by Sir Robert Howard one son who married a Bertie, and took the Title of Lord Purbeck, which Lady Purbeck's will I have. Lord Purbeck after 16 years took his wife again, and owned the Son, which 2nd Lord Purbeck had one Son, Father of the Rev. Mr. Villiers, who now claims the Title of Earl of Bucks. &c."

It will be remembered that even when Lady Purbeck was being proceeded against for unfaithfulness to her husband, at the instigation of Buckingham, she was on friendly terms with Lord Purbeck, and that Buckingham had considerable difficulty in keeping them apart: consequently it is the less to be wondered at that Lord Purbeck "took his wife again," after her return from exile. Not only was Lady Purbeck now a reformed character, but, like Lord Purbeck, she was a convert to the Catholic Church; and this would probably make him the more inclined to receive her again as his wife and to trust her for the future. At the time of their reunion Lady Purbeck must have been about forty, and he must have been an oldish man; although not too old to be a bridegroom, and no longer under suspicion of insanity; for, in addition to starting a second time as husband to Frances, Lady Purbeck, it is recorded that after her death, which occurred in five or six years, he married again,[102] and survived his first wife by twelve years.