One naturally wonders whether, if Carleton showed this letter to his wife, it would tend to heal "the quarrell of unkindness" between them, or to make it worse. Which effect was intended by the writer of the letter is pretty evident. This little epistle might have been written by Becky Sharpe.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Coles' MSS., Vol. XXXIII. p. 17.
[33] Coles' MSS., Vol. XXXIII., p. 17. (Brit. Museum MSS. No. 5834.)
[34] Longmans & Co., 1811.
[35] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. XCIII., No. 114, 6th October, 1617.
[36] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. XCIII., No. 158, 31st Oct., 1617.
[37] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. XCIV., 15th November, 1617.
[38] Vol. I., p. 5.
[39] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. XCIV., No. 30, 15th November, 1617. Chamberlain to Carleton.
[40] S.P., XCIV., No. 15.
[41] S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. XCVI., No. 69.
CHAPTER VII.
Little is recorded of the early married life of Sir John and Lady Villiers. Before it began they had both been mere pawns in the game, and pawns they remained for a good many years afterwards. If before her marriage the career of Lady Villiers had lain in the hands of her father and her mother; after her marriage it was, for a time, in the hands of her brother-in-law, Buckingham, as the career of Sir John always had been and continued to be during the life of Buckingham.
In the Secret History of James I.[42] we read concerning Buckingham: "But I must tell you what got him most hatred, to raise brothers and brothers-in-law to the highest ranks of nobility, which were not capable of the place of scarce a justice of the peace; only his brother, Purbeck, had more wit and honesty than all the kindred beside and did keep him in some bounds of honesty and modesty, whilst he lived about him, & would speake plaine English to him." If this be true, there must have been some good in Sir John; but Buckingham was impervious to his advice and treated him just as he pleased. It is possible, again, that Lady Villiers, without having any of the affection which a wife ought to have for a husband, may have had a sort of respect for him as a man of probity, much older than herself, who treated her well and even kindly.
George Villiers, a mushroom-grown Duke himself, having made the King create his mother Countess of Buckingham, bethought him of his eldest brother and determined to make him a peer. And not only that. He also conceived the idea of squeezing some more money out of his brother's mother-in-law for him, by offering her a peerage, for the cash thus obtained. It was suggested to her that she might be made Countess of Westmorland; but "she refused to buy the title at the price demanded."[43] Indeed, Lady Elizabeth was ready to fight anybody and everybody. On the one hand, she resisted the attempts of the almighty Buckingham to bleed her still further for Sir John Villiers, and, on the other, she wrote to the King concerning her husband: "I find how desirous he is to rubb up anie thing to make ill bloode betwixt my sonne Villiers & myselfe."[44] Meanwhile she prosecuted her husband in the Star Chamber. Mr. Brant wrote to Carleton: " ... The Ladie Hatton prevayleth exceedingly against her husband and hath driven him into a numnesse of on side, which is a forerunner of ye dead palsie, though now he be somewhat recovured."
In May, 1619, Lady Elizabeth was informed that, if she would give that isle, no longer an island, the Isle of Purbeck, which was her property, to her son-in-law, she should be made Countess of Purbeck and he Viscount Purbeck; but she refused to exchange good land for an empty name. However, in July, Sir John Villiers was created Baron Villiers of Stoke (Stoke Pogis) and Viscount Purbeck. This heaping up of peerages in the Villiers family, in addition to the number of valuable posts, and especially high ecclesiastical posts, obtained by Buckingham for his friends, or for anybody who would bribe him heavily enough to obtain them, led to much murmuring and ill-feeling among those whom he did not thus favour, and greatly irritated the populace. There was no apparent reason why Sir John Villiers should be ennobled, and his peerages were looked upon as a glaring piece of jobbery.
The Court also, at this time, was becoming unpopular. Buckingham was filling it with licentious gallants and with ladies of a type to match them. At Whitehall, there was a constant round of dissipation and libertinism. Besides the very free and easy balls, masques and banquets, there were what were called "quaint conceits" of more than doubtful decency, and there was much buffoonery of a very low type. In the Secret History of the Court of James I. it is recorded that, at this time, namely, about 1618 or 1619, there were "none great with Buckingham but bawds and parasites, and such as humoured him in his unchaste pleasures; so that since his first being a pretty, harmless, affable gentleman, he grew insolent, cruel, and a monster not to be endured."
Lord Purbeck held the appointment of Master of the Robes to Prince Charles, and he seems to have lived in the palace of the Prince; for, even as late as 1625, we read of Lady Purbeck remaining in "the Prinses house."[45] In 1620 Chamberlain wrote to Carleton[46] that when Buckingham was overpressed by business, he handed over suitors to his brother Purbeck. On the 18th of January, 1620, a letter[47] of Nethersole's states that Purbeck had resigned his post of Master of the Robes, in order to become Master of the Horse to the Prince.
At some date between that of his marriage in the year 1617 and 1622, Purbeck was received into the Catholic Church, by Father Percy, alias Fisher, a Jesuit. This step does not appear in any way to have affected his position at Court. In a manuscript in the library of the large Jesuit College of Stonyhurst,[48] in Lancashire, it is stated that "the Viscount de Purbeck (sic) brother of the Marquis of Buckingham, having been converted to the Catholic faith and reconciled to the Holy Church, by Father John Persens, S.J., betook himself to the Countess, his mother, and gave her so good an account of the said Father, and of the consolation he had received of him, that she greatly desired to speak to him, and sending him to call the Father, she heard him discourse fully of the Catholic faith, &c."
In Laud's Diary there is an entry: "1622, April 23. Being the Tuesday in Easter week, the King sent for me & set me into a course about the countess of Buckingham, who about that time was wavering in point of religion." And again: "May 24. The conference[49] between Mr. Fisher [Percy] a Jesuit, & myself, before the lord Marquis of Buckingham, & the countess, his mother."
There are people who are of opinion that for a Protestant to become a Catholic is an almost certain proof of madness; and such will rejoice to hear that, some time after Lord Purbeck had been received into the Catholic Church, he either showed, or is reputed to have shown, signs of lunacy.
Some authorities doubt whether Purbeck was ever out of his mind; but on the whole the weight of evidence is against them. Yet there are some rather unaccountable incidents in their favour. Again, when anybody is reputed to be mad, exaggerated stories of his doings are very likely to be spread about. Even in these days of advanced medical science, it is sometimes difficult to decide whether a patient is insane or not, and it is quite possible to suffer from very severe fits of depression without being the subject of maniacal melancholia, or from very violent fits of passion without being a madman.
There is just a possibility, too, that Buckingham may have wished to keep his brother quiet, or to get him out of the way, because that brother "would speake plaine English to him" about his licentious conduct and other matters, as we have already read. When a friend or a relative tells a man that he is behaving scandalously, the recipient of the information is apt to say that his informer is "cracked."
The earliest hint of Lord Purbeck's insanity was given in 1620. "The Lord Viscount Purbeck went abroad in the latter end of May 1620, under colour of drinking the waters of Spaw, but in fact, as Camden tells us, to hide his being run mad with pride."[50] The strongest evidence of anything like actual madness is in a letter[51] from Chamberlain to Carleton, written on 8th June, 1622. It may, however, be mere gossip. "The Lord of Purbecke is out of order likewise, for this day feurtnight getting into a roome next the street in Wallingford house, he beat down the glasse windowes with his bare fists and all bloudied &c." If this be true, may it not be possible that he was trying to break his way out of a room in which Buckingham had locked him up on the pretence that he was insane? Of Wallingford House the same correspondent says in another letter: "Buckingham has bought Lord Wallingford's house at Whitehall, by paying some money[52] making Sir Thomas Howard, Visct. Andover, and some say, releasing the Earl and Countess of Somerset."
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 maties command and doubt not but his matie 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 Maty. 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 Matie. 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 Matie. did, how much he priseth and loveth that blessed sweetness in you, and you in it. But I must tell your Grace his Matie. 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 Matie. 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 Matie. 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 Maties. 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 Maties. 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., Angliæ, 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 £3,000. 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.
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 Majtes 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....
"Yor Lops 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 £30,000. 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.
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 matie for the commitment of Sir Ro. Howard and my sister Purbeck, but his matie 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 Matie 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, wch 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."