The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck Part 10

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. x.x.xIII., 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 Shrops.h.i.+re, 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 Amba.s.sador, 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 Amba.s.sador; 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 Amba.s.sador, "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 cas.e.m.e.nts 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 Amba.s.sador 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 Amba.s.sador, 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 Amba.s.sador 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 Amba.s.sador 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. .h.i.therto 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 Amba.s.sador 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 n.o.ble 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 lords.h.i.+ps 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 sanct.i.ty: 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 n.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 Amba.s.sador 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 amus.e.m.e.nt of the congregation in a fas.h.i.+onable London church on a Sunday morning.

FOOTNOTES:

[95] _S.P. For._, Charles I., France. Scudamore to c.o.ke, 25th March--4th April, 1636. This letter was addressed to Sir John c.o.ke, 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.