To make an end of all his wooing.”
And the bride was a beautiful creature: the blush on her cheek was like a Catharine pear—“the side that’s next the sun”; while her red underlip looked as if “some bee had stung it newly.”
“Her finger was so small the ring,
Would not stay on which they did bring,
...
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out
As if they feared the light.”
This was the bride for whom Broghill had forgotten Mrs. Harrison and the duel in which nobody was hurt. This was the beautiful “Lady Pegg,” who was to prove herself a woman “beautiful in her person, very moderate in her expences, and plain in her garb; serious and decent in her behaviour, careful in her family, and tender of her lord”[99]—nay, more, in Broghill’s after-life it is easy to see that he had not only a brave helpmeet, but a clever one. Robert Boyle himself has called her the “great support, ornament, and comfort of her Family.”[100]
The old Earl was in his place when, after many long debates and “sevral heerings”, Strafford was sentenced to death—only eleven voices of all the Lords declaring “not content”; and on May 12 Strafford—to whom the King had pledged his word that not a hair of his head should be touched—was beheaded on Tower Hill. “As he well deserved” is the brief comment in the Earl of Cork’s diary.