In the endeavour to establish the fact of adultery with Sir Robert Howard, there appears to have been some failure. The suspicions were “strong and violent,” as the legal functionaries declared, against Sir Robert Howard, but no “express confession from parties, nor testimony of witnesses,” was obtained by which the fact was substantiated. With regard to the allegations concerning witchcraft, the most extraordinary statements were adduced. This young lady of rank had, it was affirmed, "administered powders and potions that did intoxicate her husband’s brain, and practised somewhat of that kind upon the Duke of Buckingham."[[239]] To this accusation, the insanity which is said to have darkened the Earl of Purbeck’s career, and the frequent reports of the unfriendly, that Buckingham was “mad,” gave a semblance of probability sufficient in those days of superstition. But those who were judges in the affair happily were more enlightened than many of their contemporaries. In the first place, the chief witness, one Lambe, described as a “notorious old rascal,” had been himself condemned the previous summer for a heinous offence; and arraigned a year or two previously for practising witchcraft on “my Lord Kingston” at Worcester.
“I see not,” writes a contemporary, “what the fellow can gain by this confession, but to be hanged the sooner.”[[240]] Nevertheless, the information was too acceptable to the powers that then overawed society, not to meet with its reward. It was proved, indeed, that Lady Purbeck, after the fashion of her day, contemplated the power of witchcraft as one means of blinding or infuriating her husband. The example of the infamous Lady Somerset had not died away in the memory of one who seems to have resembled her in some points--in her hatred of the husband to whom she was assigned for mercenary ends--in her mad passion for another man, and in the dark agents to whom she resorted for aid, and by whom she was betrayed. Lady Purbeck often visited Lambe; “and,” wrote the Commissioners to Buckingham, “we verily think with evil intention to your brother.” Whether Sir Robert Howard accompanied her or not in these furtive visitations does not appear. Upon reviewing the scanty and unsatisfactory evidence, it was concluded by the attorney and solicitor-general, that the “use to be made of this part of the business would be rather to aggravate and make odious the other part of the offence, than to proceed upon it as a direct crime of itself.” Nothing, they acknowledged, had yet appeared, that could give “them cause to think the matter to be capital against the delinquents;” and no further witnesses were forthcoming.
In the midst of these proceedings, it is curious to observe the retribution which, in the course of worldly events, forces itself upon our notice. Lady Hatton, obliged to apply for counsel to her despised lord, to whose masterly judgment she was compelled, in her emergency, to resort, was a spectacle to divert, and even to instruct society. “Would you think,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, "that Lady Hatton’s stomach could stoop so low as to seek the Lord Coke, at Stoke, for his counsel and assistance in this affair?"
Well might Lady Hatton tremble for the result to this daughter whom she had sacrificed to her worldly view; for a spirit of persecution now manifested itself more and more clearly. Before the High Commission, the frail being whose fate was thus sealed at her very entrance into life acquitted herself, as a contemporary informs us, “reasonably well hitherto,” but he adds, “ne Hercules quidem coutra tot et tantos.” By all her demeanour was allowed to be “modest and prudent, and without reflection on other parties.” The witnesses whom she adduced were, however, not only silenced, but punished. One Bembige, a servant of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was committed for speaking in her behalf, and for stating how severely she was used by the adverse proctors. Those gentlemen complaining of these remarks, Bembige was sent out of court; obtaining from Lady Purbeck the distinction of “being one of her martyrs.”[[241]] The cause was eventually referred to the Ecclesiastical Court, wherein the Earl of Anglesea was the nominal prosecutor. Sir Robert Howard, not answering to the citation served upon him, was publicly excommunicated at Paul’s Cross. He claimed, however, his privilege as a “parliament man,” and it was conceded to him.
Lady Purbeck, meantime, remained under the custody of Alderman Barkham; no friends came forward to stand bail for her; neither Lady Hatton nor her father supplied her with money. She sent to Buckingham for means to fee her council;[[242]] nor does the aid appear to have been refused; neither can any blame attach to the Duke for his endeavours to free a brother who was now incapable of acting for himself,--as appears fully from Lord Anglesea, Christopher Villiers being the prosecutor--from a woman who, whatever may have been the extenuation of her faults, was living audaciously in a state of infamy. Neither can we wonder at his afterwards requesting Prince Charles to insist on his leaving the Court, where she had set so fearful an example.
Lady Purbeck was driven away, however, for another reason; although a divorce was not obtained, she was sentenced by the High Commission to stand in the Savoy church in a white sheet. She fled, in the disguise of a page, into the country; and in 1634 was again domiciled in the house of her father, who at least had human sympathies, in which his wife had proved herself utterly wanting. Coke, in his old age, received and pardoned the much humiliated daughter. “She continued,” says Lord Campbell, “to watch piously over him till his death.”[[243]] Nor could the task have been otherwise than consolatory. An accident was the proximate cause of the breaking up of that wonderful frame that had never known rest. Coke had, in his own mind, deserved well of the world; he was wont to give thanks that he had never given his body to physic, nor his heart to cruelty, nor his hand to corruption.[[244]] When his friends sent him three doctors to benefit his health, he told them he had never taken physic since he was born, and would not now begin; that he had now upon him “a disease[“a disease] which all the drugs of Asia, nor the gold of Africa, nor the doctors of Europe could not cure, old age.” Notwithstanding Coke’s great practice, he was at one time in debt to the extent of 60,000l., owing, it was said, to his sons. In his will he left injunctions that he should be buried without pomp in Littleshall church, and a monument be erected for him there; and that his books might be preserved for his posterity.[[245]]
In his own immediate family, Buckingham enjoyed such happiness as the fulfilment of every earthly wish could bestow. He was now the father of two children; Lady Mary Villiers, who, if we may accredit the representations of a fond mother, was full of intelligence and promise. The letters written during the absence of her husband, by the Duchess, abound with such anecdotes of her then only child, as are only important as they mark a mutual tie, and show confidence in the affection of him to whom those epistles were addressed--to one whom she believed to be all constancy and attachment--and to whom such little traits of her daughter could alone be imparted by a mother.
“Moll,” she writes, “is very well, and is a-writing to make you merry; she is bound to you for your sending her a token.” “Mr. Clarke will tell you who she is like; she is so lively and full of play that she will make you very good sport when you come home. I hope you have received her picture, though you have sent me no word whether you have or no.”[[246]] This picture was painted by Balthazar Gerbier; but, not being completed in time, the artist was obliged to substitute one which had been completed three years previously; “for the little lady,” writes Gerbier, in allusion to this substitution, “she has been painted in great haste; the hands, which crave a blessing from your excellency, are merely outlined.”[[247]] The “Lady Mary” was still an infant when the Duke returned from Spain; but the remembrance of her father, which had been impressed upon her childish thoughts, is exemplified in the following passage from a letter of her grandfather, the Earl of Rutland.[[248]] "Your wife, your sister, Mr. Porter, and myself were at supper at York House, when news came Dick Graeme[[249]] was come; but we were so impatient to see him, that some could eat no meat, and when we did see him and your letter, they were so overjoyed they forgot to eat; nay, my pretty, sweet Moll, as she was undressing, cried nothing but ‘dad, dad.’"
This prattling child was now growing into what King James entitled “a fair maid;” and a son, George, afterwards celebrated for his wit and profligacy, had been added to the many blessings showered upon Buckingham by Providence. His wife, who had, during his absence, kept his picture, “as her sweet saint, always within sight of her bed,” was now happy in the presence of one whom she seems to have loved with all the ardour of a first affection. Even the infidelities of her husband, now beginning to be generally known, appear to have left her love unchanged. She knew well the temptations that beset him. “Every one tells me,” she writes at one time, “how happy I am in a husband;” “that you will not look at a woman, and yet how they woo you.” When undeceived, the Duchess had the greatness of mind to make allowances for this flattered child of fortune; she knew that if any man were to be excused, it was he who, in foreign courts, had encountered the snares to which his disposition rendered him too easy a prey. The delinquency, as we have seen, nearly broke her heart; but she forgave and received the delinquent. She appears to have ever retained a conviction that her husband’s heart was true to her, whatever his errors may have been. “Yourself is a jewel that will win the hearts of all the women in the world; but I am confident it is not in their power to win your heart from a heart that is, was, and ever shall be yours till death.”[[250]]
Notwithstanding his domestic blessings, his fame and power, Buckingham had his disquiets. Amongst these, the chief was pecuniary embarrassments. The favourite, whose rapacity has been the theme of historians, was harassed by difficulties which must have arisen partly from his great extravagance, partly from the countless demands made upon the resources of those in power.