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."