"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 friendship 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 Ambassador 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 When he had withdrawn that writ, he for some time refused to allow her to return at all, for any purpose.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 amusement of the congregation in a fashionable London church on a Sunday morning.
FOOTNOTES:
[95] S.P. For., Charles I., France. Scudamore to Coke, 25th March—4th April, 1636. This letter was addressed to Sir John Coke, 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.
[98] S.P. Dom., Charles I., Vol. CCCXLIV., No. 58. Sir Kenelm Digby to Edward Lord Conway and Kilultagh, 21/31 January, 1637.