The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck Part 3

"In this business of my brother's that you over-trouble yourself with, I understand from London, by some of my friends, that you have carried yourself with much scorn and neglect both towards myself and my friends, which, if it prove true, I blame not you but myself."

This was sufficiently alarming, and at least as much so was a letter which came from the King himself in which was written:--[23]

"Whereas you talk of the riot and violence committed by Sir Edward c.o.ke, we wonder you make no mention of the riot and violence of them that stole away his daughter, which was the first ground of all that noise."

It is clear, therefore, that if things were going badly for c.o.ke, they were going almost worse for Bacon, who now found himself in a very awkward position both with the King and with Buckingham. Nor was he succeeding as well as he could have wished in his attacks upon c.o.ke.

He had made an attack by proceeding against him for a certain action, when a judge; but c.o.ke had parried this thrust by paying what was then a very large sum to settle the affair.

In a letter to Carleton[24] Gerrard says:--

"The Lord Chiefe Justice Sir Ed. c.o.ke hath payd 3500 for composition for taking common Bayle for some accused of Pyracye, which hath been urged agaynst him since hys fall. And perhaps fearing more such claps; intending to stand out the storme no longer, privately hath agreed on a match with Sir John Villiers for hys youngest daughter Franche, the mother's Darling, with which the King was acquainted withall and writt to have it done before hys coming backe."

And presently he says:--

"The caryadge of the business hath made such a ster in the Towne as never was: Nothing can fully represent it but a Commedye."

A letter written on the same day by Sir John Finet mentions the projected marriage of Sir Edward c.o.ke's daughter with Sir John Villiers, who would have 2,000 a year from Buckingham, and be left heir of his lands, as he was already of his Earldom, failing the Earl's male issue. He adds that Sir Edward c.o.ke went cheerily to visit the Queen, and that the common people said he would die Lord Treasurer. Such gossip as that must have been anything but amusing to Bacon.

The c.o.ke-Villiers engagement had now become almost, if not quite, a State affair. Nearly three weeks later Sir Horace Vere wrote to Carleton:--[25]

"I hear nothing so much spoken of here as that of Sir John Villiers and Sir Ed. c.o.ke's daughter. My Lady Hatton doth continue stiff against yt, and yesterday I wayted upon my wife to my Lady of Northumberland's. She tould my wife that she gives yt out that her daughter is formmerlie contracted to an other and to such a one that will not be afeard to plead his interest if he be put to yt."

Six days afterwards a third candidate for Frances c.o.ke was talked about. George Gerrard wrote to the same correspondent:--[26]

"The Lady Hatton's daughter to be maryed to one Cholmely a Baronet. Of late here is by all the frendes of my Lady Hatton a Contract published of Her Daughter Frances to the Erle of Oxford which was sent him to Venice: to which he hath returned and answer that he will come presently over, and see her fayre eyes and conclude the what he shall thinke fit for him to doe: I have sent your Lords.h.i.+p Mis Frances c.o.ke's Love Letter to my Lord of Oxford herein concluded: I believe you never read the like: Thys is like to become a grate business: for the King hath shewed himselfe much in advancing thys matter for Sir John Villiers."

He says that Lady Elizabeth offers to give Lord Oxford "besydes her daughter ... ten and thirty hundred pound a year, which will before twenty years pa.s.se bee nigh 6000 a yeare besydes two houses well furnisht. A Greate fortune for my Ld. yett it is doubted wheather hee will endanger the losse of the King's favor for so fayre a woman and so fayre a fortune."

The following is Frances c.o.ke's enclosed "love letter" of which Gerrard believed, as well he might, that Carleton "never read the like." It is evidently the work of Lady Elizabeth:--

"I vow before G.o.d and take the Almighty to witness That I Frances c.o.ke Yonger daughter to Sir Ed. c.o.ke late Lord Chiefe Justice of England, doe give myselfe absolutely to Wife to Henry Ven. Viscount Balboke, Erle of Oxenford, to whom I plight my fayth and inviolate vows, to keepe myselfe till Death us do part: And if even I breake the least of these I pray G.o.d d.a.m.ne mee body and soule in h.e.l.l fyre in the world to come: And in thys world I humbly Beseech G.o.d the Earth may open and Swallowe mee up quicke to the Terror of all fayth breakers that remayne alive. In witness whereof I have written all thys with my owne hand and seald it with my owne seale (a hart crowned) which I will weare till your retourne to make thys Good that I have sent you.

And for further witness I here underneath sett to my Name.

"(Signed) FRANCES c.o.kE in the Presence "of my deare Mother "ELIZA HATTON.

["_July 10, 1617._"]

Lady Elizabeth, however, failed to effect the match. Possibly the letter just quoted may have been too strong meat for Oxford. Even her skill in the gentle art of forgery proved unavailing. Whether Oxford had no fancy for the girl, or the girl had no fancy for Oxford, does not appear, and perhaps other causes may have prevented the marriage; but, although he did not marry Frances, he married her first cousin, Lady Diana, daughter of the second Earl of Exeter, a niece of Lady Elizabeth, and, like Frances, both a great heiress and a beautiful woman. Lord Oxford was killed, a few years afterwards, at the siege of Breda in the Netherlands.

Bacon, now thoroughly frightened, both by the King and by Buckingham, began to trim, and before long he turned completely round and used his influence with Lady Elizabeth to induce her to agree to the Sir John Villiers-match. He wrote a letter on the 21st of August to Buckingham, saying that he was doing all he could to further the marriage of Sir John Villiers with Frances c.o.ke. Among other things he said:--

"I did also send to my Lady Hatton, c.o.ke's wife and some other special friends to acquaint them that I would declare, if anything, for the match so that they may no longer account on [my] a.s.sistance. I sent also to Sir John Butler, and after by letter to my Lady [Compton] your mother, to tender my performance of any good office toward the match."

To this letter Buckingham sent a very chilling reply, whereupon Bacon, in his anxiety, sent Yelverton in person to try to conciliate Buckingham and the King, enjoining him to lie so hard and so unblus.h.i.+ngly as to declare that Bacon had never hindered, but had in "many ways furthered the marriage;" that all he had done had been to check c.o.ke's "impertinent carriage" in the matter, which he wished had "more nearly resembled the Earl of Buckingham's sweet disposition."

Yet after faithfully fulfilling this nefarious errand, Yelverton failed to conciliate Buckingham, for he wrote the following very unsatisfactory report to Bacon:--

"The Earl [of Buckingham] professeth openly against you;" whereas, "Sir Edward c.o.ke, as if he were already on his wings, triumphs exceedingly; hath much private conference with his Majesty, and in public doth offer himself, and thrust upon the King with as great boldness of speech as heretofore."

Things were beginning to look desperate for Bacon! Indeed it seemed as if affliction were about to "level the mole-hills," not now of c.o.ke's, but of Bacon's pride; "to plough" Bacon's heart and "make it fit for Wisdom to sow her seed, and for Grace to bring forth her increase," blessings which Bacon had so kindly & so liberally promised to c.o.ke in a letter already quoted.

About the middle of August, Chamberlain wrote that Frances c.o.ke was staying with Sir Robert c.o.ke, Sir Edward's son by his first wife, and that Lady Elizabeth was with her all day, to prevent the access of others; but that, finding her friends were deserting her, and that "she struggles in vain" against the King's will, "she begins to come about," and "upon some conditions will double her husband's portion and make up the match and give it her blessing." Presently he says: "But it seems the Lady Hatton would have all the honour and thanks, and so defeat her husband's purpose, towards whom, of late, she has carried herself very strangely, and, indeed, neither like a wife, nor a wise woman."

As Chamberlain says, Lady Elizabeth was determined that, if she had to yield, she would be paid for doing so, and that her husband should obtain none of the profits of the transaction. It was unfortunate that that transaction should be the means of injuring her daughter whom she loved; but it was very fortunate that it might be the means of injuring her husband whom she hated. Her own account of her final agreement to the marriage may be seen in a letter which she wrote to the King in the following year:--[27]

"I call to witness my Lord Haughton, whom I sent twyce to moove the matter to my Lady Compton, so as by me she would take it. This was after he had so fondly broke off with my Lorde of Bukingham, when he ruled your Majestie's favour sca.r.s.e at the salerie of a 1,000. After that my brother and sister of Burghly offered, in the Galerie Chamber at Whitehall, theire service unto my Ladie Compton to further this marriage, so as from me she would take it. Thirdly, myselfe cominge from Kingstone in a coach with my Ladie Compton, I then offered her that if shee would leave Sir Edward Cooke I would proceed with her in this marriage."

Although, as Chamberlain had written, Lady Elizabeth was now beginning "to come about," in fact had come about, her faithful friend, Bacon, in his frantic anxiety to regain the favour of Buckingham and the King, ordered her to be arrested and kept in strict though honourable confinement. In fact, to use a modern term, all the actors in this little drama, possibly with the exception of Frances c.o.ke and Sir John Villiers, were prepared, at any moment, "to give each other away."

According to Foard,[28] Bacon was, at this time, busily engaged in preparing for the trial of another member of Lady Elizabeth's family, namely her stepmother, Lady Exeter.[29]

By the irony of fate, it happened that the two mortal enemies, c.o.ke and Bacon, acted together in the matter of the incarceration of Lady Elizabeth; for, while the former pleaded for it, the latter ordered it. It was spent partly at the house of Alderman Bennet,[30] and partly at that of Sir William Craven,[31] Lord Mayor of London in the years 1610 and 1618, and father of the first Earl of Craven. In both houses she was doubtless treated with all respect, and she must have occupied a position in them something between that of a paying-guest and a lunatic living in the private house of a doctor--not that there was any lunacy in the mind of Lady Elizabeth. Quite the contrary!

FOOTNOTES:

[20] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. XCII, No. 101, 23rd July, 1617.

[21] Campbell, Vol. I., p. 300.

[22] Campbell, Vol. I., p. 301.

[23] _Ibid._, p. 302.

[24] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. XCII, No. 101, 22nd July, 1617.

[25] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. XCIII., No. 18, 12th August, 1617.

[26] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. XCIII., No. 28, 18th August, 1617.

[27] _Life of Sir Edward c.o.ke_. By Humphrey Woolrych. London: J. & W.T. Clarke, 1826, pp. 146-48.

[28] _Life and Correspondence of Francis Bacon_. London: Saunders, Otley & Co., 1861, p. 459.

[29] She was found innocent, and her accusers, Sir Thomas and Lady Lake, were imprisoned and fined. 10,000 to the King, and 5,000 to Lady Exeter as damages for the libel. A chambermaid who was one of the witnesses, was whipped at the cart's tail for her perjury. Lady Roos, the wife of Lady Exeter's step-grandson, and a daughter of the Lakes, made a full confession that she had partic.i.p.ated in spreading the scandal. She was sentenced to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure.

[30] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. XCIII., 6th October, 1617. Letter from Sir Gerald Herbert.

[31] Campbell, Vol. I., p. 303. fn. The imprisonment of what were called "people of quality" usually took place either in the Tower or in the private houses of Aldermen, in those times, although they were sometimes imprisoned in the Fleet.

CHAPTER VI.

"Of all the actions of a man's life his marriage doth least concern other people; yet of all actions of our life it is most meddled with by other people."

SELDEN.

In all these negotiations, and caballings, and intriguings, the person most concerned, Frances c.o.ke, the beauty and the heiress, was only the ball in the game. Neither her father nor her mother nor anybody else either considered her feelings or consulted her wishes about the proposed marriage, except so far as it was to their own personal interest to do so.