The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck | Page 2

he
tolerate it from a king in petticoats.
This well-known incident is only mentioned to give an idea of the
period of English history at which the following story makes its start. It
is not, however, with public, but with private life that we are to be here
concerned; nor is it in the Court of the Queen, but in the humbler home
of her Attorney-General, that we must begin. In a humbler, it is true,
yet not in a very humble home; for Mr. Attorney Coke had inherited a
good estate from his father, had married an heiress, in Bridget Paston,

who brought him the house and estate of Huntingfield Hall, in Suffolk,
together with a large fortune in hard cash; and he had a practice at the
Bar which had never previously been equalled. Coke was in great
sorrow, for his wife had died on the 27th of June, 1598, and such was
the pomp with which he determined to bury her, that her funeral did not
take place until the 24th of July. In his memorandum-book he wrote on
the day of her death: "Most beloved and most excellent wife, she well
and happily lived, and, as a true handmaid of the Lord, fell asleep in the
Lord and now reigns in Heaven." Bridget had made good use of her
time, for, although she died at the age of thirty-three, she had,
according to Burke, seven children; but, according to Lord Campbell,
ten.
As Bridget was reigning in Heaven, Coke immediately began to look
about for a substitute to fill the throne which she had left vacant upon
earth. Youth, great personal beauty and considerable wealth, thought
this broken-hearted widower at the age of forty-six, would be good
enough for him, and the weeks since the true handmaid of the Lord had
left him desolate were only just beginning to blend into months, when
he fixed his mind upon a girl likely to fulfil his very moderate
requirements. He, a widower, naturally sought a widow, and, happily,
he found a newly made one. Youth she had, for she was only twenty;
beauty she must have had in a remarkable degree, for she was
afterwards one of the lovely girls selected to act with the Queen of
James I. in Ben Jonson's _Masque of Beauty_; and wealth she had in
the shape of immense estates.
Elizabeth, grand-daughter of the great Lord Burghley, and daughter of
Burghley's eldest son Thomas Cecil, some years later Earl of Exeter,
had been married to the nephew and heir of Lord Chancellor Hatton.
Not very long after her marriage her husband had died, leaving her
childless and possessed of the large property which he had inherited
from his uncle. This young widow was a woman not only of high birth,
great riches, and exceptional beauty, but also of remarkable wit, and, as
if all this were not enough, she had, in addition, a violent temper and an
obstinate will. This Coke found out in her conduct respecting a
daughter who eventually became Lady Purbeck, the heroine of our little

story.
Romance was not wanting in the Attorney-General's second wooing;
for he had a rival, whom Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chief
Justices, describes as "then a briefless barrister, but with brilliant
prospects," a man of thirty-five, who happened to be Lady Elizabeth's
cousin. His name was Francis Bacon, afterwards Lord Chancellor,
Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and the author of the Novum
Organum as well of a host of other works, including essays on almost
every conceivable subject. In the opinion of certain people, he was also
the author of the plays commonly attributed to one William
Shakespeare. This rival was good-looking, had a charming manner, and
was brilliant in conversation, while his range of subjects was almost
unlimited, whereas, the wooer in whom we take such an affectionate
interest, was wrinkled, dull, narrow-minded, unimaginative, selfish,
over-bearing, arrogant, illiterate, ignorant in almost everything except
jurisprudence, of which he was the greatest oracle then living, and
uninterested in everything except law, his own personal ambition, and
money-making.
Shortly before Coke had marked the young and lovely Lady Elizabeth
Hatton for his own, Bacon had not only paid his court to her in person,
but had also persuaded his great friend and patron, Lord Essex, to use
his influence in inducing her to marry him. Essex did so to the very
best of his ability, a kind service for which Bacon afterwards repaid
him after he had fallen--we have seen that his star was already in its
decadence--by making every effort, and successful effort, to get him
convicted of treason, sentenced to death, and executed.
Which of these limbs of the law was the beautiful heiress to select? She
showed no inclination to marry Francis