The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck | Page 7

with a love of your own arguments, though they be the
weaker.... Secondly, you cloy your auditory: when you would be
observed, speech must either be sweet, or short. Thirdly, you converse
with Books, not Men ... who are the best Books. For a man of action &
employment you seldom converse, & then but with underlings; not
freely but as a schoolmaster with his scholars, ever to teach, never to
learn.... You should know many of these tales you tell to be but
ordinary, & many other things, which you repeat, & serve in for
novelties to be but stale.... Your too much love of the world is too much
seen, when having the living" [income] "of £10,000, you relieve few or
none: the hand that hath taken so much, can it give so little? Herein you
show no bowels of compassion.... We desire you to amend this & let
your poor Tenants in Norfolk find some comfort, where nothing of
your Estate is spent towards their relief, but all brought up hither, to the
impoverishing of your country.... When we will not mind ourselves,
God (if we belong to him) takes us in hand, & because he seeth that we
have unbridled stomachs, therefore he sends outward crosses." And
Bacon ends by commending poor Coke "to God's Holy Spirit ...
beseeching Him to send you a good issue out of all these troubles, &
from henceforth to work a reformation in all that is amiss, & a resolute
perseverance, proceeding, & growth, in all that is good, & that for His
glory, the bettering of yourself, this Church & Commonwealth; whose
faithful servant whilest you remain, I am a faithful servant unto you."
If ever there was a case of adding insult to injury, surely this piece of
canting impertinence was one of the most outrageous.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] _Life of Sir Edward Coke._ By H.W. Woolrych. London: J. & W.T.

Clarke, 1826, pp. 145-48.
[4] Lipscomb's _History and Antiquities of the Co. of Bucks_, 1847,
Vol. IV., p. 548.
[5] Gray made the churchyard of Stoke Pogis the scene of his famous
Elegy, and he was buried there in 1771.
[6] _Ency. Brit._, Vol. XIV. Article on London.
[7] Lady Elizabeth's house in Holborn was called Hatton House. A
letter (_S.P. Dom._, James I., 13th July, 1622) says: "Lady Hatton sells
her house in Holborn to the Duke of Lennox, for £12,000." Another
letter (ib. 26th February, 1628) says that "Lady Hatton complained so
much of her bargain with the Duchess of Richmond for Hatton House,
that the Duchess has taken her at her word and left it on her hands,
whereby she loses £1,500 a year, and £6,000 fine."
[8] "Under no man's judgment should the King lie; but under God and
the law only."
[9] Letter from John Castle. See D'Israeli's _Character of James I._, p.
125.
[10] _Cabala Sive Scrina Sacra_: Mysteries of State and Government.
In _Letters of Illustrious Persons, etc_. London: Thomas Sawbridge
and others, 1791, p. 86.

CHAPTER III.
"Marriage is a matter of more worth Than to be dealt in by
attorneyship." _Henry VI._, I., v., 5.
If Bacon flattered himself that he had extinguished Coke for good and
all, he was much mistaken. It must have alarmed him to find that Lady
Elizabeth, after constant quarrels with her husband and ceasing to live
with him, had taken his part, now that he had been dismissed from

office, that she had solicited his cause at the very Council table,[11]
and that she had quarrelled with both the King and the Queen about the
treatment of her husband, with the result that she had been forbidden to
go to Court, and had begun to live again with Coke, taking with her her
daughter, now well on in her 'teens.
There was a period of hostilities, however, early in the year 1617. Sir
Edward and Lady Elizabeth went to law about her jointure. In May
Chamberlain wrote to Carleton:--
"The Lord Coke & his lady hath great wars at the council table. I was
there on Wednesday, but by reason of the Lord Keeper's absence, there
was nothing done. What passed yesterday I know not yet: but the first
time she came accompanied with the Lord Burghley" (her eldest
brother), "& his lady, the Lord Danvers" (her maternal grandfather),
"the Lord Denny" (her brother-in-law), "Sir Thomas Howard" (her
nephew, afterwards first Earl of Berkshire) "& his lady, with I know
not how many more, & declaimed bitterly against him, and so carried
herself that divers said Burbage" [the celebrated actor of that time]
"could not have acted better. Indeed, it seems he [Sir Edward Coke]
hath carried himself very simply, to say no more, in divers matters: and
no doubt he shall be sifted