"What is wedlock forced, but a hell? "--_Henry VI._, I., v., 5.
Little is recorded of the early married life of Sir John and Lady
Villiers. Before it began they had both been mere pawns in the game,
and pawns they remained for a good many years afterwards. If before
her marriage the career of Lady Villiers had lain in the hands of her
father and her mother; after her marriage it was, for a time, in the
hands of her brother-in-law, Buckingham, as the career of Sir John
always had been and continued to be during the life of Buckingham.
In the _Secret History of James I_.[42] we read concerning Buckingham:
"But I must tell you what got him most hatred, to raise brothers and
brothers-in-law to the highest ranks of nobility, which were not
capable of the place of scarce a justice of the peace; only his
brother, Purbeck, had more wit and honesty than all the kindred beside
and did keep him in some bounds of honesty and modesty, whilst he
lived about him, & would speake plaine English to him." If this be
true, there must have been some good in Sir John; but Buckingham was
impervious to his advice and treated him just as he pleased. It is
possible, again, that Lady Villiers, without having any of the
affection which a wife ought to have for a husband, may have had a
sort of respect for him as a man of probity, much older than herself,
who treated her well and even kindly.
George Villiers, a mushroom-grown Duke himself, having made the King
create his mother Countess of Buckingham, bethought him of his eldest
brother and determined to make him a peer. And not only that. He also
conceived the idea of squeezing some more money out of his brother's
mother-in-law for him, by offering her a peerage, for the cash thus
obtained. It was suggested to her that she might be made Countess of
Westmorland; but "she refused to buy the title at the price
demanded."[43] Indeed, Lady Elizabeth was ready to fight anybody and
everybody. On the one hand, she resisted the attempts of the almighty
Buckingham to bleed her still further for Sir John Villiers, and, on
the other, she wrote to the King concerning her husband: "I find how
desirous he is to rubb up anie thing to make ill bloode betwixt my
sonne Villiers & myselfe."[44] Meanwhile she prosecuted her husband in
the Star Chamber. Mr. Brant wrote to Carleton: "... The Ladie Hatton
prevayleth exceedingly against her husband and hath driven him into a
numnesse of on side, which is a forerunner of ye dead palsie, though
now he be somewhat recovured."
In May, 1619, Lady Elizabeth was informed that, if she would give that
isle, no longer an island, the Isle of Purbeck, which was her
property, to her son-in-law, she should be made Countess of Purbeck
and he Viscount Purbeck; but she refused to exchange good land for an
empty name. However, in July, Sir John Villiers was created Baron
Villiers of Stoke (Stoke Pogis) and Viscount Purbeck. This heaping up
of peerages in the Villiers family, in addition to the number of
valuable posts, and especially high ecclesiastical posts, obtained by
Buckingham for his friends, or for anybody who would bribe him heavily
enough to obtain them, led to much murmuring and ill-feeling among
those whom he did not thus favour, and greatly irritated the populace.
There was no apparent reason why Sir John Villiers should be ennobled,
and his peerages were looked upon as a glaring piece of jobbery.
The Court also, at this time, was becoming unpopular. Buckingham was
filling it with licentious gallants and with ladies of a type to match
them. At Whitehall, there was a constant round of dissipation and
libertinism. Besides the very free and easy balls, masques and
banquets, there were what were called "quaint conceits" of more than
doubtful decency, and there was much buffoonery of a very low type. In
the _Secret History of the Court of James I._ it is recorded that, at
this time, namely, about 1618 or 1619, there were "none great with
Buckingham but bawds and parasites, and such as humoured him in his
unchaste pleasures; so that since his first being a pretty, harmless,
affable gentleman, he grew insolent, cruel, and a monster not to be
endured."
Lord Purbeck held the appointment of Master of the Robes to Prince
Charles, and he seems to have lived in the palace of the Prince; for,
even as late as 1625, we read of Lady Purbeck remaining in "the
Prinses house."[45] In 1620 Chamberlain wrote to Carleton[46] that
when Buckingham was overpressed by business, he handed over suitors to
his brother Purbeck. On the 18th of January, 1620, a letter[47] of
Nethersole's states that Purbeck had resigned his post of Master of
the Robes, in order to become Master of the Horse to the Prince.
At some date between that of his marriage in the year 1617 and 1622,
Purbeck was received into the Catholic Church, by Father Percy, alias
Fisher, a Jesuit. This step does not appear in any way to have
affected his position at Court. In a manuscript in the library of the
large Jesuit College of Stonyhurst,[48] in Lancashire, it is stated
that "the Viscount de Purbeck (sic) brother of the Marquis of
Buckingham, having been converted to the Catholic faith and
reconciled to the Holy Church, by Father John Persens, S.J., betook
himself to the Countess, his mother, and gave her so good an account
of the said Father, and of the consolation he had received of him,
that she greatly desired to speak to him, and sending him to call the
Father, she heard him discourse fully of the Catholic faith, &c."
In _Laud's Diary_ there is an entry: "1622, April 23. Being the
Tuesday in Easter week, the King sent for me & set me into a course
about the countess of Buckingham, who about that time was wavering in
point of religion." And again: "May 24. The conference[49] between Mr.
Fisher [Percy] a Jesuit, & myself, before the lord Marquis of
Buckingham, & the countess, his mother."
There are people who are of opinion that for a Protestant to become a
Catholic is an almost certain proof of madness; and such will rejoice
to hear that, some time after Lord Purbeck had been received into the
Catholic Church, he either showed, or is reputed to have shown, signs
of lunacy.
Some authorities doubt whether Purbeck was ever out of his mind; but
on the whole the weight of evidence is against them. Yet there are
some rather unaccountable incidents in their favour. Again, when
anybody is reputed to be mad, exaggerated stories of his doings are
very likely to be spread about. Even in these days of advanced medical
science, it is sometimes difficult to decide whether a patient is
insane or not, and it is quite possible to suffer from very severe
fits of depression without being the subject of maniacal melancholia,
or from very violent fits of passion without being a madman.
There is just a possibility, too, that Buckingham may have wished to
keep his brother quiet, or to get him out of the way, because that
brother "would speake plaine English to him" about his licentious
conduct and other matters, as we have already read. When a friend or a
relative tells a man that he is behaving scandalously, the recipient
of the information is apt to say that his informer is "cracked."
The earliest hint of Lord Purbeck's insanity was given in 1620. "The
Lord Viscount Purbeck went abroad in the latter end of May 1620, under
colour of drinking the waters of Spaw, but in fact, as Camden tells
us, to hide his being run mad with pride."[50] The strongest evidence
of anything like actual madness is in a letter[51] from Chamberlain to
Carleton, written on 8th June, 1622. It may, however, be mere gossip.
"The Lord of Purbecke is out of order likewise, for this day
feurtnight getting into a roome next the street in Wallingford house,
he beat down the glasse windowes with his bare fists and all bloudied
&c." If this be true, may it not be possible that he was trying to
break his way out of a room in which Buckingham had locked him up on
the pretence that he was insane? Of Wallingford House the same
correspondent says in another letter: "Buckingham has bought Lord
Wallingford's house at Whitehall, by paying some money[52] making Sir
Thomas Howard, Visct. Andover, and some say, releasing the Earl and
Countess of Somerset."
In August, 1623, the Duchess of Buckingham--this would be Buckingham's
wife and not his mother, the Countess of Buckingham--wrote to
Conway:--
"SIR,[53]
"My sister and myselfe have seene a letter writt from you to Sir John
Keyesley concerning my Brother Purbeck, by his ma^ties command and
doubt not but his ma^tie hath bin informed with the most of his
distemper. Wee have bin with him the moste parte of this weeke at
London, and have found him very temperate by which wee thinke hee is
inclining towards his melancholye fitt, which if hee were in, then hee
might be perswaded any wayes, which at this instant hee will not, he
standeth so affected to the cittee and if there should be any violent
course taken with him, wee thinke he would be much the worse, for it,
and drive him quite besides himselfe. Therefore wee hould it best to
intreat Sir John Keysley and som other of his friends to beare him
companie in London and kepe him as private as they can for three or
four dayes till his dull fitt be upon him, and then hee may bee had
any whither. This in our judgment is the fittest course at this
present to be taken with him which we desire you will be pleased to
let his Ma^ty. knowe and I shall rest.
"Your assured loving friend,
"(Signed) K. BUCKINGHAM."
From this it would appear either that when Purbeck was in one of his
"melancholye fitts," he was quite tractable, but, at other times, he
was rather unmanageable; or that, when well, he refused to be ordered
about, but when ill, was too poorly to make any resistance. Conway[54]
replied as follows:--
"MOST GRATIOUS,
"I have represented to his Ma^tie. your Letter, and he doth gratiously
observe those sweete and tender motions which rise in your minde,
suitable with your noble, gentle and milde disposition, in which you
excell your sex: especially where force or restraint should be done to
the brother of youre deare Lorde.
"And I cannot expresse soe finely as his Ma^tie. did, how much he
priseth and loveth that blessed sweetness in you, and you in it. But I
must tell your Grace his Ma^tie. prays you, not to thinke it a little
distemper which carryed him to those publique actes, and publique
places, and to consider how irremediable it is, when his intemperance
hath carryed him to do some act of dishonour to himselfe, which may,
and must, reflect upon his most noble Brother, beyond the follies and
disprofits which he dayly practiseth. And that your Grace will not
only bee to suffer some sure course to bee taken for the conveying of
him into the country, but that you will advise it and assist it with
the most gentle (yet sure) wayes possible. That he may be restrayned
from the power and possibility of doing such acts as may scorne him,
or be dangerous to him: which these wayes of acting can never provide
for. For his Ma^tie. sayeth there cannot bee soe much as 'whoe would
have thought it,' which is the fooles answere, left for an error in
this: for whoe would not thinke that a distempered minde may doe the
worst to be done. His Ma^tie. therefore once more prayes you that his
former directions to Sir John Ersley may bee put in execution and the
safest and surest for the goode of the unfortunate noble person, and
honor of youre deare Lorde, his Ma^ties. dearest servant.
"This is that I have in charge. My faith and duty calls for this
profession that noe man is more bound to study and endeavour the
preservation of the honor and good of those that have interest in my
noble patron than myselfe: nor noe man more bound and more ready to
obey your commandments than
"Your Grace's most humble servant.
"ALDERSHOT. 30 August 1623."
The chief object aimed at by Conway and, as will be seen presently, by
the King, was to prevent any scandal or gossip about Purbeck's
behaviour injuring "his Ma^ties. dearest servant," Buckingham.
Purbeck's personal interests evidently counted for very little, if for
anything.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] P. 444
[43] Woolrych's _Life of Sir Ed. Coke_, p. 150. His authority for this
statement is Camden, Ann. Jac., p. 45.
[44] Letter quoted by Woolrych.
[45] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. CLXXXIII., No. 52.
[46] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. CXII., No. 1.
[47] _S.P. Dom._, James I., No. 18.
[48] Stonyhurst MSS., _Angliae_, Vol. VII. And _Records of the English
Province of the Society of Jesus_, Series I., p. 532.
[49] At a subsequent conference King James was present (_Diary of the
English College at Rome. The names of the Alumni,_ No. 181). Also
_Records of the English Province of the S.J.,_ Series I., p. 533. The
Countess of Buckingham subsequently became a Catholic, and her son,
the Duke, obtained leave from the King for Father Percy to "live on
parole in her house," which became his home in London for ten years
(_Ibid._, p. 531).
[50] _Biog. Brit_., notice of Sir E. Coke. Footnote.
[51] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. CXXXI, No. 24.
[52] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. CXXVII., No. 35. Chamberlain to
Carleton, 19th January, 1622. James I., 1619-23, p. 337. The price
paid is said to have been L3,000. See Gardiner, Vol. IV., Chap. XL.,
p. 279. Lord Wallingford was made Earl of Banbury, and the subsequent
claim to this title became as curious as that to the title of Purbeck,
which will be shown later.
[53] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. CLI., No. 86.
[54] _S.P. Dom._, James I., Vol. CLI., No. 87, 30th August, 1623.