"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 Lordship Mis Frances Coke'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 passe 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 Coke'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 God and take the Almighty to witness That I Frances Coke Yonger daughter to Sir Ed. Coke 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 God Damne mee body and soule in Hell fyre in the world to come: And in thys world I humbly Beseech God 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 COKE 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.