"(Signed) JOHN CHAMBERLAIN."
This shows that, if Purbeck was insane, his insanity was intermittent;
and it could not have been chronic; for in later years we read that he
was managing his own affairs and that he married again, some time
after the death of Frances.
From the following letter, written by Lady Purbeck to Buckingham, and
unfortunately undated, it would seem that Buckingham had driven her
from her home, when she had become the subject of a certain amount of
vague scandal, but, so far as was then known, or at least proved, of
nothing more; and that he had contrived that she should have none of
the wealth which she had brought to her husband. As will be seen, she
was apparently penniless, except for what she received from her mother
or her friends.
"My Lord[58]:--Though you may judge what pleasure there is in the
conversation of a man in the distemper you see your brother in; yet,
the duty I owe to a Husband, and the affection I bear him (which
sickness shall not diminish) makes me much desire to be with him, to
add what comfort I can to his afflicted mind, since his only desire is
my company; which, if it please you to satisfy him in, I shall with a
very good will suffer with him, and think all but my duty, though I
think every wife would not do so. But if you can so far dispense with
the laws of God as to keep me from my Husband, yet aggravate it not by
restraining me from his means, and all other contentments; but, which
I think is rather the part of a Christian, you especially ought much
rather to study comforts for me, than to add ills to ills, since it is
the marriage of your brother makes me thus miserable. For if you
please but to consider, not only the lamentable estate I am in,
deprived of all comforts of a Husband, and having no means to live of;
besides falling from the hopes my fortune then did promise me; for you
know very well, I came no beggar to you, though I am like so to be
turn'd off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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