In the endeavour to establish the fact of adultery with Sir Robert Howard, there appears to have been some failure. The suspicions were “strong and violent,” as the legal functionaries declared, against Sir Robert Howard, but no “express confession from parties, nor testimony of witnesses,” was obtained by which the _fact_ was substantiated. With regard to the allegations concerning witchcraft, the most extraordinary statements were adduced. This young lady of rank had, it was affirmed, "administered powders and potions that did intoxicate her husband’s brain, and practised somewhat of that kind upon the Duke of Buckingham."[239] To this accusation, the insanity which is said to have darkened the Earl of Purbeck’s career, and the frequent reports of the unfriendly, that Buckingham was “mad,” gave a semblance of probability sufficient in those days of superstition. But those who were judges in the affair happily were more enlightened than many of their contemporaries. In the first place, the chief witness, one Lambe, described as a “notorious old rascal,” had been himself condemned the previous summer for a heinous offence; and arraigned a year or two previously for practising witchcraft on “my Lord Kingston” at Worcester. Footnote 239: State Papers, vol. clxxiv., No. 47. Inedited Papers, Domestic, 1625. “I see not,” writes a contemporary, “what the fellow can gain by this confession, but to be hanged the sooner.”[240] Nevertheless, the information was too acceptable to the powers that then overawed society, not to meet with its reward. It was proved, indeed, that Lady Purbeck, after the fashion of her day, contemplated the power of witchcraft as one means of blinding or infuriating her husband. The example of the infamous Lady Somerset had not died away in the memory of one who seems to have resembled her in some points--in her hatred of the husband to whom she was assigned for mercenary ends--in her mad passion for another man, and in the dark agents to whom she resorted for aid, and by whom she was betrayed. Lady Purbeck often visited Lambe; “and,” wrote the Commissioners to Buckingham, “we verily think with evil intention to your brother.” Whether Sir Robert Howard accompanied her or not in these furtive visitations does not appear. Upon reviewing the scanty and unsatisfactory evidence, it was concluded by the attorney and solicitor-general, that the “use to be made of this part of the business would be rather to aggravate and make odious the other part of the offence, than to proceed upon it as a direct crime of itself.” Nothing, they acknowledged, had yet appeared, that could give “them cause to think the matter to be capital against the delinquents;” and no further witnesses were forthcoming. Footnote 240: State Papers, vol. clxxiv., No. 47.--Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, Feb. 26th, 1625. Inedited State Papers.