he advantage of her dishonourable ends and
to his prejudice. Iff ffrodsham and Lambe once feele or be brought to
feare their punishment I believe they will unfold much more than they
yet have, for it seems they have but boath sported in their
examinations, &c."

This letter, again, proves that Lord Purbeck was on good terms with
Lady Purbeck, and that Buckingham was striving to keep them apart; and
it adds still further support to the theory that it was not Lord
Purbeck but Buckingham who was trying to divorce Lady Purbeck, by
"aggravating and airing her crimes."

Buckingham himself was suspected of having dealings with Lambe on his
own account; for Arthur Wilson says, in his _Life of James I._:[72]
"Dr. Lamb, a man of an infamous Conversation, (having been arraigned
for a Witch, and found guilty of it at Worcester; and arraigned for a
Rape, and found guilty of it at the King's Bench-Bar at Westminster;
yet escaped the Stroke of Justice for both, by his Favour in Court)
was much employed by the Mother and the Son," _i.e._, by the Duke of
Buckingham and his mother. If this be true, Buckingham's conduct
towards Lady Purbeck, in connection with Lambe, does not seem to have
been very straightforward.

Lambe's "favour in Court," however, proved no protection to him in the
streets. Whitelock writes[73] in 1632: "This Term the business of the
Death of Doctor Lamb was in the King's Bench, wherein it appeared that
he was neither Dr. nor any way Lettered, but a man odious to the
Vulgar, for some Rumors that went of him, that he was a Conjurer or
Sorcerer, and he was quarrelled with in the Streets in London, and as
the people more and more gathered about him, so they pelted him with
rotten Eggs, Stones, and other riff raff, justled him, beat him,
bruised him, and so continued pursuing him from Street to Street, till
they were five hundred people together following him. This continued
three hours together until Night, and no Magistrate or Officer of the
Peace once showed himself to stop this Tumult: so the poor man being
above eighty years of age, died of this violence, and no Inquisition
was taken of it, nor any of the Malefactors discovered in the City."

On the 26th of February Chamberlain wrote[74] to Carleton:--

"The Lady Purbecke w^th her young sonne, and Sr. Robert Howard are
committed to the custodie of Generall Aldermen Barkham and Freeman to
be close kept. When she was carried to Sergeants ynne to be examined
by th