the officers of the law lost sight of Lady
Purbeck. So also, for the present do we; but we know what became of
her; for she was taken by Sir Robert Howard to his house at Clun, in
the extreme south-west of Shropshire, where a small promontory of that
county is bordered by Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Herefordshire.
It is probable that, so long as she was far away from the Court and
from London, Buckingham and the authorities took no trouble to find
her or her paramour, and almost connived at their escape.

During their absence from our view, it may add to the interest of our
story to observe the conditions at that time of some of the other
characters who have figured in it, and to consider certain
circumstances of the period at which we are halting. Looking back a
little way, we shall find that King James, who we noticed was so ill
as to be only just able to sign an order connected with the
proceedings against Lady Purbeck, died in March, 1625, and that the
very correct Charles I. was King during the subsequent proceedings.

Going further back still, we find that Bacon, who had succeeded in
overthrowing Coke, was himself overthrown in 1621, three years after
the marriage of Coke's daughter to Sir John Villiers, and shortly
after Bacon himself had been created Viscount St. Albans. Bacon was
impeached on charges of official corruption, and his old enemy, Sir
Edward Coke, who was then a member of Parliament, was to have had the
pleasure of conducting the impeachment. Coke, however, was deprived of
that gratification by Bacon's plea of Guilty, and was obliged to
content himself with attending the Speaker to the bar of the House of
Lords when judgment was to be prayed, and with hearing the Chief
Justice, by order of the Lords, condemn Bacon to a fine of L40,000,
incapacity ever to hold any office again, exile from Court, and
imprisonment in the Tower during the King's pleasure.

It was generally supposed that the exultant Coke would now be offered
the Great Seal; but, to the astonishment of the world and to Coke's
unqualified chagrin, the King proclaimed Williams, "a shrewd Welsh
parson," as Lord Campbell calls him, Lord Keeper in the place of
Bacon. After this disappointment, Coke became even fiercer against the
Court than he had been before Bacon's disgrace. Bacon's fine was
remitted, "the King's pleasure" as to the length of his imprisonment
was only four days, he was allowed to return to Court, and he was
enabled