serious charge of having said that "he hated the Stuarts and that
if no person could be found to cut off the King's head, he would do it
himself." He refused to attend, on the ground that he was not a
member of the House of Lords but of the House of Commons. This plea
was not allowed, and he was actually compelled to kneel at the bar of
the House of Lords and to beg pardon for his criminal words.

At the Restoration he remained an obstinate Roundhead, and, instead of
showing any desire to claim the title of Viscount Purbeck, he obtained
permission from Charles II. to levy a fine of his titles in possession
and in remainder. Then he retired to an estate which he owned in the
parish of Houghton in Radnorshire, bearing the curious name of
Siluria. He died in the year 1676, at Calais, and in his will he is
described as "Robert Danvers, alias Villiers, Esq."

Robert's wife survived him, and, now that he and his idiosyncrasies
were safely out of the way, it occurred to this daughter of a regicide
that "the Right Honourable the Dowager Viscountess Purbeck"
would sound much more euphonious than "the widow Danvers;"
accordingly--solely for the sake of others--she adopted that title. At
the same time, her two sons, Robert and Edward, resumed the name of
Villiers.

Immediately after the death of his father, Robert, the elder of the
two sons, took as much trouble to get summoned to the House of Lords
as his father had taken to escape from it. He sent a petition on the
subject to Charles II., who referred him to the House of Lords. His
claim was opposed. First, on the ground that his father had barred
his right to honours by the fine which he had levied, _i.e._, by
renouncing those honours, and, secondly, on the ground that his father
had not been a son of John Villiers, First Viscount Purbeck, but a son
of Sir Robert Howard. A petition[105] against the claim was presented
by the Earl of Denbigh, who professed himself "highly concerned in the
honour of the Duke of Buckingham and his sister, the Duchess of
Richmond & Lennox; Petitioner's mother, Susanna, having been the only
sister of the late Duke of Buckingham," and he prayed "the House to
examine the truth of these assertions, before allowing itself to be
contaminated by illegitimate blood."

This warning to the Lords against contaminating itself by illegitimate
blood, at a time when Charles II. was constantly enriching it with his
own illegitimate offspring, or what at least