in the hands of her
father and her mother; after her marriage it was, for a time, in the
hands of her brother-in-law, Buckingham, as the career of Sir John
always had been and continued to be during the life of Buckingham.

In the _Secret History of James I_.[42] we read concerning Buckingham:
"But I must tell you what got him most hatred, to raise brothers and
brothers-in-law to the highest ranks of nobility, which were not
capable of the place of scarce a justice of the peace; only his
brother, Purbeck, had more wit and honesty than all the kindred beside
and did keep him in some bounds of honesty and modesty, whilst he
lived about him, & would speake plaine English to him." If this be
true, there must have been some good in Sir John; but Buckingham was
impervious to his advice and treated him just as he pleased. It is
possible, again, that Lady Villiers, without having any of the
affection which a wife ought to have for a husband, may have had a
sort of respect for him as a man of probity, much older than herself,
who treated her well and even kindly.

George Villiers, a mushroom-grown Duke himself, having made the King
create his mother Countess of Buckingham, bethought him of his eldest
brother and determined to make him a peer. And not only that. He also
conceived the idea of squeezing some more money out of his brother's
mother-in-law for him, by offering her a peerage, for the cash thus
obtained. It was suggested to her that she might be made Countess of
Westmorland; but "she refused to buy the title at the price
demanded."[43] Indeed, Lady Elizabeth was ready to fight anybody and
everybody. On the one hand, she resisted the attempts of the almighty
Buckingham to bleed her still further for Sir John Villiers, and, on
the other, she wrote to the King concerning her husband: "I find how
desirous he is to rubb up anie thing to make ill bloode betwixt my
sonne Villiers & myselfe."[44] Meanwhile she prosecuted her husband in
the Star Chamber. Mr. Brant wrote to Carleton: "... The Ladie Hatton
prevayleth exceedingly against her husband and hath driven him into a
numnesse of on side, which is a forerunner of ye dead palsie, though
now he be somewhat recovured."

In May, 1619, Lady Elizabeth was informed that, if she would give that
isle, no longer an island, the Isle of Purbeck, which was her
property, to her son-in-law, she should be made Countess of Purbeck
and he Viscount Purbeck; but she refused to exchange goo