h
either lock her up, or commit her with a deal of injunctions and
protestations to some trusty friends, him and her he sets and bribes to
oversee: one servant is set in his absence to watch another, and all to
observe his wife, and yet all this will not serve, though his business be
very urgent, he will when he is halfway come back in all post haste, rise
from supper, or at midnight, and be gone, and sometimes leave his business
undone, and as a stranger court his own wife in some disguised habit.
Though there be no danger at all, no cause of suspicion, she live in such a
place, where Messalina herself could not be dishonest if she would, yet he
suspects her as much as if she were in a bawdy-house, some prince's court,
or in a common inn, where all comers might have free access. He calls her
on a sudden all to nought, she is a strumpet, a light housewife, a bitch,
an arrant whore. No persuasion, no protestation can divert this passion,
nothing can ease him, secure or give him satisfaction. It is most strange
to report what outrageous acts by men and women have been committed in this
kind, by women especially, that will run after their husbands into all
places and companies, [6130]as Jovianus Pontanus's wife did by him, follow
him whithersoever he went, it matters not, or upon what business, raving
like Juno in the tragedy, miscalling, cursing, swearing, and mistrusting
every one she sees. Gomesius in his third book of the Life and Deeds of
Francis Ximenius, sometime archbishop of Toledo, hath a strange story of
that incredible jealousy of Joan queen of Spain, wife to King Philip,
mother of Ferdinand and Charles the Fifth, emperors; when her husband
Philip, either for that he was tired with his wife's jealousy, or had some
great business, went into the Low Countries: she was so impatient and
melancholy upon his departure, that she would scarce eat her meat, or
converse with any man; and though she were with child, the season of the
year very bad, the wind against her, in all haste she would to sea after
him. Neither Isabella her queen mother, the archbishop, or any other friend
could persuade her to the contrary, but she would after him. When she was
now come into the Low Countries, and kindly entertained by her husband, she
could not contain herself, [6131]"but in a rage ran upon a yellow-haired
wench," with whom she suspected her husband to be naught, "cut off her
hair, did beat her black and blue, and so dragged her abo