of smallpox. Aubrey takes this as a presage of death, and adds that her sister, Lady Isabella (who married into the family of Thynne), "saw the like of herself also before she died." Their father came to a violent end. Overheaped with honours by Charles I he abused by wrong-headed action and by indecision in the Civil Wars both the offices conferred on him and the other favours he received. A proper "trimmer," he flung himself at last into the Stuart cause, too late for success, and met his end at the hand of the executioner five weeks after the murder of his King.

Letters from Penelope as the Countess of Devonshire are so rare that one may be excused for perhaps wearying the reader at this stage with the two below. One, dated 1605, is merely a kindly request on behalf of a needy protegée. The other is of an equally light nature, and gives us a glimpse of her warm-hearted hospitality, her unflagging interest in other people's children, in the affairs of her friends and in the business of daily life up to the moment of her great sorrow. Both are addressed to Lord Salisbury, the Robert Cecil whom Essex and his folk had so mistrusted :

"NOBLE LORD,

"This gentlewoman hath entreated me to commend her suit unto you, of whose good success I should be very glad because she is one I have been long acquainted with, and is of the best disposition that ever I found any of her nation. I beseech your Lord to favour her, that if it be possible she may obtain some satisfaction, if her desires be not unreasonable. And so, wishing your Lord all happiness and contentment

"I remain

"Your Lordship's most affectionate friend to "do you service,

"PENELOPE RICH."

"NOBLE LORD,

"The rumours of your sickness I confess hath made me haste to this place, where I might receive better satisfaction by the knowledge of your health, and had the good fortune this day to meet with the messenger you sent to my Lord Clanricarde, whereby I was assured of your safe recovery, beseeching your Lord to believe that no friend you have living doth participate more of your grief or joy than myself, whose affection you have so infinitely obliged with your constant favours. While I was at Drayton' with my mother, the young hunters came very well pleased, until your servant came with your commission to guide my Lord of Cranbourne to my Lady of Derby, which discontentment for fear of parting three days made them all lose their suppers, and become extreme malicious, till it was concluded that their train should stay at Drayton, and they go together with two servants apiece. I fear nothing but their riding so desperately, but your son is a perfect horseman, and can neither be outridden nor matched any way. My mother, I think, will grow young with their company: so longing to hear of your safe and perfect health, I remain

"Your Lordship's most faithful to do you service, "P. DEVONSHIRE.'

1 Drayton Bassett, the manor left to Lettice Devereux by her second husband, Leicester.

THE

CHAPTER XIX

HARVEST

HE letters overleaf were written from Wanstead, where the Devonshires were evidently entertaining Penelope's sister-in-law, Lady Essex and her third husband, Lord Clanrickarde. It is not likely that Penelope remained in London after her Earl's funeral. In her robes of rich and deep mourning she seems to have cloistered herself in his apartments probably at Wanstead, unconsoled by children, priest, or mother, though these most certainly must have ministered to her. Most probably it was here that she died. There is no detailed record of her death, but all authorities are unanimous in stating that she lived but a few months after her second husband's decease. She was only forty-five, and in looking back upon the achievements of her life and her tremendous notoriety, one cannot but contrast it with that of her senior and equally famous contemporary, Bess of Hardwick, who died in the same year, (1607) nearly twice her age. Both women touched great causes, were involved in secret political practices, came to grief over the marriage tie. The older women was the more important householder, while both jingled the keys of several large mansions in town. Of Penelope's domestic activities as housewife and entertainer little can be gleaned. She was far more socially brilliant, elusive, fascinating than the Lady of Hardwick. Had she lived as long, her life, which

flowed at a fierce pace, would have been just as full, judging by the amount she crowded into her last twentyfive years. She was assuredly radio-active, assertive, and so belongs to that great gallery of Elizabethan women who are for all time.

her.

It was not so hard now for her to die. Sidney, Essex, and Mountjoy had trodden the road ahead of After many errors, after her marriage infidelity, her coquetries, and such opportunism as seemed inseparable from her circle and her conditions, she came in those last days of anguish to the heart of all things, to the realisation that the body was but a poor tenement of the spirit, that life, without the highest love, was dross, that fidelity was the one pearl of great price. She did not, like the stupendous "Bess" aforesaid, write over her doors "The end of all things is to fear God." But she had learned her sharp lesson of suffering and sacrifice.

Was she not faithful? In the essence most certainly. In this her character stands out strongly compared with that of her brother, "Sweet Robin." She certainly sinned against her vows to Robert Rich. Her excuses for this and the great temptations which attended her beauty and temperament have been fully set forth. Do not her grief and death restore the balance? If these and her great love may not rehabilitate her, nothing

ever can.

What is the harvest of it all? Her life, her web, unrolls itself a brief, complex scroll most curiously worked in gold and rich colours, with the interruption of a murky strand of trouble and shame, which is accompanied by another-the black thread of family tragedy and personal grief. It lies here for our delight, our amazement, our pity, not for our contempt. Is it

such a little thing to have wrought so fast and travelled so far in such troubled years? Is it nothing to have brought twelve children into the world for good or evil, to have triumphed over smallpox and measles and the far greater infections of political treasons, to have faced the Privy Council and not been clapped in the Tower, to have dwelt in a house on the verge of bombardment, to have been adored by poets and bookmen, danced and acted at Court, witnessed the production of great comedies, all but overridden a divorce and lived down a social scandal, and lastly to have carried a fair body and a famous and beautiful face erect, youthful, and flawless to the verge of middle-age? These are achievements enough for one life, and though they were not all reputable, she must in these be given credit for consistency.

There is in Mr. Chesterton's1 pages a very pretty dissertation on the subject of marriage vows and the revolt from them. In speaking of social rebels who advocate free love, he points out that love is never free, and says, "They appear to imagine that the idea of constancy was a joke mysteriously imposed on mankind by the devil, instead of being, as it is, a yoke consistently imposed on all lovers by themselves. . . . It is the nature of love to bind itself, and the institution of marriage merely paid the average man the compliment of taking him at his word." In this true sense was Penelope faithful. It was her nature to wish to bind herself where she loved, and in this light her intercourse with her lover and their forlorn wish to be taken at their word must be regarded.

1 The Defendant. There is a very dry humour about the extraction of the above passage for application to St. Valentine's Day in a recently issued calendar.