her; and so strong the reaction there in her favour). Copies of this Defence are of frequent occurrence; but not of this Dedication.
LAUD, afterwards Archbishop of CANTERBURY, married them to his everlasting regret; as the following notes in his Diary show.
Anno 1603.
I was made chaplain to the Earl of DEVONSHIRE, September 3. 1603.
Anno 1605.
My cross about the Earl of DEVON'S marriage, December 26, 1605, die Jovis.
The History of the Troubles &c., p. 2. Ed. 1695. fol.
LAUD'S remorse, and the general surprise occasioned by the marriage;
arose not from its not being the best thing to be done under the circumstances:
but because it was an upset of all the then received ideas of the
marriage state.
For a tithe of the neglect and affronts which Lord RICH offered to his beautiful young wife; or, as SIDNEY puts it, did "with foul abuse, such beauties blot;" the Divorce Court would now at once and for ever free an English lady, without the faintest shadow of dishonour to her. But civilisation and a keen sense of justice to women had not progressed so far three hundred years ago. It did however get a good way in this case. For the strict-ruled Court of ELIZABETH condoned—on account of her compulsory and abhorrent marriage with Lord RICH, treating if as a monstrosity, a moral nullity; whatever might be the law—what would have been otherwise regarded as flagrant adultery; STELLA'S illegal intimacy, after Lord RICH'S desertion of her, with Lord DEVONSHIRE, then Lord MOUNTJOY. But the second marriage, after a divorce, in her first husband's lifetime; that could not be endured! It was an affront to the Canon Law! So the very step which many of us would have considered the right thing to do, shocked the divines, startled the civilians, and perplexed the heralds.
Strange vicissitudes came to this English beauty with her black eyes, fair complexion and golden hair! What bitterness in all the miseries of her enforced first marriage! What bliss in the affection which she inspired in, and received in succession from two of the most honourable worthy and accomplished gentlemen of ELIZABETH'S later Court! Both PHILIP SIDNEY, and after him CHARLES MOUNTJOY (while in their writings they express their gladness to throw away everything this world holds precious for her love), do join in testifying, that through all the great fluctuations, the anomalous circumstances of her strange life; from its bright girlhood to her accelerated death, she was ever "a Lady of great virtue."
