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Rh "who had the rule of the house." Pincers, holdfasts, files "smoothe and ruffe," one of which had been employed for yellow metal, were found, and the servants admitted that they had melted silver lace, etc. All this, though suspicious, was not conclusive, and the charge was not pressed. On 17 October, 1633, Sir Richard escaped from the Fleet and entered the Swedish service in Germany. Nothing is heard of him again till 1639. During these seven years his emancipated wife lived in various places, for the first four or five years with the Earl of Suffolk, and afterwards at her own house in London. She had thrown off her name of Grenville and resumed that of Howard.

Theophilus, Earl of Suffolk, was born in 1584, and was married to Lady Elizabeth Hume, who died in 1533, the year after the divorce. To this period probably belongs an episode that is shrouded in mystery. Lady Howard had a son, George Howard, when born is not recorded.

He is first mentioned in 1644 in a petition made by his mother to the King, and then and afterwards is alluded to as Lady Howard's son. He certainly was not the son of Sir Charles Howard, for seven years after that gentleman's death, in 1628, it is stated, in his wife's pleading before the Court of Chancery, that Sir Charles died "without heires male, leaving only twoe daughters, Elizabeth and Mary." It is a curious fact that none of the contemporary writers who mention Lady Howard make any aspersions on her morals. That George passed in Tavistock as the son of Sir Charles is certain, but it is just as certain that he was not this. We cannot but suspect a liaison with Theophilus, Earl of Suffolk, in whose house Lady Howard continued to live after the death of his wife. In the confusion of the Civil Wars, and the distraction