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202 of men's minds from family scandals to events of public import, it would have been quite possible for Lady Howard to mislead the Tavistock people as to the true parentage of her son George. The Earl was by no means an old man when the Countess died, in fact, was aged forty-nine years.

During the seven years of Sir Richard's absence, Lady Howard wrote many letters to her steward Cutteford, who occupied Walreddon and managed her estates in Devon and Cornwall. Whether it was intended as humour or not we cannot say, but she invariably addressed her agent as "Guts," "Honest Guts," "Good Guts," and once "Froward Guts," and almost every letter was for money. In all the seven years since the decree of divorce, Sir Richard had certainly not received one penny of the sum allotted to him to be paid annually from his wife's income, and when he returned to England in 1639 he carried his cause before the King's Council, and claimed of the Earl of Suffolk arrears to the amount of £12,656.

A committee was appointed to hear Sir Richard's cause, in December, 1640, and so hopeful was he of success, that he actually went down to Fitzford, turned out the caretakers, and installed his aunt there again. Lady Howard wrote to her steward in "a very great distraction" on hearing of these proceedings. But before his case was decided, he was sent by the King to Ireland in command of a troop, and arrived in Dublin in March, 1641-2. He remained in Ireland for more than a year, and earned distinction as a commander. On his return, he learned that the King, who was at Oxford, was short of money, and that the Parliament in London had plenty. He had not been paid for his services in Ireland, so he rode to where the money bags were, assumed the Puritan cant and nasal twang,