Letter from Lady Berkeley

In this letter, dated August 7, 1677, Lady Frances Berkeley writes from Virginia to her husband, Sir William Berkeley, the recently deposed governor of the colony who had returned to England in an attempt to regain his royal appointment. Berkeley had been replaced in the wake of Bacon's Rebellion. In her letter Lady Berkeley writes of the current political climate, saying that the new lieutenant governor of Virginia had publicly announced that he would bet money that Berkeley would "not be admitted to see his majesties face but would be clapt into the Tower …" In fact, Berkeley never did get the chance to see the king. Sick and weakened by the ocean crossing, he died on July 9, 1677, and was buried four days later at Twickenham, Middlesex. Lady Berkeley had not yet received news of his death when, a month later, she took up pen to write this letter to her husband, signing it:

My Dear Dear Sr Yor Most Faithfull & Most affectionat F Berkeley