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![This account lists physical and verbal attacks made by Lady Dayrell on her husband, their servants and on her husband's friends in the weeks before leaving him on 6 November 1677.
It is recorded here that for about the previous three weeks, she has been discontented and unquiet, watching [going without sleep?] several days and nights together, that she abused her husband several times, turned several servants away without cause, and was displeased with her husband and used ill language to him because he would not beat them before they went.
That about 23 October she said she would go to London, saying she had important business there, and that she would take leave of her friends and relations, and in particular of Lewis Morgan, her husband's brother. After nightfall she took a horse to go to Lewis Morgan's house, but rode directly to Newport and spent the night at the house of Thomas Bassett, which is an inn and a tavern. She returned home the next morning.
That on Saturday 27 October she rode to Sir Trevor Williams's house at Llangibby, and returned about 8 o'clock that night in a very discontented manner. At about 12 or 1 o'clock at night she went into her husband's chamber where he was asleep, and opened the curtains [?of a four-poster bed rather than of a window] in a great rage and passion, and called two of the maid servants attending her to see how like a monkey her husband looked. As he was still asleep, she laid hands on him to wake him, and when he did not wake she fell violently upon him in the bed, striking his head and face with her hands. Having woken sufficiently, he mildly asked her what ailed her, and why she did not come to bed. She made at him violently again, and declared that she would either kill or be killed, that she was ready to do it, and that she would damn herself or be revenged on him. Mr Morgan having got out of bed, she ran at him and struck him and tore his shirt and what he had around his neck. Mr Morgan twice put her out of his chamber, and twice she forced open the door and abused him, and attempted to abuse the things in the chamber, breaking a looking glass and endeavouring to break a cabinet. She said that she would have a pair of 'cysers' [scissors] or a knife and cut her hair, but being denied them, and her husband charging that they should be kept from her, she attempted to burn her hair, first with a candle and then in the fire, but was kept from doing it.](http://www.gtj.org.uk/storage/thumbs/batch_4005/GTJ30179.jpg)
![On 19 November, Lady Dayrell burst into the house of Mr Hopegood, a merchant in Lothbury, and there challenged her husband's brother, Mr John Morgan, to meet with her in Southampton Fieldsy, 3 o'clock the next day, to fight with her there.
But about 6 o'clock in the morning she and two servants came to the house in her carriage with naked swords, and after much knocking, the servant rose and opened the gate. She and her servants entered the house with their naked swords in their hands and demanded whether Mr John Morgan was in the house, and being answered that he was in bed, she replied that she had him sure, and would kill him. She ran up the stairs to his chamber door, where she knocked, but thinking his chamber was higher, she and her two servants with the drawn swords went up the stairs, which gave Mr Morgan opportunity to rise. He enquiring what the disturbance was, the lady and the servants with the swords immediately came downstairs and followed him to the foot of the stairs, he getting into a room below the stairs and shut the door, which they for some time endeavoured to force. Failing, they broke all the windows they could come at.
Mr Hopegood, the master of the house, being in bed and hearing the disturbance, demanded what was the matter. She replied
'I be come to you [see?]'
and she and her two servants... with their swords followed him up the stairs to the garrett where he endeavoured to save himself, but she forced the door, and finding it was not Mr Morgan said
'You are not the person I looked for'
went down the stairs and fell to battering the windows again, and then departed.](http://www.gtj.org.uk/storage/thumbs/batch_4005/GTJ30183.jpg)
![Petition to, and copy order, 5 Dec. 1677, of Richard Raynsford, lord chief justice. That a petition has been preferred on behalf of William Morgan, esq., signifying that Dame Elizabeth Dayrell his wife is departed from him and has since committed several extravegances, by reason of some distemper afflicting her, which physicians advise may be taken off or abated by confinement and the use of physic, and that Dr Thomas Allen is a fit man to use in this case.
These, therefore, for the prevention of the breach of HM's peace, require you with the assistance of the friends and relations of the said William Morgan, to take Dame Elizabeth Dayrell into custody and carry her to the said Dr Thomas Allen, and to leave her in his care and custody.
One of the endorsements is entirely unrelated, being to the effect, Richard Ballard to Corneles [Cornelius] Vanbesler on the Hopewell [prize?] Jeremiah Cobb from the Canarys to London at 4% £25. Perhaps this is some memorandum, or the wrapper of a letter, since lost?](http://www.gtj.org.uk/storage/thumbs/batch_4005/GTJ30186.jpg)