December 5. John Almond, condemned for having taken orders beyond the seas and for remaining in the kingdom, drawn, hanged and quartered (Challoner’s Memoirs, pt. ii., pp. 44-51).
1615. The murder of Sir Thomas Overbury is, with the possible exception of the supposed murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a little more than sixty years later, the greatest of all English causes célèbres. The story involves many persons of high rank, including one in the highest, King James himself; its events are extremely complicated, and some details are of a nature requiring delicate handling in the telling. It has been told, after the fullest study of the facts, by Mr. Andrew Amos, in “The Great Oyer of Poisoning,” 1846, a volume of over five hundred pages, of which indeed many are filled with digressions seriously interfering with the narrative. It is not possible to give here more than the barest outline of the case.
Sir Thomas Overbury has a place in English literature as a prose writer and poet whose works have not been wholly forgotten. He was also a courtier in the Court of James, compared with which that of Charles II. was almost pure. James’s correct attitude towards “the Bishop of Rome” has, however, saved him from the severe criticisms passed on Charles, of more than doubtful orthodoxy. Some of the details in Harington’s “Nugæ Antiquæ” might be held to suggest that Milton had in view the Court of James when he wrote of the rabble of Comus, who forgot everything but
“To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.”
Overbury, after leaving Oxford, made a tour on the Continent, returning from his travels a finished gentleman. In 1601, on a visit to Scotland, he met Robert Carr, then a page in a noble family. Hence arose a close intimacy destined to be fatal to Overbury. On the accession of James to the English throne, Carr, James’s “favourite,” rose rapidly; he became Viscount Rochester. Carr and Overbury played into one another’s hands: Carr procured a knighthood for Overbury, Overbury became the mentor of Carr, who had neither learning nor the graces of a Court. The fatal woman now comes on the scene. At the age of thirteen, Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, was married to the Earl of Essex, a year older. Their friends agreed that it was yet too early for the pair to live together; the boy went on his travels, the girl to her mother. On his return, Essex found his wife acknowledged as the greatest beauty in the Court, the object of general adoration. Among her admirers was Carr, for whom she had conceived a passion which knew no bounds. Overbury had been instrumental in bringing together Carr and the lady; it was he who wrote the love-letters to which Carr owed the conquest of the countess’s heart. The lady naturally hated her husband, whose return interfered with her way of life: it was only in obedience to the King’s command that she consented to live with Essex. The lady and her lover formed the design of procuring a divorce from Essex, preparatory to their marriage. Overbury strongly objected; he spoke of the countess to Carr in terms which, repeated to the lady, fixed his doom. It was contrived that the King should offer to Overbury a foreign appointment. This Carr advised him to refuse, and then represented the refusal to James in such a light that on April 21st Overbury was thrown into the Tower. The lieutenant and the under-keeper of the Tower were displaced in favour of officers on whom Carr and his mistress could rely, and the work of despatching Overbury began. Poisons were procured from Franklin, a physician, by Mrs. Turner, and sent in tarts and jellies to the Tower, where Weston, the under-keeper, took charge of them. Overbury was drenched with rosealgar, sublimate of mercury, arsenic, diamond powder. It was averred that he had swallowed poison enough to kill twenty men. He died on September 15, 1613.
The business of the divorce now went on without hindrance. To be rid of his wife, Essex was ready enough to allow a slur to be cast on his manhood; with the aid of the lawyers, the churchmen, a complaisant jury of matrons, and a young lady who, with muffled head, personated the countess for the occasion, the divorce was carried through. In view of the approaching marriage, Carr was created Earl of Somerset, and on December 26 the marriage took place. With magnificent effrontery, the lady was married “in her hair,” the mark of a virgin-bride.
But some time afterwards an apothecary’s boy, who had been got out of the way, and was now at Flushing, began to talk of what he knew; inquiry was made, and in the end the criminals were put upon their trial. On October 23, 1615, Richard Weston, the under-keeper of the Tower, was hanged at Tyburn. He was followed by Mrs. Turner, hanged on November 9th, at the same place; on the 20th Sir Gervase Elwes, the lieutenant of the Tower, was executed on Tower Hill, and on December 9th, James Franklin, the physician, was executed at St. Thomas a Waterings.
In the following year the countess was tried in Westminster hall, pleaded guilty, and was condemned. The next day the earl was brought to trial by his peers in the same place, and also found guilty. Neither was executed; each received a pardon. They lived together afterwards in the same house, hating one another with a perfect hatred; the countess died of a loathsome disease.
There are mysteries in the case remaining mysteries after the most careful study of the facts. In spite of all attempts made to persuade Somerset to plead guilty, and throw himself on the King’s mercy, he steadfastly refused. Mr. Amos inclines to believe him innocent of complicity in the murder. There are serious difficulties in the way of this theory, but it is certain that Somerset had the means of terrifying the King. Secret messages passed between the Tower and the palace, informing the king that the prisoner had threatened to refuse to go to the Court of his own will. Bacon consulted the judges as to what could be done to silence Somerset if he “should break forth into any speech of taxing the King.” At the trial two servants were placed, one on either side of the prisoner, with a cloak on his arm. Their orders were that if Somerset “flew out” on the King, they should instantly throw the cloaks over his head, and carry him by force from the bar.