In this rapid promotion he had not been without a friend. Sir Thomas Overbury, the king’s secretary—who appears, from some threats in his own letters, to have been no better than a pander to the vices of the king, and privy to his dangerous secrets—exerted all his backstair influence to forward the promotion of Kerr, by whom he was doubtless repaid in some way or other. Overbury did not confine his friendship to this—if friendship ever could exist between two such men—but acted the part of an entremetteur, and assisted Rochester to carry on an adulterous intrigue with the Lady Frances Howard, the wife of the Earl of Essex. This woman was a person of violent passions, and lost to all sense of shame. Her husband was in her way, and to be freed from him she instituted proceedings for a divorce, on grounds which a woman of any modesty or delicacy of feeling would die rather than avow. Her scandalous suit was successful, and was no sooner decided than preparations on a scale of the greatest magnificence were made for her marriage with Lord Rochester.
Sir Thomas Overbury, who had willingly assisted his patron to intrigue with the Countess of Essex, seems to have imagined that his marriage with so vile a woman might retard his advancement. He accordingly employed all his influence to dissuade him from it; but Rochester was bent on the match, and his passions were as violent as those of the countess. On one occasion, when Overbury and the viscount were walking in the gallery of Whitehall, Overbury was overheard to say, “Well, my lord, if you do marry that base woman, you will utterly ruin your honour and yourself. You shall never do it with my advice or consent; and if you do, you had best look to stand fast.” Rochester flung from him in a rage, exclaiming with an oath, “I will be even with you for this.” These words were the death-warrant of the unfortunate Overbury. He had mortally wounded the pride of Rochester in insinuating that by his (Overbury’s) means he might be lowered in the king’s favour; and he had endeavoured to curb the burning passions of a heartless, dissolute, and reckless man.
Overbury’s imprudent remonstrances were reported to the countess; and from that moment she also vowed the most deadly vengeance against him. With a fiendish hypocrisy, however, they both concealed their intentions; and Overbury, at the solicitation of Rochester, was appointed ambassador to the court of Russia. This apparent favour was but the first step in a deep and deadly plot. Rochester, pretending to be warmly attached to the interests of Overbury, advised him to refuse the embassy, which he said was but a trick to get him out of the way. He promised, at the same time, to stand between him and any evil consequences which might result from his refusal. Overbury fell into the snare, and declined the embassy. James, offended, immediately ordered his committal to the Tower.
He was now in safe custody, and his enemies had opportunity to commence the work of vengeance. The first thing Rochester did was to procure, by his influence at court, the dismissal of the Lieutenant of the Tower, and the appointment of Sir Jervis Elwes, one of his creatures, to the vacant post. This man was but one instrument; and another being necessary, was found in Richard Weston, a fellow who had formerly been shopman to a druggist. He was installed in the office of under-keeper, and as such had the direct custody of Overbury. So far all was favourable to the designs of the conspirators.
In the mean time the insidious Rochester wrote the most friendly letters to Overbury, requesting him to bear his ill-fortune patiently, and promising that his imprisonment should not be of long duration; for that his friends were exerting themselves to soften the king’s displeasure. Still pretending the extreme of sympathy for him, he followed up the letters by presents of pastry and other delicacies, which could not be procured in the Tower. These articles were all poisoned. Occasionally, presents of a similar description were sent to Sir Jervis Elwes, with the understanding that these articles were not poisoned, when they were unaccompanied by letters: of these the unfortunate prisoner never tasted. A woman named Turner, who had formerly kept a house of ill-fame, and who had more than once lent it to further the guilty intercourse of Rochester and Lady Essex, was the agent employed to procure the poisons. They were prepared by Dr. Forman, a pretended fortune-teller of Lambeth, assisted by an apothecary named Franklin. Both these persons knew for what purposes the poisons were needed, and employed their skill in mixing them in the pastry and other edibles, in such small quantities as gradually to wear out the constitution of their victim. Mrs. Turner regularly furnished the poisoned articles to the under-keeper, who placed them before Overbury. Not only his food but his drink was poisoned. Arsenic was mixed with the salt he ate, and cantharides with the pepper. All this time his health declined sensibly. Daily he grew weaker and weaker; and with a sickly appetite craved for sweets and jellies. Rochester continued to condole with him, and anticipated all his wants in this respect, sending him abundance of pastry, and occasionally partridges and other game, and young pigs. With the sauce for the game, Mrs. Turner mixed a quantity of cantharides, and poisoned the pork with lunar-caustic. As stated on the trial, Overbury took in this manner poison enough to have poisoned twenty men; but his constitution was strong, and he still lingered. Franklin, the apothecary, confessed that he prepared with Dr. Forman seven different sorts of poisons, viz. aquafortis, arsenic, mercury, powder of diamonds, lunar caustic, great spiders, and cantharides. Overbury held out so long that Rochester became impatient, and in a letter to Lady Essex, expressed his wonder that things were not sooner despatched. Orders were immediately sent by Lady Essex to the keeper to finish with the victim at once. Overbury had not been all this time without suspicion of treachery, although he appears to have had no idea of poison. He merely suspected that it was intended to confine him for life, and to set the king still more bitterly against him. In one of his letters he threatened Rochester that unless he were speedily liberated, he would expose his villany to the world. He says, “You and I, ere it be long, will come to a public trial of another nature.” * * * “Drive me not to extremities, lest I should say something that both you and I should repent.” * * * “Whether I live or die, your shame shall never die, but ever remain to the world, to make you the most odious man living.” * * * “I wonder much you should neglect him to whom such secrets of all kinds have passed.” * * * “Be these the fruits of common secrets, common dangers?”
SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.
All these remonstrances, and hints as to the dangerous secrets in his keeping, were ill calculated to serve him with a man so reckless as Lord Rochester: they were more likely to cause him to be sacrificed than to be saved. Rochester appears to have acted as if he thought so. He doubtless employed the murderer’s reasoning, that “dead men tell no tales,” when, after receiving letters of this description, he complained to his paramour of the delay. Weston was spurred on to consummate the atrocity; and the patience of all parties being exhausted, a dose of corrosive sublimate was administered to him in October 1613, which put an end to his sufferings, after he had been for six months in their hands. On the very day of his death, and before his body was cold, he was wrapped up carelessly in a sheet, and buried without any funeral ceremony in a pit within the precincts of the Tower.
Sir Anthony Weldon, in his Court and Character of James I., gives a somewhat different account of the closing scene of this tragedy. He says, “Franklin and Weston came into Overbury’s chamber, and found him in infinite torment, with contention between the strength of nature and the working of the poison; and it being very like that nature had gotten the better in this contention, by the thrusting out of boils, blotches, and blains, they, fearing it might come to light by the judgment of physicians, the foul play that had been offered him, consented to stifle him with the bedclothes, which accordingly was performed; and so ended his miserable life, with the assurance of the conspirators that he died by the poison; none thinking otherwise than these two murderers.”
The sudden death, the indecent haste of the funeral, and the non-holding of an inquest upon the body, strengthened the suspicions that were afloat. Rumour, instead of whispering, began to speak out; and the relatives of the deceased openly expressed their belief that their kinsman had been murdered. But Rochester was still all powerful at court, and no one dared to utter a word to his discredit. Shortly afterwards, his marriage with the Countess of Essex was celebrated with the utmost splendour, the king himself being present at the ceremony.