The quarrels of the King with his Parliament, his efforts to tread under foot the right of his people, his persecution of the Puritans, his bad faith with the Roman Catholics, the rise and discovery of the famous gunpowder plot, and the well merited execution of the diabolical conspirators, are all matters irrelevant to this history.
Not so, however, the advance in favour of one of the first minions whom the King thought fit to honour in England, Robert Carr, afterwards Earl of Rochester, one of the most despicable of those who were proud to fill the infamous place of king's favourite. This man, by birth a Scotchman, had passed some time in France, and had added the advantages of a graceful carriage, and good taste and skill in dress, to that of a remarkably handsome person. He was first introduced to the court of England by the Lord Dingwall, who selected him as his esquire at one of the tilting matches of the day. Some have supposed that he was purposely brought into such a situation, in order to attract the attention of the king, whose fondness for handsome and well-dressed minions was notorious. However that may be, Carr, in presenting to the king, according to custom, the shield and device of his knight, was thrown, in descending from his horse, at the monarch's feet, and broke his leg by the fall. James had previously noticed with great admiration the handsome squire of the Lord Dingwall, and showed the utmost concern for his accident. The young Scotchman was removed to the palace, attended by the King's own surgeon, visited daily by James himself, and during the long hours of his convalescence won every hour upon the weak monarch's regard, till he rose from the bed of sickness in the full glow of royal favour.
The dignity of knighthood was almost immediately profaned to do honour to this deedless and unworthy person; revenues were assigned to him; the king's ear was completely in his power; and many an hour was spent by the monarch every day in teaching him the Latin language, of which he had no knowledge, though, as Lord Thomas Howard justly observed, "it would have been better to teach him English, as he was sadly deficient in that tongue."
Leaning on his arm, pinching his cheek, smoothing his ruffled garments, James displayed himself to his court, with his new favourite, in a most painful and degrading point of view. But, fortunately for Carr himself, he was enabled to escape for some time the enmity which his unenviable position, and his own worthlessness, must have much sooner called upon him, had not a piece of real good-fortune happened to him, in the rise of a friendship between himself, and one whose experience, moderation, talents, and discrimination, supplied all that was wanting in the mind of the favourite.
It would appear that Sir Thomas Overbury, the person of whom we speak, had first been greatly noticed by Cecil, (now become Earl of Salisbury,) an unquestionable proof that he possessed real talents for business. After a time, however, either because he saw in the favour of Robert Carr the more speedy means of his own advancement, or from some other cause that we do not know, Overbury sincerely attached himself to the favourite; and, gaining a great ascendancy over his mind, he guided him in all his proceedings with a remarkable degree of wisdom and sagacity.
By degrees, the minion rose from the condition of a poor Scotch gentleman, unknown and unheard of, to the station of Viscount Rochester, and the ruler of the court of England. He affected to behave himself with good moderation and modesty, and suffered all the power and authority which was poured into his hands, to proceed apparently more from the monarch's spontaneous act than from his solicitation. The office of Lord Treasurer of Scotland was bestowed upon him, and a number of other inferior posts; but still Carr laboured assiduously to divert the envious jealousy of the English courtiers from himself; and, as the best means of satisfying them, he excluded from his household all persons of his own nation, except one who was attached to him by the ties of blood.
At length, however, an event occurred which changed his views, his conduct, and his destiny. There appeared at the court a lady, who, though yet in her extreme youth, had been for some years married to the son of the unfortunate Earl of Essex. She was second daughter of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk. Her elder sister having married the son of the famous Robert Cecil, the alliance between the families of Suffolk and Essex was brought about by Lord Salisbury, with a view of healing the breach between himself and the house of Devereux, to the memory of whose late chief he knew the King, his master, to be devotedly attached. But as the son of the unfortunate Essex was but fifteen years of age at the time the marriage was proposed, and the Lady Frances Howard, the bride, had not yet completed her thirteenth year, the young Earl was sent abroad to travel for some time, immediately after the ceremony, leaving his childish bride to be educated in her paternal house.
The Countess of Essex was not yet sixteen when she was introduced to the court of James; and, possessed of youth, extraordinary beauty, and some talent, she soon attracted universal admiration, to which she showed herself not at all indifferent. According to the libertine manners of the day, the object of admiration became immediately an object of pursuit, whatever obstacles morality might interpose; and Prince Henry himself, the eldest son of the King, appeared as one the suitors of the fair Countess. She, on her part, showed herself cold and indifferent to the solicitations of the prince; not, indeed, that her bosom was the abode of any pure feelings or high principles, but because she had already conceived a passion for another, to which she was ready not only to sacrifice every moral obligation, but to violate common decency, which is sometimes powerful over minds that do not scruple to cast off every other restraint.
Rochester, however, the object of her criminal love, courted and flattered for his power, either did not see the views of the Countess in endeavouring to attract his attention, or was really indifferent towards her, and for some time escaped her wiles; but ere long she found a disgraceful means of making him acquainted with the passion he had inspired, and it soon not only became reciprocal, but rose to a height in the bosoms of both, which led them to the commission of some of the most terrible crimes with which the soul of man can be stained.
It was about the time at which the preference of the Countess of Essex for the King's favourite first began to master every consideration of virtue and propriety in her bosom, that those events occurred in the history of Arabella Stuart which recall us to the narration of adventures more immediately connected with this tale; and, merely begging the reader to remember that several years had passed since William Seymour sailed from England, without his obtaining permission to return from the honourable banishment to which he had been condemned, we shall here end this brief sketch of the intervening period.