The portraiture of Robert Car Earle of Somerset, Vicount Rochester, Knight of the most noble order of the Garter &c. And of the Ladie Francis his wife.
The Earl & Countess of Somerset.
(From a Contemporary Print.)
Macaulay has compared the court of James the First to that of Nero; it would have been more correct to have likened it to that of the Valois, Henry III. Although it was never proved, there were strong suspicions that the somewhat sudden death of Henry, Prince of Wales, was brought about by poison, and there is no doubt that poison was made use of by James’s courtiers, as the death of Overbury proves. Sir Thomas Overbury was the confidant of the King’s worthless favourite, Robert Carr, a handsome youth who had been brought by James from Scotland in his train, and whom he had knighted in 1607. James had also given Raleigh’s confiscated estates to his favourite two years after making him a knight, and in 1614 created him Lord Rochester and Earl of Somerset, as well as Lord Chamberlain. Overbury belonged to a Gloucestershire family, and had travelled on the Continent, whence he returned what was then called “a finished gentleman.” Overbury and Carr were firm friends, and it was probably on the recommendation of the latter that James knighted Overbury in 1608. When, however, Somerset determined to marry the notoriously improper Lady Frances Howard, the daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and the girl-wife of Lord Essex, from whom she was separated, Overbury most strongly persuaded his friend from committing such a rash action. His attitude coming to the knowledge of Lady Frances, she vowed to avenge herself upon Sir Thomas, and carried her threat to its bitter execution. On some frivolous pretext Overbury was sent to the Tower; Lady Somerset, as Lady Frances had become, notwithstanding Overbury’s advice, now determined to rid herself of the man she mostly feared. With the help of a notorious quack, and of a procuress, Mrs Turner, with whom she had been brought up, she set about the task of consummating her revenge. Poison was supplied by Mrs Turner, with which the unfortunate Overbury was slowly killed; but as the drug—it is believed to have been corrosive sublimate—did not act sufficiently quickly, two hired assassins, named Franklin and Lobell, were called in, and stifled the victim with a pillow. Sir William Waad at this time had ceased to be the Lieutenant, through Lady Essex’s influence, and had been succeeded by Sir Gervase Elwes, a creature of Somerset’s, who was not only cognisant of Overbury’s death in the Bloody Tower, where he was confined, but even aided Lady Somerset in her crime. Mrs Turner was the inventor of a peculiar yellow starch which was used for stiffening the ruffs worn at that time; she wore one of these ruffs when she was sentenced to die for her participation in this murder by the Chief-Justice, Sir Edward Coke, and was also hanged in it at Tyburn in March 1615, with the natural consequence that yellow starched ruffs suddenly ceased to be the fashion. Lady Somerset was also tried, and although found guilty of Overbury’s murder, received a pardon from the King, but she and her husband, Somerset, spent six years as prisoners in the Tower, where they occupied the same rooms in the Bloody Tower which shortly before had been tenanted by the wife’s victim. Sir Thomas Overbury was buried in St Peter’s Chapel, his grave lying next to that of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.
Prince Henry’s death in 1612 was a terrible loss to Raleigh. The Queen had already tasted Sir Walter’s famous cordial or elixir, and when her son was given up by the physicians, Anne implored them to try Raleigh’s specific medicine, which, according to its inventor, was safe to cure all diseases save those produced by poison. Henry was already speechless when the elixir was administered to him, but after he had swallowed one or two drops he was able to utter a few words before he expired. What was the nature of this wonderful mixture of Raleigh’s cannot now be ascertained, although Charles II.’s French physician, Le Febre, prepared what was believed to be the actual concoction and wrote a treatise upon it. Some of its ingredients were indeed awful, the flesh of vipers forming one of them, and it speaks much for the strength of James’s Queen that she survived the taking of this terrible physic.
VERA EFFIGIES CLARISSMI VIRI DOMNI GUALTHERI RALEGH EQV AUR. etc
AMORE ET VIRTVTE
The true and lively portraiture of the honourable and learned Knight Sr. Walter Ralegh.
Raleigh had intended dedicating his history to Prince Henry, but after that young Prince’s death he seems to have lost his former zest in the work. There is a story told that he threw part of the manuscript into the fire on hearing that Walter Burr, the publisher of the first edition in 1614, had been a loser by bringing it out. Of that first part Mr Hume, in his “Life of Raleigh,” writes, “The history, as it exists, is probably the greatest work ever produced in captivity, except Don Quixote. The learning contained in it is perfectly encyclopædic. Raleigh had always been a lover and a collector of books, and had doubtless laid out the plan of the work in his mind before his fall. He had near him in the Tower his learned Hariot, who was indefatigable in helping his master. Ben Jonson boasted that he had contributed to the work, and such books or knowledge as could not be obtained or consulted by a prisoner, were made available by scholars like Robert Burhill, by Hughes, Warner, or Hariot. Sir John Hoskyns, a great stylist in his day, would advise with regard to construction, and from many other quarters aid of various sorts was obtained. But, withal, the work is purely Raleigh’s. No student of his fine, flowing, majestic style will admit that any other pen but his can have produced it. The vast learning employed in it is now, for the most part, obsolete, but the human asides where Raleigh’s personality reveals itself, the little bits of incidental autobiography, the witty, apt illustrations, will prevent the work itself from dying. To judge from a remark in the preface, the author intended at a later stage to concentrate his history with that mainly of his own country, and it would seem that the portion of the book published was to a great extent introductory. Great as were his powers and self-confidence, it must have been obvious to him that it would have been impossible for a man of his age (he was in his sixtieth year when he began the work) to complete a history of the whole world on the same scale, the first six books published reaching from the beginning of the world to the end of the second Macedonian war. In any case,” adds Mr Hume, “the book will ever remain a noble fragment of a design, which could only have been conceived by a master-mind.” And who, recalling those mighty lines on death with which Raleigh bids farewell to his great work, but will agree with the above admirable criticism of the work?
“O Eloquent, just and mighty Death! whom none could advise thou hast persuaded: what now none hath dared thou hast done; and whom the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, ambition of man, and covered it over with these two narrow words: ‘Hic Jacet.’” How noble, too, are the introductory lines to Ben Jonson, wherein he commends the serious study of history: