"My own legs are strong enough to bear me up," cried Rochester, stung with such language applied to a woman whose fascinations retained all their power over him; "but, in faith, I will be even with you for this." So saying, he flung away in a rage, and left the place. The conference was terminated with such heat that the words of the speakers were overheard by persons in an adjoining room, who soon had cause to remember them.
Rochester allowed his resentment apparently to subside, and treated his secretary as before. He even requested the king, as a mark of favour, to appoint Overbury ambassador to Russia. The king complied; and Overbury accepted the appointment with great alacrity. But this act of kindness, as it seemed to be, on the part of Somerset, was the first step to a deep and deadly revenge for the insult to the woman whom he had resolved to marry, and whose fury he had roused by informing her of what had passed.
Having allowed Overbury to accept the office which he had procured for him, Somerset now advised him to decline it. "If you serve as ambassador," he said, "I shall not be able to do you so much good as if you remain with me. If you are blamed, or even committed for refusing," he added, "never mind: I will take care that you meet with no harm." Overbury, in an evil hour, listened to this perfidious counsel, sent his resignation to the king, and was instantly sent to the Tower.
Sent to the Tower for declining to accept an office! Even so. Such was the "Divine right" of an absolute king, in England, in the seventeenth century. Without even the shadow, or the accusation, of a crime, Sir Thomas Overbury was immured in a dungeon, because he declined the honour of being sent as ambassador to Russia.
This act of tyranny was committed at the instigation of the favourite; and Overbury, in the Tower, was entirely in the hands of his enemies. Somerset, in the first place, obtained from the king the dismissal of the lieutenant of the Tower, and the appointment, in his stead, of Sir Jervis Elwes, one of Somerset's creatures. One Richard Weston, who had been shopman to an apothecary, was made under-keeper, and specially charged with the custody of Overbury. This man had been an agent of Lady Essex in her secret transactions with Dr. Forman and Mrs. Turner, and in affording opportunities for her guilty meetings with Lord Rochester at Mrs. Turner's house, and elsewhere, and was quite ready to perpetrate any deed of darkness which they might desire. Weston, thus become Overbury's keeper, confined him so closely that he was scarcely permitted to see the light of day; and debarred him from all intercourse with his family, relations, and friends.[19]
The associates in wickedness lost no time in commencing their operations on their victim, whom they had determined to destroy by degrees, so as to prevent suspicion. Weston, on the very day he became Overbury's keeper, administered to him a slow poison, provided by Mrs. Turner; and, from that time, some poisonous substance was mingled with every article of food or drink which was given him. "He never ate white salt," said one of the witnesses on the trials which afterwards took place, "but there was white arsenic put into it. Once he desired pig, and Mrs. Turner put into it lapis costitus (lunar caustic). At another time he had two partridges sent him from the court; and water and onions being the sauce, Mrs. Turner put in cantharides instead of pepper; so that there was scarce any thing that he did eat but there was some poison mixed."
Under such treatment Overbury's constitution (which seems to have been of extraordinary strength) began to give way. Relying on Rochester's promise, that his refusal to accept the embassy should bring him to no harm, he daily expected his release. After remaining in this state for three or four weeks, he wrote to Rochester, urging him to remember his promise, and received for answer that "the time would not suffer; but, as soon as possible might be, he would hasten his delivery;" a promise which he certainly intended to fulfil, though not in the sense in which it was meant to be understood. By way of "hastening his delivery," Rochester sent him a letter, containing a white powder, which he desired him to take. "It will," he said, "make you more sick; but fear not: I will make this a means for your delivery, and the recovery of your health." Unsuspicious of treachery, Overbury took the powder, which acted upon him violently, and (as he indeed expected) increased his sickness. Weston afterwards confessed that it was arsenic.
In this situation Overbury languished for two months, growing worse and worse. His suspicions being now, to some extent, awakened, he wrote to Rochester: "Sir,—I wonder you have not yet found means to effect my delivery; but I remember you said you would be even with me, and so indeed you are: but, assure yourself, my lord, if you do not release me, but suffer me thus to die, my blood will be required at your hands." Overbury appears to have remembered Rochester's threat that he would be even with him for the manner in which he had spoken of Lady Essex; but never seems to have dreamed that more was meant than to punish him by a protracted imprisonment. He therefore was satisfied with the explanations and excuses sent him by Lord Rochester, who affected, at the same time, to show the utmost anxiety for his comfort. He was daily visited by creatures of Lord Rochester and Lady Essex, who delivered him encouraging messages from Rochester, and pretended to furnish him with various comforts in the articles of food and drink, which he could not otherwise have had in the Tower. To gratify a sickly appetite he expressed a wish for tarts and jellies, which were provided by Mrs. Turner, and sent to Elwes, the lieutenant of the Tower, to be given to Overbury, by Lord Rochester and Lady Essex. These sweetmeats were not poisoned at first; but the poisoned ones were accompanied by a letter from Lady Essex to Elwes, in which she said, "I was bid to tell you that in the tarts and jellies there are letters, but in the wine none; and of that you may take yourself, and give your wife, but, of the other, not. Give him these tarts and jelly this night, and all shall be well." The meaning of the word, letters, is sufficiently evident; but the countess afterwards removed any doubt on the subject, by confessing, on her trial, that "by letters she meant poison." Rochester appears to have been then residing at some little distance from town; for Lady Essex was the immediate agent in these transactions, and carried on a correspondence with Rochester on the subject. In one of his letters to her he expressed his wonder "that things were not yet despatched;" on which she sent instructions to Weston to despatch Overbury quickly. Weston's answer was, that he had already given him as much as would poison twenty men. Still, however, the victim survived. He was now reduced to extremity; but the patience of his destroyers was exhausted, and they put an end to his sufferings by a dose of corrosive sublimate. He died in October 1613, having been for nearly six months in their hands. His body, carelessly wrapped in a sheet, was buried in a pit on the very day of his death, without having been seen by any of his friends, or the holding of a coroner's inquest; though, as Elwes admitted on his trial, the duty of the lieutenant of the Tower was, that if any prisoner died there, his body was to be viewed, and an inquisition taken by the coroner. These circumstances excited suspicion, and Overbury's relations were persuaded to take some steps towards the prosecution of an inquiry: but the attempt was defeated by the power and influence of the noble criminals.
The marriage between Rochester, now Earl of Somerset, and Lady Essex, took place in February 1614, four months after the close of this tragedy. It was celebrated with a pomp and splendour more befitting the nuptials of a prince than those of a subject. The king himself gave away the bride. A masque, according to the fashion of the times, was exhibited by the courtiers, and another by the gentlemen of Gray's Inn; their repugnance to this act of sycophancy having been overcome, it is said, by the persuasions of Bacon,—a man whose moral deficiencies formed a strange contrast to his almost superhuman vastness of intellect. A splendid banquet, too, was given by the City, at which the king, queen, and all the court, were present. But the public knew enough of the open profligacy of this brilliant pair to look upon them with indignation,—a feeling accompanied with abhorrence of the dark deeds already strongly suspected.
Somerset was now at the height of his greatness; but he no longer possessed the qualities which had gained him the king's favour. His appearance and manners underwent a total change. His countenance became care-worn and haggard; his dress neglected; his manners morose and gloomy. The alteration was apparent to all; and the king became weary of one who no longer ministered to his amusement. His majesty had now, too, found a new favourite,—George Villiers, afterwards the famous Duke of Buckingham, who gained James's affections by the same means as Somerset himself had done,—a handsome person, graceful manners, quick parts, and courtly obsequiousness. These two men became rivals and enemies. Somerset was universally odious from his arrogance and rapacity; and Villiers was looked upon with favour as the probable instrument of his fall. Somerset, now aware of his danger, and trembling for the discovery of his guilt when he might no longer have the king for a protector, availed himself of his remaining influence with James to obtain from him a pardon for all past offences. This he begged as a safeguard against the consequences of any errors into which he might have fallen in the high offices which he had held, and the secret and important affairs with which it had been his majesty's pleasure to intrust him. Strange to say, the king signed a document, whereby he pardoned "all manner of treasons, misprisions of treasons, murders, felonies, and outrages whatsoever, committed, or to be committed," by Somerset. But, when this deed was carried to the Lord Chancellor, he absolutely refused to affix the great seal to it, declaring it to be absolutely illegal. No importunity could prevail on him to yield; and Somerset remained without the shield with which he had endeavoured to provide himself.