The Lord High Steward then sentenced her to the punishment of the law.
The earl's trial took place on the following day. He refused to follow his wife's example, and pleaded Not guilty. The most remarkable feature of this trial is the correspondence between Somerset and his victim. The following passages are striking.
In Overbury's first letter to Somerset, after his imprisonment, he said,
"Is this the fruit of my care and love to you? Be these the fruits of common secrets, common dangers? As a man, you cannot suffer me to lie in this misery; yet your behaviour betrays you. All I entreat of you is, that you will free me from this place, and that we may part friends. Drive me not to extremities, lest I should say something that you and I both repent. And I pray God that you may not repent the omission of this my counsel in this place whence I now write this letter."
Overbury afterwards writes,
"This comes under seal, and therefore I shall be bold. You told my brother Ledcate that my unreverend style might make you neglect me. With what face could you do this, who know you owe me for all the fortune, wit, and understanding that you have."
"Yet this shall not long serve your turn; for you and I, ere it be long, will come to a public trial of another nature,—I upon the rack, and you at your ease, and yet I must say nothing! When I heard (notwithstanding my misery) how you went to your woman, curled your hair, and in the mean time send me nineteen projects how I should cast about for my liberty, and give me a long account of the pains you have taken, and then go out of town! I wonder to see how much you should neglect him to whom such secrets of all kinds have passed."
"Well, all this vacation I have written the story between you and me; how I have lost my friends for your sake; what hazard I have run; what secrets have passed betwixt us; how, after you had won that woman by my letters, you then concealed all your after proceedings from me; and how upon this there came many breaches between us; of the vow you made to be even with me, and sending for me twice that day that I was caught in the trap, persuading me that it was a plot of mine enemies to send me beyond sea, and urging me not to accept it, assuring me to free me from any long trouble. On Tuesday I made an end of this, and on Friday sent it to a friend of mine under eight seals; and if you persist still to use me thus, assure yourself it shall be published. Whether I live or die, your shame shall never die, but ever remain to the world, to make you the most odious man living."