Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

Mrs. Turner's share in the death of Overbury was amply proved; and Coke pronounced sentence upon her, telling her that she had been guilty of the seven deadly sins, among which he enumerated witchcraft and popery. "Upon the Wednesday following," says the account of the trial, "she was brought from the sheriff's in a coach to Newgate, and was there put into a cart; and, casting money often among the people as she went, she was carried to Tyburn, where she was executed, and whither many men and women of fashion came in coaches to see her die; to whom she made a speech, desiring them not to rejoice at her fall, but to take example by her. She exhorted them to serve God, and abandon pride and all other sins; related her breeding with the Countess of Somerset, having had no other means to maintain her and her children but what came from the countess; and said further, that, when her hand was once in the business, she knew the revealing it would be her overthrow. The which, with other like speeches, and great penitency there showed, moved the spectators to great pity and grief for her."

Immediately after Mrs. Turner's execution, Sir Jervis Elwes, the lieutenant of the Tower, was brought to trial. He was convicted upon the evidence of the correspondence which he had held with the Earl and Countess of Somerset, and also with the Earl of Northampton, the countess's uncle; from which it appeared that that nobleman had been deeply implicated in Overbury's murder. By the letters read on this and some of the other trials it was shown that Northampton was not only aware of Somerset's adulterous intercourse with his niece, but had aided them in carrying it on; that he had been a principal promoter of the scandalous divorce, and the equally scandalous marriage which followed it; and that he was not only privy to the murder, but actively instrumental in the steps taken to conceal the crime. He was, however, freed by his death the preceding year from the earthly retribution which would now have overtaken him. In the course of this trial the name of Sir Thomas Monson, the chief falconer, was also implicated; it having appeared that through his recommendation Weston had been employed as Overbury's keeper, and that he was at least aware of the crime. One of the principal pieces of evidence was the voluntary confession of Franklin the apothecary, who had been employed to provide the poisons. This man, among many other things, said, "Mrs. Turner came to me from the countess, and wished me from her to get the strongest poison I could for Sir Thomas Overbury. Accordingly I bought seven, viz. aquafortis, white arsenic, mercury, powder of diamonds, lapis costitus (lunar caustic), great spiders, and cantharides: all these were given to Sir Thomas Overbury at several times." He declared also, that the lieutenant knew of these poisons: "for that appeared," he said, "by, many letters which he writ to the Countess of Essex, which I saw, and thereby knew that he knew of this matter." – "For these poisons," he further said, "the countess sent me rewards. She sent many times gold by Mrs. Turner. She afterwards wrote unto me to buy more poisons. I went unto her, and told her I was weary of it; and I besought her upon my knees that she would use me no more in these matters: but she importuned me, bade me go, and enticed me with fair speeches and rewards; so she overcame me, and did bewitch me." The cause of the poisoning, he said, as the countess told him, was because Sir Thomas Overbury would pry so far into their suit (the divorce) as he would put them down. He added, that, on the marriage-day of the countess with Somerset, (which was after Overbury's death,) she sent him twenty pounds by Mrs. Turner, and he was to have been paid by the countess two hundred pounds per annum during his life. The Lord Chief Justice, when he produced Franklin's confession upon this trial, prefaced his reading of it by informing the court that this poor man, not knowing Sir Jervis should come to his trial, had come to him that morning at five o'clock, and told him that he was much troubled in his conscience, and could not rest until he had made his confession: "and it is such a one," added the Chief Justice, "as the eye of England never saw, nor the ear of Christendom ever heard." Sir Jervis, who had defended himself strenuously against the other articles of evidence, was struck dumb by this unexpected disclosure. He was found guilty, condemned, and executed, after having at the place of execution made a full confession of his guilt.

Franklin was then tried, convicted, and executed, on his own confession alone, to which, as it was entirely voluntary, he seems really to have been prompted by remorse. In passing sentence upon him, the Lord Chief Justice said, that, "knowing as much as he knew, if this had not been found out, neither the court, city, nor any particular family, had escaped the malice of this wicked cruelty."

Sir Thomas Monson was next arraigned, and strongly exhorted by the crown lawyers to confess his crime; one of them (Hyde) declaring him to be "as guilty as the guiltiest." The trial, however, was brought to a strange and abrupt conclusion. In the middle of the preliminary proceedings the culprit was suddenly carried off from the bar by a party of yeomen of his majesty's guard, and taken to the Tower, from whence he was soon afterwards liberated without further trial. This singular interference is ascribed to some mysterious expressions dropped by the Lord Chief Justice. "But the Lord Chief Justice Coke," says Sir Anthony Weldon, "in his rhetorical flourishes at Monson's arraignment, vented some expressions as if he could discover more than the death of a private person; intimating, though not plainly, that Overbury's untimely remove had in it something of retaliation, as if he had been guilty of the same crime towards Prince Henry; blessing himself with admiration at the horror of such actions. In which he flew so high a pitch that he was taken down by a court lure; Sir Thomas Monson's trial laid aside, and he soon after set at liberty; and the Lord Chief Justice's wings were clipt for it ever after." There can be no doubt that the conduct of Coke on these trials was used as a handle against him by his rival and enemy, Bacon, to deprive him of the royal favour; and, that the manner in which his language on the above and other occasions was represented (or misrepresented) to the king, was one cause, at least, of his removal from his office a few months afterwards. But this was not the only mystery connected with this matter.

All these trials took place in close succession between the 19th of October and the 4th of December 1615; but the principal criminals were not tried till May following. During this interval the earl and countess were frequently examined, and many efforts were made to bring them to confession. On the 24th of May the countess was arraigned before a commission of the peers. A graphic account of her demeanour is given in the State Trials. The Clerk of the Crown addressed her:

"'Frances, Countess of Somerset, hold up thy hand!'

"She did so, and held it till Mr. Lieutenant told her she might put it down; and then he read the indictment. The Countess of Somerset, all the while the indictment was reading, stood, looking pale, trembled, and shed some tears; and at the first naming of Weston in the indictment, put her fan before her face, and there held it half covered till the indictment was read.

"Clerk.– 'Frances, Countess of Somerset, what sayest thou? Art thou guilty of this felony and murder, or not guilty?'

"The Lady Somerset, making an obeisance to the Lord High Steward, answered, 'Guilty,' with a low voice, but wonderful fearful."

After the proceedings consequent on this confession, she was asked in the usual form what she could say for herself why judgment of death should not be pronounced against her. Her answer was,

"I can much aggravate, but nothing extenuate, my fault. I desire mercy, and that the lords will intercede for me with the king."

"This," says the account, "she spake humbly, fearfully, and so low, that the Lord Steward could not hear it; but Mr. Attorney repeated it."

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."

Overbury is aware that he has been betrayed and entrapped, and is left by his treacherous patron to languish in a dungeon. He addresses him in the bitterest and most indignant language, and threatens him with a desperate and fatal revenge. He remembers, too, the threat which had been applied to himself; knows himself to be in the power of the man who used it; feels himself to be dying by inches, of maladies which the most rigorous confinement could not have produced; and yet it never enters his mind that his unscrupulous enemy may have determined, by his death, to get rid of him and his dangerous secrets!

The evidence of Overbury's father is affecting. "After my son was committed," he said, "I heard that he was very sick. I went to the court and delivered a petition to the king, the effect whereof was, that, in respect of my son's sickness, some physicians might have access unto him. The king answered, that his own physician should go to him; and then instantly sent him word by Sir W. Button that his physician should presently go. Upon this, I only addressed myself to my Lord of Somerset, and none else, who said my son should be presently delivered, but dissuaded me from presenting any more petitions to the king; which notwithstanding, I (seeing his freedom still delayed) did deliver a petition to the king to that purpose, who said I should have present answer. And my Lord of Somerset told me he should be suddenly relieved; but with this, that neither I nor my wife must press to see him, because that might protract his delivery, nor deliver any more petitions to the king, because that might stir his enemies up against him; and then," added the poor old man, "he wrote a letter to my wife, to dissuade her from any longer stay in London."

This letter was, "Mrs. Overbury, – Your stay here in town can nothing avail your son's delivery; therefore I would advise you to retire into the country, and doubt not before your coming home you shall hear he is a free man."

Thus did this monster amuse the unhappy parents with delusive hopes till all was over; and he then wrote to the aged father the following unparalleled letter:

"Sir, – Your son's love to me got him the malice of many, and they cast those knots on his fortune that have cost him his life; so, in a kind, there is none guilty of his death but I; and you can have no more cause to commiserate the death of a son, than I of a friend. But, though he be dead, you shall find me as ready as ever I was to do all the courtesies that I possibly can to you and your wife, or your children. In the mean time I desire pardon from you and your wife for your lost son, though I esteem my loss the greater. And for his brother that is in France, I desire his return, that he may succeed his brother in my love."

Somerset defended himself stoutly. His desperate situation seems to have sharpened his faculties. He cross-examined the witnesses with much acuteness and presence of mind, made ingenious objections to their testimony, and laboured to explain away the facts which could not be denied. From eight in the morning till seven at night he exerted himself with an energy worthy of a better cause; but in vain. He was found guilty by the unanimous voice of his judges. He then desired a death according to his degree; but this was denied him, and he received the usual sentence of the law.

Thus were these great criminals brought to justice; and they received, it may be supposed, the punishment of their crimes. No: they were pardoned by the king, – nay more, received especial marks of royal favour! They were imprisoned in the Tower till January 1621, when the king, by an order in council, granted them the liberty of retiring to a country-house. "Whereas his Majesty is graciously pleased," thus ran the order, "to enlarge and set at liberty the Earl of Somerset and his lady, now prisoners in the Tower of London, and that nevertheless it is thought fit that both the said earl and his lady be confined to some convenient place; it is therefore, according to his majesty's gracious pleasure and command, ordered that the Earl of Somerset and his lady do repair either to Greys or Cowsham, the Lord Wallingford's houses in the county of Oxon, and remain confined to one or other of the said houses, and within three miles' compass of either of the same, until further order be given by his majesty." In 1624, they both obtained full pardons; the lady, on the ground that "the process and judgment against her were not as of a principal, but as of an accessory before the fact;" and the earl, merely on the ground of the king's regard for his family. Nor was this all: his majesty granted the earl an income of four thousand pounds a-year out of his forfeited estate; and, what was still worse, in order to save this minion from disgrace, committed a gross outrage on the order of knighthood to which he belonged. "The king," says Camden, "ordered that the arms of the Earl of Somerset, notwithstanding his being condemned of felony, should not be removed out of the chapel at Windsor, and that felony should not be reckoned amongst the disgraces for those who were to be excluded from the order of St. George; which was without precedent." Without precedent indeed!

Remembering the king's solemn vow when, kneeling in the midst of the judges whom he had summoned into his presence, he exclaimed, "If you shall spare any guilty of this crime, God's curse light on you and your posterity; and, if I spare any that are guilty, God's curse light on me and my posterity for ever!" how are we to account for so flagrant a violation of it? Even had he not so earnestly called down the curse of Heaven upon his head, he was bound by the strongest obligations of public justice not to screen from condign punishment criminals so atrocious. Nor can we ascribe his failure in so sacred a duty to personal regard for Somerset. His attachment to him was long since extinguished; a newer favourite had engrossed his capricious affection. Fear, not love, seems to have been the cause of his forbearance.

Before Somerset's trial, mysterious circumstances were remarked, both in his conduct and in that of the king. It is stated by several historians that the earl, while in the Tower, loudly asserted that the king durst not bring him to trial; and there is still extant a letter from him to the king, written immediately after his condemnation, in which he desires that his estate may be continued to him entire, in a style rather of expostulation and demand than of humble supplication. There is a studied obscurity in the style of this letter, as if it darkly hinted at things meant to be understood only by him to whom it was addressed; but its tone indicates that it was meant to impress the king with the dread of a secret which the writer had it in his power to reveal.

The king, on the other hand, showed the most extreme anxiety about the earl's behaviour and the event of the trial. He himself selected certain persons to examine Somerset in secret, among whom was Bacon. They had the king's instructions to work upon the earl's obstinate temper by every method of persuasion and terror; now to give him hopes of the king's compassion and mercy, and now to impress him with the certainty of conviction and punishment. Moreover, the king ordered Bacon (then Attorney-General) to put in writing every possible case which might arise at the trial out of Somerset's behaviour. Bacon accordingly drew up a paper of this sort, on which the king with his own hand made some marginal notes. Bacon having said, "All these points of mercy and favour to Somerset are to be understood with this limitation, – if he do not, by his contemptuous and insolent carriage at the bar, make himself incapable and unworthy of them," the king's remark in the margin was, "That danger is well to be foreseen, lest he upon one part commit unpardonable errors, and I on the other part seem to punish him in the spirit of revenge." Why this solicitude to prevent the "danger" of Somerset's adopting a "contemptuous and insolent carriage at the bar?" And what were the "unpardonable errors" it might lead him to commit? No error could be so unpardonable as the crime he had already committed; and we are led, therefore, to the inference that the king wished it to be understood, that though he was ready to pardon the crime of which Somerset should be convicted, provided he conducted himself discreetly on his trial, yet an error on this score should be held as unpardonable.

Notwithstanding all these precautions and pains taken to bring Somerset to a safe frame of mind, he appears to have been very untractable; and the king's dread of his conduct during his trial, and anxiety to know the result, seem to have amounted to agony. His behaviour cannot be so well described as in the words of Sir Anthony Weldon.

"And now for the last act enters Somerset himself upon the stage, who, being told, as the manner is, by the lieutenant, that he must provide to go next day to his trial, did absolutely refuse it, and said they should carry him in his bed; that the king had assured him he should not come to any trial, neither durst the king to bring him to trial. This was in a high strain, and in a language not well understood by George Moore, [Sir George Moore, lieutenant in the room of Elwes,] that made Moore quiver and shake; and, however he was accounted a wise man, yet he was near at his wit's end. Yet away goes Moore to Greenwich, as late as it was, being twelve at night; bounceth at the back-stairs as if mad; to whom came Jo. Loveston, one of the grooms, out of his bed, inquiring the reason of that distemper at so late a season. Moore tells him he must speak with the king. Loverton replies, 'He is quiet,' which in the Scottish dialect is, fast asleep. Moore says, 'You must wake him.' Moore was called in (the chamber left to the king and Moore). He tells the king those passages, and desired to be directed by the king, for he was gone beyond his own reason to hear such bold and undutiful expressions from a faulty subject against a just sovereign. The king falls into a passion of tears: 'On my soul, Moore, I wot not what to do: thou art a wise man; help me in this great strait, and thou shalt find thou dost it for a thankful master;' with other sad expressions. Moore leaves the king in that passion, but assures him he will prove the utmost of his wit to serve his majesty. Sir George Moore returns to Somerset about three o'clock next morning of that day he was to come to trial, enters Somerset's chamber, tells him he had been with the king, found him a most affectionate master unto him, and full of grace in his intentions towards him. 'But,' said he, 'to satisfy justice you must appear, although you return instantly again without any further procedure; only you shall know your enemies and their malice, though they shall have no power over you.' With this trick of wit he allayed his fury, and got him quietly, about eight in the morning, to the Hall; yet feared his former bold language might revert again, and, being brought by this trick into the toil, might have more enraged him to fly out into some strange discovery, that he had two servants placed on each side of him, with a cloak on their arms, giving them a peremptory order that if Somerset did any way fly out on the king, they should instantly hoodwink him with that cloak, take him violently from the bar, and carry him away; for which he would secure them from any danger, and they should not want a bountiful reward. But the earl, finding himself overreached, recollected a better temper, and went on calmly in his trial, where he held the company until seven at night. But who had seen the king's restless motion all that day, sending to every boat he saw landing at the bridge, and cursing all that came without tidings, would have easily judged all was not right, and that there had been some grounds for his fear of Somerset's boldness. But at last one bringing him word he was condemned, and the passages, all was quiet."

The reader will remember that the abrupt termination of the proceedings against Sir Thomas Monson, who was carried off from the bar by a party of yeomen of the guard, was caused by the Lord Chief Justice's having made some indiscreet allusion to suspicions regarding the death of Prince Henry, the king's eldest son, which had taken place in 1612, about four years before the time of these trials.

This young prince at a very early age displayed talents and virtues which endeared him to the nation. The accounts of his short life are pleasing and interesting. He was thus described when he was twelve years old, in a letter from the French ambassador. "None of his pleasures savour in the least of a child. He is a particular lover of horses, and what belongs to them; but is not fond of hunting; and, when he does engage in it, it is rather for the pleasure of galloping than for any which the dogs give him. He is fond of playing at tennis, and at another Scotch diversion very like mall;²⁰ but always with persons older than himself, as if he despised those of his own age. He studies two hours in the day, and employs the rest of his time in tossing the pike, or leaping, or shooting with the bow, or throwing the bar, or vaulting, or some other exercise of that kind; and he is never idle. He is very kind to his dependents, supports their interests against all persons whatsoever, and urges all that he undertakes for them or others with such zeal as ensures it success; for, besides his exerting his whole strength to compass what he desires, he is already feared by those who have the management of affairs, and especially by the Earl of Salisbury, who appears to be greatly apprehensive of the prince's ascendency; as the prince, on the other hand, shows little esteem for his lordship." This high-spirited and magnanimous boy could not fail to be aware of the faults and vices of his father's character. He entertained great admiration for Sir Walter Raleigh; was often heard to exclaim, "No king but my father would keep such a bird in a cage;" and his aversion to the Earl of Salisbury was understood to have arisen from that nobleman's share in Raleigh's ruin.²¹ His strong sense of religion rendered his father's habit of profane swearing repulsive to him. "Once," we are told by Coke, "when the prince was hunting the stag, it chanced the stag, being spent, crossed the road where a butcher and his dog were travelling. The dog killed the stag, which was so great that the butcher could not carry him off. When the huntsman and the company came up, they fell at odds with the butcher, and endeavoured to incense the prince against him; to whom the prince soberly replied, 'What! if the butcher's dog killed the stag, how could the butcher help it?' They replied, if his father had been served so, he would have sworn as no man could have endured it. 'Away!' replied the prince, 'all the pleasure in the world is not worth an oath.'"

A young prince, who, at twelve years old, was "feared by those who had the management of affairs," must, when he grew up, have been a formidable object to a worthless minion like Carr. He disliked this man from the first; and his aversion grew into a rooted hatred. When Carr was made Viscount Rochester, Henry, then about fourteen, as we are told by Osborn, "contemned so far his father's election of Rochester, that he was reported either to have struck him on the back with his racket, or very hardly forborne it." The prince continued to express on all occasions an abhorrence of favourites, and an utter contempt of Carr; and made no secret of his resolution to humble both him and the family into which he was allied if ever he came to the throne.

Carr, then, must necessarily have feared and hated the prince; and it is hardly to be supposed that such feelings would remain passive in a mind like his. Henry did not enjoy his father's favour. The king's "genius was rebuked" in the presence of a son so much his superior in every moral and intellectual quality; and he was jealous of the esteem and admiration in which the youth was held by the nation. "The vivacity, spirit, and activity of the prince," says Dr. Birch, "soon gave umbrage to his father's court, which grew extremely jealous of him." – "The king," says Osborn, "though he would not deny any thing the prince plainly desired, yet it appeared rather the result of fear and outward compliance than love or natural affection; being harder drawn to confer an honour or pardon, in cases of desert, upon a retainer of the prince, than a stranger." The prince himself, in a letter written within a few weeks of his death, excused himself from applying on behalf of a friend, for some piece of court favour, "because, as matters now go here, I will deal in no businesses of importance for some respects." At this time Carr was in the height of his power; and this position of the prince at his father's court must be ascribed in no small degree to the influence of the favourite.

Prince Henry died on the 6th of November 1612, (at the age of eighteen,) of an illness under which he had laboured for two or three weeks. The symptoms (as detailed by Dr. Birch in his Life of the prince) were of the most violent kind; dreadful affections of the stomach and bowels, excessive thirst, burning heat, blackness of the tongue, convulsions, and delirium. The physicians "could not tell what to make of the distemper," were confounded by "the strangeness of the disease," and differed in their opinions as to its treatment. The day after the prince's death his body was opened by order of the king; and the report of the physicians who examined it does not indicate the operation of poison. They say, in particular, "his stomach was without any manner of fault or imperfection."

The grief of the nation pervaded all ranks, and almost all parties. The king himself, however, manifested the utmost insensibility. Only three days after the prince's death, Carr (then Lord Rochester) wrote, by the king's orders, to the English ambassador at Paris, directing him to resume the marriage treaty, which had been begun for Prince Henry, in the name of his brother Charles. After a very short interval, all persons were prohibited from appearing in mourning before the king; and orders were given that the preparations for the Christmas festivities should proceed without interruption. The Earl of Dorset, in a letter written at this time to the English ambassador in France, uses these expressions: "That our rising sun is set ere scarcely he had shone, and that with him all our glory lies buried, you know and do lament as well as we; and better than some do, and more truly, or else you are not a man, and sensible of this kingdom's loss."

Suspicions that the young prince had come foully by his death became prevalent immediately after that event. They were by no means of that vague and unmeaning kind which the untimely end of an illustrious person is apt to occasion among the vulgar. "The queen," says Dr. Welwood, "to her dying day could never be dissuaded from the opinion that her beloved son had foul play done him." Bishop Burnet, in his History of his own time, says, that Charles the First declared that the prince, his brother, had been poisoned by the means of the Viscount Rochester, afterwards Earl of Somerset. And contemporary writers afford innumerable proofs of this opinion having been entertained by persons engaged in public affairs, and conversant with the transactions of the time.