Badgered, not only by her husband but by her own relatives, scared no doubt, certainly unhappy, unable for politic reasons to appeal freely to her beloved Robin, to whom might Frances turn but the helpful Turner?
And to whom, having turned to pretty Anne, was she likely to be led but again to the wizard of Lambeth?
Dr Forman had a heart for beauty in distress, but dissipating the ardency of an exigent husband was a difficult matter compared with attracting that of a negligent lover. It was also much more costly. A powder there was, indeed, which, administered secretly by small regular doses in the husband"s food or drink, would soon cool his ardour, but the process of manufacture and the ingredients were enormously expensive. Frances got her powder.
The first dose was administered to Lord Ess.e.x just before his departure from a visit to his wife at Audley End. On his arrival back in London he was taken violently ill, so ill that in the weeks he lay in bed his life was despaired of. Only the intervention of the King"s own physician, one Sir Theodore Mayerne, would appear to have saved him.
Her husband slowly convalescing, Lady Ess.e.x was summoned by her family back to London. In London, while Lord Ess.e.x mended in health, she was much in the company of her "sweet Turner." In addition to the house in Paternoster Row the little widow had a pretty riverside cottage at Hammersmith, and both were at the disposal of Lady Ess.e.x and her lover for stolen meetings. Those meetings were put a stop to by the recovery of Lord Ess.e.x, and with his recovery his lordship exhibited a new mood of determination. Backed by her ladyship"s family, he ordered her to accompany him to their country place of Chartley. Her ladyship had to obey.
The stages of the journey were marked by the nightly illness of his lordship. By the time they arrived at Chartley itself he was in a condition little if at all less dangerous than that from which he had been rescued by the King"s physician. His illness lasted for weeks, and during this time her ladyship wrote many a letter to Anne Turner and to Dr Forman. She was afraid his lordship would live. She was afraid his lordship would die. She was afraid she would lose the love of Rochester.
She begged Anne Turner and Forman to work their best magic for her aid.
She was afraid that if his lordship recovered the spells might prove useless, that his attempts to a.s.sert his rights as a husband would begin again, and that there, in the heart of the country and so far from any refuge, they might take a form she would be unable to resist.
His lordship did recover. His attempts to a.s.sert his rights as a husband did begin again. The struggle between them, Frances constant in her obduracy, lasted several months. Her obstinacy wore down his. At long last he let her go.
III
If the fate that overtook Frances Howard and Rochester, and with them Anne Turner and many another, is to be properly understood, a brief word on the political situation in England at this time will be needed--or, rather, a word on the political personages, with their antagonisms.
Next in closeness to the King"s ear after Rochester, and perhaps more trusted as a counsellor by that "wise fool," there had been Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, for a long time First Secretary of State. But about the time when Lady Ess.e.x finally parted with her husband Cecil died, depriving England of her keenest brain and the staunchest heart in her causes. If there had been no Rochester the likeliest man in the kingdom to succeed to the power and offices of Cecil would have been the Earl of Northampton, uncle of Lord Suffolk, who was the father of Lady Ess.e.x. Northampton, as stated, held the office of Lord Privy Seal.
The Howard family had done the State great service in the past. Its present representatives, Northampton and Suffolk, were anxious to do the State great service, as they conceived it, in the future. They were, however, Catholics in all but open acknowledgment, and as such were opposed by the Protestants, who had at their head Prince Henry. This was an opposition that they might have stomached. It was one that they might even have got over, for the Prince and his father, the King, were not the best of friends. The obstacle to their ambitions, and one they found hard to stomach, was the upstart Rochester. And even Rochester would hardly have stood in their way had his power in the Council depended on his own ability. The brain that directed Robert Carr belonged to another man. This was Sir Thomas Overbury.
On the death of Cecil the real contenders for the vacant office of First Secretary of State--the highest office in the land--were not the wily Northampton and the relatively unintelligent Rochester, but the subtle Northampton and the quite as subtle, and perhaps more s.p.a.cious-minded, Thomas Overbury. There was, it will be apprehended, a possible weakness on the Overbury side. The gemel-chain, like that of many links, is merely as strong as its weakest member. Overbury had no approach to the King save through the King"s favourite. Rochester could have no real weight with the King, at least in affairs of State, except what he borrowed from Overbury. Divided, the two were powerless. No, more than that, there had to be no flaw in their linking.
The wily Northampton, one may be certain, was fully aware of this possible weakness in the combination opposed to his advancement. He would be fully aware, that is, that it was there potentially; but when he began, as his activities would indicate, to work for the creation of that flaw in the relationship between Rochester and Overbury it is unlikely that he knew the flaw had already begun to develop. Unknown to him, circ.u.mstance already had begun to operate in his favour.
Overbury was Rochester"s tutor in more than appertained to affairs of State. It is more than likely that in Carr"s wooing of Lady Ess.e.x he had held the role of Cyrano de Bergerac, writing those gracefully turned letters and composing those accomplished verses which did so much to augment and give constancy to her ladyship"s love for Rochester. It is certain, at any rate, that Overbury was privy to all the correspondence pa.s.sing between the pair, and that even such events as the supplying by Forman and Mrs Turner of that magic powder, and the Countess"s use of it upon her husband, were well within his knowledge.
While the affair between his alter ego and the Lady Ess.e.x might be looked upon as mere dalliance, a pa.s.sionate episode likely to wither with a speed equal to that of its growth, Overbury, it is probable, found cynical amus.e.m.e.nt in helping it on. But when, as time went on, the lady and her husband separated permanently, and from mere talk of a pet.i.tion for annulment of the Ess.e.x marriage that pet.i.tion was presented in actual form to the King, Overbury saw danger. Northampton was backing the pet.i.tion. If it succeeded Lady Ess.e.x would be free to marry Rochester. And the marriage, since Northampton was not the man to give except in the expectation of plenty, would plant the unwary Rochester on the hearth of his own and Overbury"s enemies. With Rochester in the Howard camp there would be short shrift for Thomas Overbury. There would be, though Rochester in his infatuation seemed blind to the fact, as short a shrift as the Howards could contrive for the King"s minion.
In that march of inevitability which marks all real tragedy the road that is followed forks ever and again with an "if." And we who, across the distance of time, watch with a sort of Jovian pity the tragic puppets in their folly miss this fork and that fork on their road of destiny select, each according to our particular temperaments, a particular "if" over which to shake our heads. For me, in this story of Rochester, Overbury, Frances Howard, and the rest, the point of tragedy, the most poignant of the issues, is the betrayal by Robert Carr of Overbury"s friendship. Though this story is essentially, or should be, that of the two women who were linked in fate with Rochester and his coadjutor, I am constrained to linger for a moment on that point.
Overbury"s counsel had made Carr great. With nothing but his good looks and his personal charm, his only real attributes, Carr had been no more than King James"s creature. James, with all the pedantry, the laboured cunning, the sleezy weaknesses of character that make him so detestable, was yet too shrewd to have put power in the hands of the mere minion that Carr would have been without the brain of Overbury to guide him.
Of himself Carr was the "toom tabard" of earlier parlance in his native country, the "stuffed shirt" of a later and more remote generation. But beyond the coalition for mutual help that existed between Overbury and Carr, an arrangement which might have thrived on a basis merely material, there was a deep and splendid friendship. "Stuffed shirt" or not, Robert Carr was greatly loved by Overbury. Whatever Overbury may have thought of Carr"s mental attainments, he had the greatest faith in his loyalty as a friend. And here lies the terrible pity in that "if" of my choice. The love between the two men was great enough to have saved them both. It broke on the weakness of Carr.
Overbury was aware that, honestly presented, the pet.i.tion by Lady Ess.e.x for the annulment of her marriage had little chance of success. But for the obstinacy of Ess.e.x it might have been granted readily enough. He had, however, as we have seen, forced her to live with him as his wife, in appearance at least, for several months in the country. There now would be difficulty in putting forward the pet.i.tion on the ground of non-consummation of the marriage.
It was, nevertheless, on this ground that the pet.i.tion was brought forward. But the non-consummation was not attributed, as it might have been, to the continued separation that had begun at the altar; the reason given was the impotence of the husband. Just what persuasion Northampton and the Howards used on Ess.e.x to make him accept this humiliating implication it is hard to imagine, but by the time the coa.r.s.e wits of the period had done with him Ess.e.x was amply punished in ridicule for his primary obstinacy.
Sir Thomas Overbury, well informed though he usually was, must have been a good deal in the dark regarding the negotiations which had brought the nullity suit to this forward state. He had warned Rochester so frankly of the danger into which the scheme was likely to lead him that they had quarrelled and parted. If Rochester had been frank with his friend, if, on the ground of their friendship, he had appealed to him to set aside his prejudice, it might well have been that the tragedy which ensued would have been averted. Enough evidence remains to this day of Overbury"s kindness for Robert Carr, there is enough proof of the man"s abounding resource and wit, to give warrant for belief that he would have had the will, as he certainly had the ability, to help his friend. Overbury was one of the brightest intelligences of his age. Had Rochester confessed the extent of his commitment with Northampton there is little doubt that Overbury could and would have found a way whereby Rochester could have attained his object (of marriage with Frances Howard), and this without jeopardizing their mutual power to the Howard menace.
In denying the man who had made him great the complete confidence which their friendship demanded Rochester took the tragically wrong path on his road of destiny. But the truth is that when he quarrelled with Overbury he had already betrayed the friendship. He had already embarked on the perilous experiment of straddling between two opposed camps. It was an experiment that he, least of all men, had the adroitness to bring off. He was never in such need of Overbury"s brain as when he aligned himself in secret with Overbury"s enemies.
It is entirely probable that in linking up with Northampton Rochester had no mind to injure his friend. The bait was the woman he loved.
Without Northampton"s aid the nullity suit could not be put forward, and without the annulment there could be no marriage for him with Frances Howard. But he had no sooner joined with Northampton than the very processes against which Overbury had warned him were begun. Rochester was trapped, and with him Overbury.
For the success of the suit, in Northampton"s view, Overbury knew too much. It was a view to which Rochester was readily persuaded; or it was one which he was easily frightened into accepting. From that to joining in a plot for being rid of Overbury was but a step. Grateful, perhaps, for the undoubted services that Overbury had rendered him, Rochester would be eager enough to find his quondam friend employment. If that employment happened to take Overbury out of the country so much the better. At one time the King, jealous as a woman of the friendship existing between his favourite and Overbury, had tried to shift the latter out of the way by an offer of the emba.s.sy in Paris. It was an offer Rochester thought, that he might cause to be repeated. The idea was broached to Overbury. That shrewd individual, of course, saw through the suggestion to the intention behind it, but he was at a loss for an outlet for his talents, having left Rochester"s employ, and he believed without immodesty that he could do useful work as amba.s.sador in Paris.
Overbury was offered an emba.s.sy--but in Muscovy. He had no mind to bury himself in Russia, and he refused the offer on the ground of ill-health.
By doing this he walked into the trap prepared for him. Northampton had foreseen the refusal when he promoted the offer on its rearranged terms.
The King, already incensed against Overbury for some hints at knowledge of facts liable to upset the Ess.e.x nullity suit, pretended indignation at the refusal. Overbury unwarily repeated it before the Privy Council.
That was what Northampton wanted. The refusal was high contempt of the King"s majesty. Sir Thomas Overbury was committed to the Tower. He might have talked in Paris, or have written from Muscovy. He might safely do either in the Tower--where gags and bonds were so readily at hand.
Did Rochester know of the springe set to catch Overbury? The answer to the question, whether yes or no, hardly matters. Since he was gull enough to discard the man whose brain had lifted him from a condition in which he was hardly better than the King"s lap-dog, he was gull enough to be fooled by Northampton. Since he valued the friendship of that honest man so little as to consort in secret with his enemies, he was knave enough to have been party to the betrayal. Knave or fool--what does it matter? He was so much of both that, in dread of what Sir Thomas might say or do to thwart the nullity suit, he let his friend rot in the Tower for months on end, let him sicken and nearly die several times, without a move to free him. He did this to the man who had trusted him implicitly, a man that--to adapt Overbury"s own words from his last poignant letter to Rochester--he had "more cause to love... yea, perish for.. . rather than see perish."
It is not given to every man to have that greater love which will make him lay down his life for a friend, but it is the sheer poltroon and craven who will watch a friend linger and expire in agony without lifting a finger to save him. Knave or fool--what does it matter when either is submerged in the coward?
IV
Overbury lay in the Tower five months. The commission appointed to examine into the Ess.e.x nullity suit went into session three weeks after he was imprisoned. There happened to be one man in the commission who cared more to be honest than to humour the King. This was the Archbishop Abbot. The King himself had prepared the pet.i.tion. It was a task that delighted his pedantry, and his pet.i.tion was designed for immediate acceptance. But such was Abbot"s opposition that in two or three months the commission ended with divided findings.
Meantime Overbury in the Tower had been writing letters. He had been talking to visitors. As time went on, and Rochester did nothing to bring about his enlargement, his writings and sayings became more threatening Rochester"s att.i.tude was that patience was needed. In time he would bring the King to a more clement view of Sir Thomas"s offending, and he had no doubt that in the end he would be able to secure the prisoner both freedom and honourable employment.
Overbury had been consigned to the Tower in April. In June he complained of illness. Rochester wrote to him in sympathetic terms, sending him a powder that he himself had found beneficial, and made his own physician visit the prisoner.
But the threats which Overbury, indignant at his betrayal by Rochester, made by speech and writing were becoming common property in the city and at Court One of Overbury"s visitors who had made public mention of Overbury"s knowledge of facts likely to blow upon the Ess.e.x suit was arrested on the orders of Northampton. In the absence of the King and Rochester from London the old Earl was acting as Chief Secretary of State--thus proving Overbury to have been a true prophet. Northampton issued orders to the Tower that Overbury was to be closely confined, that his man Davies was to be dismissed, and that he was to be denied all visitors. The then Lieutenant of the Tower, one Sir William Wade, was deprived of his position on the thinnest of pretexts, and, on the recommendation of Sir Thomas Monson, Master of the Armoury, an elderly gentleman from Lincolnshire, Sir Gervase Elwes, was put in his place.
From that moment Sir Thomas Overbury was permitted no communication with the outer world, save by letter to Lord Rochester and for food that was brought him, as we shall presently see, at the instance of Mrs Turner.
In place of his own servant Davies Sir Thomas was allowed the services of an under-keeper named Weston, appointed at the same time as Sir Gervase Elwes. This man, it is perhaps important to note, had at one time been servant to Mrs Turner.
The alteration in the personnel of the Tower was almost immediately followed by severe illness on the part of the prisoner. The close confinement to which he was subjected, with the lack of exercise, could hardly have been the cause of such a violent sickness. It looked more as if it had been brought about by something he had eaten or drunk. By this time the conviction he had tried to resist, that Rochester was meanly sacrificing him, became definite. Overbury is hardly to be blamed if he came to a resolution to be revenged on his one-time friend by bringing him to utter ruin. King James had been so busy in the Ess.e.x nullity suit, had gone to such lengths to carry it through, that if it could be wrecked by the production of the true facts he would be bound to sacrifice Rochester to save his own face. Sir Thomas had an accurate knowledge of the King"s character. He knew the scramble James was capable of making in a difficulty that involved his kingly dignity, and what little reck he had of the faces he trod on in climbing from a pit of his own digging. By a trick Overbury contrived to smuggle a letter through to the honest Archbishop Abbot, in which he declared his possession of facts that would non-suit the nullity action, and begged to be summoned before the commission.
Overbury was getting better of the sickness which had attacked him when suddenly it came upon him again. This time he made no bones about saying that he had been poisoned.
Even at the last Overbury had taken care to give Rochester a chance to prove his fidelity. He contrived that the delivery of the letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury should be delayed until just before the nullity commission, now augmented by members certain to vote according to the King"s desire, was due to sit again. The Archbishop carried Overbury"s letter to James, and insisted that Overbury should be heard. The King, outward stickler that he was for the letter of the law, had to agree.
On the Thursday of the week during which the commission was sitting Overbury was due to be called. He was ill, but not so ill as he had been. On the Tuesday he was visited by the King"s physician. On the Wednesday he was dead.
Now, before we come to examine those evidences regarding Overbury"s death that were to be brought forward in the series of trials of later date, that series which was to be known as "the Great Oyer of Poisoning," it may be well to consider what effect upon the Ess.e.x nullity suit Overbury"s appearance before the commission might have had.
It may be well to consider what reason Rochester had for keeping his friend in close confinement in the Tower, what reason there was for permitting Northampton to impose such cruelly rigorous conditions of imprisonment.
The nullity suit succeeded. A jury of matrons was impanelled, and made an examination of the lady appellant. Its evidence was that she was virgo intacta. Seven out of the twelve members of the packed commission voted in favour of the sentence of nullity.
The kernel of the situation lies in the verdict of the jury of matrons.
Her ladyship was declared to be a maid. If in the finding gossips and scandal-mongers found reason for laughter, and decent enough people cause for wonderment, they are hardly to be blamed. If Frances Howard was a virgin, what reason was there for fearing anything Overbury might have said? What knowledge had he against the suit that put Rochester and the Howards in such fear of him that they had to confine him in the Tower under such miserable conditions? In what was he so dangerous that he had to be deprived of his faithful Davies, that he had to be put in the care of a Tower Lieutenant specially appointed? The evidence given before the commission can still be read in almost verbatim report. It is completely in favour of the plea of Lady Ess.e.x. Sir Thomas Overbury"s, had he given evidence, would have been the sole voice against the suit.
If he had said that in his belief the a.s.sociation of her ladyship with Rochester had been adulterous there was the physical fact adduced by the jury of matrons to confute him. And being confuted in that, what might he have said that would not be attributed to rancour on his part? That her ladyship, with the help of Mrs Turner and the wizard of Lambeth, had practised magic upon her husband, giving him powders that went near to killing him? That she had lived in seclusion for several months with her husband at Chartley, and that the non-consummation of the marriage was due, not to the impotence of the husband, but to refusal to him of marital rights on the part of the wife because of her guilty love for Rochester? His lordship of Ess.e.x was still alive, and there was abundant evidence before the court that there had been attempt to consummate the marriage. Whatever Sir Thomas might have said would have smashed as evidence on that one fact. Her ladyship was a virgin.
What did Sir Thomas Overbury know that made every one whose interest it was to further the nullity suit so scared of him--Rochester, her ladyship, Northampton, the Howards, the King himself?
Sir Thomas Overbury was much too cool-minded, too intelligent, to indulge in threats unless he was certain of the grounds, and solid upon them, upon which he made those threats. He had too great a knowledge of affairs not to know that the commission would be a packed one, too great an acquaintance with the strategy of James to believe that his lonely evidence, unless of bombsh.e.l.l nature, would have a chance of carrying weight in a court of his Majesty"s picking. And, then, he was of too big a mind to put forward evidence which would have no effect but that of affording gossip for the scandal-mongers, and the giving of which would make him appear to be actuated by petty spite. He had too great a sense of his own dignity to give himself anything but an heroic role. Samson he might play, pulling the pillars of the temple together to involve his enemies, with himself, in magnificent and dramatic ruin. But Iachimo--no.
In the welter of evidence conflicting with apparent fact which was given before the commission and in the trials of the Great Oyer, in the ma.s.s of writing both contemporary and of later days round the Overbury mystery, it is hard indeed to land upon the truth. Feasible solution is to be come upon only by accepting a not too pretty story which is retailed by Antony Weldon. He says that the girl whom the jury of matrons declared to be virgo intacta was so heavily veiled as to be unidentifiable through the whole proceedings, and that she was not Lady Ess.e.x at all, but the youthful daughter of Sir Thomas Monson.
Mrs Turner, we do know, was very much a favourite with the ladies of Sir Thomas Monson"s family. Gossip Weldon has a funny, if lewd, story to tell of high jinks indulged in by the Monson women and Mrs Turner in which Symon, Monson"s servant, played an odd part. This Symon was also employed by Mrs Turner to carry food to Overbury in the Tower. If the subst.i.tution story has any truth in it it might well have been a Monson girl who played the part of the Countess. But, of course, a Monson girl may have been chosen by the inventors to give verisimilitude to the subst.i.tution story, simply because the family was friendly with Turner, and the tale of the lewd high jinks with Symon added to make it seem more likely that old Lady Monson would lend herself to such a plot.