No. 112 Sir Thomas Overbury
BORN 1581, POISONED 1613.
Oval. Black coat. Red and white sash. Lace collar. Pointed beard.
Was of a good family in Warwickshire. Born at Compton Scorfen, the home of his maternal grandfather. Entered Queen’s College, Oxford, as gentleman commoner, where he studied logic and philosophy, and afterwards went to the Middle Temple.
His father, having been bred to the law, wished he should pursue the same calling, but Thomas preferred the study of polite literature, and the allurements of a Court life.
After a brief tour on the Continent he went to Scotland, where he became acquainted with Robert Carr or Kerr, then page to the Earl of Dunbar, and, forming a close friendship, they travelled to London together. Writers appear to be at variance as to the date when King James I. saw, and took a fancy to young Carr; and the story of his falling wounded from his horse, in a tilting-match, at the King’s feet, requires confirmation.
But there was no doubt that he soon stood high in the royal favour, and Carr was one who well knew how to improve his opportunities, being of a time-serving disposition, and no way above flattery. His education had been neglected, and the ‘royal pedant,’ as James has so often been called, undertook to teach the youth Latin. Whether he prosecuted his studies with much zeal we do not know, but he was an adept in the art of self-aggrandisement; and, believing in Overbury’s disinterested friendship, he consulted him on every step he took. Interceding with the King for his friend, he gained the honour of knighthood (for honour it was indeed esteemed in those days) for Thomas, and managed that the father Overbury should be made a judge. This was about 1608.
Carr himself was raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Rochester. He became enamoured of the Countess of Essex, (wife to the third Earl of the Devereux family, and daughter to Howard, Earl of Suffolk,) then but eighteen years of age, ‘of a sweet and bewitching countenance, hiding a wicked heart.’ She was headstrong into the bargain, and her passion for Carr knew no bounds. She hated her husband, her father, and all who expostulated with her on her shameless conduct, and smiled on no one but her lover and ‘sweet Mistress Turner,’ her go-between.
It has been adduced against Overbury, that he at first encouraged the intrigue, but when the question of a divorce arose, he left no stone unturned to dissuade Rochester from the attempt to procure one, which brought down upon him the lasting hatred of the beautiful termagant. Overbury warned his friend, that it would be destructive to his future fortunes to marry a woman whose husband was still living; moreover, that her conduct was infamous, and would brand them both with ignominy. Peyton (Sir Thomas’s servant) describes the quarrel which took place between his master and my Lord of Rochester on the occasion.
Overbury waited ‘in the chamber next the privy gallery’ for the return of Rochester, who did not appear till three in the morning. High words passed between them, my Lord asking angrily what Sir Thomas ‘did there at that time of night;’ Overbury replying by the question, ‘Where have you been? Will you never leave the company of that bad woman?’ But all his warnings and admonitions were thrown away, and only insured him the deadly enmity of both lovers. The King, who was not likely to be deterred by any sense of rectitude from the weak pleasure he found in complying with any demand that Rochester might make, not only connived at the passing of the divorce, but created Carr Earl of Somerset, as he was not considered of sufficiently high rank to marry one who had been a Countess. The lovers now turned their thoughts to the ruin of their quondam friend. It was easy in those days to procure a commitment to the Tower, and Sir Thomas Overbury soon found himself within those dreary walls, Somerset pretending all the while the greatest friendship for the prisoner.
Overbury’s father wrote him a pleading letter in behalf of his son, but Sir Thomas was not allowed to see any friends. There can be no doubt of the fact that his food was drugged, and he fell into bad health; but his constitution was strong, and he languished for some time.
The perfidious Somerset sent him a white powder that he was ‘convinced would be efficacious. He might,’ he said, ‘take it without fear, even if it produced sickness, which sickness may be a plea for your release.’
The unfortunate man’s release was by the hand of death. He died from the effects of strong poison administered to him medically, and was buried with indecent haste. Ugly rumours were abroad, and the names of Lord and Lady Somerset were in many mouths, but few cared to come forward as accusers while the mantle of Royal protection was thrown over them. But ‘Robie’ was supplanted at Court by ‘Steenie,’ or in other words, by George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham; and when his star was in the ascendant, then the mouths of many were opened. About this time too, a curious incident occurred which helped to confirm the suspicions concerning Overbury’s mysterious death.
One day that Lord Salisbury was entertaining at the same time, at dinner, Sir Gervase Elwes (Governor of the Tower at the time of Overbury’s death) and Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State, his lordship recommended the former to the patronage of the latter, upon which Winwood said how much he wished Elwes could clear himself of the imputation of murder that had been cast upon him. Whereon he (Elwes) spoke out, and confessed all, together with the share that the Earl and Countess of Somerset had had in the terrible transaction, and so it came about that the guilty pair were arrested with the consent of the King.
The hypocritical James, taking leave of his ex-favourite, embraced him with every show of affection; but no sooner had he left the apartment, than he cried out: ‘The devil go with thee, for I will never see thy face again.’
The trial of persons so high in position, and so well known in royal circles, caused a great sensation, and the Court was crowded with ladies and great personages. Lord Somerset wore a dress of black satin, and a gown of uncut velvet, his ruff and cuffs were of cobweb lace, neither had he forgotten to wear his George and Garter, or have his hair carefully curled. His handsome face was very pale, and he pleaded not guilty. ‘He trusted to the justice of the Lords to acquit him.’ He denied everything, even his own letters, which he said were ‘counterfeit.’
The lady was arraigned next day, and her demeanour, which we are told by a contemporary was ‘sober,’ was altogether different from that of her husband. She pleaded guilty with a low obeisance. She several times covered her face with her fan, during evidence given, but she confessed everything. She shed (or made a show of shedding) some tears divers times. Her deportment, says the same authority, ‘was more curious and confident than was fit for a lady in such distress.’
Yet it is also said of her that her voice was scarce audible from fear, when she hoped the Lords would intercede for her. The verdict was, that the Earl and Countess of Somerset, with several accomplices, were guilty of devising and compassing the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.
The King, fickle and cruel as he was, appeared very uneasy during the trial, even going so far as to lose his appetite for dinner and supper; but he did not like the idea of signing the death-warrant of the two people at whose wickedness he had connived; so he signed their pardon, and they were committed to the Tower—the lady not being taken thither till after her confinement, when it is said she shed a few tears over her new-born daughter, and was removed to prison.
The accomplices, Elwes, Weston, and the beautiful but infamous ‘Mistress Turner,’ Lady Somerset’s go-between in her amours, and abettor in the murder of Overbury, with others, were all executed.
An eye-witness speaks of the bewitching appearance of the fair Mistress Turner on the scaffold. ‘I saw her die,’ says the letter alluded to—‘her powdered hair, her yellow bands, her starched ruff;’ and a poem that was written, called ‘Overbury’s Vision,’ speaks of the cruel cord that did ‘misbecome her comely neck; yet by man’s just doom had been her death.’ ‘Sighs and tears and Court vanities,’ etc. etc.
Lord and Lady Somerset lived together in the Tower till 1622, when an order from the King in Council set them at liberty, prescribing for them, however, a place of residence. James intended to restore their property, which was forfeited, but died before the fulfilment of his promise, and Charles I. did not see fit to ratify the same. They were in consequence reduced to great poverty, and the passion which had led them to such fatal extremes turned to loathing; so that, although residing under the same roof, Lord and Lady Somerset lived as strangers, and the miserable woman died of a most painful disease, crying out in her last moments on the name of the husband she had so basely injured: ‘Oh, Essex! Essex!’
A touching incident is told of their daughter, the wife of the Earl of Bedford. Her portrait by Vandyck is well known, and her sweet fair face and lovely form live in more than one gallery. Lord Somerset dearly loved his only child; the affection was mutual, and she reverenced his memory; but one sad day, as the lovely Lady Bedford sat reading by the window, she came accidentally across a pamphlet which opened her eyes to the complicated guilt of both her parents. The shock was too much for her, and the next person who entered the room found her in a swoon on the floor, with the open book beside her.
We have perhaps afforded too much space, in a notice purporting to be a life of Sir Thomas Overbury, to the story of Somerset and his wife, but the lives are so intimately connected, that we hope to be held excused. Overbury had a reputation for wit and talent, and wrote several pieces in prose and verse.