The Murder in the Tower: The Story of Frances, Countess of Essex

by Jean Plaidy

  Jennet could not comfort her, she was too fearful for her own safety. Weston had been right when he had said that small mercy was shown to the little fish.

  But everyone was waiting for the big fish to be caught in the net; and there was growing indignation throughout the country because four people had been hanged already for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury and the chief murderers had as yet not been brought to trial.

  “What shall I do?” moaned Frances. “What can I do?”

  On a dark December day her child was born.

  Her women brought the baby to her and laid it in her arms.

  “A little girl,” they told her.

  She looked at the child and pity for her state was so great that the tears fell on to the child’s face.

  “The child is born,” she said, “and I still live. Oh, what will become of me?”

  She was in great despair because she knew now that soon she must be brought to justice.

  It occurred to her then that if she named her daughter Anne the Queen might be pleased and would surely do something to help her namesake; and how could she best help this child than by showing a little comfort to her mother?

  So the Lady Anne Carr was christened; but Queen Anne and all the Court ignored the event.

  Frances now understood that there was to be no special treatment. She must face her judges.

  THE TRIAL OF THE BIG FISH

  When Jennet came to tell her that the guards were below, Frances began to weep quietly.

  “They will separate me from my baby,” she said.

  “The child will be well looked after,” Jennet assured her.

  “They will take me to the Tower, Jennet.”

  “My lord Somerset is already there, my lady.”

  “What will become of us all?” moaned Frances.

  Jennet thought of the dangling bodies of Weston, Anne Turner, Sir Gervase Helwys and Franklin, and she was silent.

  Along the river from Blackfriars to the grim fortress. Never had it looked more forbidding. Under the portcullis; the impregnable walls closing about her.

  Here they had brought Thomas Overbury. How had he felt when they brought him in? It had never occurred to her to wonder until now.

  Thomas Overbury, who had been brought here for no crime, who had been sentenced to death not by a Court of law but by Frances, Countess of Somerset!

  She was overcome by a chill fear.

  What if they were to take her to the cell where he had died in agony? What if his ghost remained there to haunt her in the dead of night? He had haunted her since his death in one way; but what if he were to come to her when she was alone in her cold cell?

  She began to scream: “Where are you taking me? You are taking me to Overbury’s cell. I won’t go there. I won’t.”

  The guards exchanged glances, believing those to be the protests of a guilty woman; but she was so beautiful even in her grief, that they were sorry for her.

  “My lady,” they said, “we are taking you to the apartments recently vacated by Sir Walter Raleigh.”

  “Raleigh,” she repeated; and she thought of Prince Henry who had talked to her of that great adventurer and told her that he had often visited him in prison.

  How life had changed for them all! Henry dead; Raleigh preparing to leave for Orinoco; she herself a prisoner about to stand her trial for murder.

  She looked about the room over the portcullis; she sat at the table where Raleigh had worked and she buried her face in her hands.

  What will become of me? she asked herself.

  It was late May when Frances was brought from the Tower to Westminster Hall. Crowds had gathered in the streets because the case had aroused greater interest than any within living memory. The people were angry that the humbler prisoners should have been so promptly brought to justice while the Earl and Countess, who, it appeared, had been the authors of the crime, were allowed so far to go unpunished.

  “Justice!” grumbled the mob. “Let us have justice.”

  This was a State trial and all the trappings of ceremony must be observed. Many of the foremost lords led by the Lord Chancellor Ellesmore had been summoned to appear; everyone wanted to be at the trial; and many of the lesser nobility traveled up from the country for the express purpose of seeing the Countess of Somerset brought to justice.

  The bells were chiming as the Lord Chancellor followed the six sergeants-at-arms, all carrying maces, into the hall. After him came all the dignitaries of the Court. The Lord High Steward and the peers of the realm. There was the Recorder, somberly clad in black; and Sir George More, the Lieutenant of the Tower, who had taken the place of the executed Helwys, was already at the Bar.

  The Sergeant Crier demanded silence while the indictments were read; and when this was done he cried in a voice which could be heard all over the court: “Bring the prisoner to the Bar.”

  The Lieutenant of the Tower disappeared for a few minutes and when he returned he brought Frances with him.

  She was very pale and her lovely eyes betrayed her fear. She was dressed in black with a ruff and cuffs of finest lace; and as she stood at the Bar and raised her eyes toward the Lord High Steward she looked so exquisite that she might have stepped, exactly as she was, from a picture frame.

  “My Lords,” began the Lord High Steward, “you are called here today to sit as peers of Frances, Countess of Somerset.”

  A voice echoed through the Court: “Frances, Countess of Somerset, hold up your hand.”

  Frances obeyed.

  The accusation of murder was then read to her in detail and when it was finished the Clerk of the Crown cried in a resonant voice: “Frances, Countess of Somerset, what say you? Are you guilty of this felony and murder, or not guilty?”

  Everyone in the hall was strained forward to hear her reply.

  She gave it unfalteringly, because, knowing her letters to Forman and Anne Turner were in the hands of her judges, there was only one answer she could give.

  “Guilty,” she answered.

  The trial was not long. Because she had confessed her guilt, there was no need then to bring out those lewd wax figures, those revealing letters. But it did not matter; many of these people had already seen the images, heard the letters read.

  There was nothing she could say in her defense. The whole cruel story was known: The attempt to bewitch Essex, and everyone believed, murder him, which had failed. The attempt to murder Overbury which had succeeded.

  The Chancellor delivered the sentence.

  “Frances, Countess of Somerset, whereas you have been indicted, arraigned and pleaded Guilty, and have nothing to say for yourself, it is now my part to pronounce judgment…. You shall be carried hence to the Tower of London and from thence to a place of execution where you are to be hanged by the neck till you are dead. The Lord have mercy upon your soul.”

  As the Chancellor was speaking Frances saw a pair of brooding eyes fixed upon her from among those assembled to watch her tried.

  Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, could not completely loathe this woman who had tried to make such havoc of his life, and as he looked at the prisoner at the bar he could not shut out of his mind the memory of a laughing girl who had once danced with him so merrily at their wedding.

  Frances turned away. She did not wonder what her first husband was thinking of her now. Her future loomed before her so terrible, so frightening that the past meant little to her.

  Out into the fresh air. Once again to enter the gloomy precincts of the Tower.

  When next she left it—

  But Frances could not bear to contemplate that terror.

  She lifted her face to the May sun; never had it seemed so desirable; never had the river danced and sparkled so brightly; never did the world seem so beautiful as it did now when she was condemned to leave it forever.

  The next day the scene at Westminster Hall was similar but this time there was a different prisoner at the Bar.

  “Robert, Earl of Somerset, h
old up your hand.”

  “Robert, Earl of Somerset, what say you? Are you guilty of this felony and murder whereof you stand indicted, or not guilty?”

  Robert could give a different answer to this question from that which Frances had been compelled to give.

  “Not guilty!” he said firmly.

  Robert’s trial was longer than his wife’s; she had admitted her guilt and condemnation had come swiftly; but Robert was determined to prove his innocence and to fight for his life.

  So the days passed while the evidence was brought and considered; and the letters were read once more and the images displayed.

  Some of the most sorrowful moments were those when he must listen to the words Frances had written to people such as Forman and Anne Turner; when he must hear an account of the orgies in which she took part.

  He realized then that he was only just beginning to know the woman who was the mother of his child; and he felt lost and bewildered.

  There was one friend from whom he longed to hear; but James had nothing more to give to a man who could stand accused of such a dreadful crime. And innocent though he might be, he was allied to the woman who had admitted that she was one of the most wicked in England.

  The court was against him. Robert sensed it. He knew before they gave their verdict that they would find him guilty; that they would condemn him to the same fate as that which they had decided on for Frances.

  He was not surprised when it came, when he was led from the hall out into the sun, to make, as she had made, that journey back to the Tower.

  THE RETRIBUTION

  But neither the Earl nor the Countess of Somerset were hanged by their necks until they died. That was something which the King could not tolerate.

  He had loved that man and he understood that it was ill fortune, circumstances, fate—whatever one cared to call it—which had brought Robert Carr close to the scaffold; it was not Robert’s nature. He had been easy going in those days when his life had been uncomplicated; and that was how it was natural for the lad to be. He had been trapped though, as young men will be, by a scheming woman; and it was she who had brought him low.

  “Robbie shall not hang,” said James to himself, “because he was once my good friend; and as long as my friends seek not to harm me they remain my friends.”

  As for Frances—she was a member of the great Howard family who had, at times, served their country well and she had shown herself to be truly penitent.

  No, they had sinned and they had suffered; they must be punished but not by death.

  In the streets the people murmured.

  “It is one thing for the humble to commit murder and quite another for noble lords and ladies.”

  “Who were the true murderers? Tell me that! And they are to be pardoned, while lovely Anne Turner hung in her yellow ruff until she died.”

  “Weston said the big fish would break out of the net and the little ones be caught. Weston was right.”

  It was a sad state of affairs. No public hanging for the Countess and the Earl. What a spectacle that would have been! Mrs. Turner in her yellow ruff had not provided half the excitement they would have had at the hanging of the Earl and Countess of Somerset.

  Frances was hilariously gay when she heard the news.

  She realized now how she had dreaded the thought of death. She was young; she was vital; and passionately she wanted to live.

  And now she would live; and in time she and Robert would be back at Court.

  The King was enamored of this boy Villiers—but let him wait.

  Would she say in time that all had been worth while? A few weeks ago she would have believed that to be impossible; but now she was going to live again, richly, gloriously.

  But when she discovered that, although the death sentence was not to be carried out, they were still prisoners and might not leave the Tower, Frances’s joy diminished considerably and she was subject to fits of melancholy. How could she plan for a future which was to be spent within the precincts of the Tower of London? What hope had she of taking up her place at Court, of regaining her old influence, when she was a prisoner who was expected to be grateful because she was not dead.

  Her baby was in the care of Lady Knollys who had been a good friend to her; and often little Anne was brought to the Tower to be with her mother.

  Nor was she kept apart from Robert; but gradually she began to understand that she could not resume her old relationship with her husband.

  Every time he looked at her he saw the waxen images which had been displayed in court; every time he heard her voice he remembered the words she had written to her “sweet father,” Dr. Forman.

  In place of the beautiful young girl whom he had loved, he saw an evil woman, whose hands were stained with the blood of a man who had been his closest friend.

  She no longer attracted him; he found even her beauty repulsive.

  His feelings were obvious to her, and she wept and stormed, threatening to end her life; she was angry with him, and bitterly sorry for herself.

  But it was of no use.

  Sometimes she would awake at night and fancy she heard the laughter of Sir Thomas Overbury.

  Robert spent his time in writing pleading letters to the King.

  He asked forgiveness and leniency; he asked that he might be permitted to leave the Tower with his wife and retain his estates.

  James was always upset when he received these letters. He longed to forgive Robert although he had no wish to see him again. To have had him at Court would have been too embarrassing; besides young Steenie would not have tolerated it.

  Yet James did not forget the old days of friendship; and on occasions—when Steenie was a little overbearing—he thought with longing of the early days of friendship with Robbie, when the lad had been so modest and happy to serve his King.

  But he could not bring him back to Court. The people would never hear of it. They had been angry when a pardon had been granted the Earl and his lady. They had said then that there was no justice in England. There had been an occasion when a noble lady in her carriage had been mistaken for the Countess of Somerset and that poor lady had narrowly escaped with her life.

  No, Robbie and his wife must remain prisoners, until such time as they could be quietly released; but of one thing James was certain; Robert must never come back to Court while James lived.

  It was not until some six years after their pardons that James thought they could safely be released; and in order that they should not come to Court, one of the conditions of their freedom was that they should reside only in places which the King would choose for them. These houses were Grays and Cowsham in Oxfordshire and they must not travel more than three miles’ radius of either.

  Robert came to Frances’s cell to tell her the news.

  “We are to leave the Tower. I have the King’s letter here.”

  “Freedom at last!”

  “Nay,” he said coldly, because his voice was always cold when he addressed her, “this is not freedom. Rather is it a change of prison. It is a concession because in these houses we shall not be treated as prisoners and shall have our own servants.” His face lit up with pleasure as he added: “We shall have our daughter with us.”

  Frances’s joy turned to indignation. She had set her heart on returning to Court.

  Yet it would be pleasant to leave the Tower and all the evil memories which she longed to thrust behind her.

  “I always hated living in the country,” she said.

  “Then you must perforce learn to like it,” retorted Robert.

  He was less unhappy than she was. He hated his wife but there was someone whom he could love; and during the last years he had become devoted to his little daughter.

  One day, thought Frances, was so like another, that she believed she would die of very boredom.

  How tired she was of green fields! How she longed for a sight of Whitehall! She would dream that she was seated at the King’s table, that the minstrels were
playing and the dance about to begin. Everyone was seeking her favors because not only was she the wife of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, who held more sway over the King than any ever had, but she was the most beautiful woman at Court.

  Then she would wake to the sound of wind sweeping over the meadows, or the song of the birds, and remember with bitterness that Whitehall was far away—and not only in mileage.

  I shall die, she would say, if I never see Whitehall again.

  Then she would weep into her pillows, or storm at her servants; hoping to find comfort from either action. But there was no comfort; there was only regret.

  Each day she must live with a man who could not hide his feeling for her. He could never see her without remembering some evil deed from her past; he could never forget that he owed his downfall to her. His only happiness was to shut her from his thoughts.

  For months they lived in wretchedness, dreading to be together, yet unable to avoid it; each day Robert’s loathing grew a little stronger; each day her anger against him grew more bitter.

  But Robert found a way out of his despondency. Sometimes from her window, Frances would watch two figures in the paddock; a sturdy little girl and a tall, still handsome man. He was teaching her to ride. The child’s high laughter would come to her ears and sometimes Robert’s would mingle with it.

  They were always together, those two.

  Frances could find no such joy. She had never wanted children, only power, adulation and what she called love—but that did not include the love of a child.

  She continued to fret while Robert learned to live for his daughter.

  Occasionally news came from the world beyond them; it was like, thought Frances miserably, looking at a masque through a misty window; a masque in which one was barred from playing a part. This was no life; she was poised between living and dying.

  Life was the Court where people jostled for power and wealth; but she was no longer of it; nor could she break through to it; she must live out the dreary years in a limbo, poised between vital life and a living death.