Disgrace And Favour

by Jeremy Potter

  Carr made to brush him aside, then hesitated. His wits were never sharp. When uncertain, he would blow hot and cold like a woman. His brave words were apt to falter and he could turn tearful in the face of resolution.

  ‘Show your friendship then,’ he muttered. ‘Name my enemies.’

  ‘I will name one,’ Carey replied. ‘In confidence.’

  He looked towards Lord Roxburgh, who responded angrily: ‘We want none of your false secrets and feigned fellowship.’

  The elder Kerr seized the younger by the sleeve and firmly dragged him from the chamber. As they passed, Carey could do no more than whisper the name of Northampton. What effect it had was impossible to discern, and he rose to his feet reflecting how different the encounter might have been but for the ill-chanced presence of the laird of Cessford.

  He chose not to pursue them to St James’s, but when he arrived later it was to find his wife brimming with vexation. She had been sitting with the Prince when the visitors called. Lord Roxburgh had kissed her against her will and Carr had shut the door on her. After their departure the Prince had told her that Lord Roxburgh was to be the new master of his household.

  Since the day of Prince Henry’s death Carey had been fearful of losing his post now that Charles was heir to the throne, but to lose it to his bitterest enemy would be past enduring.

  ‘They accused you of being lax in your attendance on him, she reported.

  ‘Who has made such a complaint? Let me know his name and I will force the words back between his teeth.’

  ‘The Prince himself has made none. That is sure. He will petition the King against any change. The Queen too will be displeased. I will solicit her immediately, but Lord Roxburgh is playing his cards cleverly. It is being said that during his visit to Denmark House yesterday he sought Mistress Drummond’s hand in marriage.’

  ‘And will she take the brute? Did his last wife not die of his cruelty?’

  ‘She is a Catholic like him, and of no age to refuse a man.’

  Kerr married to the principal Lady of the Queen’s Bedchamber! It would be as great an infamy as stealing the Prince from him. Mistress Drummond was Lady Carey’s chief rival for the royal ear. Carey’s scowl deepened as he tried to remember what indiscreet words he might have let drop in her presence.

  ‘A fine nest of Catholics,’ he muttered. ‘By chance it is as well that you are one of them.’

  ‘I am as loyal as you, Robin,’ she retorted. There was reproach in her voice and he stopped her mouth with a kiss.

  The battle for the Prince was as hard fought as any in Normandy. At first, with Carr basking in the King’s favour, his victory seemed assured. Then the prospect of his triumph provoked the Queen. She denounced Lord Roxburgh as uncouth and sulked when Mistress Drummond begged leave to marry and resign her post. Urged by Lady Carey, she put on her finest jewels and visited Whitehall in state to inform the King that to place their delicate heir in the hands of a rough Border laird would endanger the succession. She took the opportunity of reminding him how Prince Henry had been snatched from her and placed in the hands of her enemies. She wept once again at the memory of his death and wondered aloud between her tears about the mercury found in his body and whether a plot was now afoot to end the life of their only remaining son.

  When she would not stop lamenting to listen to his rebukes, nor be put off and allow him to leave when informed that he had urgent business with the Spanish ambassador, the King was moved from anger to desperation. All he wanted was peace, and her words were assaulting him like a cannonade. Since they met so seldom she went on to air her own complaints, which were gout and her miserly allowance of servants - the numbers in her household were restricted to five hundred and she would have him remember that she had been brought up the daughter of a king. When at last permitted to speak, he implored her not to fret, and she promised to dry her eyes and obey him if her petition were granted. Baby Charles would pine if separated from Lady Carey and it must be the King’s pleasure that Sir Robert should remain his governor.

  Their private audience continued for so long that it was impatiently interrupted by Carr. Learning of the purpose of the Queen’s visit, he entered the room unsummoned and delivered an ultimatum that unless a change were made in Prince Charles’s household he would seek leave of the King to retire for an indefinite period to his estates at Sherborne. The Queen swept from the chamber without leigning to notice his presence.

  Torn between them, the King spent several unhappy days before announcing that the governorship would be put into commission. It was to be held jointly by three commissioners. Carey was named as one of them and Lord Roxburgh as another. The compromise pleased neither. Roxburgh consoled himself with spiting the Queen by announcing his betrothal to Mistress Drummond; Carey with a vow that, come what may, he would topple the favourite.

  The Queen had refused his suggestion that she include the release of Overbury among her many demands. That was expecting too much. But his plea on Overbury’s behalf had not gone entirely unheeded. At Carr’s request, the King consented to order the royal physician, Sir Thomas Mayerne, to attend Overbury in the Tower. But if he thought to avert suspicion by that means, he had counted without the Queen.

  ‘So,’ she remarked to her ladies, ‘an end is to be put to the agony of that wretch Overbury. His Majesty has appointed the executioner who killed my son.’

  Her words were remembered, for within a few days the inconvenient Overbury was dead. His body was reported ‘very noisome’, but a coroner’s jury summoned in haste to the Tower returned a verdict of death from natural causes. A week later, as though this were a long-awaited signal, the seemingly interminable proceedings of the Essex divorce commission reached a sudden conclusion.

  The King had never wavered in his determination to secure a divorce or nullity which would enable his favourite to marry Frances Howard, but the effective exercise of the royal will had become dependent on the condition of the lady’s maidenhead. Acting on the Bishop of London’s suggestion, the Earl’s lawyers had demanded a physical examination and the Countess declared herself willing. Far from being downcast with shame, she seemed enraptured that the interest of the whole nation should be concentrated on the most intimate part of her body - the most famous and beautiful body in England.

  After a horrified consultation, the commission delegated the unwelcome task to a posse of gentlewomen. These, amid general excitement and incredulity, faithfully attested to the intactness of the maidenhead and pronounced the Countess to be virgo incorrupta.

  When this announcement was made, the Countess smiled sweetly and vowed that now her reputation had been cleared she would have vengeance on her enemies for their slanders. The King was as overjoyed as if he had won a victory in arms. Soon, however, word spread that when faced with the examination the Countess had pleaded an unprecedented attack of embarrassment and been permitted to undergo inspection with her face heavily veiled. Outside the court whispers of a deception quickly began to circulate and it was said that a young cousin of the Countess had been paid a fortune to act as substitute. According to their enemies, the Howards had had a long, hard search through the family before discovering a maidenhead intact.

  Whatever the truth, the evidence before them could not be ignored by the commissioners, already under siege from threats and promises by the King and Carr and all the Howards. As the day of the verdict approached, five were known to be in favour of granting the petition while five remained entrenched in opposition. After more fruitless theological argument with his recalcitrant Archbishop, the King resolved the deadlock by appointing two additional commissioners subservient to him. Both were bishops. The Archbishop remonstrated vigorously in public and came to court prepared to deliver a long speech on the sin and wickedness of the annulment of the marriage. The King, forewarned, retaliated by forbidding him to read it: each commissioner was to say aye or no to the petition and not a word more.

  Thus Frances Howard had her way by seven v
otes to five, and the Archbishop retired indignantly to Lambeth to appeal to posterity by rewriting his speech for publication as Memorials Touching the Nullity Between the Earl of Essex and his Lady. The Countess kissed Carr in court and the Earl, scorning Carey’s attempts to calm him, shook his fist and cursed them both.

  He shook his fist again in the street, this time in the direction of the palace. The grumbling Earl now had a grudge indeed. Carey followed him, remonstrating. Too many hopes could be burned to ashes in the furnace of Essex’s resentment.

  ‘A pox on you!’ he cried at the touch of Carey’s restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘That you of all men should be an advocate of caution! How my father would have scorned the man he once knighted for valour!’

  Appealing to God for vengeance with a far from pious gesture towards the abbey, he allowed himself to be led away from Westminster. Carey swallowed the insult but would not let him out of sight. The Earl made his way to Southampton House to seek the advice of his father’s nearest friend.

  The Earl of Southampton was no man to calm another. His own rashness had not diminished with the years. Unlike Carey, he enjoyed the rank and means to speak and behave as he chose. The rebellion of Essex’s father was in the cause of James’s succession, and the reward for his part in it had been rich. The sole right to farm taxes on all sweet wines brought into England from abroad had been granted to him for life. The share he passed to the Crown was a pittance. By way of compensation he entertained James royally at Beaulieu Abbey during the court’s progresses in the south when the King hunted in the New Forest. They tippled through the night together, sampling the latest consignments from Bordeaux. Yet his readiness to quarrel gave offence, and he had fallen into disfavour for duelling and flaunting his contempt for the King’s Scottish favourites. ‘You are well rid of the whore,’ he told Essex. ‘But if this mincing cur is to be united to the Pope-ridden Howards, the time has come for Englishmen to act.’

  ‘To act in what manner?’ Carey demanded uneasily.

  ‘The King is sick. He is feeble and doting, ill-advised by traitors. He no longer possesses the ability to rule, and the treasury has been empty since Cecil died. We must rescue and mend him. Until that is accomplished, we must oppose all policies adopted in his name. To obtain money, he will be forced to summon a Parliament. I shall rouse the Commons against him unless he changes his ministers.’

  ‘Suppose the King should die?’ Essex’s fingers were drumming an execution roll on the handle of his sword. He did not choose to lower his voice, nor did Southampton in reply.

  ‘His son is in Sir Robert’s care and loves Sir Robert’s wife. We need not grieve overmuch at the passing of poor Jamie.’

  They were standing in the Earl’s great chamber. Carey, with the instinct of his early training, peered about him for eavesdroppers. It was as he feared. The thick Flemish hangings were capable of concealing an army of spies. He groaned to himself, not giving much for his chances if interrogated in the Star Chamber in the company of two such conspirators as these.

  ‘Does your heart grow faint with age?’ sneered Southampton, noticing his glances. ‘I never knew your famous father look over his shoulder.’ It was the same jibe as Essex had made and it bit deep into Carey’s pride.

  ‘If my father had been more circumspect,’ he retorted angrily, ‘he would not have died without his earldom. As for me, I learned the prudence proper to wise men from Burleigh and Walsingham when an agent for my cousin, the Queen of this realm. If my heart were not stout, would I have undertaken your mission to the Tower or be consorting with the two hottest-headed madcaps in England? No man calls me coward and lives.’

  Taking ‘hot-headed madcap’ for a compliment, Southampton offered his hand. ‘I spoke in jest,’ he said. ‘Let us talk of agents. I have an informant in Northampton’s household. The unlikely explanation of your wanderings in the Tower has, he tells me, been reported to the Council. What is more, Carr has informed Northampton that you named him as his enemy. That is too near the truth to be forgiven.’

  ‘There is a further matter which may prove troublesome,’ Carey confessed. ‘Jane Drummond, who is to marry my greatest enemy, has overheard my talking with the Queen concerning the poisoning of Prince Henry. That too may reach Northampton’s ears.’

  ‘What can he do that we cannot?’ demanded Essex. ‘Let us act first and forestall him.’

  ‘There is little need for haste. He will bide his time as befits a seasoned conspirator,’ said Southampton. ‘I have had a close watch kept on Henry Howard ever since he helped to bring your father to the scaffold and myself to the Tower, all the while corresponding treasonably with the King of Scotland himself.’

  ‘Why delay?’ asked Essex. ‘Let us have done with all the Howards at once. Let us lead an uprising today and set the young Prince on the throne.’ Careless of spies, he spoke in a crescendo, loud enough to raise dust from the roof-beams.

  ‘Not yet,’ Southampton told him. ‘Your divorce has made the King unpopular, but that by itself is not enough. Suppose, however, it were to become known that Sir Thomas Overbury had been murdered while in custody in the Tower? His offence was slight, his imprisonment unjust, his death as convenient to some in high places as Prince Henry’s. Then should we not have a scandal to unseat a favourite and, who knows, unthrone a King? All we require today is a man of spirit who will undertake to ferret out the truth.’

  The two Earls stared Carey in the face.

  ‘If you lack money,’ said Southampton, ‘I have it and to spare. My steward will supply you with what is needful.’

  ‘If you are threatened and require protection,’ said Essex, ‘come to me. I have swordsmen in my service.’

  4

  While Carey devoted himself to public attendance on the Duke of York and a private investigation into Overbury’s death, the star of Carr’s fortune continued to rise.

  Southampton had reported truly that the King was both ill and bankrupt. Drinking to excess had inflamed his kidneys. Eating unwisely had caused diarrhoea and vomiting, palpitations and heartburn. An injury to his right foot, twisted one day in the saddle, made walking painful. The patience of his officials and servants, who had not been paid for months, was sorely tried by his whining complaints about lack of health and money. His growing sickness of mind came, as Elizabeth’s had, from the recognition that God, inscrutably, had not excused him from death. More immediately, it came from the prospect of having to call Parliament and throw himself on the mercy of a rascally Commons which was likely to prove truculent and disrespectful to the representative whom God had appointed to rule England on His behalf.

  Unable to hunt, he drank, talked, hugged his Robin, and decided to cheer himself and make his favourite happy with a splendid marriage. The union between Carr and his long-desired Frances was to be a royal occasion. The festivities were to last thoughout the twelve days of Christmas, until no guest could drink another loving-cup or swallow another mouthful of food. The whole court was to be invited.

  As it was unthinkable that the Countess of Essex should be degraded in rank, it pleased his Majesty to promote his trusty and well beloved Robert Carr from the viscountcy of Rochester to the earldom of Somerset. The anti-Howard earls smothered their chagrin, and all except Essex contrived to smile and offer their insincere congratulations to the upstart Scottish page.

  The wedding ceremony took place on the day after Christmas. It was held in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall, where the bride had once been married to another man, still very much alive. It was conducted by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who had conducted the previous ceremony. The decision in each case was the King’s. Was he intending by this means to emphasize the nullity of the first union, or was he simply exercising his perverse and mawkish humour? Carey inquired, but no one could tell.

  The most-asked question of the day was whether the bride would wear her hair bound as an already married woman, or whether she would allow it to hang free in the fashion of a maiden. Carey h
ad a wager with his wife and won. When she entered the chapel on the arm of her bridesman, great-uncle Northampton, Frances Howard’s famous fair hair was seen to be sweeping and sparkling over her shoulders. It reached down her back almost to her feet. In a rich white dress encrusted with diamonds and pearls she made a perfect vision of purest virginity. Only her expression lacked innocence. Her mouth was set hard in defiance and her sharp eyes darted over the congregation to identify and challenge the censorious.

  By established custom of the court all office-holders made gifts to the couple, and woe betide any beholden to the Crown whose offering was not deemed costly enough. The King stopped bemoaning his penury and set a standard by selling Crown estates to the value of ten thousand pounds to spend on jewels for the bride. Others gave gold, but the Queen chose to demonstrate her disapproval - and perpetual need for funds - with a modest gift of silver dishes. After much heart-searching, the Careys gave a handsome set of fire-irons and silver ornaments for the hearth. Carey presented them humbly to Carr and they were graciously received. The two Robins eyed each other warily as men of the world, conscious that a twist of fortune could bring them together at another time, and that meanwhile, beneath the mask of courtesy, each was bent on the other’s downfall.

  Essex alone would not play the game of pretence. Other rivalries and enmities were set aside while the banquets and dancing and masques continued until Twelfth Night. His were too near and bitter, with Northampton loudly proclaiming joy that at last his fair and virtuous young kinswoman was to have pen and ink in her chamber. Making an unbridled retort about pens which wrote in the King’s hand, Essex set out from his palace on the Strand and crossed the Channel without leave in a flush of fury. Behind him he left messages to the other Protestant lords, as they feasted, informing them he could be found in Paris, where he wojld await Southampton’s call to armed insurrection.