Disgrace And Favour

by Jeremy Potter

  ‘Once the guilty are forewarned, evidence may be destroyed,’ the Archbishop replied. ‘Is that the desire of the Earl of Somerset?’

  ‘There have been rumours in the air since the day of Sir Thomas’s death,’ interrupted the Lord Chancellor before Carr could reply. ‘Justice demands that we act with speed.’

  ‘Cries for justice have a fine ring about them.’ Carr sneered and glanced accusingly round the table. ‘I smell a plot,’ he sniffed. ‘There is a contrived and false appearance about this mysterious lad who is said to be dying at such a convenient time and distance.’ His glance swept round in appeal to the King, who fingered his beard in vexation.

  Seeing him irresolute, Winwood referred to his papers and assumed a careful tone of impartiality. ‘The date on which the poisoned enema is reported to have been administered was the fourteenth of September nearly two years ago. After such a lapse of time I do not believe that we could reasonably be accused of proceeding with undue haste. If the confession be false, it were as well to nail it as a lie before the news spreads, as it surely will like fire on a windy night.’

  ‘Let Sir Gervase be interrogated,’ pronounced the King, ‘but be particular to bring me word before you take the affair further. I enjoin your strict obedience.’

  Without more ado, or so much as returning Carr’s glance, he shuffled from the room alone, not choosing to side openly with the Archbishop nor to support himself with an arm round his favourite’s neck as of old. When confronted with unpleasing decisions and duties, his policy was to separate himself from them by riding away. Within the hour he was on horseback on the road to Royston, shivering in the August heat at the turbulence of Overbury’s vengeance from the grave. Whenever prisoners died in the Tower the King could be sure of being accused behind his back. Posterity would hold him responsible. Worse, the whispers about Prince Henry’s death would start again.

  Even the prospect of the companionship of his George at the hunting lodge brought no comfort. After a few miles he was forced to dismount and squat behind a hedge. Diarrhoea was one of his many ailments for which Mayerne was unable to find a cure. Every spring and autumn the contents of his bowels liquefied. Even now, in the height of summer, he could not contain himself and his clothes were already soiled.

  Despite faintness, he refused to break his journey at Theobalds and pressed on to put more miles between himself and the troubles of Robin and the state, until near Bunting-ford he fell exhausted from his horse into a deep pond. The animal had shied at an oncoming cart and threw him head first, leaving nothing to be seen by his attendants except a pair of boots upside down. They pulled him out and hung God’s representative here on earth over the parapet of a bridge, pumping the water from his stomach until he was leaking violently from both ends.

  At Royston he was put to bed with Villiers and whisky to keep him warm and made a most miraculous recovery, thus proving once more to his own satisfaction the existence of a special relationship between God and King. He was soon out coursing hares on the heath by day, and spent the evenings drinking himself into a contented stupor.

  In his absence the enemies of the abandoned Carr pursued their hunt for human quarry and closed in ruthlessly for the kill. Sir Gervase’s confession sealed more than one fate. The guileless Lieutenant admitted to discovering that Weston was serving Overbury with poisoned food. He excused himself by claiming that he had made every effort to put a stop to it. Dismissing the man had been out of the question since he knew him to be acting on the instructions of Frances Howard, who stood high in the King’s favour and was about to marry the royal favourite.

  No one, he further claimed, could accuse him of aiding and abetting murder since he had no knowledge of any intention that the poisoning should be fatal. A few days after Overbury’s death he questioned Weston again, and only then did he realize the truth that the enema had killed him. What could he do? The coroner’s jury had already pronounced its verdict. Reporting what Weston had told him would have made him powerful enemies and cost him his living. It would not have brought the prisoner back to life.

  As commanded, Winwood carried news of the confession to the King, humbly craving permission to continue the investigation. Panic-stricken at the revelation of his wife’s complicity, Carr hurried at his heels to beg an end to it. The Prince was at Royston too, and Carey with him, come to persuade James in the boy’s cause that Henry had been dead long enough and Charles, as undoubted heir to the throne, should be created Prince of Wales. The King’s fall had once more aroused speculation about the succession. If he were thrown again, and fatally, it was imperative for Charles to be recognized as capable of ruling in his own right. Imperative, at least, for Charles and Carey.

  Annoyed that his troubles pursued him, and as little inclined as Elizabeth to anticipate his own death, the King growled that Baby Charles was too young. He commanded Carey to take the Prince and Villiers hunting while he dealt with Winwood and Carr, and to see that the two youths loved each other as brothers. Carey left his Majesty cursing, in a frenzy of blasphemy, at the prospect of missing a good day’s sport.

  When the hunt returned towards evening he was bidding his Robin the fondest of farewells, slobbering over him, pinching his cheek and showing every outward sign of renewed affection.

  ‘When shall I see thee again?’ he moaned. ‘Upon my soul, I shall neither eat nor sleep till you come again.’

  Carr climbed stiffly into his coach, grave but reassured, and waved a last kiss before being driven away. To a superstitious man, reared on the folklore of the Border, the date had been ominous: Friday the thirteenth of October.

  No sooner had the coach turned at the crossroads and disappeared from sight along the London road than the King embraced his furious George and promised that he would never again set eyes on Robin’s face. Re-entering the house, he immediately authorized Winwood to set up a commission to investigate the charges against all persons, of whatever degree, suspected of complicity in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Within a week Mistress Turner and her servant Weston were in the Tower and Robin and his Countess under house arrest.

  Weston was examined by Lord Chief Justice Coke himself, a man without scruples who never tempered his injustice with mercy. The boy Reeve, terrified at the consequences of his confession, had risen from his death-bed like a child of Satan, decamped from Flushing and vanished from the known world. Weston was therefore cast in the role of principal murderer: he was accused of poisoning Overbury with arsenic and mercury sublimate. Lest one should not suffice, there were four separate charges: mixing red arsenic in broth, white arsenic in meat, mercury in tarts and jellies, and mercury in the enema.

  The significance of Weston’s interrogation did not escape notice. Until a principal had been convicted, no proceedings could be taken against accessories. Rumour had it that Weston was complaining bitterly of little birds being netted while great ones were let go, but saying little else.

  His trial at the Guildhall was so thickly thronged by the curious that Carey’s office carried no influence to gain him entry, and he could barely squeeze himself past the door. Weston looked older in the few weeks since they had met, bewildered by the occasion and the crowd, but calm and rugged and outwardly uncowed.

  When the charges were read and he was asked how he would be tried, he replied firmly, ‘By God’. When told that the proper form was ‘By God and my country’, and that he must recognize the jurisdiction of the court by pleading in those words, he repeated stubbornly that he would be tried by God alone.

  After several more refusals, the court and spectators came to realize that the plea was being made not in ignorance but from set policy. Consternation prevailed. If the prisoner would not plead, there could be no trial. If there were no trial, there could be no conviction. If there were no conviction of Weston, Carr and his wife would never be brought to justice. While the court anxiously considered how to proceed, it was whispered through the hall that this simple man who could neither read nor w
rite, let alone be expected to understand the implications of his action, had been secretly persuaded to it by none other than the Solicitor General, a sworn enemy of the Lord Chief Justice and a man who owed his advancement to the house of Howard. Northampton might be dead, but the Howards could still command the brains of others. They would fight hard and were not beaten yet.

  Coke, who presided, then attempted to intimidate the accused. Refusing to plead in proper form was equivalent to standing mute, he explained with due solemnity, and the penalty for standing mute was to be pressed to death. This threat hushed the assembly in the hall, but left the accused unmoved. When asked whether he realized what the punishment meant he did not reply.

  It meant, the Lord Chief Justice told him with relish, that he would be tortured to death as slowly as human ingenuity could contrive: onere, frigore et fame. His body would be stretched and weights placed on it until his bones were shattered and he could bear no more without dying. Then he would be left exposed, naked and starving in the open air, until he was again on the point of death. He would then be resuscitated with ditch water and coarsest bread, in order that he should be kept alive in the cruellest agony imaginable. The water and bread would be fed to him on alternate days. On water days there would be no bread and on bread days no water. He would linger in this extremity for eight or nine days before getting the trial he wanted - and so richly deserved - from God. The Almighty, His infinite mercy notwithstanding, would then sentence him to an eternity in the flames of hell.

  Weston shook his head in wooden disbelief. He had been told that if he pleaded correctly he would be tried and put to death, but if he refused there would be no trial. What justification could there then be for punishing him, since his guilt had not been proved?

  Unable to move him, Coke ruled in desperation that the trial should proceed nevertheless. The evidence was produced and proceedings continued until the close of the day, when they stood adjourned.

  This flagrant contempt of the law by the Lord Chief Justice brought public sympathy back to the Someresets and the Howards. In the taverns and inns of court that night Coke’s determination to secure a conviction at all costs was judged to be clear proof that the fallen favourite and his wife were to be the victims of a fraudulent plot trumped up by their enemies. It began to be doubted whether the boy Reeve had ever existed.

  Weston spent the weekend in manacles, harangued turn and turn about by the Lord Bishops of London and Ely, who expressed their earnest concern for his soul and warned him, as appointed agents of God, that only by pleading and confessing to his crime could he save himself from everlasting perdition. When this had no effect, because the prisoner in his ignorance seemed more concerned with his chafed wrists than his immortal soul, they consulted Coke and changed their tactics.

  ‘I have suffered the sad duty of attending many executions,’ Bishop King then told Weston. ‘Hanging is painless. What purpose can be served if you persist in inflicting terrible agony on yourself? None, let me assure you truly; except to save others more guilty than yourself. And have you not said how much you desire that the great ones should not escape?’

  ‘If you do what pleases him,’ argued Bishop Andrews when his turn came, ‘the Lord Chief Justice may reward you by recommending that the King grant a pardon. He said as much to me this morning.’

  Weston uttered not a word to either of them, but when the court reassembled he declared himself willing to be tried by God and his country. Coke, relieved beyond measure, ordered the previous proceedings to be struck from the record and the trial began again. With the verdict a foregone conclusion, it was conducted with the object of incriminating others as much as the accused. Two days later, all legal proprieties observed, Weston was taken to Tyburn and hanged, stolidly expecting the pardon which never came.

  Mistress Turner was Coke’s next victim. She had given Weston the money to bribe the apothecary’s boy, and her indictment was identical to his. Although again the judge and not the prosecutor, the Lord Chief Justice took it upon himself to be the main accuser, charging her additionally with seven deadly sins. She was a whore, a bawd, a sorceress, a witch, a Papist, a felon and a murderess, he announced, laying particular emphasis on her adherence to Rome and declaring in open court that poisoning was a Popish trick. He reminded the court too, without apparent relevance, that a woman who had once supplied provisions to Prince Henry’s household had been a Papist, as had one of the Prince’s cooks, John Ferris, who was known to have served the Earl of Somerset as well. This was not the only mention of the Somersets. Letters from Frances Howard to Mistress Turner were read and the nefarious dealings between the two women disclosed to the world. There were exhibits to gratify the public taste - obscene mommets found in the accused’s house and used to cast spells for the Countess.

  Like Weston, Mistress Turner made no confession. After sentence her execution was delayed in the hope that she would reveal more. When she failed in this, although not for want of trying, she followed her servant to Tyburn and died devoutly after exhorting the people to take warning from her example.

  To Carey the downfall of the wicked was just, however accomplished, but he determined to honour his promise to Sir Gervase and do whatever lay in his power to save a man more foolish than guilty. Winwood, whom he approached, confessed himself powerless. The fate of all those caught in the net of the great inquiry had become a matter to be decided behind closed doors between the King and his Lord Chief Justice. If his unpredictable Majesty demanded that Sir Gervase be hanged, Coke would arrange it for him. With Ellesmere so old, the Chancellorship would soon be vacant. Coke had his eye on it. He would do anything to curry favour with the King, and the Council could not interfere with what passed for justice.

  The former Lieutenant was arraigned after three weeks’ imprisonment in the Tower which had once rested in his keeping. He was charged with abetting Weston in the poisoning of Overbury. The evidence against him was taken from his correspondence with Northampton and from statements made by Weston. Since both were dead there could be no cross-examination, and under interrogation Sir Gervase had remained staunch in his denial of any knowledge of intent to commit murder until he came to question Weston after Overbury’s death. The accusation that he had been an accessory before the fact was false, he passionately maintained.

  To put some fat on the meagre evidence against him, the Lord Chief Justice busied himself with abusing the accused and prejudicing him in the eyes of the jury.

  ‘Of all felonies,’ he instructed them, ‘murder is the most horrible. Of all murders, poisoning is the most detestable. Of all poisonings, the most noxious is the lingering poison such as killed Sir Thomas Overbury. Consider well the abject baseness and cowardice of poisoners, who attempt a secret crime against which there is no means of preservation or defence.’

  While he spoke he turned continually from the jury to glare at Sir Gervase, who only when the damage was irreparable was at last permitted to address the court in his own defence.

  ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘when a prisoner stands at the bar for his life, comfortless, allowed no counsel, affrighted with the fear of death and by the thought of his wife and children being cast out of doors and made to seek their bread, it ill becomes you to have no pity for him. You have paraphrased upon every examination, you have aggravated every evidence and applied it against me, so that I stand clearly condemned before I am found guilty. May God help me, since none will in this court.’

  Coke was affronted. His dignity would tolerate no criticism from felonious wretches at the bar. He drew out a document hidden in his pocket and announced that he had just received it.

  ‘Neither your protestations nor your appealing to God,’ he thundered, ‘will sway a jury from the evidence. But to leave you without excuse and make the matter as plain as may be, here is the confession of James Franklin. This poor man came to me this morning at five o’clock much troubled in his conscience. He could not rest all night until he had made his confession, and
it is such a one - these were his own words - as the eye of England never saw, nor the ear of Christendom ever heard.’

  James Franklin was the crooked apothecary who had supplied Frances Howard and Mistress Turner with poisons. He was a notorious foreigner to the truth and his confession did not materially involve Sir Gervase, but Coke spun the words and mixed his own comments so skilfully that the jury were easily convinced.

  ‘Lord have mercy on me!’ Elwes was heard to mutter.

  As soon as sentence was passed Carey left the court and sent a hurried messenger to Villiers with a letter beseeching him to intercede with the King to spare Sir Gervase’s life. Villiers replied that he would recommend mercy if Elwes confessed, and Carey conveyed this message to the Tower.

  For his family’s sake, who would be impoverished without him, the condemned man confessed to every charge which the Lord Chief Justice had seen fit to bring against him, but he knew nothing of Carr’s involvement and stoutly refused to inform against another contrary to the truth.

  In these circumstances the King’s mercy extended no further than granting him the privilege of execution on Tower Hill instead of Tyburn. The former Lieutenant expressed his gratitude, put on his best black doublet and hose, said his prayers on the scaffold and was hanged like a gentleman. Carey attended the execution, looking for a reprieve until the very last second. When it failed to arrive and he saw the erstwhile dignified body swinging broken-necked in the breeze, all his old hatred of James Stuart returned. He began to ponder, too, whether the Queen had not been right about the folly of replacing Carr with Villiers, who could well have saved Sir Gervase had he wished - or had Sir Gervase been rich enough to make it worth his while.

  After the Lieutenant, Franklin was speedily tried and hanged. The small fry had now been disposed of and the way cleared for the main attack. When the year’s end had expired in a feast of expectancy, and the court had diverted itself with the usual festivities at Christmas and Twelfth Night, the Earl and Countess of Somerset were formally indicted for procuring the murder of the by now lamented Overbury.