The Dark and the Light

by Josephine Bell

  ‘Aye, my lord.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘I have it not with me, my lord, seeing I did not know the nature of your demand upon me.’

  Liar, Somerset thought, his anger darkening his face again. Davis saw it, understood at last that he was in some real danger if he attempted to ride too high. He found a new humility.

  ‘If your lordship pleases,’ he said, ‘I will go and return presently with your lordship’s letters to Sir Thomas.’

  ‘With each and every one,’ Somerset warned him. ‘I have the tally of them.’

  This was not true, for he was far too careless in his personal affairs to count the letters he wrote or to take copies or even to remember what he had written in them. It was for this last reason that he wanted them back.

  Master Davis went away, to return in a few hours’ time. No word of reward had passed between the two men, but when he had untied the package, looked through the contents and approved them, Lord Somerset handed his late friend’s servant thirty pounds. He called it a reward for his loyalty in salvaging his dead master’s personal correspondence. When the man had gone Somerset burned the letters without bothering to re-read them.

  Having completed this transaction Robbie Carr felt much relieved. It was a measure of his panic that this could be so, for the letters he had written to his friend held nothing treasonable or even indiscreet. To set forth arguments upon the Catholic side of the perpetual dispute between the two religious parties was, after all, something in which the King delighted, as he did in all forms of argument. Also there was nothing indiscreet in mentioning those early negotiations for a Spanish marriage for the Prince Henry. The King had started them.

  Lady Somerset was not slow to point out to him that his action, far from adding to his security, diminished it.

  ‘You have put yourself in this Davis fellow’s power with your gift of money,’ she told him. ‘Foolish one, it was a very obvious bribe on your part, or of blackmail upon his, whichever way we regard it. If it come to light or he boast of it, you have done yourself an injury. Why did he keep these letters if not to use them for gain? He may have others he will consider valuable and therefore he will grow rash and in time betray himself where, if you had done nothing in the matter he would have destroyed these letters as worthless.’

  ‘Your carping cannot mend it,’ Robbie told her sharply, resenting the scolding. It was not the first time his sweet love had attacked him for foolishness. He resented it in full measure as he came to believe she might be right.

  In any case both this transaction and his attempt to obtain a sealed pardon for all possible crimes were soon proved worthless.

  Far off in the Netherlands a confession more deadly than any letter set off a powder train that led steadily, unwaveringly to an explosion that could neither be denied nor fought, but tumbled in a vast ruin all that ambition, bombast, cunning and ruthlessness had built up over the years.

  In Brussels a young Englishman called William Reeve, fallen ill as he thought fatally and afraid for his soul, demanded to make a confession to an English authority. The new ambassador, William Trumbull, out of curiosity and also kindness, went to see him. There was a considerable number of English adventurers, mercenaries, fugitives from justice, and others in the Netherlands who from time to time sought aid from a fellow countryman.

  Having discovered that young Reeve’s complaint was neither smallpox nor plague, nor any other contagious disease, Master Trumbull took a clerk belonging to the mission with him to the youth’s lodging.

  They were admitted by a nun of the Poor Clares who was nursing the patient.

  ‘He is much troubled in his mind,’ she told Trumbull. ‘He is not a Catholic and refuses a priest. He wishes to discharge his conscience, make confession to a fellow countryman, but will have none other, for he believes himself to be dying.’

  ‘Do you not believe it too?’ the ambassador asked.

  ‘We are all in the hands of Almighty God,’ the nun replied, crossing herself.

  ‘That is true, but no answer to my question,’ Trumbull answered.

  Leaving the clerk below he was led upstairs to a bedroom, where he found the sick man, very weak but clear headed and most anxious to relieve his mind.

  He was London born, he said, and now eighteen years of age. He had left London very suddenly, two years before, immediately after the death in the Tower of Sir Thomas Overbury.

  ‘That death is upon my head, sir,’ he cried with tears beginning to roll down his cheeks, wasted by the long fever that assailed him. ‘I did not do it a-purpose, sir, as God’s my witness. My master gave me the clyster for Sir Thomas, who had himself demanded a treatment for his internal disorder. My master told me to take the clyster to the Tower and there administer it to Sir Thomas Overbury. Which I did in all good faith, sir, for the prisoner’s benefit. But the next day a lady came to me with money and told me the clyster was ill-given, with dreadful effect, the poor prisoner dying and I stood in danger of severe punishment. Hanging, she said, with torment beforehand. She gave me twenty pounds and orders to leave the country. I tried to protest I had done as my master bid me and the fault, if any, was his. But she would have none of this. She swore if I did not obey her orders, take the money and go abroad instantly, in a ship she would name, she would see me lodged in gaol within the hour.’

  Horrified, the ambassador called in the nun and the clerk as witnesses and went through the story again, the clerk taking down in brief the names of the apothecary, William de Lombell, to whom young Reeve had acted as apprentice, and also the name of the generous lady whom he identified as the Lady Frances Howard, now Countess of Somerset.

  ‘This is a very grave charge, young man,’ Trumbull said. ‘Will you swear upon the Bible and your faith that you speak truth?’

  ‘I will swear any way you please,’ the boy replied, ‘and may God have mercy upon my soul for I can think of no better means to make reparation for that frightful act I performed.’

  ‘Unknowingly?’

  ‘Indeed, indeed, unknowingly.’

  ‘You had no suspicion the treatment was false? Had there been no previous remedy offered?’

  Reeve broke down again at this question. He had carried medicine before from his master to Sir Thomas and it had done him no good.

  ‘But still you suspected nought? In conversation with the other boys you suspected nought?’

  At last Reeve whispered, ‘I did not dare let myself suspect sir. I did not dare.’

  ‘So,’ Trumbull told the clerk as they went away. ‘I conclude his extreme terror of hell-fire in his present feeble state lieth in this, that he had a fair inkling of what he was about though no definite knowledge.’

  The clerk said, ‘But when he found himself hurried away abroad his suspicion was confirmed and he hath considered himself ever since to be a murderer in danger of fire everlasting.’

  Master Trumbull pondered awhile. Then said, ‘Will he live?’

  ‘The nun hath good hopes of a recovery. Especially now he hath confessed and God hath forgiven him.’

  ‘These Catholics think they have God in their pockets as far as the forgiveness of sins is concerned,’ the ambassador said with pardonable Protestant irritation.

  The clerk, though equally of the reformed faith, was shocked, but said nothing.

  ‘Tell no one what you have heard,’ Trumbull ordered. ‘But make me a fair written copy of the confession and give it directly into my hand together with those notes you took in the bedroom. Did the nun understand what was said? Doth she speak our language?’

  ‘No, sir. I wondered why you called her in.’

  ‘To witness the lad made a free confession under no compulsion of any kind. She did not understand the words nor the gist of them.’ He added, ‘We have her name and the name of the house and street where the sick man lies?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So I may call her to testify it was a freely offered confession if that be necessary.’r />
  The youth, if he survived, might count himself lucky to be in a friendly foreign country, Master Trumbull thought, thinking the whole matter over when he was alone. Perhaps the crime would have to be proved with Reeve’s valuable assistance; perhaps it would be considered inadvisable to stir up the dreadful circumstances. In either case the former apprentice would remain in the background, secure in his exile and happy in his new peace of mind.

  So what of his own opinion? Take it upon himself to suppress this startling tale? Never for a moment. He was due to make a visit to England very shortly to report upon the findings and activities of his mission. He determined to take his clerk’s written report with him and lay it before Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State and former ambassador in Holland.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sir Ralph Winwood’s first thought when he read William Reeve’s confession was to burn the pernicious document and forget its contents. Overbury had been dead two years, was well-nigh forgotten. The hints and rumours that he had died of poison had begun to abate; no one seemed anxious to revive them. Until this conscientious ambassador had come to him with horrific news.

  ‘The lad seems to speak truth?’ he asked Trumbull, twisting the report in his hands.

  ‘Aye, sir. He was in deadly earnest and in fear for his immortal soul. His only wish was to discharge his guilt before dying.’

  ‘Hath he died? For if so, none can question him again and the confession loses its credibility, or nearly so.’

  Trumbull shook his head.

  ‘He lives and improves daily. It is as if that guilty secret were an abscess in both mind and body, poisoning the lad in his turn. Until by lancing it the foul matter poured forth and he was cleansed and restored.’

  Sir Ralph bowed in acknowledgement of this eloquent assessment. He promised to go further into the matter. The ambassador, relieved of his chief burden, went about more congenial business and Sir Ralph Winwood paid a visit to the Tower.

  He did not at first seek an interview with Lieutenant Helwys. He sought out Elizabeth, Lady Shrewsbury, that Bess of Hardwicke who had been guardian of Lady Arbella Stewart for several years at Hardwicke Hall when the latter was a young girl, but a potential rival to the throne, at least a potential successor should neither of King James’s sons have an heir. Sir Ralph knew the sad history of the poor young woman’s thwarted love and Lady Shrewsbury’s connection with the tragic course of it.

  ‘My lady, I think you may help me,’ Sir Ralph said when he was shown into her presence.

  ‘An I be willing,’ she answered. She had lost some of her excessive weight in prison, but none of her north-country energy, courage and rough manner of speaking. ‘I have no shame in that I helped Arbella to marry the man of her heart. I saw no harm there then, nor do I still. Though her wits be crazed now for sorry and ill treatment and I think she may not live long unless the King relent towards her.’

  ‘I am not here to discuss the Lady Arbella Stewart,’ Winwood said steadily.

  ‘Why then? Why come to me?’

  ‘Because, as I said before, you may help me in a grave task. In the matter of the death of Sir Thomas Overbury.’

  ‘So!’

  Bess of Hardwicke whistled through her teeth like any drayman to his horses. Her little eyes gleamed, she nodded her head several times.

  ‘If I might have any particulars that you personally were able to observe, either of the recurrent illness or the last hours of the poor gentleman,’ Sir Ralph went on.

  ‘Hark’ee,’ Bess said. ‘There was a doctor attended him in each of his seizures after the first and including the last. This was the physician called by the Lieutenant to any prisoner taken ill.’

  ‘So I have been given to understand,’ Winwood agreed. ‘It is a post quite independent of patronage, except by the City magnates, or the Lord Mayor or some such. This physician may be trusted to give an honest opinion.’

  ‘Nevertheless he came to a wrong conclusion in this case, did he not? Sir Thomas Overbury was poisoned.’

  Winwood gave way to his impatience.

  ‘It is to discover evidence of that I came here!’ he cried. ‘Yet each one I ask gives me the conclusion of rumour, not fact. I need fact. I cannot proceed in any way without fact.’

  ‘I can give you but two facts,’ Lady Shrewsbury said, regaining her dignity. ‘The first is of seeing from my window here a youth I now know is called Simon Merston, passing with the guard from the watergate. It was very early one morning. I had slept ill and gone to the window for air. The boy was blubbering, pale, unsteady on’s feet. I heard the guard say to him he must explain to Sir Gervase Helwys what it was he lost in the river on landing and the boy answered, crying, ‘‘Tarts for Sir Thomas Overbury.”’

  ‘You heard those words?’

  ‘Aye. And I have been told—’

  ‘Nay. I want only facts. Those words were fact. Have you ought else you actually saw or heard?’

  ‘I saw a youth come past with a bag and ask below my window to be taken to Sir Thomas Overbury. It was a pretty boy. I would know him again.’

  Since William Reeve would never be able to return to England in safety for any reason whatever, this testimony was worthless, Sir Ralph decided. But he thanked the noble prisoner for her help, suggesting it might prove very useful in convicting those guilty of murder.

  ‘By which you do not mean the apprentice lad or the messenger, I take it,’ Bess answered. ‘You mean that notorious poisoner and murderess the new Countess of Somerset, do you not?’

  ‘Madam, madam!’ Sir Ralph exclaimed in horror. ‘Your ladyship is too rash! Know you not the lady is now married to the man who is the most favoured subject of the realm?’

  ‘Was, man, was!’ Lady Shrewsbury spoke scornfully. ‘We in the Tower have better news than you of the Court, seemingly. Is there not a rising star that be already half risen to the zenith?’

  But Sir Ralph Winwood was already bowing his leave and disappeared through the door before she had quite finished speaking.

  After hearing how much the Lady Arbella had suffered in her mind from her misfortunes Sir Ralph decided not to question her about Overbury. His forbearance was not altogether from sympathy for the poor woman, whose only faults were a rashness, lack of judgement and self-willed obstinacy that ran through the whole family of the Stewarts, but from a true feeling that she would have nothing to tell him. So he went instead to Sir Gervase Helwys.

  The Lieutenant listened to the story from Brussels with a set face that gave away nothing of the sense of disaster he was feeling. For the implications for himself spelled ruin, if not death. He had already to some extent regretted accepting the post offered him by Sir Thomas Monson. He knew quite well that the patronage was not put forward for his benefit or only in a secondary sense. His appointment was clearly part of a larger plan. Well, he was a professional soldier, ready to hire his services to a general rather than a cause. The opportunity to settle his debts and provide in some measure for his future had suited him very well. If it had turned out to be a trap, and it showed every sign now of doing so, he could blame no one but himself. Life was a gamble; he was a gambler. Only after two years of security had he begun to feel safe.

  So while Sir Ralph Winwood explained his purpose he listened with a grave unmoving face. Should he deny all knowledge of any dark deeds in his domain or should he put forward his partial knowledge, his correct guesses and his efforts to save the wretched man’s life? How then could he explain why he had not disclosed his worthy actions? How explain that he had been hired expressly to keep his mouth shut over the planned murder?

  To Sir Gervase Helwys, caught between two elements of the same unlawful force, the self-assumed power of royal and noble birth, a little honest frankness seemed to offer the best way of escape. He was mistaken, because he reckoned without the essentially greater power of English law once it was invoked. He could not be expected to realize what he was doing, but he delivered himself into a grasp that would n
ot relax until it had him dead upon a gallows.

  ‘This is a very fearful confession,’ he said when Sir Ralph Winwood was silent. ‘You have confirmation that the young man believed he spoke the truth and was not raving in his delirium?’

  ‘I have no proof, but I believe the story to be true,’ Winwood answered. ‘It was written down and read over to him and he signed the document, William Reeve, apprentice to the apothecary, Master William de Lombell.’

  A halter for Master Apothecary, at any rate, thought Helwys. Aloud he said, ‘I can agree with my Lady Shrewsbury in what she hath said to you, sir. I can even a little enlarge upon it.’

  So he set to and described his knowledge of at least two previous attempts upon Sir Thomas Overbury’s life in each case by poison. He stressed how he had acted to frustrate these efforts. He explained how the prisoner had consulted his friend Lord Rochester, as he then was, and how the latter had recommended him to the apothecary, de Lombell.

  ‘You knew then that this apothecary had sent him treatment by one of his apprentices?’

  ‘I knew that he had received a draught in this way and was made worse by it.’

  ‘But you did nothing to prevent further treatment from this source?’

  ‘Why no. Sir Thomas would not be warned. He trusted his friend.’

  ‘But not seemingly his friend’s wife?’

  The two men exchanged a long, significant look. It was Winwood’s eyes that turned away.

  ‘They were not married at that time,’ Sir Gervase said coldly.

  Sir Ralph Winwood turned to another subject, the question of the physician who had attended the dying man, his diagnosis of the cause of his illness, the pronouncement of the crowner who had confirmed this case as was obligatory in the case of any man dying while a prisoner.