The Great Oyer Poisoning

The Trial of the Earl of Somerset
For The Poisoning
Of Sir Thomas Overbury,
In The Tower Of London,

And Various Matters Connected There Within
From Contemporary Mss.

By Andrew Amos, Esq.
1846

The Masque of Hymen, that delightful relic of literature and manners in the days of King James the First, introduced to public notice a female of noble family, who became the heroine (if we may use this term in a bad sense) of the Grand Oyer of Poisoning. This Masque was represented on the occasion of the marriage of the Earl of Essex with Lady Frances Howard. The Bridegroom was but fourteen years of age, the Bride was only thirteen. The elder of these children, in after times commanded the Parliament’s army at Edge Hill against the Cavaliers, headed by King Charles in person. The younger’s career of guilty enjoyment, magnificence, crime, and degradation will appear in the transactions, which are the subject of the following pages.

The altar of Union, with which the scene of the Masque opened, tile typification of the classical Deity Hymen, “with saffron robe and taper clear,” the invocation to King James, who presided at the festivity, and who thereby evinced, as was intimated by the poet, his desire to unite hearts and hands as he had united Kingdoms, are familiar to the admirers of that Prince of  masque writers, Ben Jonson; at the call of whose genius there was wont, as he expressed it:

Spring all the graces of the age,
And all the loves of time;
With all the pleasures of the stage,
And relishes of rhyme:
And all the softness of courts,
The looks, the laughter, and the sports;
And mingle all their sweets and salts,
That none may say the triumph halts.
Masque of the Fortunate Isles

On the present occasion, Jonson’s coadjutor for contriving the ingenious machinery of the Masque was the distinguished architect Inigo Jones. These two eminent characters had not yet quarrelled about the precedency of their Dames in print. An eyewitness passes a high eulogium on their mutual exertions. He speaks of a dance in the shape of the Bridegroom’s name; he admires the white hem plumes worn by the maskers; and says that all the jewels and ropes of pearls to be found in the West End or borrowed in the City were laid under contribution by the Ladies of the Court, therein, as Jonson insinuates, betraying their motives prepare.

The poet contrived a device for the Masque of Hymen, which subsequent events might lead us to characterise as prophetical of the disturbance that the marriage union he was called upon to celebrate was destined to undergo. He introduced eight maskers of the principal nobility, who represented the Perverse Affections. They were splendidly attired and distinguished by several ensigns and colours, and they issued from a globe allegorically figuring a man, on which were exhibited countries gilded, with the sea heightened by silver waves; whilst the interior of the globe represented an illuminated mine of several metals. The maskers, or Perverse Affections, drew their swords, and offered to interrupt the marriage rites.

These intruders were quieted by a vulnerable female, who advanced from the top of the globe, as from the brain of man. This allegorical personage was Reason: her hair was white, trailing to her waist, her garments blue, with stars; her girdle covered with arithmetical figures: in one hand she bore a lamp, and in the other a bright sword.

But as Reason had been outraged by a ceremony in which neither Bride nor Bridegroom had attained the years pointed out by nature, and dictated by prudence, for contracting the marriage union, so no wedlock is recorded in English history that led to consequences in which morality, law, and religion were equally prostituted for the indulgence of guilty and impetuous passions.

About seven years had elapsed since the representation of the Masque of Hymen, when the attention of the people of England was fixed on a transaction in which the parties were the somewhat incongruous personages of a King, Bishops, Doctors of Civil Law, Matrons, and Midwives. The females of this junto were directed to examine whether the Countess of Essex (the Child-Bride of the Masque of Hymen) appeared to their eyes, when disrobed, to be still a virgin; whilst their royal, right reverend, and learned associates were to decide, according to the verdict of the matrons, whether the lady had shown any adequate cause for divorce.

The union-maker, King James, not only sanctioned the proceedings, but impatiently urged them on, and dictated their final conclusion. This was, in effect, that the supposed marriage, at which the King had presided, was adjudged to be no marriage at all, on the ground, that, although it could not be suggested that the Earl of Essex, now arrived at the age of twenty-one, was incapable of having children by other women, yet that the matrons discovered apparent cause for believing him incapable of having any by his own wife. A contemporary writer alleges, on the authority of the Chamberlain who presided at the door of this court of female inquisition, that Miss Mounson, daughter of Sir Thomas Mounson, was substituted for the Countess, and that, with her face thickly veiled, she eluded the detection of her identity, as she braved the searching investigation of her chastity. 1 If we suppose that the Countess of Essex was herself examined, her previous intrigues with Prince Henry, and the anecdote of her glove, which His Highness refused to pick up, because, he said, “it had been stretched by another,” and her midnight interviews, arranged by Mrs. Turner, which are detailed in the course of the Overbury trials, or are to be found in contemporary histories, give room to suspect that the matrons, who were doubtless carefully selected for the nonce, came resolved not to cast the first stone, whatever revelations might meet their eyes.

We may not be surprised at means being resorted to for duping or suborning the matrons, when we read how the King prohibited the Judges of the Ecclesiastical Court from giving reasons for their opinions, and endeavoured to overawe the Archbishop of Canterbury by singular argument, couched in the following terms:

I will conclude, therefore, that, if a Judge should have a prejudice in respect of persons, it should become you rather to have a faith implicit ill my judgment, as well in respect of some skill I have in divinity, as also that I hope no honest man doubts of the uprightness of my conscience. And the best thankfulness that you, that are so far “my creature,”can use towards me, is to reverence and follow my judgment, and not to contradict it, except where you may demonstrate unto me that I am mistaken or wrong informed. And so farewell.
James R.

The royal writer of this letter assumed the character of a divine and a jurist, and trampled on the independence of a high court of justice, whilst he was, in reality, demeaning himself as the pander to a flagrant act of adultery.

On the festival day of St. Stephen, in the year 1613, King James, the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Heads of the Church, and the Peers and Peeresses of the realm, were assembled in the Chapel of the Royal Palace of Whitehall to witness the marriage of the divorced Lady Essex with the King’s Favourite, created, for the occasion, in order that his rank might correspond with that of his bride, Earl of Somerset. On that same day, in the same place, just eight years before, the King had given away the same bride to a husband whom he may be justly charged with having, in effect, himself divorced. The same King paid the expenses of the second wedding. The same Dean of the Chapel, a Bishop of Bath and Wells, performed both ceremonies.

The Bride, according to the language of a contemporary writer, was married “in her hair,” that is to say, her hair (which was very beautiful and long) hanging down to her feet. To be married “in their hair” was the appropriate etiquette of that day for virgin-brides. The historian Wilson, from being the companion of the Earl of Essex in his campaigns, and the constant inmate of his house, may be supposed to have expressed himself on this occasion according to the views and feelings or his much-injured friend. He writes of the Countess of Somerset, that those “who saw her face might challenge Nature of too much hypocrisy for harbouring so wicked a heart under so sweet and bewitching a countenance.” He adds, “that she had grown to be a beauty of the greatest magnitude in the horizon of the Court, and every tongue grew an orator at that shrine.”

It was in an Eclogue, written on the day of this marriage, in answer to a friend who reproached the poet for his absence on an occasion of so much festivity, that Donne wrote those lines which Dr. Johnson designates as “the poetical propagation of light,” and which he adduces as one of the most striking examples of the conceits to be found in the works of the poets belonging to what Dryden calls “the metaphysical school;” of which Donne and Cowley were the leaders.

Donne is more distinguished as a divine than as a poet; he was Dean of St. Paul’s, and, according to his epitaph, written by himself, he took orders after the age of forty, so he says, by the impulse of the Holy Ghost andby the suggestion of King James. That no qualms of religion or morality influenced his language as a courtier on the occasion of the marriage of the Earl and Countess of Somerset, appears from his compliments to the Bride upon her masculine effrontery under circumstances at which female modesty revolts.
Wilson observes of the Earl of Somerset, that he had a “comely personage, mixed with a handsome and courtly garb, which he bad been practising in France.” The Earl of Somerset, according to the description of Lord Thomas Howard, written shortly before the marriage, was “straight-limbed, well-favoured, strong-shouldered, and smooth-faced, with some sort of show of modesty. He was so particular in his dress to please the King, that he had changed his tailors and tire-men many times. And be was so decidedly the Court Favourite, that the King would lean on his arm, pinch his cheek, smooth his ruffled garment, and, when directing discourse to others, nevertheless gaze on him.” The King taught him Latin every morning. Lord Howard, in mentioning these facts to Harrington, then a young courtier in whose advancement he was interested, adds, that, in order to rise in favour with King James, it might answer to tell his Majesty “that the stars were bright jewels fit for Carr’s ears.”

A nuptial sermon was preached by the Dean of Westminster; and one of his hearers tells us, what we might have conjectured, that, like another “soft Dean” who “never mentioned Hell to ears polite,” the gist of the discourse was the commendation, to use the writer’s own words, “of the young couple, glancing also at the praise of the Bride’s mother, whom he styled the mother-rine.”

Though the marriage was celebrated on a Sunday, in the evening there was a “gallant Masque of Lords.” On comparing the lists of the noble dancers, it will be found that four out of twelve maskers had danced in the Masque of Hymen at the former wedding. The Masque of the second wedding is still extant; it was composed by one Campion, who also wrote the Masque for the marriage of the Palgrave with Princess Elizabeth. This successful rival of Ben Jonson is now less read or known than even Lilly, Davenant, Shadwell, or Cibber, who pleased Sovereigns better, and were more munificently patronized by them, than their respective contemporaries Shakspere, Milton, Dryden, and Pope.

It has been represented, by Gifford, that Ben Jonson’s virtuous indignation recoiled at writing a Masque for the Countess of Somerset’s second marriage. But there seems no doubt that Jonson’s Challenge at Tilt and his Irish Masque were written for that occasion, though they had not the honour to be represented on the wedding night. The Challenge at Tilt was exhibited the day after the marriage. The Irish Masque contains intrinsic evidence, which I conclusive, so to the occasion upon which it was written.

Ben Jonson deemed it prudent, in the collection of his works published by him after the downfall of the Earl of Somerset, to designate the Challenge at Tilt and the Irish Masque to having been respectively presented at amarriage. For the same reason the Masque of Hymen is described, in the same collection, as having been performed at a marriage; though in the previous edition of this Masque, published soon after it was composed, the names of the bride and bridegroom were mentioned in the title-page.

Lord Bacon, who, in his Essays, has thought that the preparation of Masques was a subject worthy of his pen, presented the Earl of Somerset and his Lady with a Masque, which was performed eleven days after their marriage. The King and Queen honoured the representation with their presence. It was called the Masque of Flowers. The maskers were the members of the learned society of Gray’s Inn, who were metamorphosed into hyacinths jonquils, and other flowers. It is related that the Solicitor-General Yelverton was desirous of contributing to the expense of this masque, which amounted to £2.000; but that Bacon, from an ambition of ingratiating himself with the Favourite, would not admit of any co-rival in his sycophancy and extravagance. The Masque was concluded with a tribute of respect and zeal to the Bride and Bridegroom.

And, by way of curious illustration of the current controversy regarding the truth of the Copernican system, which, at that time, Bacon disbelieved, and, much later, Milton doubted, be writes that Copernicus was borne out in his opinions by the general movement of men and things in honour of the Earl and Countess of Somerset.

The Earl and Countess of Somerset were entertained by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen or London, nine days after their marriage, at Merchant Tailor’s Hall. There was a grand procession of equipages by torch-light, through Cheapside. At the entry of the Bride and Bridegroom into the Hall, they were greeted with music and a congratulatory speech. At the feast they were served by the most comely of the citizens, selected out of the twelve companies, who wore their “gowns and rich loins.” In the evening there was “a Wassail,” two Masque, and a Play. Nor did the Bride and Bridegroom return to St. James’ till three o’clock the next morning.

The Countess of Somerset being desirous of going to the City festival in great state, applied to Sir R. Winwood for the use of four of his horses to draw her carriage which were the handsomest in London. He answered her Ladyship, that it was not fit for so great a Lady to use any thing borrowed, and therefore begged her husband to accept his horses as a present.

The Corporation of London, the East India Company, the Merchant Adventurers, the Farmers of the customs vied with each other in the costliness of their marriage offerings. The Queen gave silver dishes curiously enamelled. Sir E. Coke, the Chief Justice, presented a basin and cover of silver gilt; his Lady a pot of gold. Another sycophant gave a gold warming-pan; another hangings, worth £1.500; another a sword worth £500 besides its workmanship of enamelled gold, which cost 100 marks; another a cradle of silver to burn sea-coal; another candlesticks worth 1000 marks; another two oriental pearls; another a fire-shovel, tongs, pokers, creepers, and other chimney furniture, all of silver. The wife of a Bishop presented the bride cake.

Somewhat less than three years had elapsed after this gorgeous display of wedding gifts and entertainments, when, on the 24th and 25th of May, in the year 1616, a still more imposing spectacle occurred, in which the principal actors in the former scenes again engrossed the eyes and ears of the public. On the first of these days the Countess of Somerset, and on the second the Earl of Somerset held up their hands in Westminster Hall, where all the nobles and courtiers of the realm, and a multitude of more humble bystanders, perhaps the very individuals who had formerly echoed their praises, or joined chorus in their epithalamium, were now assembled to hear them answer upon their arraignments for the crime of murder.

All places of public business and amusement were deserted during these proceedings, so intense was the curiosity thus excited. Ordinary courts of law presented the appearance of the Long Vacation. One contemporary letter-writer mentions that at the Earl’s trial “a world of people were as spectators;” another contemporary letter-writer relates that “four or five pieces was an ordinary price for a seat in the Hall.” He so knew a lawyer who had agreed to give 10l. for himself and family for the two days; and fifty pounds were given for a corner that would hardly contain a dozen. The writer himself got a place for ten shillings at the Earl’s trial, and, in order to secure it, went to Westminster Hall at six o’clock in the morning, the trial commencing at nine. His seat was probably incommodious in proportion to its cheapness, for he was obliged to leave it before the trial was over, in consequence of the beat, and fainting from fasting.

The interest of the trials was increased by feelings of a superstitious nature; for at a previous arraignment of Mrs. Turner, whom the Countess calls in a letter “sweet Turner,” some mysterious articles were introduced which had been seized in the study of a noted Astrologer, Dr. Forman. This Magician is called by the Countess, in a letter, “Deaf Father,” and she subscribes herself “Your affectionate Daughter.” He supplied her with filters to chill the love of Lord Essex for her, and to kindle that of the Earl of Somerset. The articles consisted of enchanted papers and puppets, a piece of human skin, and a black scarf full of white crosses. A roll of Devils’ names had been produced at Mrs. Turner’s trial just before a crash was heard from one of the scaffolds, which were erected round the Hall: this sudden noise, we are told, caused “great fear, tumult, and confusion among all the spectators, everyone fearing as if the Devil had been present, and was grown angry to have his workmanship shewed by such as were not his scholars.” Dr. Forman had also a book, which had been produced in Court at a former trial, when Sir E. Coke would not suffer it to be read; for which the scandal of the day supplied a motive, that he found the name of his own wife registered in it.

Lord Chancellor Ellesmere officiated as Lord High Steward; he sat under a “Cloth of Estate,” at the upper end of the Hall. Nearest to him stood an Usher bearing a white rod, the insignia of his office: a little farther off were Garter King at Arms, and the Seal-bearer, who were on his right hand; and the bearer of the Black Rod on his left. Eight Serjeants at Arms were placed on each side, more behind. On either side of the High Steward, on benches somewhat lower than his raised seat, placed in a gallery raised from the floor by twelve steps, sat the twenty-one Peers who were summoned to constitute the Lord High Steward’s Court. The Judges, dressed in their scarlet robes and collars of S.B., sat in a row somewhat lower than the Peers. Foremost among them was Sir E. Coke, whose name is still the most eminent of all names of lawyers that are repeated in Westminster Hall. At the lower end of the Hall sat the King’s Counsel, headed by an Attorney-General, the most distinguished of all who have ever held that office, the great Sir Francis Bacon.

The prisoners, at their respective trials, stood beyond the lawyers, and separated from them by a bar,in a place where every eye could behold the indications of inward emotion, evinced by expressions of countenance or changes of demeanour. A Gentleman Porter holding an axe stands before a Peer or Peers under trial. The edge of the axe is turned from the prisoners; but if sentence of death be pronounced, it is then immediately turned towards them. The Countess of Somerset, on her taking her place, “made three reverences to his Grace and the Peers.” Writers, to whom every minute particular of these trials seems to have been matter of the deepest interest, relate that she was dressed “in black tammel, a cypress chaperon, a cobweb lawn ruff and cuffs.” The Lord High Steward having explained the object of the proceedings, the Clerk of the Crown said, “Frances Countess of Somerset hold up your hand.” She did so, and continued holding it up till the Lieutenant of the Tower told her to put it down. The indictment was then read. Whilst it was read, the Countess stood looking pale, she trembled, and shed some tears. At the part of the indictment where the name of Weston, the actual perpetrator of the murder of Sir T. Overbury, was first mentioned, she put her fan before her face, and there held it covering her face till the reading of the indictment was concluded. The Clerk of the Crown then asked her, “Frances Countess of Somerset, are thou guilty of the felony and murder, or not guilty?” The Countess, making an obeisance to the Lord High Steward, answered “Guilty,” with a low voice, but wonderful fearful. Sir Francis Bacon next delivered an address to the Lord High Steward, in which he panegyrized the King, gave some account of the discovery of the plot by which Sir T. Overbury had been poisoned, and held out a plain intimation of pardon to the Countess, by citing the expression, that “mercy and truth be met together.” The King’s instructions for the investigation of Sir T. Overbury’s murder were then read. After which Sir E. Coke extolled the King’s sagacity, observing that the instructions that had been read “deserved to be written in a sunbeam.” The Clerk of the Crown then demanded of the Prisoner, “if she had any cause to allege why sentence of death should not be pronounced on her.” She answered, “I can much aggravate, but cannot extenuate my fault: I desire mercy, and that the Lords will intercede for me to the King.” This she spoke “so low, humbly, and fearfully,” that Sir Francis Bacon, who, as we have noticed, sat near her, was obliged to repeat the words to the Lord High Steward. An officer of the Court upon his knee delivered to the Lord High Steward the white staff: Sentence of death was then passed, but in passing it the Lord High Steward told the Countess of Somerset, “Since the Lords have heard with what humility and grief you have confessed the fact, I do not doubt they will signify so much to the King, and mediate for his grace towards you.”

An eye-witness observes, that the Countess, upon her arraignment, “won pity by her sober demeanour, which, in my opinion, was more curious and confidant, than was fit for a lady in such distress, and yet she shed, or made show of, some tears divers times.” Another eye-witness writes, “The Countess, after sentence given, in a most humble, yet not base manner, besought the Lord High Steward, to whom she first directed her speech, (and then likewise to the rest of the Lords,) that they would be pleased to mediate his Majesty on her behalf for his gracious favour and mercy, which they promised to do; and she, expressing her inward sorrow by the many tears she shed, departed.” Camden, in his jejune Annals, records the universal commiseration of the spectators. In those times, as on various occasions at the present day, and probably as long as human nature endures, the sympathies of mankind for a spectacle of suffering humanity, (especially in the instance of a lovely woman overwhelmed by contrition and near of death,) immediately presented to the eyes, outweighed in strength the sentiments of justice, and effaced the recollection of a crime marked by extraordinary malice and cruelty.

Lord Essex, the former husband of the Countess, was present at her trial, but seemed purposely to keep out of public observation and the sight of the wife of his infancy.

On the next day, that trial took place the illustration of which is the principal object of these pages. The Earl of Somerset appeared at the Bar in the cloak, and George, and other insignia of the order of the Garter. He was not neglectful of that attention to dress, by which his early fortunes had been so much advanced. It is stated that he was apparelled “in a black satin suit, laid with two white laces in a seam; a gown of orient velvet, lined with unshorn: all the sleeves laid with satin lace; a pair of gloves with satin tops; his hair curled.” It was observed that his “visage was pale, his beard long, his eyes sunk in his head.” The Earl’s trial lasted from nine in the morning till ten at night. Towards the concluding part of the trial, the dramatic effect of the scene was increased by a multitude of torches casting a glimmering light through the high and vaulted roofs of the Hall, and making transiently visible the countenances of the Judges, the Counsellors, the Peers, Peeresses, and the mixed audience that crowded the lofty scaffoldings. It was at this period that the Earl of Somerset commenced his defence. On various great occasions he had been set up as the idol to be admired of all eyes, he was still wearing the ensigns of the highest order of Knighthood; but he was now pleading for his life. He had to exculpate himself from a charge of deep and mysterious malignity. His own wife had confessed her guilt. It was supposed, by some, that he would be overwhelmed by the consciousness of crime, or the sense of shame. It was doubted whether he had abilities to make any impression on a public assembly. Suspicions were abroad, that, in a moment of despair, he would make revelations which would cause the King to tremble on his throne. Repeated attempts were made, during the trial, by the Lord High Steward, to shake his firmness, and divert him from vindicating his innocence, by plainly telling him that his life would be spared or not, according as he made a confession, or demanded a verdict. Nevertheless, as an eye-witness observes, “A thing worthy of note in him was his constancy and undaunted carriage in all the time of his arraignment, which, as it began, so it did continue to the end without any change or alteration.” Amidst the mixed expectations of the audience, the Earl of Somerset began speech, in which he displayed a resolution of demeanour, and a flow of natural eloquence, that might have become a suffering patriot. We know that among many of the bystanders he produced an impression of his innocence. His address will be given much more fully in the present work, from a document in the State Paper Office, than according to any report of it hitherto published. Other orations have been spoken in the storied Hall of Westminster, with the eloquence of which the Earl’s speech will not admit for a moment of being compared; but the assemblies which have filled its spacious fabric, from its area to its root were not, perhaps, moved with more thrilling excitement, even by the voice of Strafford, or Burke, or Sheridan, than by the Earl of Somerset pleading for his life.

The details of the Earl of Somerset’s trial will be the subject of particular examination in the subsequent chapters of this work. But in this place it may be allowed to give room to the reflections that arise upon a view of the remarkable scenes in which we have observed the Earl and Countess of Somerset to have performed such a conspicuous part. It is a singular train of occurrences in the domestic history of England, that the same King should have given away a noble lady at her first marriage, and shared with her the homage or her nuptial masque should have afterwards, by the abuse of his learning, and licentious exercise of his prerogative, accomplished her divorce; should have presided at her second marriage, loaded her second husband with honour and riches and power, and afterwards have penned instructions, covering so we are told by Sir E. Coke, two sheets of paper on both sides, for conducting their trial for their lives. Nor, as it will be seen in the sequel of this work, does the King’s singular connexion with the history of the Earl and Countess of Somerset end with their trials.

It is also a very striking circumstance, that the Countess of Somerset should have been receiving the homage of the most noble, the wealthiest, and the wisest persons of the land; that the lawyer and citizens should have been using in entertaining her with festive amusements; that the most distinguished poets of the day, in their eagerness to extol her, should have been exhausting the conceits of immoderate hyperbole; that a Dignitary of the Church should have been preaching at her wedding a sermon replete with incense to her vanity, and, probably, excitement to her lust; whilst, at the very time she appeared to be regaling deliciously on flatteries, an inward monitor was striking at her heart, with the fearful memento of a most cruel murder committed by her scarcely three months before, and was agonizing her with the “rooted sorrows” of a mind such as our immortal Poet has depicted that of the blood-stained Lady Macbeth.

The Conntess of Somerset must have been conscious that Sir R. Winwood’s handsome horses drawing her decorated carriage, the low-browed and obsequious obeisance of men so admired as Sir E. Coke and Sir F. Bacon, begging her to deign to accept the glittering presents they presented with their own hand, her high and canopied “state at Merchant Tailor’s Hall of Gray’s Inn, only drew around her a splendid veil of deception, which hid from the eyes of mankind the foul character of a murderess. What the suspended sword was to Damocels, and the handwriting on the wall to Belshazzar, an imaginary axe, with its edge turned towards her, must, to her mind’s eye, ever have been visible, amidst the grandeur and brilliancy of festivals, in which all other persons were intent only on her own beauty and adornments, as on the Cynosure which the Court and the City seemed never satiated in beholding.