The Murder of Sir Thomas Overbury by Katherine Pym

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Sir Thomas Overbury

Love all the intrigue in the courts of kings. One particular one rivals the death of Rasputin, also a courtier murder. This is of Sir Thomas Overbury, a poet and essayist. He was verbal in what he believed whether or not it offended anyone.

September 1613, Tower of London

Part of King James VI & I’s court, Sir Thomas was great friends with Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, later the Earl of Somerset. They met in Scotland as young men and became fast friends.

Rumour has buzzed about the head of King James re: his preference to pretty men even as he married and fathered children. Word has it he enjoyed planting wet kisses on his favourites’ lips, all male. 

King Jas VI & I

His favour fell onto Robert Carr who had literally fallen off his horse and broke a leg in front of the king. Even as Robert became the king’s favourite, Thomas did not mind. As a courtier in the Court of King James, he knew his limitations.

Enter Lady Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, already married. She set her sights on Robert Carr, something Sir Thomas did not appreciate. He was a misogynist, filled with ambition and a sharp edged tongue. He did not like Frances and let everyone know about it. His slander grew wearisome. Lady Frances continued her conquest of Sir John despite Thomas’ spreading vitriol, but her hate simmered. She schemed.

Sir Thomas had been thrown in the Tower of London by King James for declining the ambassadorship to a court in Russia. It was not long before he became very ill by what was called an infectious disease, and died Sept 15, 1613.

Sir Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset

Now, for the rest of the story.

Lady Frances planned a diabolical murder. She almost got away with it when the ruling came down Overbury had died of an illness, but 2 years later, suspicion fell on hers and Somerset’s heads.

Here’s where Overbury paralleled Rasputin. He would not die for the longest while.

Overbury was poisoned with aquafortis (nitric acid), white arsenic, mercury, powder of diamond, lapis cortilus (I cannot find a modern translation of this), great spiders, and cantharides (Spanish fly). The arsenic was mixed in his salt. Once he desired pig for dinner, and Lady Frances’ accomplice added lapis cortilus to it. Another time, he wanted 2 partridges for dinner and cantharides were used instead of pepper. When that failed he was given “poisoned enema containing copper vitriol (sulfuric acid).

Sir Thomas Overbury finally died.

Lady Essex, later Countess of Somerset

Justice served: Everyone involved in the murder was executed except Lady Frances and Sir Robert. Their punishments were commuted to the confiscation of their property and imprisonment for some years in the Tower.

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Many thanks to:

Timbs, John, FSA. The Romance of London: Strange Stories, Scenes and Remarkable Persons of the Great Town, Vol. I., Frederick Warne & Co., London.

And:

https://hauntedpalaceblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/lady-frances-howard-magic-murder-and-mysogeny-at-the-court-of-james-i/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Overbury

http://www.earlystuartlibels.net/htdocs/overbury_murder_section/H0.html

Secret Service, Spies, and Underhanded Dealings during 17th Century By Katherine Pym

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Per Violet Barbour, author of Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington, (published 1914), “The ministers of King Charles II were not chosen for their honesty…” 

Henry Bennett, Earl of Arlington

 This did not make Charles II a stupid man, but one who had gone through years of hardship. He was cautious. His life had often been imperiled.  Men had conspired against him, or tried to rule him.  It left its mark.  To watch for underhanded dealings during his reign, the king sought individuals who would meet toe-to-toe those who threatened him, and his court. 

King Charles II

On one hand Charles II filled his court with frivolity. He played, danced, and allowed his dogs to soil the palace. He and his brother, the Duke of York, loved the theatre, and supported their own troupes.  Charles II allowed women on stage.

On the other hand, Charles II inherited a land filled with uneasy, restless, and bitter malcontents whose very existence shattered with the fall of the Commonwealth.  Rarely opening up to anyone, the king did not trust easily.  He expected attempts on his life, or efforts to overthrow his monarchy. 

Death mask, Cromwell

During the Cromwell days, John Thurloe was the head of espionage. As Secretary of State under Cromwell, he sent out spies to cull out plots from within the Protectorate’s government. His spy network was extensive. He employed men – and women – who were, on the surface, stalwart royalists. His spies could be located in every English county, overseas, i.e., in Charles II’s exiled court, in the America’s, and the far Indies. 

Sir Samuel Moreland

Thurloe compiled lists, sent spies into enemy camps, had men tortured and killed. One such fellow, Samuel Morland, and assistant to Thurloe under Cromwell, confessed to witnessing a man ‘trepanned to death’ at Thurloe’s word.  (Dictionary.com states the following definition to trepan:  “a tool for cutting shallow holes by removing a core.”)  Not a nice way to go.  

Thurloe, Cromwell's spymaster

Thurloe orchestrated the Sir Richard Willis Plot, wherein the king and duke would be lured out of exile to the Sussex coast.  Once the brothers disembarked, they would be instantly murdered. 

This plot failed. 

Commonwealth spies infiltrated homes, churches, and businesses to destroy the royalist enemy, and under Charles II’s, his government did the same.  Their goal was to destroy nonconformists, or “fanaticks”. Depending who was in power, plots were a part of political life. 

After the Restoration, Thurloe was dismissed, but not executed for crimes against the monarchy (Charles I and II). He was let go for exchange of valuable Commonwealth government documents. 

During the king’s exile, Sir Edward Nicholas held the position of Secretary of State, but he was old, nearly age 70. Within two years of the Restoration, Charles II replaced him with Sir Henry Bennet, who took charge of the Crown’s espionage. October 15, 1662, he was appointed Secretary of State.  

Sir Joseph Williamson, Charles II spymaster

Joseph Williamson worked for Bennet as the undersecretary.  Williamson was born for this work. He took the bull by the horns and enhanced the processes Thurloe had begun.  Williamson built a brilliant spy network.  He allowed informers who, for money, turned on associates.  He burrowed spies into households, businesses, and churches.  He used grocers, doctors and surgeons, anyone who would send him notes against persons who were against the king. He had men overseas watching for any plots against the king. Informants were everywhere. 

His tools were numerous.  He loved ciphers, and cipher keys. Doctor John Wallis was an expert in this who worked under Thurloe and Bennet. The man could crack a code in nothing flat.  Williamson, known as Mr. Lee in the underworld, used the Grand Letter Office for ciphered messages to pass back and forth between the undersecretary’s office and the spies. He expected his spies to keep him informed by ciphered letters at the end of each day, and passed through the post office. 

Williamson obtained ambassador letters, had them opened and searched for underhanded deceit. He developed a system of local informers, letters and money crossing palms.  Under Thurloe, the secret service received £800 per year. Under Bennet, the money doubled. Most of the annual budget was spent on spies and keeping them alive. 

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Many thanks to: Wikicommons, Public Domain &

Marshall, Alan, Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660-1685, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994.

Hangman Jack Ketch by Katherine Pym

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Tyburn Tree

Hangmen have been hated throughout history. After all, they killed people. Some of these men found their calling so appealing, they took their jobs to a new level. Jack Ketch was one of them.

Little is known of the man except he was married to a woman named Katherine. Almost always drunk on and off the job, he was a sadist and an artisan in his field.

He loved torture and knew how to delay death. He’d purposefully botch jobs. When at a hanging, he tied the noose around the victim’s neck so that the knot was awry. Once the prisoner was shoved off the back end of a cart, their necks wouldn’t break and the person would dance the jig while he choked to death. Loved ones would run under the gallows to aide in their deaths or pay Jack to bring a quick end. They hung on the body until the trachea snapped.   

A Gibbet

Other lucrative perks included: Payment to torture a person. He’d receive monies when he sent corpses to Surgeon’s Hall for dissection. He auctioned off lengths of the noose at a nearby tavern, sell the dead body’s shoes and clothing.

For the dead who committed treason, Ketch quartered them beneath the gallows. When he gibbeted corpses, he’d retreat to his chambers (later called Ketch’s Kitchen) in Newgate Prison, where he parboiled the cadavers then covered them in pitch to keep the flesh from rotting too quickly. These gibbets, a large cage, were hung at crossroads or busy byways as a warning to passersby.  

Ketch was not a good executioner. He preferred other methods than the axe. Maybe, he wasn’t burly enough to wield one, or he did not look handsome as he swung it toward a person’s neck.

Lord Russell saying goodbye

Lord Russell, executed for high treason.

Ketch chopped on Russell’s neck so often, missing his mark or only maiming him, (One stroke hit his shoulder.) that those who watched became incensed by his cruelty. Later, Ketch felt impelled to write an apology.

“'The Apologie of John Ketch, Esquire in vindication of himself as to the execution of the late Lord Russell, 21 July 1683.' Ketch repudiated the charge that he had been given 'twenty guineas the night before that after the first blow my lord should say, "You dog, did I give you ten guineas to use me so inhumanly?..”

This exchange must have thrown off Ketch’s aim, but it does not explain how he could have bungled the execution so badly. John Evelyn who wrote a journal during this time, described the messy affair as done in a ‘butcherly fashion’. 

Duke of Monmouth

When it came to the Duke of Monmouth in 1685, Ketch had not improved his disposition or attempts to make a clean kill.

“At Monmouth's execution, 15 July 1685, Ketch played a prominent part. Monmouth, in his address to him on the scaffold, alluded to his treatment of Russell, and this appears to have totally unnerved him. After three ineffectual blows he threw down the axe with the words, 'I can't do it,' and was only induced to complete his task by the threats of the sheriffs. Sir John Bramston {Autobiog. p. 192) and others confirm the fact that Ketch dealt at least five strokes, and even then, according to Macaulay, he had recourse to a knife to completely sever the head from the trunk (Macaulay, Hist.; Somers Tracts, x. 264-5).”

John Evelyn again at the execution, he wrote that the crowds would have torn Ketch to pieces had he not been guarded.

Ketch not quite getting it right

Ketch died in 1686 or 1687.

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Thanks to:

Wikicommons, public domain

https://londonhistorians.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/jack-ketch-bodgy-axeman/

https://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/95619/The-vilest-prison-in-Britain

Hanson, Neil, The Great Fire of London, in that Apocalypic Year, 1666, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., NJ USA 2002

Sidney Lee, editor, Dictionary of National Biography, Vol XXXI, Kennett-Lambart, Macmillan and Co. NY, London, 1892