What better way than something different for Christmas:
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| Buy Here |
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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:
