hotly that Abbot fell on his knees, weeping like a child, and imploring, "I beseech your Majesty, if ever I have done you any service, rid me of this business." However, James would not release him, and Rochester left no means untried to secure the decision. He gave the King 25,000/., and as Overbury was thought likely to produce evidence that would not bear the light, he obtained that the embassy to Russia should be bestowed on him. Sir Thomas refused it, saying that the King had no right to send him into exile. A few days afterwards he was committed to the Tower for contempt of the royal authority.

Nevertheless, Abbot and King (Bishop of London) staunchly voted that the marriage could not be dissolved; whereupon the King wrote to Abbot insisting on his submission "as my creature," and also "because I have some skill in divinity"; but the Archbishop could not force his conscience, as he said, and still held out. Then James broke up that commission and formed another of more compliant Bishops, personal enemies of the Primate. All that can be said in excuse for the King is that in Scotland, the marriage laws were less strict than in England, and that the Earl of Essex was not anxious to remain bound to a wife who had done nothing but make him miserable, so that the whole turned on the principle of obedience to the Divine Law: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

Overbury died in prison on the 15th of September. 1613. The next day the sentence of divorce was given, and the King soon after made Carr, Earl of Somerset, that the lady might not lose precedence by marrying a man of lower rank than Essex. The wedding took place on S. Stephen's day-an ill-omened one in that reign-in the chapel at Whitehall, before the royal family, and all manner of diversions and pageants followed.

All the older nobles were extremely jealous of Somerset, and believed all sorts of evil of him. Just at this time a very handsome, graceful, and polished young man arrived at court, George Villiers, son of Sir Edward Villiers of Brooksby, and it occurred to the Earls of Bedford and Pembroke that he might be put forward as a favourite who might overthrow the influence of Somerset. Archbishop Abbot undertook to ask the Queen to bring him to be noticed by the King. She was unwilling, but at last she said, “My lord, you know not what you ask. If Villiers gain the King's ear, we shall all suffer, I among the rest. The King will teach him to treat us all with pride and scorn.'

However, on S. George's Day, 1615, Villiers became a gentleman of the privy chamber, and on the ensuing day was knighted. The King at once took a fancy to him and called him Steenie, from his resemblance to a picture of S. Stephen, and the Queen and Prince both seem to have been won by his grace and address. Somerset's influence was declining as that of Villiers advanced, and there was a horrible report spreading that Sir Thomas Overbury had come by his death unfairly.

Inquiries were made, the replies to which convinced all parties, and the Archbishop recommended Secretary Winwood to inform the King

CAMEO VII.
Death of
Overbury.
1613.

Arrest of Somerset. 1615.

CAMEO VII. that there was fatal evidence against both the Earl and Countess of Somerset. This was done in June, and James sent for Sir James Elwes, the Lieutenant of the Tower, and privately examined him, becoming convinced that the unfortunate knight had really been poisoned. Probably he was afraid of the same fate himself, for he betrayed no suspicion, and took Somerset with him to Royston as usual, treating him with his usual caressing manner up to the last, when a warrant arrived from Sir Edward Coke, the Chief Justice. Somerset complained of being arrested in the King's presence. "Nay, mon," said James, "if Coke sends for me, I must e'en go." But no sooner was Somerset gone than the King added, "The de'il go wi' thee, for I'll never see thy face more." And then, with the bitterness of a man ashamed of having been deceived, he uttered a curse on himself and everybody else if he ever pardoned any of the set.

The Countess was arrested at the same time, and the lawyers made three hundred private examinations before showing up their report to the King. Somerset himself would say nothing; but the lady was more easily worked on, and a terrible history of depravity was laid bare. The unhappy girl, in her distaste to her husband, had had recourse to sorcerers to obtain her release from him and to secure the affections of Carr. Her adviser had been a certain Mrs. Turner, who had been her attendant in her childhood, and afterwards, being very beautiful, had married a physician, and on his death returned to the Countess with her head full of the effects of charms and philtres, and the powers of a noted sorcerer or wizard, Dr. Forman. The woman actually took the lady to Forman's house, and there was a correspondence maintained by his means with Lord Rochester both before and after Frances had joined her husband, the Earl of Essex.

This seems to have been known to Sir Thomas Overbury, and to have actuated him in wishing to prevent the marriage of his patron with so unscrupulous a person, while, on the other hand, the Countess was dreadfully afraid of her transactions coming to light. There was a letter produced from Overbury to Somerset in which he spoke of secrets between them, from which Sir Edward Coke inferred that the two friends meant the poisoning of Prince Henry; and the Queen, who had from the first thought that her son did not die a natural death, joined in the cry. James himself, however, did not believe this, and would not have the subject pursued, though he did think the secret might have been some plan for giving Prince Charles up to the Spaniards. This forbearance of his has led to the cruel imputation that he himself had been concerned in poisoning his own son, out of mere jealousy-an absolutely unfounded idea respecting a man whose chief faults were vanity, weakness, and a certain innate-coarseness and vulgarity of texture, apparently inherited from the Lennox family.

The Countess had had influence enough to obtain Overbury's committal to the Tower; and further machinations had procured that one Weston, formerly a servant of Mrs. Turner's, should be introduced to

Sir James Elwes, the Lieutenant of the Tower, made a warder, and set to wait on the unfortunate knight. Then poison of three kinds was procured from an apothecary named Franklin, and was declared to have been enough to kill twenty men. Weston gave it in small doses, mixed with all Overbury's food, and at last completed the work with a pie. Elwes had connived at all, and Somerset obtained that the body should be instantly buried.

Such was the horrible story that was elicited, partly in examination, partly on the trial of the commoners, Mrs. Turner, Elwes, Franklin, and Weston,-Dr. Forman being dead. Weston refused to plead, but on being threatened with the peine forte et dure he pleaded not guilty, as indeed all the others did; but Lady Somerset had confessed, and Franklin, the apothecary, turned King's evidence in hopes of saving his own life. They were all convicted, with strong evidence against them, and all confessed their guilt before they were executed at Tyburn. Three gentlemen, who clung to the idea that all arose from a plot against Somerset, rode up to the scaffold and called out to Weston to ask once more whether all were fact.

"Fact or no fact, I die worthily," answered Weston, and so was hanged.

Mrs. Turner showed great penitence. She went to the scaffold in a ruff set up with yellow starch, a fashion which she had introduced, and which was abandoned in horror at her crime.

The chief criminals, Lord and Lady Somerset, were kept in separate apartments in the Tower, waiting until Lord Digby, the Spanish Ambassador, should have come home with the proofs he was desired to collect that the secret spoken of in Overbury's letters was some betrayal to the Court of Spain; but he failed to discover any traces of such a plot, and there probably was none, for the secret was much more likely to have been connected with the traffic with the sorcerers. Lady Suffolk, mother of the Countess, brought the little daughter, who had been born shortly before the arrest, to see her, but she took little notice of the child, and was sinking into a state of despondency and ill-health. On hearing that his favourite was free from the guilt of high treason, James began to relent, and though the trial was necessarily to take place, he forbade the AttorneyGeneral, Bacon, to exaggerate the offence, as he intended to grant a pardon. "Advice was not to push him too hard in his speech, so as to give occasion for despair or flushes." Each prisoner was likewise exhorted to confess the crime, and the Countess, by the persuasion of the clergyman Whiting, who had attended them all, owned to all the course of wickedness which had culminated in Overbury's death.

Somerset, however, would own nothing, and when the inducement of saving his life and property was held out to him said, "Life and fortune are nothing when honour is gone."

As they were not married at the time of the murder, they were tried separately before the peers. The Countess looked very ill, and trembled exceedingly while the indictment was read, and she held her fan before

CAMEO VI!.

Overbury's murder.

1615.

CAMEO VII.
Trial of the

Somersets.
1615.

her face when Weston's name was mentioned. She wept bitterly, and could hardly speak when she pleaded guilty, and she was then allowed to retire, while Bacon made a long speech on the evidence he had to adduce against her. She was recalled to hear her sentence of death pronounced by Lord Ellesmere.

The same night her husband was told by Sir George More, the new Lieutenant of the Tower, that he must stand his trial the next day. The Earl absolutely refused to go to Westminster Hall, saying that if he was taken thither, it must be by force in his bed, that the King had promised him that he should not be tried, and durst not do it.

More, much perturbed, hurried to Greenwich, and hastened up the back stairs to the King, who was in bed, and was likewise overcome even to tears, declaring that if More would stand his friend he would not be a thankless master. More returned, and spent the rest of the night in assurances of the King's favourable disposition to him, and thus brought him to a more reasonable frame; but even then, More prepared two sentinels, each with a cloak which was to be thrown over his head if he attempted to say anything perilous to the King.

Somerset pleaded not guilty, and defended himself with so much ability that his trial lasted eleven hours, during which time James was in a restless state of anxiety, sending continually to hear whether the trial was over; and was only satisfied when he heard that the Earl had been convicted and sentence pronounced.

estate.

Both Earl and Countess were pardoned, but were kept in the Tower for four years longer, and then only allowed a small income out of their Their love for one another was gone, and the lady was a broken penitent woman, a prey to disease. Their child, Lady Anne Carr, was brought up carefully in ignorance of all that had passed in her infancy. She was good and innocent, and was married to the son of the Earl of Bedford. She was a happy wife and mother, when she chanced to pick up a chap book with the whole dreadful tale of Overbury's murder, and the next person who entered the room found her lying in a fainting fit on the floor.

James's alarm led to further whispers that the secret was Prince Henry's murder and that he knew of it, but nothing confirms the notion. So undignified a monarch, talking so freely and so familiarly, was sure to have uttered much which might have been turned against him in Westminster Hall, and it was no wonder he was disquieted about the horrible exposure,

The field was left free for Villiers, who was created Earl of Buckingham, and on the retirement of the Chancellor, Ellesmere, Bacon became Lord Keeper. To the amusement of the Court, this grave philosopher assumed the most magnificent airs of splendour, wore a robe of purple satin, and went about with a train that almost rivalled Buckingham's. There never lived a man whose writings and public life so little accorded as those of Francis Bacon.

THERE was a certain similarity in the original constitutions of all the chief European countries. All contained the same classes-the King and the nobility, who were of the conquering Teutonic line; the burghers, who were the more intelligent remnant of the subjugated races dwelling in cities; the peasantry or serfs attached to the soil; and the clergy, who might be taken from all these classes, and whose influence pervaded the whole.

The nobility had begun by being almost the equals and always the rivals of the King, and there had been a popular assembly, known in England as Witenagemot, in France as States General, in Germany as Reichstag or Diet, in Spain as Cortes, in Scandinavia as Thing, where all freemen had a right to confer with the King and his office bearers, and which was generally held in the open air.

A Parlement or consultation in France meant the meeting of the chief of a province with his principal vassals, clergy, and burghers, to do justice in great causes, and to obtain money for the needful expenses.

The word was applied in England to what had once been the Witenagemot, when Simon de Montfort obtained its renewal; and it included not merely the nobles, but the knights of the shire representing each county, and the burgesses representing each borough and city. In the reign of Edward I. was established the great rule that taxes must only be imposed with the consent of all the orders of the State. Moreover, custom and unwritten law reduced younger sons of nobles to the level of the commonalty, and they, as well as the actual peer, the head of the family, were subject to taxation. The clergy in convocation taxed themselves.

In France, Parliaments remained the provincial courts they had previously been. That of Paris was, of course, the King's Court of Justice,

CAMEO
VIII.

Parliaments in England and France.