Jean Plaidy - The Murder in the Tower: The Story of Frances, Countess of Essex

“Oh sir,” cried Weston, “I wish I had died before I had touched the bottle.”

“You have repented. That is good. Go back to your work and we will say nothing of this matter. But I beg you watch your actions in future.”

Watch them in future! So that I do not see what is going on?

Weston’s face was illuminated by his relief. “Oh sir, you are good to me, sir. I swear—”

“It is enough. Remember what I have said.”

“Oh I will, I will, sir.”

Sir Gervase dismissed him and Weston blundered away, bewildered.

After the man had left him, Sir Gervase was thoughtful and very uneasy; it was alarming for an ambitious man to find himself caught up in a plot of murder.

The Commission which had been set up to arrange the divorce were not in agreement.

That eloquent man, George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the main stumbling block. He had interviewed the Earl of Essex who was reserved yet determined not to accept the stigma of impotence, although he did agree that as far as his wife was concerned he had no desire. The Archbishop had come to the conclusion that the Earl was by no means impotent but as eager as his wife to have the marriage ended.

He put his view before the Commission explaining that this was a serious matter and they must not allow themselves to be guided by the fact that noble people beloved of the King were eager to see a certain solution. They had to give the right judgment, no matter whom they offended.

Weston was not such a simple man as Sir Gervase had believed him to be; when he had escaped from the Lieutenant and had had a little time to ponder on what had happened, it occurred to him that he had escaped very lightly for a man who had been caught in an attempt to poison a prisoner.

There could be one solution to this: Sir Gervase was either concerned in a plot against Sir Thomas Overbury or he was anxious not to offend those who were. Therefore there would be no real interference from him.

The more he considered the matter, the less fearful he became, and when a few days later he decided to present himself at Mrs. Anne Turner’s house in Hammersmith, he had made up his mind that Sir Gervase would never dare refer to what had happened, so he told Mrs. Turner that he had administered the contents of the bottle.

“And now,” he finished, “I have earned my reward.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Anne Turner, “there will be no reward until Overbury is dead. You have merely performed one of your duties. There are others to follow.”

“I do not greatly like this task.”

“Of course you do not. Do you think you would be paid so handsomely for doing what you enjoy? You had better let us hear no more complaints from you. Go back to your duties. You will soon be given further tasks, and if you perform them with zeal, it will not be long before the matter is completed and you may claim your reward.”

So Weston returned to the Tower and waited for further instructions.

Frances was strained and nervous. Every day that Overbury lived she was in danger. That old fool Abbot was delaying the divorce, and seeking reasons for not granting it. If Overbury should get a letter through to him, if it were discovered that she had procured powders from people of ill repute, that would give the Archbishop what he was looking for. It must not be.

She must stir up Franklin. He was planning a lingering death. That would not do. It must be expedited.

She ordered Franklin to appear at Mrs. Turner’s house and went there to meet him. Anne Turner joined them and the Countess spoke vehemently of the delay which was causing her so much anxiety.

“That which Weston put into the broth produced no result,” she complained. “He is as well as he was when he was taken to the Tower. I have no intention of paying you if you are not going to do the job.”

“I told my lady that it would be necessary to make certain experiments.”

“Then speed them up, speed them up. I hear the prisoner spends much time writing. What if one of the letters he writes should manage to get through. Then all our work could be in vain. We must make him too ill to be able to use his pen.”

“I think, my lady, we should try white arsenic.”

“It could be put into his salt,” suggested Anne Turner.

“I heard from Weston that he took no salt.”

“Then sprinkled on his food, my lady. It could be used in some way.”

“That should be done. What other poisons could you employ.”

“Aquafortis , my lady; and mercury. I have experimented with powder of diamonds and we should use that too. Also lapis costitus and cantharides.”

“Use the lot,” cried Frances; “but let me hear soon that Overbury’s health is declining rapidly. And follow that up with his death.”

If you wished for something you must try to achieve it yourself, thought Frances. It was no use trusting to others.

She called on Sir Gervase Helwys at his apartments in the Tower of London where she was received with great courtesy. As a women of a noble house, and an extremely beautiful one, she had grown to accept such homage as her right; but lately she had been even more courteously received than before; and she was exultant because she knew this additional respect was due to the fact that she was soon to marry Robert Carr.

“I have come to see you because of my lord Rochester’s anxiety on account of one who used to be his friend,” she explained.

Sir Gervase turned a little pale, but Frances did not notice this.

“My lord Rochester has a kind heart I well know,” he murmured.

“So kind that, although this servant has behaved ill, he would not have him suffer. My lord Rochester has asked me to bring him little treats while he is in prison. He knows the poor man to have a sweet tooth and for that reason I want to bring him some of the tarts which he especially likes.”

Sir Gervase shivered imperceptibly. “You must do as you wish, Lady Essex,” he managed to say.

“Thank you.” Her smile was so bewitching that he could only believe her innocent of any design on the prisoner’s life. Rochester and Northampton, the two most important men in the country, were planning the disposal of Overbury, and it was easy to guess that he held some secret, important to them both. And they had decided to use this lovely creature as their unconscious agent!

But what could a man do who was hoping to rise at Court. Only one thing: Refuse to think what this could mean.

“Sir Gervase,” went on Lady Essex, “the tarts I shall bring are for Sir Thomas Overbury alone. I shall send them to you so that you may see they are given to him and no other. It would be a pity to deprive him of that which will do so much to comfort him.”

“No one else shall touch them,” he assured her. “I myself will see to that.”

That satisfied her and she went away.

The next day the tarts arrived for Sir Gervase Helwys and because he was not there to receive them, his servant took them in. Thus they remained for several hours in his apartment before he found them. By that time they were already turning black and were touched with a strange phosphorescence.

No one would eat such tarts. Sir Gervase would not only be doing Overbury a good turn by throwing them away but those who had sent them, for had any but himself looked at the things that person would have suspected at a glance that some very foul substance had been used in preparing them.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was in despair. When he had put his case before the Commission he had a big following. He was certain then that right would prevail and that there should be no concessions because of the nobility and position at Court of the people concerned.

The King was impatient with the Archbishop. James did not like the case; he wished that Robert had chosen an unmarried girl for his wife; however, since Robert wanted this woman, he must have her. But in spite of James’s having made it clear to his Archbishop that he wanted the divorce, still Abbot was arguing against it—and carrying the majority of the Commission with him.

But James had taken one or two of the Commissioners aside and made known his wishes to them; and at the next meeting they no longer supported the Archbishop.

Frances was called before seven chosen ladies who had been instructed to consult her on the intimate details of her married life. Her mother was among them, and being a very forceful woman, and having decided how she intended the inquiry must go, she soon made herself leader of the group. Frances was grateful to her mother and herself gave a touching performance as she explained how her husband had been unable to consummate the marriage.

Essex, questioned by the Commission, was becoming eager to see an end to the proceedings and freedom from a marriage which was growing more and more distasteful as the case progressed; he now seemed ready to accept the slur of impotence for the sake of that freedom.

He was not in truth impotent, he told them, but he had no desire for his wife. He had loved her when he left France and came to England, but he no longer did so, and never could again.

It was suggested that a certain bewitchment might have been put upon him, which would explain why he was able to be a good husband to some woman but not to his wife.

Still the case was not settled and James was annoyed, for now it was being talked of in the streets and it was said that if a woman wanted to rid herself of a husband all she had to do was declare him impotent.

He summoned the Commissioners to Windsor where he was at that time and with them came Frances’s father, the Earl of Suffolk, who during the journey had talked with several of the members of the Commission and told them that he and lords Northampton and Rochester were growing impatient. They asked for a simple matter to be settled and these lords deliberately thwarted them. He hinted at rewards which would be given to the acquiescent; punishments which would befall the dissenters.

By the time the Commission appeared before James, several of its members had changed their minds and were opposing the Archbishop of Canterbury. But old George Abbot was not going against his principles whatever the advantages … or disadvantages.

James was not displeased that there should be this difference of opinion, because it gave him an opportunity of debating, an occupation from which he derived much pleasure, particularly if the subject was a theological one. He prided himself on being more learned in the scriptures than any priest and he could always back up his arguments with quotations.

He summoned George Abbot and engaged him in discussion. The Archbishop was tired and James was alert. Every point which the priest brought forward James quashed with a quotation from the Bible and his own subtle argument. He would have found arguments and quotations to oppose himself had it been necessary; but that was one of the joys of debate. James could have made a brilliant case for either side. He was not called the British Solomon for nothing.