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Thomas Overbury

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Sir Thomas Overbury (June 18, 1581 - September 15, 1613) was an English poet and essayist, and the victim of 1 of the most sensational crimes in English history.[1]

Sir thomas overbury

Sir Thomas Overbury (1581-1613). Engraving by Renold Elstracke (1570-after 1625), circa 1615. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Sir Thomas Overbury
Born Thomas Overbury
1581
Compton Scorpion, Warwickshire, England
Died September 15, 1613
Tower of London, London
Resting place Tower of London
Occupation Poet, courtier
Nationality English
Education Middle Temple
Alma mater Queen's College, Oxford
Relative(s) Brother: Sir Giles Overbury

Life[]

Overview[]

Overbury was educated at Oxford, became the friend of Carr (afterwards Earl of Rochester and Somerset), and fell a victim to a court intrigue connected with the proposed marriage of Rochester and Lady Essex, being poisoned in the Tower with the connivance of the latter. He wrote a poem, A Wife, now a Widowe; and Characters (1614), short, witty descriptions of types of men. Some of those published along with his are by other hands.[2] A Wife, which depicted the virtues that a young man should demand of a woman, played a large role in the events that precipitated his murder.

Youth and education[]

Overbury was the son of Nicholas Overbury, of Bourton-on-the-Hill, and was born in 1581 at Compton Scorpion, near Ilmington, in Warwickshire.[3]

In the autumn of 1595 he became a gentleman commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, earned the degree of B.A. in 1598, and came to London to study law in the Middle Temple.[3]

He found favor with Sir Robert Cecil, travelled on the Continent and began to enjoy a reputation for an accomplished mind and free manners.[3]

Robert Carr[]

About the year 1601, being in Edinburgh on a holiday, Overbuy met Robert Carr, then an obscure page to the earl of Dunbar; and so great a friendship was struck up between the 2 youths that they came up to London together. The early history of Carr remains obscure, and it is probable that Overbury secured an introduction to court before his young associate contrived to do so. At all events, when Carr attracted the attention of James I., in 1606, by breaking his leg in the tilt-yard, Overbury had for some time been servitor-in-ordinary to the king.[3]

In 1609 he travelled in France and the Low Countries. He seems to have followed the fortunes of Carr very closely, and “such was the warmth of the friendship, that they were inseparable, ... nor could Overbury enjoy any felicity but in the company of him he loved [Carr].”[3]

When the latter was made Lord Rochester in 1610, the intimacy seems to have been sustained. But it was now destroyed by a new element.[3]

Countess of Essex[]

After the death of Cecil in 1612, the Howard party, consisting of Henry Howard, Thomas Howard, his son-in-law Lord Knollys, and , along with Sir Thomas Lake, moved to take control of much of the government and its patronage. The powerful Carr, unfitted for the responsibilities thrust upon him and often dependent on his intimate friend, Overbury, for assistance with government papers,[4] fell into the Howard camp, after beginning an affair with the married Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk.

Early in 1611 the court became aware of the mutual attraction between Rochester and the infamous and youthful countess of Essex, who seemed to have bewitched the handsome Scots adventurer. To this intrigue Overbury was from the beginning violently opposed, pointing out to Rochester that an indulgence in it would be hurtful to his preferment, and that the woman, even at this early stage in her career, was already “noted for her injury and immodesty.” He went so far as to use, in describing her, a word which was not more just than scandalous. But Rochester was now infatuated, and he repeated to the countess what Overbury had said.[3]

It was at this time, too, that Overbury wrote, and circulated widely in MS., the poem called “His Wife,” which was a picture of the virtues which a young man should demand in a woman before he has the rashness to marry her. It was represented to Lady Essex that Overbury's object in writing this poem was to open the eyes of Rochester to her defects.[3]

Imprisonment[]

The situation now resolved itself into a deadly duel for the person of Rochester between the mistress and the friend. The countess contrived to lead Overbury into such a trap as to make him seem disrespectful to the king.[3] It cannot have been difficult for the conspirators to secure James's compliance because he disliked Overbury's influence over Carr.;[5] John Chamberlain (1553-1628) wrote at the time that the King "hath long had a desire to remove him from about the lord of Rochester [Carr], as thinking it a dishonour to him that the world should have an opinion that Rochester ruled him and Overbury ruled Rochester".[6]

James was instigated to offer him an assignment as ambassador to the court of Michael of Russia. Overbury declined, as he sensed the urgency to remain in England and at his friend's side. James was so irate at Overbury's arrogance in declining the offer that he had him thrown into the Tower of London on 22 April 1613.

It was not known at the time, and it is not certain now, how far Rochester participated in this first crime, or whether he was ignorant of it. But the queen, by a foolish phrase, had sown discord between the friends; she had called Overbury Rochester's “governor.”[3]

It is, indeed, apparent that Overbury had become arrogant with success, and was no longer a favorite at Court. Lady Essex, however, was not satisfied with having had him shut up; she was determined that “he should return no more to this stage.” She had Sir William Wade, the honest Governor of the Tower, removed to make way for a creature of her own, Sir Gervaise Elvis (or Helwys) ; and a gaoler, of whom it was ominously said that he was “a man well acquainted with the power of drugs,” was set to attend on Overbury.[3]

This fellow, afterwards aided by Mrs Turner, the widow of a physician, and by an apothecary called Franklin, plied the miserable poet with sulphuric acid in the form of copper vitriol. But his constitution long withstood the timid doses they gave him, and he lingered in exquisite sufferings until the 15 September 1613, when more violent measures put an end to his existence.

2 months later Rochester, now earl of Somerset, married the chief murderess, Lady Essex.[3] The Howards won James's support for an annulment of Frances's marriage to Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, on grounds of impotence, to free her to remarry. With James's assistance, the marriage was duly annulled on 25 September 1613, despite Essex's opposition to the charge of impotence. The commissioners judging the case reached a 5–5 verdict, so James quickly appointed 2 extra judges guaranteed to vote in favour, an intervention which aroused public censure. When, after the annulment, the son of Bishop Bilson, one of the added commissioners, was knighted, he was given the nickname "Sir Nullity Bilson". [7] The marriage two months later of Frances Howard and Robert Carr, now Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, was the court event of the season, celebrated in verse by John Donne.

Investigation[]

More than a year passed before suspicion was roused, and when it was, the king showed a hateful disinclination to bring the offenders to justice.[3] Almost 2 years later, in September 1615, and as James was in the process of replacing Carr with a new favorite (George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham), the Governor of the Tower sent a letter to the King, informing him that one of the warders had been bringing the prisoner "poisoned food and medicine."[8] James was not inclined to delve into the matter, but the rumors refused to go away. Eventually, they began hinting at the King's own involvement, forcing him to order an investigation. In the celebrated trial which followed, however, the wicked plot was all discovered.[3] The details of the murder were uncovered by Edward Coke]] and Sir Francis Bacon who presided over the trial. Frances Howard admitted a part in Overbury's murder, but her husband did not. Fearing what Carr might say about him in court, James repeatedly sent messages to the Tower pleading with him to admit his guilt in return for a pardon. "It is easy to be seen that he would threaten me with laying an aspersion upon me of being, in some sort, accessory to his crime".[9] The couple were found guilty and sentenced to death; nonetheless, they were eventually pardoned. 4 accomplices - Robert Weston, Anne Turner, Gervaise Helwys, and Simon Franklin - were also found guilty and sentenced to death.

The 4 accomplices were hanged; the countess of Somerset pleaded guilty but was spared; and Somerset himself was disgraced.[3] The implication of the King in such a scandal provoked much public and literary conjecture and irreparably tarnished James's court with an image of corruption and depravity.

Writing[]

Overbury's poem, The Wife, was published in 1614, and ran through 6 editions within a year, the scandal connected with the murder of the author greatly aiding its success. It was abundantly reprinted within the next 60 years, and it continued to be widely popular in the 17th century. Combined with later editions of The Wife, and gradually adding to its bulk, were “Characters” (1st printed in the 2nd of the 1614 editions), “The Remedy of Love” (1620), and “Observations in Foreign Travels” (1626). Later, much that must be spurious was added to the gathering snowball of Overbury's Works.[3]

Posterity has found the praise of his contemporaries for the sententious and graceful moral verse of Overbury extravagantly expressed. The Wife is smooth and elegant, but uninspired. There is no question that the horrible death of the writer, and the extraordinary way in which his murderers were brought to justice, gave an extraneous charm to his writings. Nor can we be quite sure that Overbury was in fact such a “glorious constellation” of all the religious virtues as the 17th century believed. He certainly kept very bad company, and positive evidence of his goodness is wanting. But no one was ever mote transcendently canonized by becoming the victim of conspirators whose crimes were equally detestable and unpopular.[3]

Recognition[]

Overbury was knighted in June 1608,[3]

In popular culture[]

  • Marjorie Bowen wrote a fictionalised account of the case and trial in The King's Favourite.
  • Rafael Sabatini's novel about the rise and fall of Robert Carr, The King's Minion (1930), argues Overbury's poisoning was ordered by James I and carried out by his personal physician after the failed attempts by Lady Essex and her conspirators.
  • Dramatist John Ford wrote a lost work entitled Sir Thomas Overbury's Ghost, containing the history of his life and untimely death (1615). Its nature is uncertain, but Ford scholars have suggested it may have been an elegy, prose piece, or pamphlet.[10]
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne mentions this murder in his book The Scarlet Letter.
  • Charles Mackay devoted much of the chapter on "The Slow Poisoners" in Volume 2 of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds to Overbury's death and the various fates of his murderers.
  • Miriam Allen deFord wrote The Overbury Affair, which involves events during the reign of James I of Britain surrounding the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. For the latter work she received a 1961 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime book.
  • Brian Harris QC offers a radical new approach to the 'poisoning conspiracy' and suggests that Overbury may not have died at the hands of Francis Essex. See "Passion, Poison and Power", Wildy, Simmonds & Hill, 2010.

Publications[]

Poems[]

  • A Wife Now the Widdow of Sir Thomas Overburye; whereunto are added many witty characters. London: T. Creede, for Laurence L'Isle, 1614.
    • also published as Sir Thomas Overbury His Wife. With additions of new characters, and many other witty conceits never before printed (revised by John Webster). London : Printed by Iohn Haviland, for A. Crooke, 1638.

Non-fiction[]

  • His Observations in his Travailes: Upon the state of the XVII Provinces as they stood, 1609. London: Bernard Alsop, for John Parker, 1626.

Collected editions[]

  • Miscellaneous Works: In verse and prose. London: W. Owen, 1756.
  • Miscellaneous Works: In prose and verse (edited by E.F. Rimbault). London: 1856; London: Reeves & Turner, 1890. .


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[11]

See also[]

References[]

  • Barroll, J. Leeds (2001) Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: a cultural biography. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN 0812235746.
  • Davies, Godfrey ([1937] 1959) The Early Stuarts. Oxford: Clarendon Press ISBN 0198217048.
  • DeFord, Miriam Allen (1960) The Overbury Affair: The murder trial that rocked the court of King James I. Philadelphia: Chilton Company.
  •  Gosse, Edmund (1911). "Overbury, Sir Thomas". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 384. . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 18, 2018.
  • Lindley, David (1993) The Trials of Frances Howard: Fact and fiction at the court of King James. London: Routledge ISBN 0415052068.
  • Perry, Curtis (2006) Literature and Favoritism in Early Modern England. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521854059.
  • Stewart, Alan (2003) The Cradle King: A life of James VI & I. London: Chatto and Windus. ISBN 0-7011-6984-2.
  • Willson, David Harris ([1956] 1963 ed) King James VI & I. London: Jonathan Cape ISBN 0-224-60572-0.

Notes[]

  1. ↑ "Sir Thomas Overbury, NNDB, Web, Mar. 19, 2012.
  2. ↑ John William Cousin, "Overbury, Thomas," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1910, 292. Wikisource, Web, Feb. 18, 2018.
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 Gosse, 384.
  4. ↑ Willson, p 349; "Packets were sent, sometimes opened by my lord, sometimes unbroken unto Overbury, who perused them, registered them, made table-talk of them, as they thought good. So I will undertake the time was, when Overbury knew more of the secrets of state, than the council-table did." Francis Bacon, speaking at the trial. Quoted by Perry, p 105.
  5. ↑ Lindley, 145.
  6. ↑ Willson, p 342.
  7. ↑ Lindley, 120.
  8. ↑ Barroll, Anna of Denmark, 136.
  9. ↑ Stewart, 275.
  10. ↑ Stock, L. E., et al. (eds.) The Nondramatic Works of John Ford (Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991); p. 340.
  11. ↑ Search results = au:Thomas Overbury, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Aug. 31, 2016.

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 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at Overbury, Sir Thomas

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