writing to Rochester, he became more and more importunate. Rochester seems to have represented to him that Suffolk was an obstacle to his release. Overbury accordingly wrote to Suffolk, protesting that if he regained his liberty he would use all his influence with his patron in favour of Suffolk. About the same time he wrote to Northampton, assuring him that he had never spoken dishonourably of Lady Essex, and promising to abstain from all reflections upon her for the future.

and North

From the stray fragments which have reached us of Overbury's correspondence, it seems as if both Rochester and Proceedings Northampton were still encouraging him in the of Rochester belief that they were straining every nerve for his ampton. delivery, and as if Helwys was acting as their agent in bringing him to a sense of the obligations which he was supposed to be under to them. That Northampton, at least, received with pleasure the news of Overbury's illness and probable death, there can be no doubt; but there is no evidence to prove that he was aware of his niece's proceedings, though, on the other hand, there is no proof that he was kept in ignorance of them; and Mrs. Turner certainly stated shortly before

have allowed it in order to be quit of them, knowing well that it would not do her much harm, as the evidence against her was strong enough already, It must not be forgotten that she afterwards retracted some statements made in the lost confession, in which she first stated that 'letters' meant poison (Bacon's Letters and Life, v. 282, and in the confession in S. P. Dom. lxxxvi. 6), and that if the second report of the trial be correct, she had only said that she meant, perhaps, poison' (Amos, 145). It seems to me much more probable that the tarts went backwards and forwards as media of a correspondence, and that Helwys invented the theory of the poison, in order to conceal his breach of trust in permitting it to go on through his hands, and to magnify his own merits in stopping the poison from arriving. If so much poison was really taken by Overbury, how came he to live so long as he did?

The warrant in the Council Register, July 22, 1613, shows that Rochester was anxious Overbury should be visited by others besides the physician.

Here, again, the two reports of the trial are very perplexing. In the printed trial Northampton's letter to Rochester is quoted thus: “I cannot deliver with what caution and discretion the Lieutenant hath under

taken Overbury. But for his conclusion I do and ever will love him

1613 POISON ADMINISTERED TO OVERBURY.

185

her execution that he was as deeply involved in guilt as any of the rest.

Whatever may have been the cause of Overbury's illness, he was not without hopes of recovery. Months had passed away since he had been committed to prison, and Lady Essex was growing impatient. She was tired of Weston's protestations that he had given enough to his prisoner to poison twenty men. She found that, in the absence of the King's physician, Dr. Mayerne, a French apothecary named Lobell attended upon Overbury. If we can venture to rest anything upon the uncertain evidence before us,1 we may come to the conclusion better; which was this, that either Overbury shall recover, and do good offices betwixt my Lord of Suffolk and you . . . or else, that he shall not recover at all, which he thinks the most sure and happy change of all (Amos, 25). In the other report the important words are: 66 Overbury may recover, if you find him altered to do you better services; but the best is not to suffer him to recover (Amos, 141). In quotations from written documents, the printed report seems to me to be the better authority, wherever they are not intentionally garbled. Does not all the constant correspondence with Overbury look as if it was expected that he would be free some day? Of what use was all this trouble if it was intended to poison him?

...

Weston stated, in his examination of October 1, 1615 (Amos, 180), that Helwys ordered 'that none should come . . . but the former apothecary,' i.e. Lobell . . . ‘or his man, and that no other came at any time, or gave any clyster to Sir Thomas Overbury,' and on October 6 (Amos, 182), that 'little before his death, and as he taketh it, two or three days, Overbury received a clyster given him by Paul de Lobell.' The clyster by which death was caused was not administered two or three days before, but the very day before the death of Overbury. The only evidence of any kind against Lobell is derived from Rider's examination (Amos, 168). From this it appears that Rider met Lobell in October 1615, and talked to him of the rumours of Overbury's having been murdered. Lobell asserted that he died of consumption, and that the clyster which was said to have caused his death was prescribed by Mayerne, and that his son had made it according to his direction.' A week afterwards Rider met him again, walking with his wife, and told him the poison was given by an apothecary's boy, meaning by this a boy who had at the time of the murder been young Lobell's servant. Upon this Mrs. Lobell said to her husband, 'Oh! mon mari, &c.'-'that was William you sent into France.' Upon this Lobell trembled and exhibited signs of great discomposure. It does not, however, follow that he had known of the servant's act. He knew

that an assistant of Lobell's was bribed to administer the fatal drug. On September 14, he succeeded in accomplishing his purpose by means of an injection. On the following day the prisoner died, the unhappy victim of a woman's vengeance. His death took place only ten days before the judgment was delivered by the Commissioners in the case of the divorce, by which his murderess received the prize which she had stooped so low to win. How far Rochester was aware at the time of what was taking place it is impossible to say with certainty. Lady Essex, in distress at her failures, may have told him of her design, and may even have enlisted his sympathy; but we have her own distinct statement to the contrary,1 and the hypothesis that his sending him away would bring suspicion upon himself. Lobell's own account was that the boy's parents asked him to give him an introduction to some friends in France, which he did the more readily, as he knew his new master used him hardly. The argument against Lobell, however, acquires weight from the fact that he was not put on his trial. It should, however, be remembered that it was the interest of the prosecution to keep the whole history of the apothecary's boy in the background. He was out of England, and if it had been proved that he was the real murderer, all the other prosecutions would fall to the ground at once; as an accessory could not be prosecuted until a verdict was obtained against the principal. I have omitted all reference to Franklyn's evidence, as no weight whatever can be attached to the assertions of so unblushing a liar. The strongest points against Somerset have been put by Mr. Spedding (Bacon's Letters and Life, v. 326); but while his arguments are conclusive against the theory that Rochester had a clear case, and only wished in his proceedings before his arrest to shield his wife, they do not exclude the possibility that he, knowing as he may be supposed to have done in 1615, that Overbury had been poisoned, and knowing too that his behaviour about the tarts and powders laid him open to grave suspicion, did all that he could to remove the evidence of such suspicious conduct, and to free himself from a charge which, though untrue, might easily be believed to be true.

1 On Jan. 12, 1616, when she was in prison she acknowledged to Fenton and Montgomery that she had had part in the murder ‘como moza agraviada y ofendida de que el,' i.e. Overbury, 'hablava indignisimamente de su persona, pero que el conde de Somerset, que entonces aun no era marido, ni lo havia sabido ni tenido parte en ello, antes ella se guardava y recatava dél en esto, porque le tenia por muy verdadero amigo del Obarberi, que esto era la verdad, aunque el haver sido ella sola en ello fuese mas culpa.' Sarmiento to Philip III. Jan. 30, 1616, Simancas MSS. 2595, fol. 23.

1613

THE NAVY COMMISSION.

187

of the truth of that statement is, on the whole, most in accordance with known facts.

For two years the murder which had been committed remained unknown. Public curiosity was fixed upon matters of less personal interest. When governments are popular there is but little desire to scan their prerogatives closely, or to impose definite limitations on their authority. When they cease to have public opinion behind them, criticism on their actions and claims is certain to spring up. It is therefore easily intelligible that the year which witnessed the triumph of Northampton and Rochester should also have witnessed the first in a series of legal proceedings the object of which was to defend the prerogative from the assaults of hostile criticism.

Commission to inquire into the management of the Navy.

In the course of the winter of 1612-13, a commission was issued to inquire into the abuses existing in the management of the Navy. A similar inquiry had been made a few years before, which had resulted in little more than the production of a voluminous report by Sir Robert Cotton.1 As Cotton was at this time leaning towards the Catholic party, he was in high favour with Northampton and the Scottish favourite, and it is likely enough that the renewal of the investigation was due to his newly acquired influence.

The proposal to examine into the abuses of the dockyards was felt by Nottingham as a personal affront offered to him in his capacity of Lord High Admiral. He was a brave man, and had won the honours which he enjoyed by his services in command of the fleet which defeated the Armada; but he was without the administrative abilities which would enable him to make head against the evils which prevailed in the department over which he presided; and, as usually happens, he was the last to perceive his own deficiencies.

He determined, therefore, to oppose the inquiry to the utmost. He directed Sir Robert Mansell, who, as Treasurer of the Navy, was equally interested with himself in Opposed by Nottingham frustrating the proceedings of the Commissioners, to obtain a legal opinion upon the validity of the commission under which they were about to act.

and Mansell.

1 S. P. Dom. xli.

locke an opinion against its legality.

Upon this Mansell applied to Whitelocke, who had been brought into notice by his great speech on the impositions, as a man eminently fitted to deal with the legal questions by which the prerogative was affected. He obtained They obtain from White from him, without difficulty, a paper in which were set down the objections to the commission which presented themselves to his mind. Whitelocke's paper has not been preserved; but as far as we can judge from the report of the proceedings subsequently taken against him he declared that the commission was illegal, as containing directions to the Commissioners to 'give order for the due punishment of the offenders.' Such directions, he urged, were contrary to the well-known clause of Magna Carta, which provides that no free man shall be injured in body or goods, except by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

This paper found its way into the King's hands. Whitelocke, however, had taken the precaution of not signing his name to it, and probably had not allowed it to leave his chambers in his own handwriting. Although, therefore, he was strongly suspected of being the author of it, no steps were for some time taken against him.

Whitelocke's

Whilst he was thus exposed to the displeasure of the King, he drew down upon himself the anger of the Lord Chancellor, by an argument which he delivered in the argument course of his professional duties. Having occasion in Chancery. to defend a plaintiff whose adversary appealed to the Court of the Earl Marshal, he argued that there was no such court legally in existence, and succeeded in convincing the Master of the Rolls, and in obtaining an order from him by which the defendant was restrained from carrying his cause out of Chancery. A few days later an attempt was made before the Chancellor to reverse this order. Ellesmere burst out into an invective against Whitelocke. It was in vain that the sturdy lawyer proceeded to quote the precedents and Acts of Parliament upon which he rested the conclusion to which he had come. Ellesmere only inveighed the more bitterly against him and the other lawyers who troubled themselves about questions concerning the prerogative Even he,

May 17.