THE GREAT OYER OF POISONING.

In a previous article, an account was given of the proceedings against

the Earl and Countess of Somerset for the murder of Sir Thomas

Overbury. Though they were spared, several other persons were executed

for this offence; and the circumstances under which those who were

represented as the chief criminals escaped, while the others, whose

guilt was represented as merely secondary, were executed, is among the

most mysterious parts of the history. There was so much said about

poisoning throughout the whole inquiry, that Sir Edward Coke gave the

trials the name of 'The Great Oyer of Poisoning.' Oyer has long been a

technical term in English law; and it is almost unnecessary to

explain, that it is old French for _to hear_--_oyer and terminer_

meaning, to hear and determine. The same inscrutable reasons which

make the evidence so imperfect against the chief offenders, affect the

whole of it. But while the exact causes of the death of Sir Thomas

Overbury may be left in doubt, as well as the motives which led to it,

enough is revealed in the trials of the minor offenders to throw a

remarkable light on the strange habits of the time, and especially on

the profligacy and credulity of the court of King James.

The first person put to trial was Richard Weston, who had been

appointed for the purpose of taking charge of Sir Thomas Overbury. If

he had been murdered by poison, there could be no doubt that Weston

was one of the perpetrators. He had been brought up as an apothecary;

and it was said that he was selected on account of his being thus

enabled to dabble in poisons. The charge against him is very

indistinct. He was charged that he, 'in the Tower of London, in the

parish of Allhallows Barking, did obtain and get into his hand certain

poison of green and yellow colour, called rosalgar--knowing the same

to be deadly poison--and the same did maliciously and feloniously

mingle and compound in a kind of broth poured out into a certain

dish.' Weston long refused to plead to the indictment. Of old, a

person could not be put on trial unless he pleaded not guilty, and

demanded a trial. The law, however, provided for those who were

obstinate a more dreadful death than would be inflicted on the

scaffold. To frighten him into compliance, the court gave him a

description of it, telling him that he was 'to be extended, and then

to have weights laid upon him no more than he was able to bear, which

were by little and little to be increased; secondly, that he was to be

exposed in an open place near to the prison, in the open air, being

naked; and lastly, that he was to be preserved with the coarsest bread

that could be got, and water out of the next sink or puddle.' He was

told that 'oftentimes men lived in that extremity eight or nine days.'

People have sometimes endured the _peine forte et dure_, as it was

called, because, unless they pleaded and were convicted, their estates

were not forfeited; and they endured the death of protracted torture

for the sake of their families. Weston's object was supposed to be to

prevent a trial, the evidence in which would expose his great patrons

the Earl and Countess of Somerset. The motive was not, however, strong

enough to make him stand to his purpose. He pleaded to the indictment,

was found guilty, and executed at Tyburn.

The next person brought up was of a more interesting character--Anne

Turner, the widow of a physician. It is stated in the Report, that

when she appeared at the bar, the chief-justice Coke said to her:

'that women must be covered in the church, but not when they are

arraigned, and so caused her to put off her hat; which done, she

covered her hair with her handkerchief, being before dressed in her

hair with her handkerchief over it.' Although Mother Turner's pursuits

were of the questionable kind generally attributed to old hags--she

dealt in philters, soothsaying, and poisoning--she must have been a

young and beautiful woman. In some of the letters which were produced

at the trials, she was called 'Sweet Turner.' In a poem, called

_Overbury's Vision_, published in 1616, and reprinted in the seventh

volume of the Harleian Miscellany, she is thus enthusiastically

described--

'It seemed that she had been some gentle dame;

For on each part of her fair body's frame

Nature such delicacy did bestow,

That fairer object oft it doth not shew.

Her crystal eye, beneath an ivory brow,

Did shew what she at first had been; but now

The roses on her lovely cheeks were dead;

The earth's pale colour had all overspread

Her sometime lovely look; and cruel Death,

Coming untimely with his wintry breath,

Blasted the fruit which, cherry-like in show,

Upon her dainty lips did whilome grow.

Oh, how the cruel cord did misbecome

Her comely neck! And yet by law's just doom

Had been her death.'

It might be said to be Mrs Turner's profession, to minister to all

the bad passions of intriguers. The wicked Countess of Essex employed

her to secure to her, by magic arts and otherwise, the affection of

Somerset, and at the same time to create alienation and distaste on

the part of her husband. Among the documents produced at her trial was

one said to be a list of 'what ladies loved what lords;' and it is

alleged that Coke prohibited its being read, because, whenever he cast

his eye on it, he saw there the name of his own wife. Some mysterious

articles were produced at the trial, which were believed to be

instruments of enchantment and diabolical agency. 'There were also

enchantments shewed in court, written in parchment, wherein were

contained all the names of the blessed Trinity mentioned in the

Scriptures; and in another parchment + B + C + D + E; and in a third,

likewise in parchment, were written all the names of the holy Trinity,

as also a figure, on which was written this word, _corpus_; and on the

parchment was fastened a little piece of the skin of a man. In some of

these parchments were the devil's particular names, who were conjured

to torment the Lord Somerset, and Sir Arthur Manwaring, if their loves

should not continue, the one to the Countess, the other to Mrs

Turner.' Along with these were some pictures, as they were termed, or,

more properly speaking, models of the human figure. 'At the shewing,'

says the report, 'of these, and inchanted papers, and other pictures

in court, there was heard a crack from the scaffolds, which caused

great fear, tumult, and confusion among the spectators, and throughout

the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present,

and grown angry to have his workmanship shewed by such as were not his

own scholars.'[4]

The small figures, which appeared to have created the chief

consternation, were, we are inclined to believe, very innocent things.

There was, it is true, a belief that an individual could be injured or

slain by operations on his likeness. There was, however, another

purpose connected with Mrs Turner's pursuits to which small jointed

images, like artists' lay figures, were used. This was to exhibit the

effect of any new fashion, or peculiar style of dress. In this manner

small figures, about the size of dolls, were long used in Paris. We

have seen people expressing their surprise at pictures of full-grown

Frenchwomen examining dolls, but in reality they were not more

triflingly occupied than those who now contemplate the latest fashions

in their favourite feminine periodical. Mrs Turner was very likely to

have occasion for such figures, for she was, with her other pursuits,

a sort of dressmaker, or _modiste_; in fact, she seems to have been a

ready minister to every kind of human vanity and folly, as well as to

a good deal of human wickedness. In the department of dress, she had a

name in her own sex and age as illustrious as that of Brummel among

dandies in the beginning of this century. As he was the inventor of

the starched cravat, she was his precursor in the invention of the

starched ruff, or, as it is generally said, of the yellow starch.

The best account we have of the starched ruff is by a man who wrote to

abuse it. An individual named Stubbes published an _Anatomy of

Abuses_. Having become extremely rare, a small impression of it was

lately reprinted, as a curious picture of the times. Stubbes dealt

trenchantly with everything that savoured of pride and ostentation in

dress; and he was peculiarly severe on Mrs Turner's invention, which

made the ruff stand against bad weather. He describes the ruffs as

having been made 'of cambric Holland lawn; or else of some other the

finest cloth that can be got for money, whereof some be a quarter of a

yard deep; yea, some more--very few less.' He describes with much glee

the elementary calamities to which, before the invention of the

starch, they were liable. 'If Æolus with his blasts, or Neptune with

his storms, chance to hit upon the crazy barque of their bruised

ruffs, then they goeth flip-flap in the wind, like rags that flew

abroad, lying upon their shoulders like the dish-clout of a slut.'

Having thus, with great exultation, described these reproofs to human

pride, he mentions how 'the devil, as he, in the fulness of his

malice, first invented these great ruffs, so hath he now found out

also two great pillars to bear up and maintain this his kingdom of

great ruffs--for the devil is king and prince over all the kingdom of

pride.' One pillar appears to have been a wire framework--something,

perhaps, of the nature of the hoop. The other was 'a certain kind of

liquid matter, which they call starch, wherein the devil hath willed

them to wash and dye their ruffs well; and this starch they make of

divers colours and hues--white, red, blue, purple, and the like,

which, being dry, will then stand stiff and inflexible about their

necks.'

Mrs Turner, at her execution, was arrayed in a ruff stiffened with the

material for the invention of which she was so famous. She had for her

scientific adviser a certain Dr Forman--a man who was believed to be

deep in all kinds of dangerous chemical lore, and at the same time to

possess a connection with the Evil One, which gave him powers greater

than those capable of being obtained through mere scientific agency.

Had he been alive, he would have undoubtedly been tried with the other

poisoners. His widow gave some account of his habits, and of his

wonderful apparatus, such as 'a ring which would open like a watch;'

but the glimpse obtained of him is brief and mysteriously tantalising.

We remember that, about twenty-five years ago, this man was made the

hero of a novel called _Forman_, which contains much effective

writing, but did not somehow fit the popular taste.

Notwithstanding the scientific ingenuity both of the males and females

concerned in this affair, the poisoning seems to have been conducted

in a very bungling manner when compared with the slow and secret

poisonings of the French and Italians. It is believed that a female of

Naples, called Tophana, who used a tasteless liquid, named after her

_Aqua Tophana_, killed with it 600 people before she was discovered to

be a murderess. The complete secrecy in which these foreigners

shrouded their operations--people seeming to drop off around them as

if by the silent operation of natural causes--was what made their

machinations so frightful. Poisoning, however, is a cowardly as well

as a cruel crime, which has never taken strong root in English habits;

and, as we have observed, the poisoners on this occasion,

notwithstanding the skill and knowledge enlisted by them in the

service, were arrant bunglers. Thus, the confession of James Franklin,

an accomplice, would seem to shew that Sir Thomas Overbury was

subjected to poisons enough to have deprived three cats of their

twenty-seven lives.

'Mrs Turner came to me from the countess, and wished me, from her, to

get the strongest poison I could for Sir T. Overbury. Accordingly, I

bought seven--viz., aquafortis, white arsenic, mercury, powder of

diamonds, _lapis costitus_, great spiders, and cantharides. All these

were given to Sir T. Overbury at several times. And further

confesseth, that the lieutenant knew of these poisons; for that

appeared, said he, by many letters which he writ to the Countess of

Essex, which I saw, and thereby knew that he knew of this matter. One

of these letters I read for the countess, because she could not read

it herself; in which the lieutenant used this speech: "Madam, the scab

is like the fox--the more he is cursed, the better he fareth." And

many other speeches. Sir T. never eat white salt, but there was white

arsenic put into it. Once he desired pig, and Mrs Turner put into it

_lapis costitus_. The white powder that was sent to Sir T. in a

letter, he knew to be white arsenic. At another time, he had two

partridges sent him by the court, and water and onions being the

sauce, Mrs Turner put in cantharides instead of pepper; so that there

was scarce anything that he did eat but there was some poison

mixed.'[5]

It is impossible to believe that the human frame could stand out for

weeks against so hot a siege. It would appear as if Franklin must

really have confessed too much. It has already been said, that the

confused state of the whole evidence renders it difficult to find how

far a case was made out against the Earl and Countess of Somerset.

Such a confession as Franklin's only makes matters still more

confused. That Sir Thomas Overbury really was poisoned, one can

scarcely doubt, if even a portion of what Franklin and the others say

is true; but the reckless manner in which the crime was gone about,

and the confusion of the whole evidence, is extremely perplexing. Not

the least remarkable feature in this tragedy is the number of people

concerned in it. We find, brought to trial, the Earl and Countess of

Somerset and Sir Thomas Monson, who, though said to be the guiltiest

of all, were spared: Weston, Franklin, and Mrs Turner, were executed:

Forman, and another man of science who was said to have given aid, had

gone to their account before the trials came on. Then, in Franklin's

confession, it was stated that 'the toothless maid, trusty Margaret,

was acquainted with the poisoning; so was Mrs Turner's man, Stephen;

so also was Mrs Home, the countess's own handmaid;' and several other

subordinate persons are alluded to in a similar manner.

The quietness and secrecy of the French and Italian poisonings have

been already alluded to. The poisoners, in general, instead of acting

in a bustling crowd, generally prepared themselves for their dreadful

task by secretly acquiring the competent knowledge, so that they might

not find it necessary to take the aid of confederates. They generally

did their work alone, or at most two would act together. It certainly

argues a sadly demoralised state of society in the reign of King

James, that so many persons should be found who would coolly connect

themselves with the work of death; but still there was not so much

real danger as in the quiet, systematic poisonings of such criminals

as Tophana and the Countess of Brinvilliers. The great Oyer of

poisoning was, however, calculated to make a very deep impression on

the public mind. It filled London with fear and suspicion. When

rumours about poisonings become prevalent, no one knows exactly how

far the crime has proceeded, and this and that event is remembered and

connected with it. All the sudden deaths within recollection are

recalled, and thus accounted for. People supposed to be adepts in

chemistry were in great danger from the populace, and one man, named

Lamb, was literally torn to pieces by a mob at Charing-Cross. The

people began to dwell upon the death of Prince Henry, the king's

eldest son, who had fallen suddenly. It was remembered that he was a

youth of a frank, manly disposition--the friend and companion of

Raleigh and of other heroic spirits. He liked popularity, and went

into many of the popular prejudices of the times--forming altogether

in his character a great contrast to his grave, dry, fastidious, and

suspicious brother Charles, who was to succeed to his vacant place. He

had died very suddenly--of fever, it was said; but popular rumour now

attributed his death to poison. Nay, it was said that his own father,

jealous of his popularity, was the perpetrator; and it was whispered

that _this_ was the secret which King James was so afraid his

favourite Somerset might tell if prosecuted to death. In a work called

_Truth brought to Light_, a copy was given of an alleged medical

report on a dissection of the body, calculated to confirm these

suspicions: it may be found in the _State Trials_, ii. 1002. Arthur

Wilson, who published his life and reign of King James during the

Commonwealth, said: 'Strange rumours are raised upon this sudden

expiration of our prince, the disease being so violent that the combat

of nature in the strength of youth (being almost nineteen years of

age) lasted not above five days. Some say he was poisoned with a bunch

of grapes; others attribute it to the venomous scent of a pair of

gloves presented to him (the distemper lying for the most part in the

head.) They that knew neither of these are stricken with fear and

amazement, as if they had tasted or felt the effects of those

violences. Private whisperings and suspicions of some new designs

afoot broaching prophetical terrors that a black Christmas would

produce a bloody Lent, &c.' Kennet, in his notes on Wilson's work,

says that he possesses a rare copy of a sermon preached while the

public mind was thus excited, 'wherein the preacher, who had been his

domestic chaplain, made such broad hints about the manner of his

(Prince Henry's) death, that melted the auditory into a flood of

tears, and occasioned his being dismissed the court.'

But suspicion did not stop here. When King James himself died in much

pain, his body shewing the unsightly symptoms consequent on his gross

habits, poison was again suspected; and as it had been said on the

former occasion, that the father had connived at the death of his son,

it was now whispered that the remaining son, anxious to commence his

ill-starred reign, was accessory to hurrying his father from the

world. The moral character of Charles I. is sufficient to acquit him

of such a charge. But historians even of late date have not entirely

acquitted his favourite, Buckingham, who, it was said, finding that

the king was tired of him, resolved to make him give place to the

prince, in whose good graces he felt secure. The authors of the

scandalous histories published during the Commonwealth, said that the

duke's mother administered the poison externally in the form of a

plaster.