Sir Thomas was not allowed to see any friends. There can be no doubt of
the fact that his food was drugged, and he fell into bad health; but his
constitution was strong, and he languished for some time.
The perfidious Somerset sent him a white powder that he was ‘convinced
would be efficacious. He might,’ he said, ‘take it without fear, even if
it produced sickness, which sickness may be a plea for your release.’
The unfortunate man’s release was by the hand of death. He died from the
effects of strong poison administered to him medically, and was buried
with indecent haste. Ugly rumours were abroad, and the names of Lord and
Lady Somerset were in many mouths, but few cared to come forward as
accusers while the mantle of Royal protection was thrown over them. But
‘Robie’ was supplanted at Court by ‘Steenie,’ or in other words, by
George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham; and when his star was in
the ascendant, then the mouths of many were opened. About this time too,
a curious incident occurred which helped to confirm the suspicions
concerning Overbury’s mysterious death.
One day that Lord Salisbury was entertaining at the same time, at
dinner, Sir Gervase Elwes (Governor of the Tower at the time of
Overbury’s death) and Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State, his
lordship recommended the former to the patronage of the latter, upon
which Winwood said how much he wished Elwes could clear himself of the
imputation of murder that had been cast upon him. Whereon he (Elwes)
spoke out, and confessed all, together with the share that the Earl and
Countess of Somerset had had in the terrible transaction, and so it came
about that the guilty pair were arrested with the consent of the King.
The hypocritical James, taking leave of his ex-favourite, embraced him
with every show of affection; but no sooner had he left the apartment,
than he cried out: ‘The devil go with thee, for I will never see thy
face again.’
The trial of persons so high in position, and so well known in royal
circles, caused a great sensation, and the Court was crowded with ladies
and great personages. Lord Somerset wore a dress of black satin, and a
gown of uncut velvet, his ruff and cuffs were of cobweb lace, neither
had he forgotten to wear his George and Garter, or have his hair
carefully curled. His handsome face was very pale, and he pleaded not
guilty. ‘He trusted to the justice of the Lords to acquit him.’ He
denied everything, even his own letters, which he said were
‘counterfeit.’
The lady was arraigned next day, and her demeanour, which we are told by
a contemporary was ‘sober,’ was altogether different from that of her
husband. She pleaded guilty with a low obeisance. She several times
covered her face with her fan, during evidence given, but she confessed
everything. She shed (or made a show of shedding) some tears divers
times. Her deportment, says the same authority, ‘was more curious and
confident than was fit for a lady in such distress.’
Yet it is also said of her that her voice was scarce audible from fear,
when she hoped the Lords would intercede for her. The verdict was, that
the Earl and Countess of Somerset, with several accomplices, were guilty
of devising and compassing the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.
The King, fickle and cruel as he was, appeared very uneasy during the
trial, even going so far as to lose his appetite for dinner and supper;
but he did not like the idea of signing the death-warrant of the two
people at whose wickedness he had connived; so he signed their pardon,
and they were committed to the Tower—the lady not being taken thither
till after her confinement, when it is said she shed a few tears over
her new-born daughter, and was removed to prison.
The accomplices, Elwes, Weston, and the beautiful but infamous ‘Mistress
Turner,’ Lady Somerset’s go-between in her amours, and abettor in the
murder of Overbury, with others, were all executed.
An eye-witness speaks of the bewitching appearance of the fair Mistress
Turner on the scaffold. ‘I saw her die,’ says the letter alluded to—‘her
powdered hair, her yellow bands, her starched ruff;’ and a poem that was
written, called ‘Overbury’s Vision,’ speaks of the cruel cord that did
‘misbecome her comely neck; yet by man’s just doom had been her death.’
‘Sighs and tears and Court vanities,’ etc. etc.
Lord and Lady Somerset lived together in the Tower till 1622, when an
order from the King in Council set them at liberty, prescribing for
them, however, a place of residence. James intended to restore their
property, which was forfeited, but died before the fulfilment of his
promise, and Charles I. did not see fit to ratify the same. They were in
consequence reduced to great poverty, and the passion which had led them
to such fatal extremes turned to loathing; so that, although residing
under the same roof, Lord and Lady Somerset lived as strangers, and the
miserable woman died of a most painful disease, crying out in her last
moments on the name of the husband she had so basely injured: ‘Oh,
Essex! Essex!’
A touching incident is told of their daughter, the wife of the Earl of
Bedford. Her portrait by Vandyck is well known, and her sweet fair face
and lovely form live in more than one gallery. Lord Somerset dearly
loved his only child; the affection was mutual, and she reverenced his
memory; but one sad day, as the lovely Lady Bedford sat reading by the
window, she came accidentally across a pamphlet which opened her eyes to
the complicated guilt of both her parents. The shock was too much for
her, and the next person who entered the room found her in a swoon on
the floor, with the open book beside her.
We have perhaps afforded too much space, in a notice purporting to be a
life of Sir Thomas Overbury, to the story of Somerset and his wife, but
the lives are so intimately connected, that we hope to be held excused.
Overbury had a reputation for wit and talent, and wrote several pieces
in prose and verse.
--------------
No. 113.
THOMAS, SECOND MARQUIS OF BATH,
WHEN YOUNG.
BY HOPPNER.
DIED 1837.
_Maroon-coloured coat. White waistcoat._
--------------
_No. 114._
JOHN RUSSELL, SIXTH DUKE OF BEDFORD.
BORN 1766, DIED 1839.
_Seated in a red chair. Black coat. Wig._
HE was the second son of the Marquis of Tavistock, by Lady Elizabeth,
daughter of the second Earl of Albemarle, of the Keppel family. Lord
Tavistock was killed by a fall from his horse in 1767, and his widow
died of grief. Of their three sons the two eldest succeeded to the
Dukedom and estates, and the third (posthumous), Lord William, was
murdered by his valet Courvoisier in 1840. In 1786 John Russell married
Georgiana Byng, second daughter of the fourth Lord Torrington, who died
in 1801, and two years afterwards Lady Georgiana, daughter of the fourth
Duke of Gordon, which lady died in 1853. The Duke had children by both
marriages.
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No. 115.
SIR KENELM DIGBY.
OLD STONE, AFTER VANDYCK.
BORN 1603, DIED 1665.
_Black dress. Pointed beard._
SON of Sir Everard Digby, born at Gothurst or Gayhurst, county Bucks,
the property of his mother, daughter and sole heir of William Mulsho.
He was but a child when his father suffered death, as one of the
conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot. The Crown laid claim to the estates
and revenues of the family, but the widowed Lady Digby, a woman of great
energy and determination, not only saved her own dower, by her strenuous
efforts, but rescued a few hundreds for her son out of the wreck, and,
although a rigid Roman Catholic, she suffered her boy to be educated as
a Protestant from prudential motives. The romance of the loves of Kenelm
Digby and Venetia Stanley, which made such a noise at the time, and has
been the subject of curiosity and controversy ever since, whenever their
names are mentioned, began at a very early age. Sir Edward Stanley of
the noble house of Derby lived at Tong Castle, county Salop. He married
the daughter and co-heir of the Earl of Northumberland, who brought him
two daughters, ‘the divine Venetia’ being the youngest. Her mother died
when she was a few months old. The widower gave himself up to grief,
shunned all society, and could not even derive comfort from the society
of his children. He sent them therefore (or at all events Venetia) to
the care of a relative, who was a neighbour of Lady Digby’s. Thus began
the acquaintance, and Sir Edward’s beautiful little girl and Lady
Digby’s lovely boy met constantly, and played at love-making, jealousy,
rivalry, coquetry, quarrels, reconciliations,—in fact a perfect
rehearsal of all the drama that was to be enacted in good earnest, a few
years later. The marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Palatine,
afterwards King of Bohemia, called Sir Edward to London. With a violent
wrench he tore himself away from his beloved seclusion, and sending for
Venetia carried her with him to the Court of King James, then the scene
of great festivity.
In all these gaieties, according to Digby’s account, the juvenile beauty
took part, and was the centre of admiration. In the meantime her young
lover pursued his studies under the care of Laud, Dean of Gloucester,
subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury, and afterwards with Dr. Thomas
Allen, an eminent scholar, at Oxford.
Digby distinguished himself at the University, where he remained two
years, but whenever he returned home for the vacation, the flirtation
with his fair neighbour was resumed. He wrote a strange and wild romance
respecting her, in which it is impossible to disentangle truth from
fiction, but some of the adventures are too marvellous for belief, and
the whole narrative disagreeable, and tedious in to the bargain.
His jealousy seems to have been excited by a certain courtier, whose
suit, he affirms, was favoured by Venetia’s governess. Lady Digby was
too wise a mother to smile on such a precocious courtship, even if she
disbelieved the reports which had already begun to circulate,
detrimental to mistress Stanley’s reputation.
She despatched her son on foreign travel, but before his departure the
lovers had met and plighted their troth. According to the traveller’s
own account he made a conquest of the French Queen when in Paris _en
route_ for Italy.
A report of his death having been accidentally or purposely circulated,
Venetia’s conduct on the occasion was differently represented to her
absent lover, some declaring she was inconsolable, others that she lent
a willing ear to the suit of the very same courtier who had before
excited Kenelm’s jealousy.
Nothing can be more bombastic and high-flown than the language in which
he describes the fluctuations of his passion for Venetia, his implicit
trust in her constancy in one page, his doubts and suspicions in
another.
It seems more than probable that the prudent Lady Digby intercepted her
son’s love-letters, and did all in her power to prevent a marriage she
thought most undesirable, and she was doubtless delighted when Kenelm
accompanied his kinsman, Lord Bristol, to Spain, where he was then
negotiating the Prince of Wales’s marriage with the Infanta at Madrid.
Kenelm became himself attached to the Prince’s suite, and took an active
part in diplomatic transactions.
In this land of romance it may well be imagined that the handsome and
accomplished Englishman ran the gauntlet of many adventures among the
dark-eyed daughters of the south, nor does he omit to allude to
innumerable conquests; indeed, he went so far as to have a portrait of
himself painted with an effigy of one of his victims in the background,
but he incessantly boasted of his constancy to the absent loved one. On
his return to England with the Prince of Wales, he was knighted by the
King at Hinchingbrook, and immediately flew to his lady-love in spite of
maternal prohibition. Then followed recriminations, explanations, trials
of her faith and virtue, challenges, duels—a stormy suit, indeed,
according to his own testimony.
Respecting the date of their marriage, there is great difference of
opinion. At all events, Kenelm insisted on its being kept secret, nor
was poor Venetia allowed to announce it, even when a fall from her horse
brought on a premature confinement, which nearly cost her her life.
King James admired Sir Kenelm for his great erudition, and complimented
him on his essays on Sympathetic Powder, Alchemy, and other subjects
bordering on the supernatural. On the accession of Charles I. Sir Kenelm
Digby was made gentleman of the privy chamber, commissioner of the navy,
and governor of the Trinity House, shortly after which, he was appointed
to the command of a naval squadron, sent to the Mediterranean against
the Venetian fleet, and the Algerine pirates.
In this voyage he was eminently successful, bringing the Venetians to
terms, chastising the pirates, and releasing a large number of English
slaves. It is said that on the eve of his embarkation, a second son
being born to him, he had permitted his wife to declare their marriage,
and had consigned her to the care of his kinsman, Lord Bristol, during
his absence from England. About this time, his faithful old friend,
Thomas Allen, bequeathed to him a splendid library, which he made over
to the Bodleian.
In 1633, after his return, his beautiful but far from happy wife died,
and the mystery which had shrouded Venetia’s whole life hung like a dark
cloud over her death, and reports of all kinds were current.
There is no doubt that Sir Kenelm had been in the habit of making
chemical and alchemical experiments on Venetia for some time past, and
the tradition of the concoction of snails which he had invented as a
preservative of her naturally brilliant complexion is still extant at
Gayhurst, where it is said the somewhat rare breed of large ‘Pomatia’ is
still to be found.
By Digby’s desire, his wife’s head (‘which contained but little brain’)
was opened, and he decided that she had taken an overdose of viper wine.
But spiteful women declared she had fallen a victim to a viper husband’s
jealousy, though Aubrey, who tells sad tales of Venetia before her
marriage, says she was a blameless wife.
There is more than one portrait of her, with allegorical emblems of
Innocence, Slander, and the like. Her name had often been coupled with
that of the Earl of Dorset, and some said he had settled an annuity on
her, which was paid up to the time of her death. Be this as it may, Sir
Kenelm and Lady Digby always dined once a year with my Lord Dorset, who
received them courteously but formally, only permitting himself to kiss
the beauty’s hand with great respect.
Venetia was buried in a church near Newgate, in a tomb of black marble,
with long inscriptions, surmounted by a copper-gilt bust, all destroyed
in the great fire. Numerous epitaphs were written in her honour. Ben
Jonson calls her ‘A tender mother, a discreet wife, a solemn mistress, a
good friend, so lovely and charitable in all her petite actions, so
devote in her whole life,’ etc.
Whatever Sir Kenelm’s real feelings were, his outward grief was extreme.
He retired to Gresham College, lived like a hermit, studied chemistry,
wore a long mourning cloak, and left his beard unshorn. Although it was
generally supposed that his secession from the Protestant faith took
place when he was in Spain, it was not until 1653 that he wrote to his
friend Laud (whose admirable answer is extant) to announce the fact. He
was a firm adherent of Charles I., and greatly esteemed by Henrietta
Maria; but his loyalty got him into trouble with the Parliament, and he
was exiled to France. Returning in a few months, he was imprisoned in
1640 for nearly three years, and was supposed only to have regained his
liberty through the intercession of the French Queen, who had loved him
twenty years before. His release, however, was conditional. He was
forbidden to take part in any public affairs, and he therefore gave
himself up to literary and scientific pursuits, and engaged in a
polemical correspondence with his quondam tutor, Laud, whom he is said
to have tempted to change his faith, by the bait of a Cardinal’s Hat.
Sir Kenelm returned to France, and frequented the Court of his old
flame, the Queen-Dowager, where his noble appearance, almost gigantic
size, his handsome features, agreeable conversation and manners, his
learning, and last, but perhaps not least, his predilection for the
occult sciences, made him an universal favourite. On the death of his
eldest son, killed on the Royalist side at the battle of St. Neot’s, Sir
Kenelm returned to compound for his estates, but was not suffered to
remain in England. He went back to Paris, where Henrietta Maria made him
her Chancellor. And he was then intrusted with a mission to Pope
Innocent X., who welcomed him at first, but after a time the ‘Englishman
grew high, and hectored at His Holiness, and gave him the lie.’
Once more in England, after the dissolution of the Long Parliament,
Cromwell took him into his confidence, hoping by his mediation to gain
over the Roman Catholics.
His conduct in these circumstances has been praised by some and censured
by others, as may well be imagined, according to religious and political
bias. He travelled through France, Lower Germany, and the Palatinate,
always seeking and being sought by men of letters; and 1660 saw him once
more back in his native land.
Charles II. showed him but little favour. He was nominated F.R.S., and
resided (1663) in a fair house in Covent Garden, where he had a
laboratory. ‘Philosopher, theologian, courtier, soldier; polite,
amiable, handsome, graceful.’ Lord Clarendon’s testimony is, ‘eccentric,
vain, unstable in religion, a duellist.’ These are the counterbalancing
portraits of Sir Kenelm Digby. He desired to be buried near Venetia. His
epitaph was as follows:—
‘Under this tomb the matchless Digby lies,
Digby the great, the brilliant, and the wise;
This age’s wonder, for his noble partes,
Skilled in six tongues, and learn’d in all the artes!
Born on the day he died, th’ eleventh of June,
And that day bravely fought at Scanderoon:
It’s rare that one and the same day should be
The day of birth, and death, and victory.’
He had four sons and one daughter.
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No. 116.
SIR WILLIAM LYNCH.
IN PASTEL.
DIED 1785.
_Blue coat. Red collar and cuffs._
SON of Dr. Lynch, Dean of Glastonbury, friend of the first Lord Bath’s.
Was Member of Parliament for Canterbury and other places.
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No. 117.
ARCHBISHOP JUXON.
BY VANDYCK.
BORN 1582, DIED 1663.
_In Bishop’s robes._
THE son of Richard Juxon of Chichester, in Sussex, where he was born.
Educated at Merchant Taylors’ School, and in 1598 elected a Fellow of
St. John’s, Oxford. Destined for the bar, he studied civil law at the
University, and took his degree of B.C.L. in 1603, having already
entered as student at Gray’s Inn.
He changed his mind, however, and read divinity with much diligence,
took Orders, and was granted a living by his College,—St. Giles’s,
Oxford; but he removed in 1614 to Somerton, in the same county. In the
east window of this church is his paternal coat of arms.
He kept up his connection with the University, and was much esteemed by
Laud, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. This remarkable man, destined
to play so conspicuous a part in public life, was then President of St.
John’s College, an office which he resigned in 1621, and it was chiefly
owing to his exertions that Juxon was chosen to succeed him. In the same
year Juxon became Doctor of Laws, and later on Vice-Chancellor of the
University. Laud, who was first Bishop of Bath and Wells, and then of
London, and high in favour with Charles I., interested the King in
Juxon’s preferment. He was appointed Chaplain-in-Ordinary to His
Majesty, Dean of Worcester, and Prebendary of Chichester, and, at Laud’s
particular request, Clerk of the Closet. This was in 1632, and Laud’s
object in the choice was said to have been his ‘desire to have some one
he could trust near the royal person, should he himself grow weak or
infirm.’
New honours crowded on Dr. Juxon. He was elected to the Bishopric of
Hereford in 1633, and made Dean of the King’s Chapel, but before
consecration was translated to the See of London, Laud having become
Primate of England. Laud, it seems, had made himself unpopular in the
diocese with many of its members, but the mild and genial temper of the
new Bishop gained him much respect and kindly feeling. The Archbishop of
Canterbury desired above most things the aggrandisement of Churchmen,
and their preferment to public offices of State, and for that aim he
worked both for himself and his friend.
Dr. Juxon was, through his influence, raised to the office of Lord High
Treasurer, a post which had not been filled by a Churchman since the
reign of Henry VII., and this step was much cavilled at by the greater
part of the nation, especially by many members of noble families who
considered themselves (from their position at least) better fitted for
the situation than a clergyman hitherto little known beyond the
precincts of his College, and only two years in the possession of a
mitre. Loud and angry were the invectives poured on the Government, but
more particularly on the Primate,—the Puritans, Laud’s bitter enemies,
being most violent on the occasion.
Juxon, in the meanwhile, by his wisdom and discretion, and the
excellency of his administration, disarmed the anger of most of those
who were so averse to his nomination, and, says Chalmers, ‘when the
Republican party ransacked every office for causes of impeachment,
sequestration, and death, they found nothing to object to in Bishop
Juxon.’
In 1641 he was one of the few manly and generous-hearted Englishmen who
defended the cause of Strafford. On the passing of the bill of
attainder, which he had strenuously opposed, the Lord High Treasurer
resigned his office, and retired to his palace at Fulham, where he
remained quietly for some time, unshaken in his loyalty to the King, and
often visited by persons of distinction, many of whom consulted him and
valued his advice. Charles paid him this tribute: ‘I will say, I never
got his opinion freely in my life, but when I had it, I was ever the
better for it.’
By consent of the Parliament, Juxon waited on the King at the treaty in
the Isle of Wight, 1648, and by Charles’s particular desire, at Cotton
House, in Westminster, in January of the following year, at the
commencement of the trial.
He now never left the King, who found in this excellent Churchman the
greatest comfort and support. He stood beside his royal master on the
scaffold, and when the last moment was approaching, ‘There is, sir,’ he
said, ‘but one stage more, which, though turbulent and troublesome, is
still a very short one. It will soon carry you a great way: it will
carry you from earth to heaven, and there you shall find, to your great
joy, the prize to which you hasten—a crown of glory.’
‘I go,’ said Charles, ‘from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown,
where no disturbance can be.’
‘You are exchanged,’ said Juxon, ‘from a temporal to an eternal crown—a
good exchange.’
In taking his last leave of his faithful and devoted friend, Charles
looked at him earnestly and said, ‘Remember!’ delivering at the same
time his diamond George, to be given to his son.
The King’s last word brought down upon the Bishop the wrath and
curiosity of the regicides. They insisted on knowing what it signified.
They insisted also on Juxon’s betraying the confidence of his Sovereign,
by detailing all his last conversations. So far the Bishop answered,
that the King had charged him to instil into his son’s mind the
necessity of forgiving his murderers, and that the word ‘Remember’ had
reference to this admonition; but this did not satisfy the suspicions of
the inquirers. He accompanied the body to Windsor, where the cruelty of
those in power forbade him to read the Funeral Service over the beloved
remains. The Commonwealth deprived Juxon of his bishopric, and he
retired to his private estate of Little Compton in Gloucestershire,
where he remained for some time without molestation, occasionally
indulging in the relaxation of field sports, to which he, in common with
his Grace the Archbishop, was much addicted.