"In 1615, gaoler Richard Weston is found guilty of killing Sir Thomas Overbury with poison, at the direction of Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset...."

From the outset, Frances and her husband, Robert Devereux Earl of Essex, disliked each other. It was an arranged marriage. Everyone knows that Frances was having an affair with Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, who was also the King's favorite. To that end, Frances seeks an annulment, claiming that her marriage was never consummated. Meanwhile, Overbury, Robert's companion, is jealous of Frances. Overbury is a quarrelsome man who the king isn't even fond of. Queen Anne certainly isn't. She detested Carr and Overbury. At this time, Frances confides in her Anne Turner of her marital mistakes. Through Anne, Frances utilizes a cunning woman, and spells to make Carr even more in love. But Overbury's hatred of her family, drives her to believe that he'll stop the annulment. When Overbury makes the mistake of refusing an appointment by the King and is imprisoned, Frances sees an opportunity! Overbury is poisoned! Frances and Rochester marry just 2 months after the annulment, but an apothecary's apprentice reveals it all on his deathbed. The appointed gaoler Weston and the lieut. Gervase Helwys, acted as her stooges.

Overall, this book is not for everyone. There is A LOT of factional court and family politics, which I love, but it can be dry at times I'll admit. But Somerset is thorough, and seemingly every detail is important. History lovers will be glued to the page, but I won't fault you if it's not your cup of tea. ( )

I have the annoying habit of tending to think of history – especially English history – as just like today except with funny clothes. Every book I read provides contrary evidence, and Unnatural Murder is no exception.

Elizabeth was notoriously parsimonious and prudish; when her successor James I took the throne, he reversed both these trends. James spent Elizabeth’s carefully hoarded treasury recklessly, handing out subsidies and pensions to his favorites. Although married and several times a father, James “played on both teams”; he made it clear that his Gentlemen of the Bedchamber were expected to do more than fluff the pillows and turn down the sheets. Not to be outdone, the women of James’ court replaced the ornate but conservative dress of Elizabeth’s time with equally ornate wardrobes that look like they were designed by Frederick’s of Holyrood. Court ladies that married or, worse, became pregnant while not married were banished by Elizabeth; James had no such compunctions and his courtiers threw themselves into affairs with enthusiasm.

James was especially difficult for his “companions”, since he had some sort of minor jaw or tongue deformity that made him drool constantly, and he was not shy about public kissing with his favorites. Nevertheless, courtiers quickly realized what the path to power was and Robert Carr led the pack, quickly becoming Viscount Rochester and then the Earl of Somerset because of his talents. He parlayed his position into wealth; anybody who wanted to speak to the King had to go through him first and he only allowed access to James after a substantial bribe. Carr/Rochester/Somerset only had three problems: everybody else at court hated him; he had the intelligence of a bucket of doorknobs; and fell in love with Frances, the Countess of Essex. He didn’t really care about problem one; he solved problem two by using a couple of mentors, the Earl of Northampton and Sir Thomas Overbury; and he worked on number three by dallying with the lady as much as he could and working to get her marriage to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, ended. (This is the son of the Earl of Essex that got himself beheaded for treason, thereby earning a movie portrayal by Errol Flynn and a Donizetti opera).

At the time, the only way for a wife to initiate an annulment was for both parties to swear before a religious court that the husband was impotent and the marriage unconsummated. This put the husband in a difficult position, since if after the annulment he was ever able to consummate a relationship with another women he was guilty of perjury and had to take his first wife back. Devereux/Essex was having none of that; although he and his wife hated each other, he also hated Somerset like everybody else and he certainly wasn’t going to swear to impotence for him (even though he admitted he had never consummated with Frances). He went so far as to invite a number of friends to his bedchamber to demonstrate that he wasn’t impotent.

Somerset worked around the problem by appealing to James’ interest in witchcraft (James wrote a book about it). James was persuaded that a man could be made permanently impotent with one woman by sorcery but remain capable with others. The Countess was examined by a team of midwives and found, to the utter astonishment of everyone at court, to be a virgin. (One presumes the midwives became suddenly wealthy). The King made it clear to the divines that they should annul the marriage, and, with some grumbling and on a close vote, they did.

Sir Thomas Overbury was sort of a second-string Renaissance Man. He wrote tolerable poetry, had a haphazard knowledge of a couple of languages, and was acknowledged to be fairly astute on foreign affairs. As Somerset’s éminence grise he was also making money hand over fist, since people had to bribe him to see Somerset then bribe Somerset to see the King. Unfortunately for him, he had two fatal flaws; he was a misogynist and was completely tactless. He began bragging about his power, and managed to be rude to the two most powerful women at court, Queen Anne (to whom he refused to take off his hat); and Frances, now his patron’s wife and Countess of Somerset, who he publicly called “base” and unchaste. Somerset tried to get him out of trouble by asking the King to appoint him an ambassador, giving him his choice of Russia, the Spanish Netherlands, or Spain (and thus getting him away from court and out of trouble). Overbury did the incredible and refused. It’s not good to disrespect the King, and James immediately had him committed to the Tower (this was technically illegal, but who was going to argue)?

Overbury wrote (smuggled out, since he wasn’t supposed to communicate with anybody) arrogant letters to Somerset, demanding release. Somerset wrote back suggesting Overbury feign illness, thereby appealing to royal compassion, and kept his mentor supplied with tarts, jellies, medicines, and various other treats, aided by a complaisant jailer and a cooperative Lieutenant of the Tower. Since Overbury was something of a hypochondriac anyway, he set about “feigning” illness with enthusiasm; under the care of the best doctor of the day, he was repeatedly treated to emetics, enemas and bleeding. He was bled so often that his doctor decided to make “issues” – permanent wounds to facilitate bleeding – one in the arm, held open by a gold pin, and one in the back, held open by forcing “five to seven” dried peas into the wound and then covering it with a proprietary balsam. (I attach the recipe for the balsam here, in case anyone wants to try it):

“Take three of the greater sort of serpents or snakes cut into pieces (their skins being first stripped off);
Twelve bats;
Two very fat sucking puppies;
One pound of earthworms washed in white wine;
Common oil;
Malago sack;
Marjoram and bay leaves.
Boil together, then stir in two pounds of hog’s lard;
When the wine is evaporated, press out the fat and mix with;
The marrow of a stag;
An ox’s legs;
Liquid amber;
Butter;
And nutmegs.

Apply to the backbone regularly, and give dog nettle enemas every morning.”

Skeptics will note that unlike the chemicals forced on us by modern medicine, this formula is all natural (except possibly the sack). If you decide to test it, let me know how it works.

Alas, despite the best medical science of the day had to offer, Sir Thomas feigned illness so successfully that he died. The coroner noted he had some sort of gangrenous hole in his back, and the corpse smelled so bad that he was shoveled under the floor at St. Peter Ad Vincula the same day.

So now Somerset was on top of the world. He was the King’s favorite, he was fabulously wealthy, and was married to the woman who was acknowledged as the most beautiful in England, and the annoying Sir Thomas Overbury had obligingly departed (as had his other “mentor”, the Earl of Northampton). Then, in few years, it all fell apart.

The first thing that went wrong was the King found another “favorite”. This was George Villiers, a handsome and elegant scion of minor nobility who was quickly promoted to Gentleman of the Bedchamber over Somerset’s vehement objections. Villiers eventually became Duke of Buckingham and was one of the few notables of James’ court to retain power when Charles I came to the throne. (Although presumably not with the same duties; Charles did not share his father’s predilections). If you’ve read The Three Musketeers and/or seen one of the movies, this is the Duke of Buckingham who (according to Dumas) became the lover of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, and eventually got whacked by Cardinal Richelieu and Milady.

The next thing was people began to ask questions about the death of Sir Thomas Overbury. Overbury’s jailer, Richard Weston; the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Gervase Elwes; and a lady in waiting to the Countess of Essex, Anne Turner, were arrested and “questioned”; all eventually admitted that the tarts, jellies and medicines delivered to Overybury during his imprisonment contained various interesting substances: aqua fortis, (nitric acid – one wonders exactly how you make nitric acid tarts or jellies), “great spiders”, ground glass, “white arsenic” (arsenic trioxide) and “sublimate of mercury” (mercury (II) chloride); and that Sir Thomas had expired shortly after receiving a “sublimate of mercury” enema administered by an “unknown apothecary”. And all the accused pointed to the Countess of Somerset as the instigator.

I learned quite a bit about the law of the time at this point. The accused were not informed of the case against them in advance, they were not allowed counsel, they could not summon witnesses (they could have witnesses, but they could not compel them to appear), were not allowed to take notes during the prosecution’s presentation, and had to remain standing without food, water, or bathroom breaks during the entire trial (which could last for 10-12 hours). Not surprisingly, all three were found guilty and hanged.

Then it was the Somerset’s turn. They were not allowed to communicate with each other nor were they told what their accomplices had said. Frances showed notable wifely affection by pleading guilty and taking the blame for everything; the Earl, in turn, blamed everything on her. After making a miserable defense, (bookmakers had given odds he would be acquitted), the Earl was found guilty. However, the fix was in; after some confinement in the Tower (with crowds showing up every day just in case the Somersets were publicly hanged or beheaded) both received a royal pardon. The public was outraged, but the Somerset’s power was broken; they retired to one of their estates. They became estranged; Frances died of ovarian cancer in 1632 (attended by the same doctor who had treated Overbury) and Robert in 1645.

Author Anne Somerset (I wonder if she’s related?) does a good job of making a 400-year-old murder case interesting. (She speculates that, ironically, Overbury may not have been murdered at all but actually died of his medical treatment). The background information is most impressive; I was fascinated by the descriptions of court life under James I, the accounts of medical practice, and the operation of English law. The book is not a particularly easy read, with a sometimes convoluted style; and although she acknowledges receiving advice from physicians and toxicologists in her introduction, she does not do a very good job of describing the poisons involved, always referring to them by their contemporary names and not relating them very well to modern toxicological knowledge. However, it was definitely a good addition to my knowledge of early Stuart history. ( )

The most interesting side of this book is not the murder of Thomas Overbury, or the MacBeth like nature of the Earl of Somerset and his wife, Frances. This tawdry affair, which may, or may not even have been murder,becomes a side show to the corruption of James I's court - and, one suspects, the entire courtly system. English law was at an early stage of development and, once a person had been arraigned by the King, he or she was almost inevitably guilty. The Earl of Somerset was the lover of James I and the imprisoning of Overbury in the Tower of London was at James' behest seemingly, to allow his lover to take Frances as his wife. Overbury threatened to cause problems concerning Frances' divorce from her first husband.

The trial of those accused of involvement in Overbury's murder would be considered totally unacceptable by modern standards; hearsay was not only allowed, it provided the main stay of the "evidence". Lower ranking parties - the gaoler and apothecary were hanged whilst the Earl and Countess would have escaped with little blemish had Somerset not been so arrogant as to challenge the King's settlement upon him post the royal pardon.

Until the last chapter, I was unaware that this event had been such a major event in British, indeed, World history at this date. I was much more interested in the deceit prevalent in James' court and the strange legal system then in place. We may feel that cynicism and satire are rated too highly today, when no act or person can be considered truly noble, but it is even more frightening to view the obverse whereby, nobody dared to suggest that the King's actions could be in anyway questionable.

This book, as one would expect of a tome penned by Anne Somerset, succeeds in laying out the facts, as best they can be accrued at this remove, and allowing the reader to make any judgements. As usual, this is a fascinating read and a useful book for anyone hoping to understand life in Britain in the seventeenth century. ( )

Picked this up at the London meetup - "a story rich in passion and intrigue and a murder mystery." My kind of book!

Took a wee bit of time to get into this book as my kowledge of this era of history is not so extensive, but once I got stuck in, I really got drawn in. This is the history of a fascinating case of murder, intrigue, classwar and of the Royal house of the day. Very well researched, but also accesible book. I especially was grateful for the final segment of the book, which dealt with the fates of the main players, something that is often missing. ( )

A murder mystery at the Court of James I. Well researched though somewhat partisan (the author is a Somerset, decendant of one of the protagonists)this is a fascinating account of the corruption and power-broking at the highest level in 17th century England. ( )