What was the real truth behind his imprisonment?
His pen had always been a comfort to him and he used it now. He was going to write down everything that had happened since the day he met Robert Carr in Edinburgh; and he was going to send copies of this to his friends and ask them to read it and see if they could discover what had led to his imprisonment in the Tower.
The idea made him feel alive again, and he felt his strength coming back.
He wrote a letter to Robert—a long bitter letter of reproach and recrimination in which he accused him of throwing away their friendship for the sake of an evil woman. He told him that he had written an account of their relationship, his fears and suspicions, and was making eight copies of this which would be sent to eight of his friends. He did not believe Rochester could deny one word of what he had written; and he wanted people to know that he suspected he had been put into the Tower because of what he knew concerning Rochester and that evil woman who had been his mistress, and whom he now desired to make his wife.
When Northampton saw the letter which Robert showed him, he ordered Helwys to be more vigilant than ever. Eight letters which Overbury was writing must be brought to him and by no means allowed to reach the people to whom they were addressed.
Northampton was very uneasy. The divorce, thanks to the Archbishop of Canterbury, was being delayed. Overbury was becoming suspicious and truculent, although Helwys reported that he was growing more feeble every day.
There was a time of great anxiety when two physicians recommended by the King examined Overbury, and great relief when they reported that the prisoner was suffering from consumption aggravated by melancholy.
James’s sense of justice was disturbed when he received this report. Overbury had been put into the Tower for a flimsy reason. He had angered the King by a curt refusal to take a post abroad and James knew that if he had been another man his anger would have been shortlived. He had seen something of the friendship between Robert and Overbury and he knew Overbury to be a clever man; the truth was he was a little jealous of Robert’s affection for the man; and that was why he had, at Northampton’s instigation, treated him more harshly than the offense warranted.
He sent for the eminent physician Dr. Mayerne and asked him to do what he could for Overbury.
Dr. Mayerne attended Overbury once, saw no reason to doubt that he was suffering from consumption intensified by melancholy, and since he did not intend to spend much time on a patient who was after all in disgrace, appointed his apothecary Paul de Lobel to attend Overbury.
Each morning Frances would wake from disturbing dreams. She was so near achieving her heart’s desire, yet it could so easily be snatched from her.
She could not endure the waiting; it was unnerving her.
There was a meeting in the house at Hammersmith when she opened her heart to Mrs. Turner.
“I begin to wonder whether Dr. Franklin is as skillful as we thought,” complained Frances. “All this time and the man still lives!”
“He is loth to administer stronger doses for fear of discovery.”
“Afraid! These men are always afraid. My dear Turner, if they cannot give us what we want we must do without them.”
Anne Turner was thoughtful; then she said: “I heard that Paul de Lobel is attending him.”
“Well?”
“I sometimes visit his establishment in Lime Street and I have noticed a boy there who is very willing to do little services for me … for a consideration.”
Frances was alert.
“Yes, dear Turner?”
“Overbury has had several clysters since he has been in prison and de Lobel administers these. They would be prepared in Lime Street before taken to the Tower. If I could speak to this boy … offer him a large enough sum …”
“Offer him twenty pounds. He would surely not refuse that.”
“It would be a fortune to him.”
“Then tell him that he will receive the money when Sir Thomas Overbury is dead.”
“Three months and seventeen days I have been in this cell,” said Overbury. “How much longer shall I remain?”
Dr. de Lobel looked at his patient and thought: Not much longer, by the look of you. For if the King does not release you, death will.
He said: “Any day, sir, you will get your release. That’s how it is with prisoners. I come some days to a prisoner to find that he is no longer here. ‘Oh,’ they tell me, ‘he was released last week.’”
“One day you will come here, doctor, and find that I am gone.”
“I hope so, sir, I hope so.”
“Oh, God, let it be soon,” said Overbury fervently
“And how are you feeling today?”
“Sick unto death. Such pains I have endured! But let me be free of this place and I’ll recover.”
“You have been writing too many letters. You have tired yourself.”
“In a good cause,” Overbury smiled. They would be reading his letters now. They would learn the nature of the man for whom he had done so much and who now left him miserable in his prison. They would know something about the evil woman who had changed one of the best of men into a fiend.
“This clyster should do you much good.”
“Another clyster?”
“Sir, it is my pleasure and duty to make you well again. Come, prepare yourself.”
It was shortly after the clyster was administered that Sir Thomas Overbury was overtaken by such sickness as he had never known before.
He no longer wished for liberty and revenge; he only wished for death.
The next day the sickness continued and he lay panting for his breath.
What has come over me? he asked in his lucid moments. What has happened to make me thus?
No one could answer him. They could only shake their heads and tell each other that the wasting sickness of Sir Thomas Overbury had taken a more virulent turn.
For seven days he lay groaning in his cell; and on the eighth day when his jailers came to him, he did not answer them when they spoke to him.
They looked closer and saw that he was dead.
THE WEDDING
Overbury dead!
Frances was dizzy with glee. But what of the divorce? Oh, if it were only possible to give the old Archbishop a clyster.
She heard from Robert and her great-uncle that but for the Archbishop of Canterbury they would have the divorce by now. It seemed the old fool had a conscience and even the fear of the King’s displeasure could not make him offend that.
Why, in God’s name, if two people wanted to divorce each other, couldn’t they? demanded Frances. What had it to do with old men who had finished with life and could not understand the passions of the young?
The King, eager to have the matter done with, because it was causing too much talk throughout and beyond the Court, sent for his Archbishop and asked how the cause was going?
George Abbot looked grave.
“It is a cause for which I have little liking, Your Majesty,” he said.
James looked impatient. “Why, man, we all find ourselves facing distasteful problems at times. Then the best advice is to do the work with all speed and have the matter done with.”
“Your Majesty, this is not a matter which can be settled with a yea or a nay, and it grieves me that you should reproach me for listening to my conscience.”
“What grief can there be to your conscience if the Lady Frances is no longer the wife of the Earl of Essex?”