It was never proved that it was Anne Turner and Lady Essex who corrupted the lad Reeves, who with Weston administered the poisoned clyster that murdered Overbury.Nothing was done at all to absolve the apothecary Loubel, Reeves's master, of having prepared the poisonous injection, nor Sir Theodore Mayerne, the King's physician, of having been party to its preparation.Yet it was demonstrably the injection that killed Overbury if he was killed by poison at all.It is certain that the poisonssent to the Tower by Turner and the Countess did not save in early instances, get to Overbury at all--Elwes saw to that--or Overbury must have died months before he did die.
According to Weldon, who may be supposed to have witnessed the trials, Franklin confessed that Overbury was smothered to death, not poisoned to death, though he had poison given him.'' And Weldon goes on to make this curious comment:
Here was Coke glad, how to cast about to bring both ends together, Mrs Turner and Weston being already hanged for killing Overbury with poison; but he, being the very quintessence of the law, presently informs the jury that if a man be done to death with pistols, poniards, swords, halter, poison, etc., so he be done to death, the indictment is good if he be but indicted for any of those ways.But the good lawyers of those times were not of that opinion, but did believe that Mrs Turner was directly murthered by my lord Coke's law as Overbury was without any law.
Though you will look in vain through the reports given in the State Trials for any speech of Coke to the jury in exactly these terms, it might be just as well to remember that the transcriptions from which the Trials are printed were prepared UNDER Coke's SUPERVISION, and that they, like the confessions of the convicted, are very often in his own handwriting.
At all events, even on the bowdlerized evidence that exists, it is plain that Anne Turner should have been charged only with attempted murder.Of that she was manifestly guilty and, according to the justice of the time, thoroughly deserved to be hanged.The indictment against her was faulty, and the case against her as full of holes as a colander.Her trial was`cooked' in more senses than one.
It was some seven months after the execution of Anne Turner that the Countess of Essex was brought to trial.This was in May.In December, while virtually a prisoner under the charge of Sir William Smith at Lord Aubigny's house in Blackfriars, she had given birth to a daughter.In March she had been conveyed to the Tower, her baby being handed over to the care of her mother, the Countess of Suffolk.Since the autumn of the previous year she had not been permitted any communication with her husband, nor he with her.He was already lodged in the Tower when shearrived there.
On a day towards the end of May she was conveyed by water from the Tower to Westminster Hall.The hall was packed to suffocation, seats being paid for at prices which would turn a modern promoter of a world's heavyweight-boxing-championship fight green with envy.Her judges were twenty-two peers of the realm, with the Lord High Steward, the Lord Chief Justice, and seven judges at law.It was a pageant of colour, in the midst of which the woman on trial, in her careful toilette, consisting of a black stammel gown, a cypress chaperon or black crepe hood in the French fashion, relieved by touches of white in the cuffs and ruff of cobweb lawn, struck a funereal note.Preceded by the headsman carrying his axe with its edge turned away from her, she was conducted to the bar by the Lieutenant of the Tower.The indictment was read to her, and at its end came the question: Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset, how sayest thou? Art thou guilty of this felony and murder or not guilty?''
There was a hushed pause for a moment; then came the low-voiced answer: Guilty.''
Sir Francis Bacon, the Attorney-General--himself to appear in the same place not long after to answer charges of bribery and corruption-- now addressed the judges.His eloquent address was a commendation of the Countess's confession, and it hinted at royal clemency.
