748 



POISONING. 



out, oiid she did what was demanded of her, to save 

 her life. These facts are certified by her own tes- 

 timony on oath, and atrocious as they are, incredi- 

 ble as they seem, they are related by Sir William 

 Dugdale, and do not appear to be discredited by 

 Camden. 



The earl of Essex went off in the same way, 

 and for the same cause; but his countess happily 

 survived this western Blue Beard. Besides his 

 two first wives, and the husbands of his two last, 

 there were others who were publicly said "to have 

 travelled the same road, by the same conveyance." 

 The cardinal Chatillon ambassador from France, 

 was poisoned at Canterbury, on his way homeward, 

 and as was believed, by Leicester, out of revenge 

 for the freedom with which the cardinal had ex- 

 postulated with queen Elizabeth, on the arts with 

 which Leicester defeated her marriage with a 

 foreign prince. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was 

 seized with a mortal complaint at the earl of Lei- 

 cester's table, and died before he could be removed. 

 Thus much appears by a letter of Leicester him- 

 self to Walsingham. That he perished in conse- 

 quence of poison given him in the salad, rests upon 

 a tradition in the family, purporting to be founded 

 on the dying asseveration of Sir Nicholas. The 

 earl of Sussex, his great rival, was one of his re- 

 puted victims. On his death-bed, he gave this 

 warning to his friends ; " I am passing into another 

 world, and must now leave you to your fortunes, 

 and to the queen's grace and goodness; but beware 

 of the gipsf, (Leicester,) for he will be too hard 

 for you all. You know not the beast as well as I 

 do." These dark imputations and many others of 

 like import may be believed, when we reflect that 

 Camden states positively, that Leicester proposed 

 in council, that Mary, queen of Scots, should be 

 removed by poison. The biographer, who records 

 all these facts, adds with commendable simplicity, 

 that " they must be exaggerated at least, if not 

 false, since the earl at this juncture, (that of lord 

 Sheffield's death,) obtained an act of parliament 

 to enable him to erect a hospital at Warwick, 

 which he afterwards did, and plentifully endowed 

 it, that it might bear his name, and preserve his 

 memory, as a most religious person, the character 

 which, of all others, he most affected, to succeed- 

 ing times!" Well done, candour 1 



We have not space to enter into the atrocious 

 details of Sir Thomas Overbury's tragic fate ; the 

 only case, according to lord Bacon, except that of 

 the young princes, of a murder in the tower; and, 

 according to lord Coke, the only instance, in which 

 " any of the nobility of this realm have been at- 

 tainted for the poisoning of any." The value of 

 this part of the compliment may be estimated, after 

 what we have just related of the earl of Leicester. 

 The indictment against Richard Weston, the keeper 

 of Sir Thomas, set forth, that, on the ninth of 

 May, 1613, he administered to Sir Thomas a poi- 

 son called roseacre, in his broth, and on the first of 

 June, ut prcEfatum Thomam Overbury magis celeri- 

 ter interficeret et murdraret, gave him another poi- 

 son called white arsenic. Further, that, on the 

 10th of July, the said Richard Weston gave to the 

 said Sir Thomas, a poyson called mercury sublimat, 

 in some tarts; and that another person, by the pro- 

 curement of Richard Weston, administered the said 

 mercury sublimat to Sir Thomas Overbury; of 

 which several poisons he died. This was unani- 

 mously adjudged to be a good indictment, although 

 it did not appear of which of the poisons Sir 



Thomas died. But the substance of the indict- 

 ment was, whether he was poisoned by Weston. 

 Weston was tried and convicted, as were also Sir 

 Gervas Helwys, lieutenant of the tower, Richard 

 Franklin, a physician, Anne Turner, and the earl and 

 countess of Somerset, all of whom were executed, 

 except the two last, who were shamefully pardoned 

 by James I. It appeared on the trial, that in ad- 

 dition to the poisons mentioned in the indictment, 

 Franklin prepared several others, as the powder of 

 diamonds, the powder of spiders, lapis causticus, 

 and cantharides.* 



Among the actors in this tragedy, who were 

 brought to light and to justice, was Mrs Anne 

 Turner, a female who would have done no dis- 

 credit to the academy of Locusta. Her trial was 

 accompanied with incidents of a powerful interest. 

 It disclosed that, both on her part and that of her 

 infamous patroness, the countess of Somerset, there 

 was a terrific mixture of superstition, sorcery, love, 

 jealousy, and revenge. Sir Laurence Hyde, after 

 descanting awhile on the wickedness and heinous- 

 ness of poisoning, stated that " there was one Dr 

 Formari, who lived at Lambeth, to whom the 

 countess of Essex, (afterwards of Somerset) and 

 Mrs Turner used to resort, calling him father. 

 The cause of their coming to him was, that by 

 force of magic, he should procure the now earl of 

 Somerset, then viscount Rochester, to love the 

 countess, and Sir Arthur Manwaring to love Mrs 

 Turner. In the course of his professional dealing 

 as a necromancer, with these modern Canidias, Dr 

 Forman acquired such a knowledge of their fiend- 

 ish characters, that, before his death, he used to 

 desire, that when he died, he might be buried very 

 deep, " or else," said he, "I shall fear you all." 

 He had good reason, at any rate, to fear them while 

 he lived, for they probably had him poisoned. 

 During the trial, some of his magical apparatus, 

 images, pictures, and enchanted papers, were pro- 

 duced in court. At this moment, " 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 showed, by such as were not 

 his scholars. When the panic had a little subsided, 

 more of " the cunning tricks " were exposed. 

 There was, also, a note showed in court, made by 

 Dr Forman, and written on parchment, signifying 

 what ladies loved what lords in court. But the 

 lord chief justice would not suffer it to be read in 

 open court." " The good natured world," adds the 

 fair and accomplished writer from whom we borrow 

 the anecdote.-f " believed, that he (lord Coke) 

 found the name of his own wife on the first page." 



Mrs Turner was the widow of a physician, and 

 the poisons administered to Overbury were pro- 

 cured of Franklin and mixed by her. The first 

 poison was of a green and yellow colour, what lord 

 Coke calls roseacre, other writers, rosalgar, pos- 

 sibly realgar or orpiment, (the sulphuret of ar- 

 senic ;) the second was white arsenic, and so on 

 through seven different kinds of poison. Mrs Tur- 

 ner requested Franklin that they might be all slow 

 poisons, " that would not kill a man presently^ but 

 lie in his body a certain time, wherewith he might 

 languish by little and little," and she gave him four 

 angels, with which he bought aqua fortis. She 

 tried it upon a cat, which languished and cried 



* Institutn, 50. 

 t Miss Aikin's reign of James I. 



