WEBVTT - The Schemes of Countess Frances Carr 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:03.560 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:08.119 and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:19.080 In her early twenties, Francis Howard dealt with two scandals. 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.159 The first was certainly the more significant, a scandal that 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:28.639 occupied courtly gossips for years. The scandal was she was 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.520 trying to get an annulment from her husband, Robert Devereaux. 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:35.960 The two had been married in their early teens, and 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.159 they had had barely any contact before Devereaux went on 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.760 his grand tour around Europe for a few years. When 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:46.280 he came back, he had smallpox, so you couldn't really 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.560 blame Francis for not wanting to go to bed with him, 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.040 even if she hadn't fallen in love with another man 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.440 at court while her husband was gone, which she had. 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.160 Francis was a daughter of the powerful Howard family, and 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.960 the gossips surrounding the impending annulment gave the Court of 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.000 James the first plenty to talk about during the early 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:12.479 sixteen hundreds. But during the long process of these annulment negotiations, 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:17.480 Francis Howard had to deal with the second scandal, much smaller, 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.480 and much easier resolved. Francis had a ring that went missing. 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.840 The ring was stolen, or so Francis claimed, by a 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.520 local faith healer who went by the name cunning Mary. 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.200 When the authorities confronted Cunning Mary, who did indeed have 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.520 the diamond ring in her possession, Cunning Mary protested. She 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.240 said that the ring wasn't stolen, that Francis Howard had 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.560 given the ring as a deposit in exchange for her 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:50.480 help in killing Francis's husband. Cunning Mary claimed that, of 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:55.400 course she had refused Francis's request, and in Francis's rage 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.640 at the rejection, she decided that she would frame the 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:03.680 old woman for robber. No one really took cunning Mary's 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.840 defense seriously, after all, she was a folk healer with 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.960 the name cunning Mary, and Francis Howard, by contrast, was 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.040 one of the most powerful young women in England. And 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:21.000 so Cunning Mary was tried and convicted of the robbery, 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.000 and Francis went back to dealing with the larger problem 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.160 of her annulment from her husband and her desire to 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:33.639 marry another man. This small story with the ring and 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:38.840 Cunning Mary is often omitted in larger stories about Francis Howard. 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:45.000 It's overshadowed by what comes next, an infamous murder trial 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.720 for an actual murder that makes gossip about her annulment 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:54.839 seem almost quaint by comparison. But I think the ring 0:02:54.919 --> 0:03:00.200 story is important to give the larger story context. Other 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.640 or not Francis actually tried to use cunning Mary's folk 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.240 magic in her early twenties to try to kill the 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.440 husband she wanted to get rid of. I'm not sure 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:14.959 there's really no evidence beyond cunning Mary's word, but young 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.760 girls in love have done crazier things, and as you'll 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.680 soon discover, Francis Howard would do her fair share of 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.640 crazy things in order to secure her future. But what 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.560 I find so compelling about the ring story is the 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.280 power dynamic at play. Whether or not Francis Howard was 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.680 attempting murder, it was the poor woman who took the 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.800 blame for the missing ring, the poor woman who went 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:45.559 to trial, who was convicted, and who faced the consequences. 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.720 But what I do know is that Francis Howard's life 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.839 for being in the seventeenth century feels like an all 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:57.320 too modern indictment of the privileges of wealth. And influence. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.160 Francis Howard would only ever be on trial for one murder, 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.920 but nearly half a dozen bodies would hang because of her. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.960 Francis Howard, or as she's known later by her married name, 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.880 Countess Francis Carr, didn't murder her first husband, nor was 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:20.120 she ever seriously accused of it. The murder trial would 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.719 come later. It would be a public spectacle, with people 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:28.320 selling tickets for admission. Her first husband would actually be 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.799 in the courtroom that day, and at least in my imagination, 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:38.120 he might have smiled when the judge declared Francis Howard guilty. 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:53.279 I'm Danish Worts and this is noble blood. The War 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.799 of the Roses created something of a power vacuum among 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.880 the highest echelons of nobles in the English court. It 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.200 was the dawn of a brand new dynasty the Tutors, 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.640 and like it would be eventually with the American West. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.719 With the new comes the exciting possibility that there's room 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.680 for social advancement. There were new duchies to claim, new 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.600 earldoms to be given away. Titles were given and taken 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.440 back and restored again. Families like the Bolins tried to 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.800 lobby for new power. They managed to get a queen 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:31.200 on the throne before their gambit famously collapsed. The Howards, 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.960 another powerful family, also managed to achieve the crown for 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.479 one of their daughters, the young, beautiful Catherine Howard, But 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.360 like the Bolins, their stellar rise was preceded by this 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:49.159 spectacular fall of another beheading. After King Henry the Eighth 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.760 came the brief reign of his son Edward, the brief 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.880 reign of his daughter Mary, and then the long reign 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.719 of his other daughter, Queen Elizabeth. The first Elizabeth was 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.680 Miss Lee, a virgin queen, and so after Elizabeth, the 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.080 throne went to King James, the first son of the 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.680 executed Mary, Queen of Scots. Throughout all of this, families, 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:15.440 like the Howards, continued to jockey for position, their fates 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:20.280 rising and falling over the decades. The Howards were dealing 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:25.400 with a particularly fallow period. The teenage Queen Catherine Howard 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:30.440 was executed. Another Howard cousin, Thomas Howard, was executed by 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.080 King Henry the Eighth, who, in a fit of petulance, 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.120 deemed his coat of arms to be treasonous. Thomas's son, 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.760 another Thomas Howard, was also executed for becoming involved in 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.440 a scheme to put Mary, Queen of Scotts, on the throne. 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.599 It was looking like all the Howards could do was 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.520 make the current monarch mad at them. But then the 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:55.279 third Thomas Howard, son and grandson of the executed Thomas Howard's, 0:06:55.800 --> 0:07:00.520 flipped the trend. This Thomas Howard was celeb rated as 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.839 a hero in the battle against the Spanish Armada, and 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.279 then he went on to an incredibly lucrative marriage with 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.200 a young widow slash heiress. Thomas and his wife would 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.800 go on to have fourteen children. One of these children 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:19.840 was Francis, born in fifteen nine, and so Francis was 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:24.000 born at a precarious but cautiously optimistic time When it 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:27.880 came to her family's fortunes. The most important thing for 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.239 Francis to do was Mary well, and so her family 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:36.400 made absolutely sure of that. At fourteen years old, Francis 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:40.520 was married to Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, who was 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:45.080 thirteen at the time. While young marriages were common enough 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.720 in the sixteenth and seventeen centuries, a new line of 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:53.200 relatively scientific thinking believed that it was dangerous and a 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:57.880 little unseemly to consummate marriages that young. For women, it 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.760 was thought, correctly i belief that they would be too 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.960 small and fragile to carry children at that young age. 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.400 And for men, it was believed that if they spent 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.760 themselves sexually at a young age, it would deplete their 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.520 vitality and vigor later in life. And so even though 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:20.200 Francis and Devereaux were married, they were raised completely separately. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.720 When they were teenagers, Devereaux was sent on a three 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.040 year grand tour of Europe, as was fairly common at 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:31.240 the time, and Francis was sent to court. Here's the 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:35.600 problem with sending a beautiful teenage countess to court when 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:39.520 she doesn't really know or care about her slightly younger husband. 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.040 She might fall in love with someone else, which Francis 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.640 did almost as soon as she made eye contact with 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.440 Robert Carr, a handsome man a few years older than 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:55.000 she was, a man with an easy laugh and bright eyes. 0:08:56.040 --> 0:09:00.480 Car was already one of King James's favorites, and stock 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:04.640 at court was rising quickly. When he met Francis's I, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:09.600 he was equally besotted. They were a perfect match, an 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:14.400 old family and a new favorite. Two fair young, attractive people, 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:19.800 both with charisma and charm. There was only one problem, 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:26.679 the pesky issue of Francis already being married. Francis wouldn't 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.440 have been much interested in her slightly younger, weedy husband, 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.720 even if he hadn't come back from his grand tour 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.360 with small Box. But as it happened, he came back 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.720 from his grand tour with small Box, so perhaps justifiably, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.360 she did everything she could to avoid him. She knew 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.679 that if the marriage was never consummated, it might be annulled, 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.320 so when she couldn't outright dodge her husband, she did 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.959 everything in her power to make sure that he couldn't 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:58.520 successfully accomplished the deed of the marriage. Bed she mocked 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.720 him and scorned him him ugly called him a coward. 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.880 By now, Francis was a woman of twenty, and she 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:08.320 saw her future happening one of two ways, getting to 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.600 marry the man she was in love with, a rising 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.200 star at court, or being saddled with a pox riden 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:20.040 teenager who just happened to be her husband. Being a 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.920 woman who couldn't take her own annulment case forward, Francis's 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.200 father and uncle brought the case only too happy to 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.840 encourage their daughters even more, promising second marriage to come. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.040 The claim was that her first marriage had never been consummated, 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:40.200 which Devereaux reluctantly acknowledged was true, but not for lack 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.760 of trying on his part. He scoffed at the Howard's 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.320 claim that Francis had made herself poliant and available to 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:52.079 her husband at every opportunity. With the affair between Francis 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.840 and Robert Carr at Court being an open secret, the 0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:00.440 whole thing was especially humiliating for Devereaux. Devereaux would take 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.880 to whipping his erect member out of his pants to 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:09.040 show anyone who asked. Several friends testified to seeing it. 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.960 It's not that I can't have sex, Devereau moaned, It's 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.840 just that I can't have sex with her. One of 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.840 the key steps in securing an annulment by non consummation 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.800 was an examination of Francis to confirm that she was 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.840 in fact still a virgin. There was a small council 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.920 of midwives who are appointed to do the examination. Yep, 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.720 the midwives said, definitely a virgin, but it was slightly 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:40.080 less clear cut than that Francis had insisted on wearing 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:45.040 a full veil to protect her quote modesty during the examination, 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:49.400 and so rumors circulated at court that she had actually 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.640 employed a virginal body double to undergo the examination for her. 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.200 That was the main gossip piece of court for a while, 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.440 and there was even a mocking little poem written about it. 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:06.440 This dame was inspected, but fraud interjected a maid of 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:11.320 more perfection, whom the midwives did handle whilst the night 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:16.320 held the candle. Oh, there was a clear inspection. Still, 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.960 the people in charge decided that yes, Francis Howard was 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:24.880 a virgin. But still the annulment was slow moving to finalize. 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.200 For one thing, the king didn't want to upset the 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.200 status quo or upset the Devereaux family and their allies. 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.600 But a larger factor was a courtier behind the scenes 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:41.000 doing everything that he could to prevent the annulment from happening, 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:45.679 calling in favors and influence all to keep Francis Howard 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.920 from being able to marry her love, Robert Carr. This 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:55.120 courtier's name was Thomas Overbury. He was Carr's best friend 0:12:55.200 --> 0:13:00.480 and closest adviser. He hated Francis and he believe that 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:05.120 his friend was blinded by lust, Overbury would make sure 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:08.520 that Francis stayed married to her first husband so that 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.600 he could save his friend. What Overbury didn't realize was 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:17.120 that in the process he was making some very powerful enemies. 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.640 Thomas Overbury met Robert Carr when they were both young 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:27.600 men living in Edinburgh. They were of similar ranks, both 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.520 noble but not landed. Car was working as a page, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.080 Overbury was a student. The two hit it off, and 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:40.040 almost immediately Overbury recognized that Car had something that he 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:46.480 didn't charm. Car was charming. Everyone liked him. He was 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:51.559 good looking, athletic fun. Overbury was smart, but no one 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.040 ever mistook him for fun. He just seemed to rub 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:59.760 people the wrong way. But Car Car would be his answer. 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.840 His friend would be his entry into the world of 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:08.079 power and privilege. Overbury, a few years older, positioned himself 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:12.679 as Carr's mentor and adviser, the staffer behind the politician, 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.800 the brains behind the jock. From their youth spent in Edinburgh. 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.400 The two men would be reunited at court in London, 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.120 ready to fulfill the glorious promise of their futures. As 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.040 it happened, Overbury's prediction that Carr was a star was 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.640 about to prove itself correct. In sixteen o seven, the 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.320 very same year that Francis Howard's poor husband was about 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.000 to go leave on his smallpox infected tour of Europe, 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.520 Carr participated in a joust at court where the King 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:51.760 James the First just so happened to be in attendance. Carr, 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:56.080 looking handsome as ever on his horse, lost around and 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.400 fell from his mount, breaking his leg with a sickening snap. 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.560 The King visited Car personally in the hospital, and from 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:10.280 there a close personal friendship formed. The King spent days 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:15.400 at Carr's bedside, teaching him Latin and then ultimately knighting him, 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:19.280 gifting him the confiscated estates of Sir Walter Raleigh, and 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.120 all in all just ensuring that Carr would have a 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:26.800 favorable future at court. Much has been written and said 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:31.800 about the rumors of King James's homosexuality or bisexuality, and 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:34.600 I'll leave it to historians smarter than I am to 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.680 tease out the exact nature of the parents relationship. But 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:43.360 it's true that James openly had male favorites, even if 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.640 the law at the time would have prohibited him from 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.600 publicly acting on any gay feelings he might have had, 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.960 and even if respect for the crown might have meant 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.800 that gossip at the time that might have surrounded those 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.560 relationships was more muted than it otherwise might have been. 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.440 But everything was comin' up Car, and by extension, coming 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:10.520 up Overbury. That was until Overbury noticed Car beginning to 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:15.720 entangle himself with the very pretty young Francis Howard. Her 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:20.720 reputation already preceded her. She was married, first of all, 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:27.360 but always flirtatious and famous for wearing particularly low cut dresses. 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.960 In Overbury's opinion, at least, she was not nearly the 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.560 type of woman that Carr should be marrying. Frances was 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:40.440 outgoing and powerful. Her family was almost serpent like in 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.800 their machinations around court. Overbury didn't want Car to get 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.040 sucked up in all of that. Carr needed a good girl, 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.960 an unmarried girl from a good family who wouldn't say 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:57.080 too many opinions, and Overbury also privately thought a girl 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:01.320 whose family wouldn't take over the managerial role in Car's life. 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:07.840 That was his job to try to convince his friend 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:11.600 that Francis was totally wrong for him. Overbury wrote a 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:15.280 poem called The Wife, all about what a perfect wife 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:21.040 should be in short, dutiful, modest, chased everything Francis wasn't. 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.639 The poem was a wild hit, going into six printings 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:30.600 in its first year alone. Meanwhile, Overbury was working overtime 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.040 behind the scenes to ensure that Francis Howard wouldn't be 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.560 able to get an annulment from her first husband. But 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:43.159 Overbury underestimated his opponents. The Howards wanted their daughter to 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.480 get her second brighter marriage, and the Howards knew all 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.280 too well how to play the games of court. The 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:55.080 first step in their plan was manipulating Overbury into saying 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.399 something distasteful about the Queen Anne of Denmark. I couldn't 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.280 discover exactly what the insult was, but the Queen was 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:07.080 apparently so put off by the already unlikable man that 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.240 she wrote that Overbury shouldn't even be allowed to any 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.760 event that she'd be present at. But that wasn't good 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.479 enough for the Howards. They wanted to get rid of 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:21.960 Overbury altogether, and so using their influence, they sweet talked 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:26.160 to the King into appointing Overbury an ambassadorship to Russia. 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.480 It was a checkmate They knew that Overbury would want 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:34.920 to refuse the post so that he could stay close 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.399 to Car, which he did, but of course that meant 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.640 turning down a very prestigious post directly given by the King, 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:47.520 which was a gross insult, and so when Overbury refused, 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:52.000 the King locked Overbury in the tower. Some speculate that 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.000 it was also partially thanks to the King's jealousy of 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:59.320 Overbury's close friendship with Car, the King's favorite, but whatever 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.239 the reason, there it was Overbury was locked up and 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.480 out of the picture. Five months after that, Overbury died 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:11.440 in his cell. No one really cared or paid much attention. 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.240 It was seemingly of natural causes, but we'll get to 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.679 that later. Two weeks after Overbury's death, the King tipped 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:23.040 the scales in the five to five stalemate for Francis 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.560 Howard's annulment and granted it. Francis Howard and her lover, 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:32.359 Robert Carr, were almost immediately married, too much rejoicing, and 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.359 no one gave a moment's more thought to the unlikable 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.720 curmudgeon rotting six feet under. At least they didn't think 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:46.000 about him. Then. Two years later, Frances and Robert Carr 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:50.760 were happily married the newly minted Countess and Earl of Somerset, 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.520 but there was about to be a ripple in there. 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:58.440 Happily ever after, on his deathbed, a young assistant to 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:03.520 an apothecary may a startling confession. He had sold the 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.640 poison that had been used to murder Thomas Overbury in prison, 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.840 and he had received twenty pounds for it. The King 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.160 didn't really want to get involved, but at this point 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.399 his hands were tied, and so he ordered an investigation. 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.760 It probably didn't help things that Carr was losing favor, 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:28.040 becoming replaced by another favorite. The investigation led to the 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.520 governor of the prison, Mr Elwis, who had suspected that 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.840 maybe something illicit was going on, but he had done 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:39.080 his best to try to keep Overbury safe. A guard, Weston, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.840 was put in place by some well connected nobleman, and 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.960 Mr Elwis was suspicious of him from the start, especially 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.720 after seeing their prisoners condition begin to deteriorate. When Elwis 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.720 suspected that Overbury's food was being poisoned, he tried to 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:59.239 prepare his own food for Overbury. The fact that he 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.040 wasn't direct complicit in the murders didn't prevent his trial 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:08.159 and subsequent execution. As an accessory to the murder, also 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.040 executed the guard Weston, who had actually made the deliveries 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:17.520 of what the investigators determined had killed Overbury. The investigators 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:22.240 figured out that Overbury hadn't died of natural causes. It 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:27.080 had instead been poisoned tarts and jellies, and then finally 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:32.879 a fatal enema laced with sulfuric acid. I have no 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:37.200 more information on how the animal was delivered, or whether 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:40.800 Overbury knew at the time that it was poisoned. I 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:43.880 have to assume that an animal was just considered part 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:48.480 of his standard daily treatment, and that Overbury wasn't aware 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:53.600 that this one was poison On the day of his hanging, 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.439 the prison governor Mr. Elwis continued to deny his guilt 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.760 on the gallows. He stated, quote, I was so far 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.440 from thinking myself foul in the fact that until I 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.439 was told how deeply I had imbrowed my hands in 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.560 the blood of Overbury, making me, by God's law as 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.520 guilty in the concealing of it, as if I had 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:19.200 been a personal actor in it. Till then I held 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:22.560 myself ignorant of the deed, and my conscience so clear 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:27.639 that I did never ask God's forgiveness. Before he was hanged, 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:33.280 Always also asked God's forgiveness for his gambling habit. Two 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:37.600 more individuals were also hanged as accessories to Overbury's murder 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:42.840 that chilly November day. First, the apothecary James Franklin, a 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:47.480 seedy man who immediately admitted his guilt. Franklin claimed that 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:51.000 he had sold the poison directly to Mr Elwis, even 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:54.600 though always own personal letters proved that that wasn't true. 0:22:55.359 --> 0:23:02.560 Those letters conveniently were left out of evidence. Also being 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:06.680 hanged was a woman, a former lady's servant to Francis Howard, 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:11.800 named Anne Turner. Anne Turner is a fascinating woman, actually 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.680 briefly referenced as a murderess in the novel The Scarlet Letter. 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.720 She was the widow of a fashionable London doctor. She 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.680 ran two brothels and popularized the use of saffron to 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:27.040 dye the boring old white ruffs that the glitterati were 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:31.840 wearing in the seventeenth century. When the inspectors ransacked her home, 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:36.480 they found pornography and other heretical material, which meant that 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.240 Anne was all too happy to confess to being an 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:43.080 accessory to murder. She confessed that she had informed a 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:47.280 certain Francis Howard of where she might buy certain poisons. 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:50.560 Being an accessory to murder meant that Anne would hang 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:53.600 instead of burning at the stake for being a heretic. 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:57.679 When Anne was sentenced to death, she was told to 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:01.680 wear her fashionable yellow ruffs around her neck and wrists 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:05.840 so that her shame would finally cause the trend to die. 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:10.840 Four individuals, the governor of the prison, the guard, the apothecary, 0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:14.679 and the lady's maid all arrested and all hanged the 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:19.040 same day for playing tiny rolls in a murder orchestrated 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:24.520 by those with real power. Francis and Robert Carr's guilt, 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:27.679 at least of being involved in the murder seemed like 0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:31.960 a foregone conclusion, but their connections in Royal court made 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:35.200 it so that their trial was delayed by almost a year. 0:24:36.240 --> 0:24:39.240 Francis was twenty five years old when she was finally 0:24:39.280 --> 0:24:43.600 brought before the court on May twenty four, sixteen sixteen. 0:24:44.400 --> 0:24:46.520 The man who tried the case for the king was 0:24:46.640 --> 0:24:50.040 none other than the father of the scientific method, Sir 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:53.960 Francis Bacon, who tried his best to treat Francis with 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:58.800 the utmost kindness after she immediately pleaded guilty and burst 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:03.359 into tears. The court case was a public spectacle. Not 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:07.600 only was Frances already infamous for her earlier annulment, but 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:10.920 this was a countess on the stand accused of murder. 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:15.800 One man was recorded paying ten pounds for seats for 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:20.000 him and his wife in the stands. Extra scaffolding had 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:22.919 to be built in Westminster Hall to contain all of 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:28.919 the onlookers. Accounts at the time described Frances as incredibly beautiful, 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:33.440 but also as faint and delicate. What those accounts don't 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:36.760 usually remark on is the fact that Frances was heavily 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:40.840 pregnant at the time she was found guilty and sentenced 0:25:40.840 --> 0:25:43.880 to death, and while she was imprisoned, she gave birth 0:25:43.920 --> 0:25:46.919 to what would be the couple's only child, a daughter 0:25:47.040 --> 0:25:51.000 named Anne. The baby was cared for by Frances's sister 0:25:51.240 --> 0:25:57.160 until Frances was released, which she was fairly quickly. Within months, 0:25:57.520 --> 0:26:03.200 the King commuted her death sentence. Francis's husband, Robert Carr, 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:06.920 was also tried, but unlike his wife, he denied all 0:26:07.040 --> 0:26:10.720 knowledge of any wrongdoing. While he was imprisoned, the King 0:26:10.800 --> 0:26:14.400 wrote him letters begging him to plead guilty, saying that 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:17.080 of course he would pardon him immediately, he just needed 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:20.800 to plead guilty. The King, it appeared, was a little 0:26:20.840 --> 0:26:24.000 afraid of what Robert Carr might reveal over the course 0:26:24.040 --> 0:26:27.439 of a trial, which some historians believe indicates that the 0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:32.159 King too was responsible in some way for Overbury's murder. 0:26:32.840 --> 0:26:36.240 But still Carr maintained that he had no involvement in 0:26:36.240 --> 0:26:39.679 the actual poisoning, and that his only guilt was helping 0:26:39.840 --> 0:26:43.160 to cover up for his wife after the fact by 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:48.399 burning some documents. Carr was convicted and sentenced to death, 0:26:48.840 --> 0:26:52.800 but he too was almost immediately spared. The pair was 0:26:52.920 --> 0:26:57.359 released from prison, Francis in sixteen twenty two and Robert 0:26:57.400 --> 0:27:00.480 Carr in sixteen twenty four, and they went on to 0:27:00.560 --> 0:27:07.359 live perfectly happy, private lives in the relative obscurity of Oxfordshire. Scandalized, sure, 0:27:07.640 --> 0:27:12.479 but still wealthy, and with their heads still attached. Noble 0:27:12.520 --> 0:27:16.359 blood and the King's goodwill has the power to do 0:27:16.440 --> 0:27:24.240 plenty when it comes to self preservation. That's the story 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:28.320 of the infamous Countess Francis Carr, but keep listening after 0:27:28.359 --> 0:27:30.920 a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more 0:27:30.960 --> 0:27:47.960 about her trial. There's actually still some speculation today among 0:27:48.080 --> 0:27:51.960 historians as to whether Francis Carr was actually guilty or 0:27:52.040 --> 0:27:55.280 if she was just manipulated into taking the fall because 0:27:55.280 --> 0:27:58.320 she knew the King would pardon her. But most people 0:27:58.400 --> 0:28:01.560 do believe that she played, if not an active role 0:28:01.600 --> 0:28:06.600 in Overbury's death, then at least an orchestral role. Enemies 0:28:06.680 --> 0:28:10.760 had real consequences in the seventeenth century. For some it 0:28:11.000 --> 0:28:14.560 was truly kill or be killed. But I hope you 0:28:14.640 --> 0:28:19.919 haven't forgotten that Francis's first husband, poor pox ridden Devereaux, 0:28:20.200 --> 0:28:23.800