Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: In her early twenties, Francis Howard dealt with two scandals.
Speaker 1: The first was certainly the more significant, a scandal that
Speaker 1: occupied courtly gossips for years. The scandal was she was
Speaker 1: trying to get an annulment from her husband, Robert Devereaux.
Speaker 1: The two had been married in their early teens, and
Speaker 1: they had had barely any contact before Devereaux went on
Speaker 1: his grand tour around Europe for a few years. When
Speaker 1: he came back, he had smallpox, so you couldn't really
Speaker 1: blame Francis for not wanting to go to bed with him,
Speaker 1: even if she hadn't fallen in love with another man
Speaker 1: at court while her husband was gone, which she had.
Speaker 1: Francis was a daughter of the powerful Howard family, and
Speaker 1: the gossips surrounding the impending annulment gave the Court of
Speaker 1: James the first plenty to talk about during the early
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds. But during the long process of these annulment negotiations,
Speaker 1: Francis Howard had to deal with the second scandal, much smaller,
Speaker 1: and much easier resolved. Francis had a ring that went missing.
Speaker 1: The ring was stolen, or so Francis claimed, by a
Speaker 1: local faith healer who went by the name cunning Mary.
Speaker 1: When the authorities confronted Cunning Mary, who did indeed have
Speaker 1: the diamond ring in her possession, Cunning Mary protested. She
Speaker 1: said that the ring wasn't stolen, that Francis Howard had
Speaker 1: given the ring as a deposit in exchange for her
Speaker 1: help in killing Francis's husband. Cunning Mary claimed that, of
Speaker 1: course she had refused Francis's request, and in Francis's rage
Speaker 1: at the rejection, she decided that she would frame the
Speaker 1: old woman for robber. No one really took cunning Mary's
Speaker 1: defense seriously, after all, she was a folk healer with
Speaker 1: the name cunning Mary, and Francis Howard, by contrast, was
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful young women in England. And
Speaker 1: so Cunning Mary was tried and convicted of the robbery,
Speaker 1: and Francis went back to dealing with the larger problem
Speaker 1: of her annulment from her husband and her desire to
Speaker 1: marry another man. This small story with the ring and
Speaker 1: Cunning Mary is often omitted in larger stories about Francis Howard.
Speaker 1: It's overshadowed by what comes next, an infamous murder trial
Speaker 1: for an actual murder that makes gossip about her annulment
Speaker 1: seem almost quaint by comparison. But I think the ring
Speaker 1: story is important to give the larger story context. Other
Speaker 1: or not Francis actually tried to use cunning Mary's folk
Speaker 1: magic in her early twenties to try to kill the
Speaker 1: husband she wanted to get rid of. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: there's really no evidence beyond cunning Mary's word, but young
Speaker 1: girls in love have done crazier things, and as you'll
Speaker 1: soon discover, Francis Howard would do her fair share of
Speaker 1: crazy things in order to secure her future. But what
Speaker 1: I find so compelling about the ring story is the
Speaker 1: power dynamic at play. Whether or not Francis Howard was
Speaker 1: attempting murder, it was the poor woman who took the
Speaker 1: blame for the missing ring, the poor woman who went
Speaker 1: to trial, who was convicted, and who faced the consequences.
Speaker 1: But what I do know is that Francis Howard's life
Speaker 1: for being in the seventeenth century feels like an all
Speaker 1: too modern indictment of the privileges of wealth. And influence.
Speaker 1: Francis Howard would only ever be on trial for one murder,
Speaker 1: but nearly half a dozen bodies would hang because of her.
Speaker 1: Francis Howard, or as she's known later by her married name,
Speaker 1: Countess Francis Carr, didn't murder her first husband, nor was
Speaker 1: she ever seriously accused of it. The murder trial would
Speaker 1: come later. It would be a public spectacle, with people
Speaker 1: selling tickets for admission. Her first husband would actually be
Speaker 1: in the courtroom that day, and at least in my imagination,
Speaker 1: he might have smiled when the judge declared Francis Howard guilty.
Speaker 1: I'm Danish Worts and this is noble blood. The War
Speaker 1: of the Roses created something of a power vacuum among
Speaker 1: the highest echelons of nobles in the English court. It
Speaker 1: was the dawn of a brand new dynasty the Tutors,
Speaker 1: and like it would be eventually with the American West.
Speaker 1: With the new comes the exciting possibility that there's room
Speaker 1: for social advancement. There were new duchies to claim, new
Speaker 1: earldoms to be given away. Titles were given and taken
Speaker 1: back and restored again. Families like the Bolins tried to
Speaker 1: lobby for new power. They managed to get a queen
Speaker 1: on the throne before their gambit famously collapsed. The Howards,
Speaker 1: another powerful family, also managed to achieve the crown for
Speaker 1: one of their daughters, the young, beautiful Catherine Howard, But
Speaker 1: like the Bolins, their stellar rise was preceded by this
Speaker 1: spectacular fall of another beheading. After King Henry the Eighth
Speaker 1: came the brief reign of his son Edward, the brief
Speaker 1: reign of his daughter Mary, and then the long reign
Speaker 1: of his other daughter, Queen Elizabeth. The first Elizabeth was
Speaker 1: Miss Lee, a virgin queen, and so after Elizabeth, the
Speaker 1: throne went to King James, the first son of the
Speaker 1: executed Mary, Queen of Scots. Throughout all of this, families,
Speaker 1: like the Howards, continued to jockey for position, their fates
Speaker 1: rising and falling over the decades. The Howards were dealing
Speaker 1: with a particularly fallow period. The teenage Queen Catherine Howard
Speaker 1: was executed. Another Howard cousin, Thomas Howard, was executed by
Speaker 1: King Henry the Eighth, who, in a fit of petulance,
Speaker 1: deemed his coat of arms to be treasonous. Thomas's son,
Speaker 1: another Thomas Howard, was also executed for becoming involved in
Speaker 1: a scheme to put Mary, Queen of Scotts, on the throne.
Speaker 1: It was looking like all the Howards could do was
Speaker 1: make the current monarch mad at them. But then the
Speaker 1: third Thomas Howard, son and grandson of the executed Thomas Howard's,
Speaker 1: flipped the trend. This Thomas Howard was celeb rated as
Speaker 1: a hero in the battle against the Spanish Armada, and
Speaker 1: then he went on to an incredibly lucrative marriage with
Speaker 1: a young widow slash heiress. Thomas and his wife would
Speaker 1: go on to have fourteen children. One of these children
Speaker 1: was Francis, born in fifteen nine, and so Francis was
Speaker 1: born at a precarious but cautiously optimistic time When it
Speaker 1: came to her family's fortunes. The most important thing for
Speaker 1: Francis to do was Mary well, and so her family
Speaker 1: made absolutely sure of that. At fourteen years old, Francis
Speaker 1: was married to Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, who was
Speaker 1: thirteen at the time. While young marriages were common enough
Speaker 1: in the sixteenth and seventeen centuries, a new line of
Speaker 1: relatively scientific thinking believed that it was dangerous and a
Speaker 1: little unseemly to consummate marriages that young. For women, it
Speaker 1: was thought, correctly i belief that they would be too
Speaker 1: small and fragile to carry children at that young age.
Speaker 1: And for men, it was believed that if they spent
Speaker 1: themselves sexually at a young age, it would deplete their
Speaker 1: vitality and vigor later in life. And so even though
Speaker 1: Francis and Devereaux were married, they were raised completely separately.
Speaker 1: When they were teenagers, Devereaux was sent on a three
Speaker 1: year grand tour of Europe, as was fairly common at
Speaker 1: the time, and Francis was sent to court. Here's the
Speaker 1: problem with sending a beautiful teenage countess to court when
Speaker 1: she doesn't really know or care about her slightly younger husband.
Speaker 1: She might fall in love with someone else, which Francis
Speaker 1: did almost as soon as she made eye contact with
Speaker 1: Robert Carr, a handsome man a few years older than
Speaker 1: she was, a man with an easy laugh and bright eyes.
Speaker 1: Car was already one of King James's favorites, and stock
Speaker 1: at court was rising quickly. When he met Francis's I,
Speaker 1: he was equally besotted. They were a perfect match, an
Speaker 1: old family and a new favorite. Two fair young, attractive people,
Speaker 1: both with charisma and charm. There was only one problem,
Speaker 1: the pesky issue of Francis already being married. Francis wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been much interested in her slightly younger, weedy husband,
Speaker 1: even if he hadn't come back from his grand tour
Speaker 1: with small Box. But as it happened, he came back
Speaker 1: from his grand tour with small Box, so perhaps justifiably,
Speaker 1: she did everything she could to avoid him. She knew
Speaker 1: that if the marriage was never consummated, it might be annulled,
Speaker 1: so when she couldn't outright dodge her husband, she did
Speaker 1: everything in her power to make sure that he couldn't
Speaker 1: successfully accomplished the deed of the marriage. Bed she mocked
Speaker 1: him and scorned him him ugly called him a coward.
Speaker 1: By now, Francis was a woman of twenty, and she
Speaker 1: saw her future happening one of two ways, getting to
Speaker 1: marry the man she was in love with, a rising
Speaker 1: star at court, or being saddled with a pox riden
Speaker 1: teenager who just happened to be her husband. Being a
Speaker 1: woman who couldn't take her own annulment case forward, Francis's
Speaker 1: father and uncle brought the case only too happy to
Speaker 1: encourage their daughters even more, promising second marriage to come.
Speaker 1: The claim was that her first marriage had never been consummated,
Speaker 1: which Devereaux reluctantly acknowledged was true, but not for lack
Speaker 1: of trying on his part. He scoffed at the Howard's
Speaker 1: claim that Francis had made herself poliant and available to
Speaker 1: her husband at every opportunity. With the affair between Francis
Speaker 1: and Robert Carr at Court being an open secret, the
Speaker 1: whole thing was especially humiliating for Devereaux. Devereaux would take
Speaker 1: to whipping his erect member out of his pants to
Speaker 1: show anyone who asked. Several friends testified to seeing it.
Speaker 1: It's not that I can't have sex, Devereau moaned, It's
Speaker 1: just that I can't have sex with her. One of
Speaker 1: the key steps in securing an annulment by non consummation
Speaker 1: was an examination of Francis to confirm that she was
Speaker 1: in fact still a virgin. There was a small council
Speaker 1: of midwives who are appointed to do the examination. Yep,
Speaker 1: the midwives said, definitely a virgin, but it was slightly
Speaker 1: less clear cut than that Francis had insisted on wearing
Speaker 1: a full veil to protect her quote modesty during the examination,
Speaker 1: and so rumors circulated at court that she had actually
Speaker 1: employed a virginal body double to undergo the examination for her.
Speaker 1: That was the main gossip piece of court for a while,
Speaker 1: and there was even a mocking little poem written about it.
Speaker 1: This dame was inspected, but fraud interjected a maid of
Speaker 1: more perfection, whom the midwives did handle whilst the night
Speaker 1: held the candle. Oh, there was a clear inspection. Still,
Speaker 1: the people in charge decided that yes, Francis Howard was
Speaker 1: a virgin. But still the annulment was slow moving to finalize.
Speaker 1: For one thing, the king didn't want to upset the
Speaker 1: status quo or upset the Devereaux family and their allies.
Speaker 1: But a larger factor was a courtier behind the scenes
Speaker 1: doing everything that he could to prevent the annulment from happening,
Speaker 1: calling in favors and influence all to keep Francis Howard
Speaker 1: from being able to marry her love, Robert Carr. This
Speaker 1: courtier's name was Thomas Overbury. He was Carr's best friend
Speaker 1: and closest adviser. He hated Francis and he believe that
Speaker 1: his friend was blinded by lust, Overbury would make sure
Speaker 1: that Francis stayed married to her first husband so that
Speaker 1: he could save his friend. What Overbury didn't realize was
Speaker 1: that in the process he was making some very powerful enemies.
Speaker 1: Thomas Overbury met Robert Carr when they were both young
Speaker 1: men living in Edinburgh. They were of similar ranks, both
Speaker 1: noble but not landed. Car was working as a page,
Speaker 1: Overbury was a student. The two hit it off, and
Speaker 1: almost immediately Overbury recognized that Car had something that he
Speaker 1: didn't charm. Car was charming. Everyone liked him. He was
Speaker 1: good looking, athletic fun. Overbury was smart, but no one
Speaker 1: ever mistook him for fun. He just seemed to rub
Speaker 1: people the wrong way. But Car Car would be his answer.
Speaker 1: His friend would be his entry into the world of
Speaker 1: power and privilege. Overbury, a few years older, positioned himself
Speaker 1: as Carr's mentor and adviser, the staffer behind the politician,
Speaker 1: the brains behind the jock. From their youth spent in Edinburgh.
Speaker 1: The two men would be reunited at court in London,
Speaker 1: ready to fulfill the glorious promise of their futures. As
Speaker 1: it happened, Overbury's prediction that Carr was a star was
Speaker 1: about to prove itself correct. In sixteen o seven, the
Speaker 1: very same year that Francis Howard's poor husband was about
Speaker 1: to go leave on his smallpox infected tour of Europe,
Speaker 1: Carr participated in a joust at court where the King
Speaker 1: James the First just so happened to be in attendance. Carr,
Speaker 1: looking handsome as ever on his horse, lost around and
Speaker 1: fell from his mount, breaking his leg with a sickening snap.
Speaker 1: The King visited Car personally in the hospital, and from
Speaker 1: there a close personal friendship formed. The King spent days
Speaker 1: at Carr's bedside, teaching him Latin and then ultimately knighting him,
Speaker 1: gifting him the confiscated estates of Sir Walter Raleigh, and
Speaker 1: all in all just ensuring that Carr would have a
Speaker 1: favorable future at court. Much has been written and said
Speaker 1: about the rumors of King James's homosexuality or bisexuality, and
Speaker 1: I'll leave it to historians smarter than I am to
Speaker 1: tease out the exact nature of the parents relationship. But
Speaker 1: it's true that James openly had male favorites, even if
Speaker 1: the law at the time would have prohibited him from
Speaker 1: publicly acting on any gay feelings he might have had,
Speaker 1: and even if respect for the crown might have meant
Speaker 1: that gossip at the time that might have surrounded those
Speaker 1: relationships was more muted than it otherwise might have been.
Speaker 1: But everything was comin' up Car, and by extension, coming
Speaker 1: up Overbury. That was until Overbury noticed Car beginning to
Speaker 1: entangle himself with the very pretty young Francis Howard. Her
Speaker 1: reputation already preceded her. She was married, first of all,
Speaker 1: but always flirtatious and famous for wearing particularly low cut dresses.
Speaker 1: In Overbury's opinion, at least, she was not nearly the
Speaker 1: type of woman that Carr should be marrying. Frances was
Speaker 1: outgoing and powerful. Her family was almost serpent like in
Speaker 1: their machinations around court. Overbury didn't want Car to get
Speaker 1: sucked up in all of that. Carr needed a good girl,
Speaker 1: an unmarried girl from a good family who wouldn't say
Speaker 1: too many opinions, and Overbury also privately thought a girl
Speaker 1: whose family wouldn't take over the managerial role in Car's life.
Speaker 1: That was his job to try to convince his friend
Speaker 1: that Francis was totally wrong for him. Overbury wrote a
Speaker 1: poem called The Wife, all about what a perfect wife
Speaker 1: should be in short, dutiful, modest, chased everything Francis wasn't.
Speaker 1: The poem was a wild hit, going into six printings
Speaker 1: in its first year alone. Meanwhile, Overbury was working overtime
Speaker 1: behind the scenes to ensure that Francis Howard wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to get an annulment from her first husband. But
Speaker 1: Overbury underestimated his opponents. The Howards wanted their daughter to
Speaker 1: get her second brighter marriage, and the Howards knew all
Speaker 1: too well how to play the games of court. The
Speaker 1: first step in their plan was manipulating Overbury into saying
Speaker 1: something distasteful about the Queen Anne of Denmark. I couldn't
Speaker 1: discover exactly what the insult was, but the Queen was
Speaker 1: apparently so put off by the already unlikable man that
Speaker 1: she wrote that Overbury shouldn't even be allowed to any
Speaker 1: event that she'd be present at. But that wasn't good
Speaker 1: enough for the Howards. They wanted to get rid of
Speaker 1: Overbury altogether, and so using their influence, they sweet talked
Speaker 1: to the King into appointing Overbury an ambassadorship to Russia.
Speaker 1: It was a checkmate They knew that Overbury would want
Speaker 1: to refuse the post so that he could stay close
Speaker 1: to Car, which he did, but of course that meant
Speaker 1: turning down a very prestigious post directly given by the King,
Speaker 1: which was a gross insult, and so when Overbury refused,
Speaker 1: the King locked Overbury in the tower. Some speculate that
Speaker 1: it was also partially thanks to the King's jealousy of
Speaker 1: Overbury's close friendship with Car, the King's favorite, but whatever
Speaker 1: the reason, there it was Overbury was locked up and
Speaker 1: out of the picture. Five months after that, Overbury died
Speaker 1: in his cell. No one really cared or paid much attention.
Speaker 1: It was seemingly of natural causes, but we'll get to
Speaker 1: that later. Two weeks after Overbury's death, the King tipped
Speaker 1: the scales in the five to five stalemate for Francis
Speaker 1: Howard's annulment and granted it. Francis Howard and her lover,
Speaker 1: Robert Carr, were almost immediately married, too much rejoicing, and
Speaker 1: no one gave a moment's more thought to the unlikable
Speaker 1: curmudgeon rotting six feet under. At least they didn't think
Speaker 1: about him. Then. Two years later, Frances and Robert Carr
Speaker 1: were happily married the newly minted Countess and Earl of Somerset,
Speaker 1: but there was about to be a ripple in there.
Speaker 1: Happily ever after, on his deathbed, a young assistant to
Speaker 1: an apothecary may a startling confession. He had sold the
Speaker 1: poison that had been used to murder Thomas Overbury in prison,
Speaker 1: and he had received twenty pounds for it. The King
Speaker 1: didn't really want to get involved, but at this point
Speaker 1: his hands were tied, and so he ordered an investigation.
Speaker 1: It probably didn't help things that Carr was losing favor,
Speaker 1: becoming replaced by another favorite. The investigation led to the
Speaker 1: governor of the prison, Mr Elwis, who had suspected that
Speaker 1: maybe something illicit was going on, but he had done
Speaker 1: his best to try to keep Overbury safe. A guard, Weston,
Speaker 1: was put in place by some well connected nobleman, and
Speaker 1: Mr Elwis was suspicious of him from the start, especially
Speaker 1: after seeing their prisoners condition begin to deteriorate. When Elwis
Speaker 1: suspected that Overbury's food was being poisoned, he tried to
Speaker 1: prepare his own food for Overbury. The fact that he
Speaker 1: wasn't direct complicit in the murders didn't prevent his trial
Speaker 1: and subsequent execution. As an accessory to the murder, also
Speaker 1: executed the guard Weston, who had actually made the deliveries
Speaker 1: of what the investigators determined had killed Overbury. The investigators
Speaker 1: figured out that Overbury hadn't died of natural causes. It
Speaker 1: had instead been poisoned tarts and jellies, and then finally
Speaker 1: a fatal enema laced with sulfuric acid. I have no
Speaker 1: more information on how the animal was delivered, or whether
Speaker 1: Overbury knew at the time that it was poisoned. I
Speaker 1: have to assume that an animal was just considered part
Speaker 1: of his standard daily treatment, and that Overbury wasn't aware
Speaker 1: that this one was poison On the day of his hanging,
Speaker 1: the prison governor Mr. Elwis continued to deny his guilt
Speaker 1: on the gallows. He stated, quote, I was so far
Speaker 1: from thinking myself foul in the fact that until I
Speaker 1: was told how deeply I had imbrowed my hands in
Speaker 1: the blood of Overbury, making me, by God's law as
Speaker 1: guilty in the concealing of it, as if I had
Speaker 1: been a personal actor in it. Till then I held
Speaker 1: myself ignorant of the deed, and my conscience so clear
Speaker 1: that I did never ask God's forgiveness. Before he was hanged,
Speaker 1: Always also asked God's forgiveness for his gambling habit. Two
Speaker 1: more individuals were also hanged as accessories to Overbury's murder
Speaker 1: that chilly November day. First, the apothecary James Franklin, a
Speaker 1: seedy man who immediately admitted his guilt. Franklin claimed that
Speaker 1: he had sold the poison directly to Mr Elwis, even
Speaker 1: though always own personal letters proved that that wasn't true.
Speaker 1: Those letters conveniently were left out of evidence. Also being
Speaker 1: hanged was a woman, a former lady's servant to Francis Howard,
Speaker 1: named Anne Turner. Anne Turner is a fascinating woman, actually
Speaker 1: briefly referenced as a murderess in the novel The Scarlet Letter.
Speaker 1: She was the widow of a fashionable London doctor. She
Speaker 1: ran two brothels and popularized the use of saffron to
Speaker 1: dye the boring old white ruffs that the glitterati were
Speaker 1: wearing in the seventeenth century. When the inspectors ransacked her home,
Speaker 1: they found pornography and other heretical material, which meant that
Speaker 1: Anne was all too happy to confess to being an
Speaker 1: accessory to murder. She confessed that she had informed a
Speaker 1: certain Francis Howard of where she might buy certain poisons.
Speaker 1: Being an accessory to murder meant that Anne would hang
Speaker 1: instead of burning at the stake for being a heretic.
Speaker 1: When Anne was sentenced to death, she was told to
Speaker 1: wear her fashionable yellow ruffs around her neck and wrists
Speaker 1: so that her shame would finally cause the trend to die.
Speaker 1: Four individuals, the governor of the prison, the guard, the apothecary,
Speaker 1: and the lady's maid all arrested and all hanged the
Speaker 1: same day for playing tiny rolls in a murder orchestrated
Speaker 1: by those with real power. Francis and Robert Carr's guilt,
Speaker 1: at least of being involved in the murder seemed like
Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion, but their connections in Royal court made
Speaker 1: it so that their trial was delayed by almost a year.
Speaker 1: Francis was twenty five years old when she was finally
Speaker 1: brought before the court on May twenty four, sixteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: The man who tried the case for the king was
Speaker 1: none other than the father of the scientific method, Sir
Speaker 1: Francis Bacon, who tried his best to treat Francis with
Speaker 1: the utmost kindness after she immediately pleaded guilty and burst
Speaker 1: into tears. The court case was a public spectacle. Not
Speaker 1: only was Frances already infamous for her earlier annulment, but
Speaker 1: this was a countess on the stand accused of murder.
Speaker 1: One man was recorded paying ten pounds for seats for
Speaker 1: him and his wife in the stands. Extra scaffolding had
Speaker 1: to be built in Westminster Hall to contain all of
Speaker 1: the onlookers. Accounts at the time described Frances as incredibly beautiful,
Speaker 1: but also as faint and delicate. What those accounts don't
Speaker 1: usually remark on is the fact that Frances was heavily
Speaker 1: pregnant at the time she was found guilty and sentenced
Speaker 1: to death, and while she was imprisoned, she gave birth
Speaker 1: to what would be the couple's only child, a daughter
Speaker 1: named Anne. The baby was cared for by Frances's sister
Speaker 1: until Frances was released, which she was fairly quickly. Within months,
Speaker 1: the King commuted her death sentence. Francis's husband, Robert Carr,
Speaker 1: was also tried, but unlike his wife, he denied all
Speaker 1: knowledge of any wrongdoing. While he was imprisoned, the King
Speaker 1: wrote him letters begging him to plead guilty, saying that
Speaker 1: of course he would pardon him immediately, he just needed
Speaker 1: to plead guilty. The King, it appeared, was a little
Speaker 1: afraid of what Robert Carr might reveal over the course
Speaker 1: of a trial, which some historians believe indicates that the
Speaker 1: King too was responsible in some way for Overbury's murder.
Speaker 1: But still Carr maintained that he had no involvement in
Speaker 1: the actual poisoning, and that his only guilt was helping
Speaker 1: to cover up for his wife after the fact by
Speaker 1: burning some documents. Carr was convicted and sentenced to death,
Speaker 1: but he too was almost immediately spared. The pair was
Speaker 1: released from prison, Francis in sixteen twenty two and Robert
Speaker 1: Carr in sixteen twenty four, and they went on to
Speaker 1: live perfectly happy, private lives in the relative obscurity of Oxfordshire. Scandalized, sure,
Speaker 1: but still wealthy, and with their heads still attached. Noble
Speaker 1: blood and the King's goodwill has the power to do
Speaker 1: plenty when it comes to self preservation. That's the story
Speaker 1: of the infamous Countess Francis Carr, but keep listening after
Speaker 1: a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more
Speaker 1: about her trial. There's actually still some speculation today among
Speaker 1: historians as to whether Francis Carr was actually guilty or
Speaker 1: if she was just manipulated into taking the fall because
Speaker 1: she knew the King would pardon her. But most people
Speaker 1: do believe that she played, if not an active role
Speaker 1: in Overbury's death, then at least an orchestral role. Enemies
Speaker 1: had real consequences in the seventeenth century. For some it
Speaker 1: was truly kill or be killed. But I hope you
Speaker 1: haven't forgotten that Francis's first husband, poor pox ridden Devereaux,
Speaker 1: who was so publicly humiliated when the entire world had
Speaker 1: to hear about him being unable to have sex with
Speaker 1: his wife, well he got his revenge. Robert Devereaux, Earl
Speaker 1: of Sussex, was one of the members of the jury
Speaker 1: during Francis's trial, and he was one of the men
Speaker 1: who listened to the evidence, listened to her weep, and
Speaker 1: then proclaimed his former wife guilty. Noble Blood is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz.
Speaker 1: Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 1: The show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,
Speaker 1: and you can learn more about the show over at
Speaker 1: Noble Blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M M