BOOKS OF THE MOMENT.

THE FATAL COUNTESS.

[COPYRIGHT IN UNITED STATES BY New York Times.] The Fatal Countess and Other Studies. By William Roughead. (Edinburgh ; W. Green and Sons. 10s. 6d. net.) THE records of murder have, and always will have, a deep interest for mankind. There is bound to be something awe- inspiring and terrible in the breaking of the great taboo upon which human society rests. I hence comes the special and necessary horror of murder. To kill without intent, that is, homicide, is naturally a serious and punishable offence ; but the sin of murder is not in it. Murder imports the deliberate design to kill. That is why Webster says that other crimes only speak while murder cries out.

It is only because the crime of wilful murder is not forgivable that we can sleep at night, or walk down a dark road, or let a man come up behind us without our watching him. If men had not agreed that, whatever other crimes they might tolerate, they would not tolerate the intent to kill, each community of men would be a hell. To what lengths men will go to maintain the murder taboo is to be seen in the history of every tyranny. Men will part with what they least like parting with in the world, that is, liberty of action, and will sacrifice even their property, to hire an autocrat who will put the fear of God into the hearts of the man-slayers. To be in the King's peace, or the peace of the Republic of Florence, or Berne, or, again, of the United States of America, as men are in the district of Columbia, was no more convention or rhetorical flourish, but a fact. No wonder, then, that men and women are curious to know how some human being dared to break the universal edict, " Thou shalt not kill." When to the interest of murder unadorned we add the zest of killings by or of kings and counsellors, great courtiers, beautiful women, the favourites of monarchs, and fashionable necro- mancers, and over all some mystery or secret of State which the liveliest imagination is unable completely to unravel, the desire to learn all that can be known of the crime is irre- sistible.

All these intensifying elements are found in the history of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, the first of the stories told in Mr. Roughead's volume, The Fatal Countess and Other Studies. Mr. Roughead's account of the Overbury trial, and of that terrible woman, the Countess of Somerset, and the rest of the dramatis personae, is a very fascinating piece of work. We cannot, however, help wishing that he had given us more of the details of the trial, and had supplied us with a complete statement of the facts and their analysis, such as he did in his book on Burke and Hare. No doubt, as he himself hints, the disgusting nature of many of the details, first in the nullity suit by which Lady Somerset's first marriage with the Earl of Essex was dissolved, which was the prologue to the main trial, and then the main trial itself, involving the loath- some story of the King's connexion with his favourite Carr, would hardly be possible even in an age like the present. Plainness of speech has become in the past ten years almost an object of literary adoration. However, I do not come to offer complaints in regard to a very vivid and interesting essay, but rather to point out what a notable contribution it makes to the understanding of a cruel, corrupt and evil Renaissance tyrant. James I., as his writings on statecraft and his book on Daemonologie show—a book lately republished and well worth the attention of the reader—was one of the vilest of mankind. At every turn in the trial of the murderers of Overbury the sinister shadow of the King is cast across the story. It was he who set these wicked and dearaded, though splendid, figures moving in that dance of death, in which they

bowed and curtsied to each other, and changed hands and partners with livid faces and terrified eyes. And what a set

of dancers they were ! Sir Thomas Overbury, the politic, worldly, cunning courtier and man of letters ; Bacon, the

greatest philosopher of his own age, a man comparable for his influence upon the human intellect to Plato or Aristotle ; Coke, the Lord Chief Justice of England, a great jurist and in later life a great upholder of the liberties of England against royal usurpations. In this trial his record is even blacker than it was at the trial of Walter Ralegh. Next comes the politic Earl of Northampton, a sort of wicked Polonius, but without Polonius's foolish charm. Then there are the hero

and heroine, Carr, the exquisite and fascinating favourite of the King, and his Countess, beautiful, lustful, and utterly unscrupu- lous where her will was crossed or her beauty scorned. There are a horde of minor, but none the less horrible, people in the trial. For example, the beautiful Mrs. Anne Turner, bawd and poisoner, the evil genius of the deeply-corrupted society of London in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. And last of all comes the King. He is facile princeps in cleverness and the chattering cowardice which, however, never disarmed him, but rather stimulated him to fresh acts of diabolic ingenuity.

The King's weaknesses and evil lusts were very apt to get him into dangerous positions, but he had a power of getting out of them by unscrupulousness and " treason domestic," even to his best beloved friends, to which the records of crime afford no parallel or afford it in Tiberius alone. The trial of Overbury was his chef d'oeuvre. He did the thing so well that sometimes one feels that he must have had a sort of dramatic interest in the intrigues and subterfuges, and that he deliberately staged his own infamies. Take, for example, the way in which he carried out the downfall of the man who had been his beloved minion, the man upon whose neck he had hung, and whose cheek he had kissed with his slobbery lips. Up to a certain day in October all seemed going well with Somerset. Not only was the King continuing to shower his favours on him, but he was apparently doing everything to assist the Countess • and her husband in the removal of Overbury. And then suddenly on Friday, October 13th, the Lord Chief Justice Coke summoned Somerset for examination. The favourite was with the King at Royston, and his first impulse was to treat with disdain the citation to appear before the special court which was inquiring into the murder of Overbury while imprisoned in the Tower. But when he announced to the King that he intended to ignore the foolish impertinence of an underling, the King replied, " Nay, thou must go then, for if Coke sends for me I must go too." It happened that at this very time Sir Anthony Weldon, the man who has left us the best account of what may be called the gossip side of the trial, was then at the Court at Royston. He gives a most dramatic account of the parting between the King and his favourite, and the King's Judas-like kiss :— " The Earle of Somerset never parted from him with more seeming affection than at this time, when he knew Somerset should neN er see him more ; and had you seen the seeming affection (as tho author himselfe did) you would rather have believed he was in his rising rather than setting. The earle, when he kissed his hand, the king hung about his neck, slabbering his cheeks, saying, For Gods sake, when I shall see thee againe ? On my soul, I shall neither eat nor sleep until you come again.' The earle told hirr, on Monday (this being on the Friday). For Gods sake, let me,' said the king, shall I, shall I ? ' then lolled about his neck. Then for Gods sake give thy lady this kiss for me. In the same manner at the stayres head, at the middle of the stayres, and at the stayrt s foot. The earle was not in his coach when the king used these ye, y words (in the hearing of four servants, of whom one was SOmersets great creature and of the Bed-Chamber, who reported it instantly to the author of this history), ' I shall never see his face more.' "

Somerset, however, though partly deceived by the King's . action, may perhaps have noticed the smile which another chronicler mentions, for the first thing that he did when he • reached London was to try to get at the papers in the case and destroy them. He burnt his own letteis, but, unluckily for him, Mrs. Turner had, no doubt for purposes • of blackmail, retained a certain batch of very compromising letters. These letters were discovered in a cellar and had already got into the hands of the Lord Chief Justice. When, ' then, the Judges of the Special Commission Court learnt that Somerset was trying to cover up his tracks, they were not content with the citation, but ordered the instant arrest of the Earl and his wife. This took place on October 18th.

Then began " The great Oyer of Poisoning." . Weston • who had administered a great part of the poison, though, ' probably not the poison that actually killed Overbury, was

soon found guilty and hanged. Mrs. Turner was next tried, found guilty and hanged. Sir Gervase Elwes, the Keeper of the Tower, was then brought to trial for abetting Weston, and he, too, was found guilty and hanged. Franklin, who was tried upon the same indictment as Weston, followed him to the gallows.

It was at Franklin's trial that we get the first open hint of what was behind this whole bloodstained business. After his conviction, Dr. Franklin darkly hinted " that there were greater persons in this matter than were yet known," and that other deaths than Overbury's had been compassed. " I think next the Gunpowder Treason, there never was such a plot as this." These conclusions, Mr. Roughead tells us, so powerfully impressed the Chief Justice that he com- municated them to the King, who, it is not to be wondered at, showed no desire that they should be followed up. Next came the trial of Frances, Countess of Somerset. She pleaded guilty, but made a plea for mercy which, it must be admitted, was well expressed. " I can much aggravate, but nothing extenuate my fault. I desire mercy, and that the Lords will intercede for me to the King." And now follows the most mysterious and horrible part of the case. I shall tell it in Mr. Roughead's summary :— " The arraignment of Somerset forms the Fifth Act. if the Countess gave the Crown but little trouble it was not so with her noble husband. Bacon had the handling of the case and consulted the King at every step. Coke's judicial pronouncements of the 'Earl's guilt were much stronger than the proofs, and James was very anxious that Somerset should confess, and throw himself on the Royal mercy. But, perhaps because he had no great faith in that quality, the Earl persistently refused ; he preferred the sporting chance of an acquittal. The Attorney-General wrote to the new Favourite, who was naturally much interested in the prosecution of his precursor, That same little charm which may be secretly infused into Somerset's ear some few hours before his 'trial, was excellently well thought of by his Majesty.' James was at his old tricks ; but the case called for the exercise of all his vaunted Kingcraft.' . . . On the night of the Countess's condemnation, Sir George Moore, who had succeeded Elwes as lieutenant of the Tower, warned his prisoner to be ready for trial next morning. The Earl did absolutely refuse it, and said they should carry him in his bed ; that the King had assured him he should not come to any tryal, neither durst the King bring him to tryal.' Though the hour was midnight, Sir George hastened down to Greenwich, where the Court was t hen in residence and his Majesty in bed. He bounseth at the back stayres as if mad,' and insisted that the sleeping monarch be roused to hear his news. The King fell into a passion of tears : On my soule, Moore, I wot not what to do ! ' cried the awakened

S olomon. Thou art a wise man ; help me in this great straight, and thou shalt finde thou dost it for a thankful master.' This he said with other sad expressions.' Promising to do his best, Sir George left the Palace and returned to the Tower at three in the morning. Probably the time had come to try his Majesty's ' little charm.' Whatever arguments were used proved effectual, for at eight o'clock the prisoner went quietly to meet his fate."

What was this secret which apparently inspired James first to get rid of Overbury to please his favourite, and then brought the ruin of his favourite and his wife, and finally saved their lives ? It must have been something terrible, other- wise the King would not have arranged for two men to stand by the prisoner ready, if he began to tell his secret, to throw a black cloak over his head and to silence him and drag him from the dock. I do not think the secret was what Sir Walter Scott thought it was, that is, the infamous commerce between the King and his minion ; but I agree with Mr. Roughead that what James was afraid of coming out was that he had plotted Overbury's death with Somerset. Very possibly, also, behind that there might have been the dreadful secret that the King had got rid of his own son, Prince Henry, a man adored by the people, though probably hated by the King. Frances Somerset, it was alleged, and probably with truth, had been the mistress of the Prince.

How can I better end this gruesome story than by quoting Mr. Roughead's summary of the end of the Fatal Countess and her husband ? :—

" By an ingenious refinement of cruelty the fallen Favourite and the partner of his shame were, in terms of their release, com- pelled by Order of Council to live together at Lord Wallingford's Oxfordshire seats, Grays or Cowsham, and remain confined to one or other of the said houses, and within three miles' compass of the same.' Thus, says Wilson, holding their lives by a Lease of the King's Will, living in a private and obscure condition,' they spent the wretched residue of their days. That Love that made them break through all Oppositions, either by her declining to some new Object—as was the common rumour—or his inclining to reluctancy for the Old, grew so weak that it pined away ; and

they lived long after, though in one House, as Strangers one to another.' For them life must have been as terrible as for Therese Raquin and her lover Laurent, with the dead man between them. The Countess escaped first, dying in 1632, sixteen years after the trial, at the age of thirty-nine. Of her last illness and death Wilson paints a ghastly picture ; it had been better for her had she made a decent end at Tyburn. The Earl, lagging superfluous on the stage, survived till 1645. Even then he was only fifty-throe. From King Charles, who always hated him, he received no counten- ance. He had lived to see the splendour of Buckingham quenched suddenly in blood. Perhaps lie envied Steenie ' the swift blow that finished his career ; compared with his own long-drawn punishment, Felton's knife would seem almost merciful."

J. ST. Lox STRACIIEY.