The Dark and the Light

by Josephine Bell

  Well, she planned to remove herself from him, her physical self, away from Oxford, away from England, away for ever. If she could command any influence at all in high places, and she flattered herself falsely she did so, she would find herself a place among the Princess Elizabeth’s train, the Princess so soon to be Electress of Palatine. She would go with her royal mistress to her new country in far-off central Europe.

  This high-flown plan had, in fact, very little hope of fulfilment. The Princess Elizabeth’s household lay under the control of her mother, the Queen, who was not at all likely to be interested in the Rochesters of all people, though with her Majesty’s scarcely veiled leaning towards the Catholic faith, she was not repelled by the Howards, taken as a whole.

  But Katharine, in the short time before the wedding, found every route she tried to take barred by indifference if not by antagonism. In her desperation she made a fatal error. She confided her wishes and difficulties to her lover on the second assignation she had with him, held as usual at Mistress Anne Turner’s house.

  Alan Carr was delighted. He too was not very easy at present. He did not like the fact that Tom Overbury was imprisoned in the Tower, nor the manner of his committal there. Nor his prolonged imprisonment without a truly valid legal charge being brought against him. People were beginning to talk. Not that my Lady Frances Howard cared two straws what anyone said. Nor Robbie, still sitting in the King’s lap. But he would give much to be away from London for a while.

  ‘Thou in the Palatinate, my love,’ he cried, ‘and I in the King’s army in the Netherlands from whence I could find a way to come to thee and renew our happiness.’

  ‘If it could indeed be so,’ she sighed.

  ‘We must make it so,’ he answered.

  But in his innocence or stupidity or both he told his brother of Kate’s wish and Robbie told Lady Frances. She seemed sympathetic as she listened, but afterwards she sat considering for a time and then went with her usual precautions of secrecy to find Mistress Turner.

  ‘Sweet Anne,’ she said. ‘Thou must help me.’

  This was her invariable start to laying out some piece of devilry. Mistress Turner heard it, sighed, but gave her exalted friend her full attention.

  ‘We will name no names,’ said my lady, ‘but there is one who hath been of some use to me and now seeks to remove herself from my service and my care. I am not willing for this. I would bind her more closely to me, Turner, for my good and her own safety. Now, it is time to deliver another packet to Weston from the apothecary, Franklin. This time I would have my scheming madam fetch the packet from the good doctor and deliver it to you, that you may pass it on to Weston. She must believe it goes from you to my Lord Essex to promote my divorce. She must know nothing else. You understand?’

  Mistress Turner understood. She had no objection. It would not have availed her at all to have one. But in truth she enjoyed her position of jackal to the lioness she served. Not simply from the money she earned by it and the protection she enjoyed in dealing with those many she had herself injured, but for the great lady’s ingenuity in ill-doing, which gave her a kind of vicarious defiance of God’s laws she might not have had the strength to perform by herself though wishing to do so.

  Katharine took Lady Essex’s orders from Mistress Turner without questioning as she arrived at the latter’s house for a third meeting with Alan Carr. She made her way the next morning to the apothecary’s house where his apprentice, a youth of handsome appearance and good manners received her and sat her down to wait for his master.

  Master James Franklin did not keep Lady Leslie waiting very long, but he showed some reluctance in producing the packet for Mistress Turner.

  ‘I knew her husband, you understand, madam—’ he began.

  ‘‘My lady’’!’ Katharine told him shortly. ‘I gave my name to your boy.’

  ‘My lady,’ the apothecary corrected, not at all in an apologetic tone, but with a short fierce gleam in his small eyes. ‘As I was saying, I knew Doctor Turner, so these confidential matters of prescriptions—’

  ‘Do you doubt she asked me to come to you?’ Katharine demanded. ‘If so I will away and she must find another messenger. It is only to convenience her I am here at all.’

  ‘Surely, surely,’ Master Franklin said soothingly. But he went away and presently the apprentice came again with a package in his hand which he gave to Katharine.

  ‘You will go straightway to deliver it, will you not, my lady?’ he asked. ‘And without unparcelling it? My master says the substance is very particular—very—particular.’

  ‘So I have been given to understand,’ Katharine answered.

  She had not expected this altercation and now wished to get away from the apothecary’s house as quickly as possible. My Lord Essex would suffer still more, or so she had understood from Mistress Turner, and by her present action she herself was helping to that end. On behalf of poor Lady Essex, she told herself, but without conviction. For Lady Essex was in no way poor, but rich and strong and worthy of loyal service. She hoped this mark of it in herself would merit and further her plan to join the Princess Elizabeth’s train.

  The wedding took place in surroundings of great magnificence and was followed by a whole week of festivities, firework displays, a mock battle on the Thames, a series of masques staged by the professionals and also by groups of amateurs. One of the former was a revised version of Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest’ in which both Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson collaborated. There was lavish entertainment for all and nobody, the King least of all, counted the exorbitant cost of it, nor gave any thought to his empty exchequer. Except, perhaps, Sir Francis Bacon, who found much of the display vulgar as well as expensive, but was not heeded by anyone in the general excitement.

  Doctor Ogilvy and his wife were not present at the actual wedding, which was just as well for the crush was ill-managed, though the ladies had been forbidden to wear farthingales. Most of them had long since abandoned this fashion, but their skirts were still very full. It was the Queen who persisted in keeping her farthingale and since she naturally was given plenty of room and a way made for her to move, she, almost alone of the ladies, was not inconvenienced.

  Lady Leslie took her place behind Lady Essex at the wedding ceremony, so she had a good view of the handsome young couple and a coherent story to take home to her parents. All the Ogilvys went to see ‘The Tempest’, Katharine somewhat nervous lest her father should remember her earlier confusion and lies over the masque. But he seemed to have forgotten this in his pleasure at seeing the piece performed and hearing the noble lines and laughing at the drolls in their knockabout horseplay.

  All London indulged in feasting and jollity, so glad were the common people at this marriage of their young Princess. They had not quite forgotten their grief for her brother, but in the Elector of Palatine, equally young, handsome and clearly in love with his wife, they felt a very real compensation. King James had begun well in providing for his daughter a marriage that brought England into the Protestant Union of German Princes and the Dutch. They hoped a similar connection would be planned for the new heir, Prince Charles. They did not know how deep and far their King had gone in exactly the opposite direction, with plans already maturing for a connection with Spain.

  Frederick and his bride did not leave England until late in April, sailing from Rochester in a new vessel called the Royal Prince, built in England. During the first weeks after the marriage Katharine had tried vainly to enlist Lady Frances Howard’s help in finding her an introduction in the new household. But without success. When she allowed her disappointment and anxiety to show through her deference to her patroness, the latter said coldly, ‘I would hear no more of this ambition, Kate. You are a married woman of experience and several years’ standing. You have a husband and children. Think you a young bride, having a sufficiency of friends of her own age and standing, would consider for a moment taking you abroad with her? How could I recommend it? I will hear no more on the
subject. I grow tired of these complaints and importunings. Remember that I know too much of your conduct with Alan Carr for you to indulge any further in this rashness.’

  Katharine was silenced. Her brother Richard had already gone back to Oxford, after inviting his parents to pay him and Celia a promised visit there. Katharine waited in London until they were ready to leave, then joined them for the journey. She had not seen the Lady Essex since their last unhappy meeting, but she had enjoyed one further encounter with Alan, when he told her how disappointed he was they might not meet abroad, but that he had waited for her plans to mature before moving himself. And that now her future was uncertain, so would his be, until they could come together at last with no more parting.

  Which was very fine and ardent and she loved him well for it, Katharine decided, riding sadly towards Oxford. But it did not advance their cause and did not, to be perfectly honest, seem to afflict him very seriously. Nor herself, she knew, in a moment of honest self-knowledge. Nor herself.

  Chapter Twelve

  During the early months of 1613 the King was ill, a complex affair that seemed to involve his kidneys and his digestion in a formidable syndrome, very difficult to treat. Or so Doctor Mayerne found it, especially as the patient was more recalcitrant than ever before, at one visit blaming his physician for his lack of skill and at another professing himself ready to die, since life was no longer bearable.

  ‘He hath always been of this constitution,’ Robbie Carr said mildly when Lady Frances complained bitterly of this fresh delay to her plans.

  ‘He hath always been a coward,’ she answered. ‘He cannot abide illness of any sort, mild or severe, in others as well as in himself. Look how he abandoned the poor Prince in his dying hours, fleeing from London instead of being at hand to lighten the poor boy’s agony.’

  ‘They were never close,’ Lord Rochester protested. ‘He used to complain of it regularly. They had little in common. However, his Majesty mends, if slowly. It is the following depression irks him most this last week. And Mayerne grows old. They tell me he hath called in young Doctor Harvey to assist him.’

  ‘They tell you? Who tells you? Not the King himself?’

  The favourite got up from where he was lounging and went to stand near the window, looking out, his back to her. She repeated her question, but got no answer.

  His silence seemed menacing. Was it possible the King had not sent for him in his illness? If so, the faction of the Lord Chancellor must have increased their influence in spite of Overbury’s removal to the Tower. Or could it be because of it? Perhaps there was no time now to lose. While his Majesty recovered, his mind must be swayed again in their direction, hers and Robbie’s. He must be given a new interest, a fresh excitement of a kind he relished.

  ‘We must press the matter of my divorce,’ she said harshly. ‘Thou must speak of it. Tell him I waste away for misery. Tell him Essex will not see me or speak to me.’

  ‘That will be no news. My Lord of Essex seeks redress now for thy desertion.’

  ‘Then press that, too. We stand in too much danger, thou and I, unless the affair can be brought to some conclusion.’

  And so at last a commission was set up to inquire into the matter of the Essex marriage. King James, when he had recovered to a great extent from his illness, due chiefly to the excitements and excesses of his daughter’s marriage that followed so closely the death of his heir, did find, as Lady Frances had foretold, relief and solace in a new compelling interest.

  Unstable and complicated himself where sexual matters were concerned, the King was always willing to consider the difficulties and deviations of others. The commission he set up consisted of ten persons; four bishops, four doctors of civil law and two councillors. It might be supposed these ten eminent men, wise in the moral and civil law, could reach unaided an opinion about the truth of Lady Frances Howard’s allegation of impotence on the part of her young husband. They could, and did, take evidence from both parties.

  But witnesses, after all, could only repeat what the lady had told her friends. On the other side they heard from friends of Lord Essex in similar position. And from a few prostitutes who spoke with confidence of his virility, but might well be lying for gain. As might they all be lying, including both principals.

  But the King was unwilling to let the inquiry go forward in as seemly, reticent and compassionate a manner as the members of it wished. He revelled in the most prurient detail, in dragging it forth, in examining it, arguing about it, before abandoning it to scratch for more and yet more detail.

  At one stage there was a suggestion that witchcraft had been employed upon the young earl to impair him. James was delighted. He had always loved tales of witchcraft, which, though he did not always believe them, pleased his strange taste for the devious, the mysterious, unexplained, dramatic.

  It was conceded at last that Essex had from time to time experienced difficulty in performing the natural function. The infrequency of this trouble confirmed the King’s view that witchcraft might well be at the bottom of it. But wielded by whom? With what purpose? How? And where?

  Archbishop Abbot would have none of this theory. Rumours had come to him, as they had to many, concerning the Lady Frances Howard’s intrigue with Lord Rochester. But he did not believe her capable of witchcraft. In fact he disbelieved in witchcraft altogether. The Devil had too much success in pricking his followers to earthly evil without helping them to use supernatural powers. The commission refused to accept the theory. Whereupon the King, seeing that a vote on the subject would go against him, added another two bishops. favourable to his views, who swung the end result in his favour.

  But meanwhile the argument went to and fro; King James found a continuing interest in the matter; he persisted in his interference and the frustrated Countess of Essex began to lose patience.

  The package that Katharine had brought from the apothecary Franklin’s house still lay in Mistress Turner’s care. It had not been delivered to the Earl of Essex, as Katharine had been told, for it was meant for Weston to use and Weston was acting as gaoler to Sir Thomas Overbury at the Tower.

  But now Lady Essex summoned Mistress Anne to her presence, ostensibly for the latter to show her the use of the yellow starch for her lace collars and cuffs that was all the rage at Court at that time. During the conversation, when the two women were for a few minutes alone together, Lady Frances gave instructions that the apothecary’s parcel be given to Weston to use as directed, at a suitable time. Mistress Turner nodded. She felt she was safe enough, acting merely as a go-between. She had not visited Master Franklin, she did not pay Weston more than his normal wage. She would see to it that the package was delivered to him to give direct to Sir Thomas Overbury, from a friend and well-wisher, naming no names.

  A few days later Sir Gervase Helwys, the recently appointed Lieutenant of the Tower, saw Richard Weston, still more recently made keeper of the latest prisoner, engaged near the watergate in earnest conversation with a ragged fellow, one foot on the land, the other in his boat, holding it in to the steps. When the latter, glancing up, saw the Lieutenant stand still to watch, the man turned about, sat down in his craft and pulled away into the stream.

  Helwys walked on. He thought the waterman had not spoken to Weston after noticing himself and he did not want the keeper to know he had been there. In this he was right. The fellow had spoken scarcely a word, which did not surprise Weston, for he recognized him as a messenger regularly employed by his mistress. He had accepted a small parcel and stowed it away in his tunic. No doubt there were instructions inside. He was content to open it when he should be alone in his own small closet next to his prisoner’s more roomy cell. So he turned away without seeing the Lieutenant and walked off in the opposite direction.

  But Sir Gervase, taking one quick look and seeing he might lose the man before he could question him, walked rapidly roundabout until he came face to face with Weston at the entrance to the staircase leading to Overbury’s door. />
  By this time Weston had taken out the package and had it in his hand. He did this because it was very likely Sir Thomas would be sitting at his window watching the infrequent passers-by and he would recognize Weston. It would not do, in that case, to seem to have nothing about him, neither letters nor presents of food, such as were frequently sent to prisoners by their friends and relations. So he took out the parcel and was carrying it in his hand when at the entrance to the staircase, he came face to face with Sir Gervase Helwys.

  ‘You are Weston, are you not?’ the Lieutenant asked sharply.

  ‘Aye, sir, at your pleasure.’

  The words were polite but the manner less than respectful. Helwys was already sensitive, knowing he had a reputation for gambling with more loss than profit, as was usual, but with more difficulty in paying his dues than became a gentleman. So he said, with a cold anger in his voice, ‘I think I was asked to take you as keeper to Sir Thomas Overbury?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Weston said again, more carefully, with a slight but not servile bow.

  ‘You will explain to me why you were in conversation with a most villainous looking fellow just now at the water-gate. I saw you, so do not tell me I am misinformed. Was it by accident, the meeting, or prearranged?’

  ‘Part one, part t’other,’ Weston answered. This was true as far as it went, for he had been told by a friend at the main gate to look out for the waterman, who had a message for him. He did not have to hang about the watergate very long, since visits there from outside came only with the tide and that at a certain known time that varied, when there was slack water on the flood. The ebb left the watergate dry, ten yards of muddy pebble and sand between it and the stream.