If the fate that overtook Frances Howard and Rochester, and with them Anne Turner and many another, is to be properly understood, a brief word on the political situation in England at this time will be needed--or, rather, a word on the political personages, with their antagonisms. Next in closeness to the King's ear after Rochester, and perhaps more trusted as a counsellor by that "wise fool," there had been Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, for a long time First Secretary of State. But about the time when Lady Essex finally parted with her husband Cecil died, depriving England of her keenest brain and the staunchest heart in her causes. If there had been no Rochester the likeliest man in the kingdom to succeed to the power and offices of Cecil would have been the Earl of Northampton, uncle of Lord Suffolk, who was the father of Lady Essex. Northampton, as stated, held the office of Lord Privy Seal. The Howard family had done the State great service in the past. Its present representatives, Northampton and Suffolk, were anxious to do the State great service, as they conceived it, in the future. They were, however, Catholics in all but open acknowledgment, and as such were opposed by the Protestants, who had at their head Prince Henry. This was an opposition that they might have stomached. It was one that they might even have got over, for the Prince and his father, the King, were not the best of friends. The obstacle to their ambitions, and one they found hard to stomach, was the upstart Rochester. And even Rochester would hardly have stood in their way had his power in the Council depended on his own ability. The brain that directed Robert Carr belonged to another man. This was Sir Thomas Overbury. On the death of Cecil the real contenders for the vacant office of First Secretary of State--the highest office in the land--were not the wily Northampton and the relatively unintelligent Rochester, but the subtle Northampton and the quite as subtle, and perhaps more spacious-minded, Thomas Overbury. There was, it will be apprehended, a possible weakness on the Overbury side. The gemel-chain, like that of many links, is merely as strong as its weakest member. Overbury had no approach to the King save through the King's favourite. Rochester could have no real weight with the King, at least in affairs of State, except what he borrowed from Overbury. Divided, the two were powerless. No, more than that, there had to be no flaw in their linking. The wily Northampton, one may be certain, was fully aware of this possible weakness in the combination opposed to his advancement. He would be fully aware, that is, that it was there potentially; but when he began, as his activities would indicate, to work for the creation of that flaw in the relationship between Rochester and Overbury it is unlikely that he knew the flaw had already begun to develop. Unknown to him, circumstance already had begun to operate in his favour.