Overbury's counsel had made Carr great. With nothing but his good looks and his personal charm, his only real attributes, Carr had been no more than King James's creature. James, with all the pedantry, the laboured cunning, the sleezy weaknesses of character that make him so detestable, was yet too shrewd to have put power in the hands of the mere minion that Carr would have been without the brain of Overbury to guide him. Of himself Carr was the 'toom tabard' of earlier parlance in his native country, the 'stuffed shirt' of a later and more remote generation. But beyond the coalition for mutual help that existed between Overbury and Carr, an arrangement which might have thrived on a basis merely material, there was a deep and splendid friendship. 'Stuffed shirt' or not, Robert Carr was greatly loved by Overbury. Whatever Overbury may have thought of Carr's mental attainments, he had the greatest faith in his loyalty as a friend. And here lies the terrible pity in that 'if' of my choice. The love between the two men was great enough to have saved them both. It broke on the weakness of Carr. Overbury was aware that, honestly presented, the petition by Lady Essex for the annulment of her marriage had little chance of success. But for the obstinacy of Essex it might have been granted readily enough. He had, however, as we have seen, forced her to live with him as his wife, in appearance at least, for several months in the country. There now would be difficulty in putting forward the petition on the ground of non-consummation of the marriage. It was, nevertheless, on this ground that the petition was brought forward. But the non-consummation was not attributed, as it might have been, to the continued separation that had begun at the altar; the reason given was the impotence of the husband. Just what persuasion Northampton and the Howards used on Essex to make him accept this humiliating implication it is hard to imagine, but by the time the coarse wits of the period had done with him Essex was amply punished in ridicule for his primary obstinacy.