The nullity suit succeeded. A jury of matrons was impanelled, and made an examination of the lady appellant. Its evidence was that she was virgo intacta. Seven out of the twelve members of the packed commission voted in favour of the sentence of nullity. The kernel of the situation lies in the verdict of the jury of matrons. Her ladyship was declared to be a maid. If in the finding gossips and scandal-mongers found reason for laughter, and decent enough people cause for wonderment, they are hardly to be blamed. If Frances Howard was a virgin, what reason was there for fearing anything Overbury might have said? What knowledge had he against the suit that put Rochester and the Howards in such fear of him that they had to confine him in the Tower under such miserable conditions? In what was he so dangerous that he had to be deprived of his faithful Davies, that he had to be put in the care of a Tower Lieutenant specially appointed? The evidence given before the commission can still be read in almost verbatim report. It is completely in favour of the plea of Lady Essex. Sir Thomas Overbury's, had he given evidence, would have been the sole voice against the suit. If he had said that in his belief the association of her ladyship with Rochester had been adulterous there was the physical fact adduced by the jury of matrons to confute him. And being confuted in that, what might he have said that would not be attributed to rancour on his part? That her ladyship, with the help of Mrs Turner and the wizard of Lambeth, had practised magic upon her husband, giving him powders that went near to killing him? That she had lived in seclusion for several months with her husband at Chartley, and that the non-consummation of the marriage was due, not to the impotence of the husband, but to refusal to him of marital rights on the part of the wife because of her guilty love for Rochester? His lordship of Essex was still alive, and there was abundant evidence before the court that there had been attempt to consummate the marriage. Whatever Sir Thomas might have said would have smashed as evidence on that one fact. Her ladyship was a virgin. What did Sir Thomas Overbury know that made every one whose interest it was to further the nullity suit so scared of him--Rochester, her ladyship, Northampton, the Howards, the King himself?