In more than one account written later of her execution she is said to
have worn a ruff and cuffs dressed with the yellow starch which she had
made so fashionable, and it is maintained that this association made the
starch thereafter unpopular. It is forgotten that with Anne the recipe
for the yellow starch probably was lost. Moreover, the elaborate ruff
was then being put out of fashion by the introduction of the much more
comfortable lace collar. In any case, "There is no truth," writes Judge
Parry, in the old story[14] that Coke ordered her to be executed in the
yellow ruff she had made the fashion and so proudly worn in Court. What
did happen, according to Sir Simonds d'Ewes, was that the hangman, a
coarse ruffian with a distorted sense of humour, dressed himself in
bands and cuffs of yellow colour, but no one heeded his ribaldry; only
in after days none of either sex used the yellow starch, and the fashion
grew generally to be detested.
Pretty much, I should think, as the tall 'choker' became detested within
the time of many of us. After Mrs Turner Sir Gervase Elwes was brought
to trial as an accessory. The only evidence against him was that of the
liar Franklin, who asserted that Sir Gervase had been in league with the
Countess. It was plain, however, both from Weston's statements and from
Sir Gervase's own, that the Lieutenant of the Tower had done his very
best to defeat the Turner-Essex-Northampton plot for the poisoning of
Overbury, throwing away the "rosalgar" and later draughts, as well
as substituting food from his own kitchen for that sent in by Turner.
"Although it must have been clear that if any of what was alleged
against him had been true Overbury's poisoning would never have taken
five months to accomplish, he was sentenced and hanged."[15]
This, of course, was a glaring piece of injustice, but Coke no doubt had
his instructions. Weston, Mrs Turner, Elwes, and, later, Franklin had
to be got out of the way, so that they could not be confronted with the
chief figure against whom the Great Oyer was directed, and whom it was
designed to pull down, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset--and with him his
wife. Just as much of the statements and confessions of the prisoners in
the four preliminary trials was used by Coke as suited his purpose. It
is pointed out by Amos, in his Great Oyer of Poisoning, that a large
number of the documents appertaining to the Somerset trial show
corrections and apparent glosses in Coke's own handwriting, and that
even the confessions on the scaffold of some of the convicted are
holographs by Coke. As a sample of the suppression of which Coke was
guilty I may put forward the fact that Somerset's note to his own
physician, Craig, asking him to visit Overbury, was not produced.
Yet great play was made by Coke of this visit against Somerset. Wrote
Somerset to Craig, "I pray you let him have your best help, and as much
of your company as he shall require."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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