Macaulay has compared the court of James the First to that of Nero; it would have been more correct to have likened it to that of the Valois, Henry III. Although it was never proved, there were strong suspicions that the somewhat sudden death of Henry, Prince of Wales, was brought about by poison, and there is no doubt that poison was made use of by James’s courtiers, as the death of Overbury proves. Sir Thomas Overbury was the confidant of the King’s worthless favourite, Robert Carr, a handsome youth who had been brought by James from Scotland in his train, and whom he had knighted in 1607. James had also given Raleigh’s confiscated estates to his favourite two years after making him a knight, and in 1614 created him Lord Rochester and Earl of Somerset, as well as Lord Chamberlain. Overbury belonged to a Gloucestershire family, and had travelled on the Continent, whence he returned what was then called “a finished gentleman.” Overbury and Carr were firm friends, and it was probably on the recommendation of the latter that James knighted Overbury in 1608. When, however, Somerset determined to marry the notoriously improper Lady Frances Howard, the daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and the girl-wife of Lord Essex, from whom she was separated, Overbury most strongly persuaded his friend from committing such a rash action. His attitude coming to the knowledge of Lady Frances, she vowed to avenge herself upon Sir Thomas, and carried her threat to its bitter execution. On some frivolous pretext Overbury was sent to the Tower; Lady Somerset, as Lady Frances had become, notwithstanding Overbury’s advice, now determined to rid herself of the man she mostly feared. With the help of a notorious quack, and of a procuress, Mrs Turner, with whom she had been brought up, she set about the task of consummating her revenge. Poison was supplied by Mrs Turner, with which the unfortunate Overbury was slowly killed; but as the drug—it is believed to have been corrosive sublimate—did not act sufficiently quickly, two hired assassins, named Franklin and Lobell, were called in, and stifled the victim with a pillow. Sir William Waad at this time had ceased to be the Lieutenant, through Lady Essex’s influence, and had been succeeded by Sir Gervase Elwes, a creature of Somerset’s, who was not only cognisant of Overbury’s death in the Bloody Tower, where he was confined, but even aided Lady Somerset in her crime. Mrs Turner was the inventor of a peculiar yellow starch which was used for stiffening the ruffs worn at that time; she wore one of these ruffs when she was sentenced to die for her participation in this murder by the Chief-Justice, Sir Edward Coke, and was also hanged in it at Tyburn in March 1615, with the natural consequence that yellow starched ruffs suddenly ceased to be the fashion. Lady Somerset was also tried, and although found guilty of Overbury’s murder, received a pardon from the King, but she and her husband, Somerset, spent six