to find that he is no longer here. ‘Oh,’ they tell me, ‘he was released last week.’”
“One day you will come here, doctor, and find that I am gone.”
“I hope so, sir, I hope so.”
“Oh, God, let it be soon,” said Overbury fervently
“And how are you feeling today?”
“Sick unto death. Such pains I have endured! But let me be free of this place and I’ll recover.”
“You have been writing too many letters. You have tired yourself.”
“In a good cause,” Overbury smiled. They would be reading his letters now. They would learn the nature of the man for whom he had done so much and who now left him miserable in his prison. They would know something about the evil woman who had changed one of the best of men into a fiend.
“This clyster should do you much good.”
“Another clyster?”
“Sir, it is my pleasure and duty to make you well again. Come, prepare yourself.”
He no longer wished for liberty and revenge; he only wished for death.
The next day the sickness continued and he lay panting for his breath.
What has come over me? he asked in his lucid moments. What has happened to make me thus?
No one could answer him. They could only shake their heads and tell each other that the wasting sickness of Sir Thomas Overbury had taken a more virulent turn.
For seven days he lay groaning in his cell; and on the eighth day when his jailers came to him, he did not answer them when they spoke to him.
They looked closer and saw that he was dead.
THE WEDDING
Frances was dizzy with glee. But what of the divorce? Oh, if it were only possible to give the old Archbishop a clyster.
She heard from Robert and her great-uncle that but for the Archbishop of Canterbury they would have the divorce by now. It seemed the old fool had a conscience and even the fear of the King’s displeasure could not make him offend that.
Why, in God’s name, if two people wanted to divorce each other, couldn’t they? demanded Frances. What had it to do with old men who had finished with life and could not understand the passions of the young?
The King, eager to have the matter done with, because it was causing too much talk throughout and beyond the Court, sent for his Archbishop and asked how the cause was going?
George Abbot looked grave.
“It is a cause for which I have little liking, Your Majesty,” he said.
James looked impatient. “Why, man, we all find ourselves facing distasteful problems at times. Then the best advice is to do the work with all speed and have the matter done with.”
“Your Majesty, this is not a matter which can be settled with a yea or a nay, and it grieves me that you should reproach me for listening to my conscience.”
“What grief can there be to your conscience if the Lady Frances is no longer the wife of the Earl of Essex?”
“It is no concern of mine, Your Majesty, whether the Lady Frances be the wife of the Earl of Essex or another. But I cannot give a verdict which I do not believe to be just. That is my problem, Sire. I am fifty-one and have never yet muffled my conscience when called upon to do my duty. It grieves me that I must displease Your Majesty and it is a matter of desolation that this verdict should be of importance to you. But if I said yea when I meant nay, then you might say that a man who did not serve his conscience could not be trusted to serve his King.”
James saw that the Archbishop was deeply moved and his sense of justice forced him to admit that the priest was right.
But what a pother to make about the matter! And Robert would not be happy until he had his bride; the Howards were also eager for the match.
Nevertheless he laid a gentle hand on the Archbishop’s arm.
“You’re an honest man, I know well. But it is my wish that the Lady Frances should be divorced from the Earl of Essex.”
He felt strengthened when he rose; he knew exactly what he would say to the Commission when it assembled.
