Jean Plaidy - The Murder in the Tower - The Story of Frances, Countess of Essex

There was nothing she could say in her defense. The whole cruel story was known: The attempt to bewitch Essex, and everyone believed, murder him, which had failed. The attempt to murder Overbury which had succeeded.

The Chancellor delivered the sentence.

“Frances, Countess of Somerset, whereas you have been indicted, arraigned and pleaded Guilty, and have nothing to say for yourself, it is now my part to pronounce judgment…. You shall be carried hence to the Tower of London and from thence to a place of execution where you are to be hanged by the neck till you are dead. The Lord have mercy upon your soul.”

As the Chancellor was speaking Frances saw a pair of brooding eyes fixed upon her from among those assembled to watch her tried.

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, could not completely loathe this woman who had tried to make such havoc of his life, and as he looked at the prisoner at the bar he could not shut out of his mind the memory of a laughing girl who had once danced with him so merrily at their wedding.

Frances turned away. She did not wonder what her first husband was thinking of her now. Her future loomed before her so terrible, so frightening that the past meant little to her.

Out into the fresh air. Once again to enter the gloomy precincts of the Tower.

When next she left it—

But Frances could not bear to contemplate that terror.

She lifted her face to the May sun; never had it seemed so desirable; never had the river danced and sparkled so brightly; never did the world seem so beautiful as it did now when she was condemned to leave it forever.

The next day the scene at Westminster Hall was similar but this time there was a different prisoner at the Bar.

“Robert, Earl of Somerset, hold up your hand.”

“Robert, Earl of Somerset, what say you? Are you guilty of this felony and murder whereof you stand indicted, or not guilty?”

Robert could give a different answer to this question from that which Frances had been compelled to give.

“Not guilty!” he said firmly.

Robert’s trial was longer than his wife’s; she had admitted her guilt and condemnation had come swiftly; but Robert was determined to prove his innocence and to fight for his life.

So the days passed while the evidence was brought and considered; and the letters were read once more and the images displayed.

Some of the most sorrowful moments were those when he must listen to the words Frances had written to people such as Forman and Anne Turner; when he must hear an account of the orgies in which she took part.

He realized then that he was only just beginning to know the woman who was the mother of his child; and he felt lost and bewildered.

There was one friend from whom he longed to hear; but James had nothing more to give to a man who could stand accused of such a dreadful crime. And innocent though he might be, he was allied to the woman who had admitted that she was one of the most wicked in England.

The court was against him. Robert sensed it. He knew before they gave their verdict that they would find him guilty; that they would condemn him to the same fate as that which they had decided on for Frances.

He was not surprised when it came, when he was led from the hall out into the sun, to make, as she had made, that journey back to the Tower.

THE RETRIBUTION

B ut neither the Earl nor the Countess of Somerset were hanged by their necks until they died. That was something which the King could not tolerate.

He had loved that man and he understood that it was ill fortune, circumstances, fate—whatever one cared to call it—which had brought Robert Carr close to the scaffold; it was not Robert’s nature. He had been easy going in those days when his life had been uncomplicated; and that was how it was natural for the lad to be. He had been trapped though, as young men will be, by a scheming woman; and it was she who had brought him low.

“Robbie shall not hang,” said James to himself, “because he was once my good friend; and as long as my friends seek not to harm me they remain my friends.”

As for Frances—she was a member of the great Howard family who had, at times, served their country well and she had shown herself to be truly penitent.

No, they had sinned and they had suffered; they must be punished but not by death.

In the streets the people murmured.

“It is one thing for the humble to commit murder and quite another for noble lords and ladies.”

“Who were the true murderers? Tell me that! And they are to be pardoned, while lovely Anne Turner hung in her yellow ruff until she died.”

“Weston said the big fish would break out of the net and the little ones be caught. Weston was right.”

It was a sad state of affairs. No public hanging for the Countess and the Earl. What a spectacle that would have been! Mrs. Turner in her yellow ruff had not provided half the excitement they would have had at the hanging of the Earl and Countess of Somerset.

Frances was hilariously gay when she heard the news.

She realized now how she had dreaded the thought of death. She was young; she was vital; and passionately she wanted to live.

And now she would live; and in time she and Robert would be back at Court.

The King was enamored of this boy Villiers—but let him wait.

Would she say in time that all had been worth while? A few weeks ago she would have believed that to be impossible; but now she was going to live again, richly, gloriously.

But when she discovered that, although the death sentence was not to be carried out, they were still prisoners and might not leave the Tower, Frances’s joy diminished considerably and she was subject to fits of melancholy. How could she plan for a future which was to be spent within the precincts of the Tower of London? What hope had she of taking up her place at Court, of regaining her old influence, when she was a prisoner who was expected to be grateful because she was not dead.

Her baby was in the care of Lady Knollys who had been a good friend to her; and often little Anne was brought to the Tower to be with her mother.

Nor was she kept apart from Robert; but gradually she began to understand that she could not resume her old relationship with her husband.

Every time he looked at her he saw the waxen images which had been displayed in court; every time he heard her voice he remembered the words she had written to her “sweet father,” Dr. Forman.

In place of the beautiful young girl whom he had loved, he saw an evil woman, whose hands were stained with the blood of a man who had been his closest friend.

She no longer attracted him; he found even her beauty repulsive.

His feelings were obvious to her, and she wept and stormed, threatening to end her life; she was angry with him, and bitterly sorry for herself.

But it was of no use.

Sometimes she would awake at night and fancy she heard the laughter of Sir Thomas Overbury.