merset had an intimate friend, whose advice
and services at a former period had been very useful to him, but who
opposed this marriage and fell out with him on account of it--his name
was Overbury.[393] Lady Frances swore to effect his death. We are
revolted at the licence which personal hate enjoyed of misusing the
power of the state, when we read that Overbury was first brought to
the Tower, and then had creatures who could be relied on set about him
there, with whose help the victim was removed out of the way by means
of poison. Lady Frances was not the only female poisoner among the
higher classes of society. This mode of assassination had spread in
England as it had done in Italy and at times in France. In these
transactions the most abandoned profligacy allied itself with the
brilliancy and the advantages of a high position, but they foreboded a
speedy ruin. The authority of Somerset awakened discontent and secret
counterplots. He was naturally turbulent, obstinate, and insolent, and
had the presumption to behave in his usual manner even to the King
whom he set right with an air of intellectual superiority which
revived in the King's breast bitter recollection of the years of his
childhood. James put up with this conduct for a while; he then,
against the will of the favourite, set his hand to raise to a level
with him another young man, for whom he entertained a personal liking:
at last the misunderstanding came to an open rupture. And at the same
time an accident brought to light the circumstances of Overbury's
death.[394] All Somerset's old enemies raised their heads again, and
proceedings were instituted against him and his wife which terminated
in their condemnation.[395] The King pardoned them, to the extent of
allowing them to lead a life secluded from the world; they resided
afterwards in the same house, but, as far as is known, in complete
separation without even seeing one another.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1615.]

Shortly before this event Henry Howard had died. Thomas Howard, whose
wife was accused of exercising a pernicious and corrupt influence upon
affairs, lost his office of High Treasurer. The place of Carr was
occupied by the young man above referred to, whom Carr's adversaries
had combined to push forward, George Villiers, a native of
Leicestershire, where his family had lived upon their own ancestral
property from the time of the Conquest. After the early death of his
father, his mother, a Beaumont by