The History of Witchcraft in Europe. Брэм Стокер
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That Somerset bore malice against Overbury before the latter’s imprisonment; 2. That he devised the plan by which that imprisonment was effected; 3. That he actually sent poisons to the Tower; 4. That he had made strenuous efforts to conceal the proofs of his guilt. He added that he himself would undertake the management of the case on the first two points, leaving his subordinates, Montague and Crew, to deal with the third and fourth.
Bacon had chosen for himself a comparatively easy task. The ill-feeling that had existed between Overbury and his patron was beyond doubt; while it was conclusively shown, and, indeed, hardly disputed, that Somerset had had a hand in Overbury’s imprisonment, and in the appointment of Helwys and Weston as his custodians. Passages from Lord Northampton’s letters to the Earl proved the existence of a plot in which both were mixed up, and that Helwys had expressed an opinion that Overbury’s death would be a satisfactory termination of the imbroglio. But he might probably have based this opinion on the fact that Overbury was seriously ill, and his recovery more than doubtful.
When Bacon had concluded his part of the case, Ellesmere, who presided, urged Somerset to confess his guilt. ‘No, my lord,’ said the Earl calmly, ‘I came hither with a resolution to defend myself.’
Montague then endeavoured to demonstrate that the poison of which Overbury died had been administered with Somerset’s knowledge. But he could get no further than this: that Somerset had been in the habit of sending powders, as well as tarts and jellies, to Overbury; but he did not, and could not prove that the powders were poisonous. Nor was Serjeant Crew able to advance the case beyond the point reached by Bacon; he could argue only on the assumption of Somerset’s guilt, which his colleagues had failed to establish.
In our own day it would be held that the case for the prosecution had completely broken down; and I must add my conviction that Somerset was in no way privy to Overbury’s murder. He had assented to his imprisonment, because he was weary of his importunity; but he still retained a kindly feeling towards him, and was evidently grieved at the serious nature of his illness. As a matter of fact, it was not proved even that Overbury died of poison, though I admit that this is put beyond doubt by collateral circumstances. Somerset’s position, however, before judges who were more or less hostilely disposed, with the agents of the Crown bent on obtaining his conviction, and he himself without legal advisers, was both difficult and dangerous. He was embarrassed by the necessity of keeping back part of his case. He was unable to tell the whole truth about Overbury’s imprisonment. He could not make known all that had passed between Lady Essex and himself before marriage, or that Overbury had been committed to the Tower to prevent him from giving evidence which would have certainly quashed Lady Essex’s proceedings for a divorce. And, in truth, if he mustered up courage to tell this tale of shame, he could not hope that the peers, most of whom were his enemies, would give credence to it, or that, if they believed it, they would refrain from delivering an adverse verdict.
Yet he bore himself with courage and ability, when, by the flickering light of torches, for the day had gone down, he rose to make his defence. Acknowledging that he had consented to Overbury’s imprisonment in order that he might throw no obstacles in the way of his marriage with Lady Essex, he firmly denied that he had known anything of attempts to poison him. The tarts he had sent were wholesome, and of a kind to which Overbury was partial; if any had been tampered with, he was unaware of it. The powders he had received from Sir Robert Killigrew, and simply sent them on; and Overbury had admitted, in a letter which was before the Court, that they had done him no mischief. Here Crew interrupted: The three powders from Killigrew had been duly accounted for; but there was a fourth powder, which had not been accounted for, and had (it was assumed) contained poison. Now, it was improbable that the Earl could remember the exact history of every powder sent to Overbury two years before, and, besides, it was a mere assumption on the part of the prosecution that this fourth powder was poison. But Somerset’s inability to meet this point was made the most of, and gave the peers a sufficient pretext for declaring him guilty. The Earl received his sentence with the composure he had exhibited throughout the arduous day, which had shown how a nature enervated by luxury and indulgence can be braced up by the chill air of adversity, and contented himself with expressing a hope that the Court would intercede with the King for mercy.
I have dwelt at some length on the details of this celebrated trial because it is the last (in English jurisprudence) in which men and women of rank have been mixed up with the secret practices of the magician; though, for other reasons, it is one of very unusual interest. In briefly concluding the recital, I may state that James was greatly relieved when the trial was over, and he found that nothing damaging to himself had been disclosed. It is certain that Somerset was in possession of some dark secret, the revelation of which was much dreaded by the King; so that precautions had even been taken, or at all events meditated, to remove him from the Court if he entered upon the dangerous topic, and to continue the trial in his absence. He would probably have been silenced by force. The Earl, however, refrained from hazardous disclosures, and James could breathe in peace.
On July 13, the King pardoned Lady Somerset, who was certainly the guiltiest of all concerned. The Earl was left in prison, with sentence of death suspended over him for several years, in order, no doubt, to terrify him into silence. A few months before his death, James appears to have satisfied himself that he had nothing to fear, and ordered the Earl’s release (January, 1622). Had he lived, he would probably have restored him to his former influence and favour.34
DR. LAMBE.
A worthy successor to Simon Forman appeared in Dr. Lambe, or Lamb, who, in the first two Stuart reigns, attained a wide celebrity as an astrologer and a quack doctor. A curious story respecting his pretended magical powers is related by Richard Baxter in his ‘Certainty of the World of Spirits’ (1691). Meeting two acquaintances in the street, who evidently desired some experience of his skill in the occult art, he invited them home with him, and ushered them into an inner chamber. There, to their amazement, a tree sprang up before their eyes in the middle of the floor. Before they had ceased to wonder at this sight surprising, three diminutive men entered, with tiny axes in their hands, and, nimbly setting to work, soon felled the tree. The doctor then dismissed his guests, who went away with a conviction that he was as potent a necromancer as Roger Bacon or Cornelius Agrippa.
That same night a tremendous gale arose, so that the house of one of Lambe’s visitors rocked to and fro, threatening to topple over with a crash, and bury the man and his wife in the ruins. In great terror his wife inquired, ‘Were you not at Dr. Lambe’s to-day?’ The husband acknowledged that it was so. ‘And did you bring anything away from his house?’ Yes: when the dwarfs felled the tree, he had been foolish enough to pick up some of the chips, and put them in his pocket. Here was the cause of the hurricane! With all speed he got rid of the chips; the storm immediately subsided, and the remainder of the night was spent in undisturbed repose.
Lambe was notorious for the lewdness of his life and his evil habits. But his supposed skill and success as a soothsayer led to his being frequently consulted by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, with the result that each helped to swell the volume of the other’s unpopularity. The Puritans were angered at the Duke’s resort to a man of Lambe’s character and calling; the populace hated Lambe as the tool and instrument of the Duke. In 1628 the brilliant favourite of Charles I. was the best-hated man in England, and every slander was hurled at him that the resources of political animosity could supply. The ballads of the time—an indisputably satisfactory barometer of public opinion—inveighed bitterly and even furiously against his luxuriousness, his love of dress, his vanity, his immorality, and his proved incompetence as soldier and statesman. He was accused of having poisoned Lords Hamilton, Lennox, Southampton, Oxford, even James I. himself. He had sat in his boat, out of the reach of danger, while his soldiers perished under the guns of Ré. He had corrupted the chastest women in England by means of the love-philtre which Dr. Lambe concocted for him. In a word, the air was full of the darkest and dreadest accusations.
Lambe’s connection with the Duke brought on a catastrophe which his magical art failed to foresee or prevent. He was returning, one summer evening—it was June 13—from the play at the Fortune Theatre, when he was recognised