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The Golden Falcon |
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Chapter X/7 - Plot |
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The Protestant faction included Philip Herbert (1584-1650), ,4th earl of Pembroke and chief royal favourite, his brother William Herbert (1580-1639), 3rd earl of Pembroke, the earls of Hertford (Seymour) and Bedford (Russell). Henry Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke had married Anne Talbot, daughter of the earl of Shrewsbury, her sister was Lady Arundel (having married a Howard). The Winters married into both families - Sir John Winter of Lydney married Mary Howard and Robert Winter's wife was Gertrude Talbot, his grandson married Frances Talbot. Sir Thomas Overbury (1551-1613) was the eldest son of Sir Nicholas Overbury of Bourton-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire (which came to him after the Reformation), Justice of the Queen's Bench of the Middle Temple and a judges in Wales. There is a memorial to Sir Nicholas at Bourton describing him as "that ancient and venerable knight who long and faithfully served both his Sovereign and country in the Raynes of Queen Elizabeth, King James and King Charles and was buried on the last day of May 1643, hee being then about one hundred years old". Sir Nicholas married Mary, daughter of Giles Palmer, kinsman of Richard Palmer who built Bourton House in 1570, as patron of the living. Sir Nicholas had 4 sons and 4 daughters. When he died he was succeeded by his son Thomas who sold Bourton to Alexander, son of Edward Popham, Colonel General and Admiral of Oliver Cromwell's Fleet. Sir Nicholas's eldest surviving son Sir Thomas Overbury was born in Compton Scorpion in the parish of Ilmington, Warwickshire, educated at Oxford and admitted to the Middle Temple in 1597. He was in love with Lady Rutland and fell out with his friend Ben Jonson because he wanted him to act as go-between. Queen Anne of Denmark was supposed to have been his enemy because of his homosexual relationship with James I. He met the king's reigning favourite, Robert Carr or Kerr (1587-1645), son of Sir Thomas Kerr of Ferniehurst, in 1601 when Robert was a young page to the earl of Dunbar in Scotland. From about 1609 he and Carr were close friends and Overbury was knighted on 19.6.1608 at Greenwich by James owing to his influence with Carr. The Kerrs, earls of Lothian and Ancrum, were adherents of Mary, Queen of Scots. Their seat Ferniehurst Castle (now a youth hostel) on the border with Berwickshire in the valley of the river Jed near Jedburgh, Roxburghshire was defended against Lord Dacre. Sir John Kerr retook it from the English in 1549 and his son Thomas raided England in 1570 to blackmail Elizabeth I into releasing Mary, Queen of Scots. Charles Neville, 6th earl of Westmorland (by his wife Jane, daughter of Henry Howard, earl of Surrey) and Henry Percy, 8th earl of Northumberland were Catholic adherents of Mary Queen of Scots and joined the insurrection of 1571. When Neville (kinsman of the Inglebys of Ripley, Yorkshire and the Winters of Huddington) was attainted and deprived of his estates, he escaped to Scotland where he received protection at Ferniehurst Castle, then went to Louvain in Flanders where he lived and died in poverty. The earl of Sussex destroyed the castle which was not rebuilt till 1598. Thomas Kerr had two sons, Lord Jedburgh (from whom the Lothian family descend) and Robert Carr, earl of Somerset. Robert was knighted in 1607 and created earl of Rochester in 1611. James I took away Sherborne from Walter Raleigh (whom he hated) and gave it to Carr. It finally passed to Everard Digby's nephew John Digby, earl of Bristol, ambassador to Spain (who discovered the Spanish pensioners' scandal). Robert Carr became lover of Frances Howard (1593-1632), countess of Essex, second daughter of Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk (1561-1626) by his wife and cousin Katherine Knevett. Her father Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk was the eldest son (by his second wife), of Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk, brother of William Howard, earl of Carlisle (Sir John Winter of Lydney’s father-in-law) and nephew of Henry Howard, earl of Northampton. Thomas Howard junior volunteered to fight against the Spanish Armada and was knighted at sea. He became admiral of the Third Squadron of the Fleet and created Lord Howard de Walden and earl of Suffolk by Elizabeth I. On James's accession he was made Privy Councillor and Lord Chamberlain, he was not implicated in the Overbury affair but in 1618 was accused of Treasury frauds, dismissed, imprisoned and fined in 1619. His third daughter, Elizabeth Howard married William Knollys (1547-1632), Baron Knollys, Viscount Wallingford and earl of Banbury. Another daughter Katherine married Thomas Cecil, Lord Cranborne, son of the Robert, earl of Salisbury. Overbury became Frances Howard's enemy by opposing the relationship and the lovers' plan to marry. He said she might do for a mistress but not for a wife. James I was induced to offer Overbury a diplomatic post in Russia but he refused it. Carr had him sent to the Tower. Frances offered £1,000 to have him assassinated. The Howards removed William Waad (1546-1623) as Lieutenant of the Tower and replaced him with Sir Gervase Elwes to make their crime easier. Overbury was poisoned by her henchman Weston using "arsenic, acqua fortis, mercury, powder of diamonds, lapis costitus, great spiders and cantharides." Overbury lived for months, worn down to skin and bone but doctors said he was suffering from natural causes and when he was about to be released, Weston finished him off with a clyster of corrosive sublimate. He died on 14.9.1613. After Frances Howard's marriage to Robert Devereaux, 3rd earl of Essex was annulled (on the grounds of his inability to consummate it), Carr married her on 26.9.1613. Frances (to be examined by a panel of matrons) was impersonated by someone else, heavily veiled. Carr was accused with his wife of procuring Overbury's death by poison. Both Carr and Frances were both tried, found guilty, sentenced to death and imprisoned in the Tower. She was pardoned in 1616 and he in 1622 and they lived in Chiswick for the rest of their lives. Elwes was executed on 20.11.1615 at Tower Hill. He came there on foot from sheriff Goare's house "arrayed in a black suit and black jerkin, with hanging sleeves, having on his head a crimson sattin cap, laced from the top downwards and roundabout, under that a black hat with a broad ribbon and ruff band, thick couched with a lace and a pair of three soled shoes" between Dr. Whiting and Dr Felton, two of his Majesty's chaplains. Carr was made the King's Chamberlain in 1614 displacing George Villiers, earl of Buckingham in 1614 as the king's favourite. Sir George Villiers (1592-1628) was the fourth son of Sir George Villiers of Brooksby, Leicester. He was introduced at court in 1614 as a rival to Robert Carr and was made Cupbearer to the King in 1615 and Gentleman of the Bedchamber (whose duty was to make the king's bed). In 1616 he was made Master of the Horse, Knight of the Garter and created Viscount Villiers. His bad behaviour at the Spanish court (he tried to make love to the Infanta) caused the failure of the marriage negotiation between Prince Charles (later Charles I) and the Spanish Infanta. He took part in the abortive attack on La Rochelle during which Baron de Chantal, Madame Sevigne's father was killed. Buckingham was assassinated by John Felton, a Puritan, at Plymouth in 1628. Frances' first husband, Robert Devereaux, earl of Essex, married secondly Elizabeth Paulet and separated from her. He became a General of the Parliamentary forces in the Civil War. Of those implicated in the Plot, Sir Robert Killigrew (1579), father of Thomas Killigrew the poet, had a reputation as a concoctor of drugs and cordials. He visited Raleigh in 1613 in the Tower and spoke to Overbury who was committed to the Fleet prison. He supplied Overbury and Robert Carr with powders purported to be harmless emetics. He was appointed Captain of Pendennis Castle for life. James Hay (1580-1636), earl of Carlisle, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to James I was created Lord Hay in 1606, Viscount Doncaster in 1618 and earl of Carlisle in 1622. He married Lucy, daughter of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland imprisoned in the Tower after the Gunpowder Plot. He joined Robert Carr and his wife in 1616. Henry Howard (1540-1614), earl of Northampton was the second son of Henry Howard, earl of Surrey in 1546. He was younger brother of Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk executed in 1572 for his attempt to marry Mary Queen of Scots. The 4th Duke's son William "Belted Will" Howard, earl of Carlisle was Sir John Winter of Lydney's father-in-law. Northampton was uncle of Thomas, earl of Suffolk. He was one of Elizabeth’s courtiers who wrote to James I before the Queen died. He insinuated himself into the king’s favour. In 1604 he was made earl of Northampton by James I, and was given Cobham's office as Warden of the Cinque Ports which helped him to get Catholic priests in and out of the country. In 1608 he was made Lord Privy Seal. Henry Howard, a suspected homosexual, pro-Spanish (he negotiated the peace with Spain) and Catholic, was a favourite of James I with whom he had contact with during the last years of Elizabeth's reign. Northampton was her cousin but she wanted nothing to do with him. He was an intimate friend of Robert Carr and thought up a trick to get Overbury imprisoned. He poisoned the king's mind against Raleigh who was dismissed from court, deprived of his former offices, imprisoned as soon he could be accused on a trumped up charge, and had his property seized. Northampton was a follower of Mary of Scots and brought together Robert Cecil and James (who had not liked him). He was made earl of Northampton by James who later began to began to suspect him. He was on the Commission which met on 27.1.1606 to judge the conspirators. Northampton built a house on the site of the priory of St. Mary Rouncevall at Charing Cross which was completed in 1605. When he died in 1624 it was inherited by his nephew, Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk who served at sea against Armada and after he died in June 1614, it went to his son in 1626 and then his grandson who gave it in marriage with his daughter to the earl of Northumberland. Northampton was on the Commission which met on 27.1.1616 to judge the conspirators. Amongst others who presided over the Overbury trials in 1616 was Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a lawyer, historian, statesman, philosopher and man of letters. He was knighted in 1603, became Solicitor General in 1607, Attorney General in 1613, Lord Keeper in 1616, Lord Chancellor in 1618 and was created Baron Verulam, Viscount St Albans but was found guilty of taking bribes, imprisoned in the Tower and fined. Another was Edward Coke (1551-1633), a judge, law historian, Solicitor-General in 1529, Attorney General in 1594 and 1598, Chief Justice of Common Pleas in 1606, Chief Justice of the King' Bench and Privy Councillor in 1613. He also presided over the trials of Gunpowder Plotters' and Walter Raleigh but was dismissed on 14.11.1616 by the king and imprisoned in the Tower in 1622. He returned to Parliament in 1628 and married Elizabeth Cecil, widow of William Hatton. Sir Lawrence Hide or Hyde (1562-1642) also presided over the trials. He was nephew of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon whose daughter Anne Hyde married James II (they were the parents of Queens Mary and Anne). He was admitted to the Temple in 1580. He was Recorder of Bristol from 1604-15 and was succeeded as Recorder by his brother Nicholas, Lord Chief Justice of Westhatch, whose son George Hyde married Elizabeth, daughter of William Winter of Clapton-in-Gordano Somerset (their brass memorial is in Bath Abbey). Lawrence Hyde was knighted in 1614 and was Attorney to the Queen. As Lord Chief Justice he opened the case against Weston, accused of Overbury's murder. Another who presided was Sir Henry Montagu (1563-1642), a judge and statesmen, was Recorder of London in 1603, succeeded Edward Coke as Chief Justice in 1616 and opened the case against Robert Carr. He was created Baron Montagu and Viscount Mandeville in 1620, earl of Manchester in 1626 and Privy Seal in 1628. Edward Somerset (1553-1628), 4th earl of Worcester also presided over the trials. He was Deputy Master of the Horse (1559), Master of the Queen's Horse (after Essex's execution), Knight of the Garter, Lord Privy Seal (1615-1628) and Master of the King's Horse to James I (1603-3.3.1628). His seat was at Raglan and he bought Badminton from Henry Boteler in 1608. He married Elizabeth Hastings (d. 1621), daughter of the earl of Huntingdon and was father of Anne Somerset, wife of Edward Winter of Lydney. Edward Somerset was a close friend of Frances' husband Robert Devereaux, 2nd earl of Essex. He was a Catholic but his wife was a Protestant, their children were brought up as Protestants but converted to Catholicism. Anne
Carr (daughter of Frances Howard and Robert Carr) married the earl of
Bedford, her son Lord William Russell was executed after being implicated in
the Rye House Plot in 1683. THE WINTER KING & QUEEN OF SNOW Blow,
blow, thou winter winde Thou
are not so unkinde As
man's ingratitude. Thy
tooth is not so keene Because
thou are not seene Although
thy breath be rude. Freize,
freize, thou bitter skie That
dost not bight so nigh As
benefitts forgot' Though
thou the waters warpe. Thy
sting is not so sharpe As
friend remembered not. (William Shakespeare) The Stuarts seem to have been haunted by the Gunpowder Plot. Charles I was executed on 30.1.1649, the 44th anniversary of the execution of Robert Winter; William III arrived in England on the 5th of November 1688 on the 83rd anniversary of the Plot; Bonnie Prince Charlie died on the 30th or 31st January 1788 exactly 182 years after Robert and Thomas Winter were executed and George II went mad for the first time on 5.11.1788, on the 182nd anniversary of the Plot. November was an even worse month for Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia whom the Gunpowder Plotters wanted to place on the throne. Ironically it was her descendants the House of Hanover who were invited to rule Britain after the last Stuart king James II was exiled. Elizabeth Stuart was born on 19.8.1596, the second child of James I and Anne of Denmark and was baptised "in winter season and ill weather" whilst Elizabeth I (her godmother after whom she was named) was still alive, aged 60. Elizabeth took part in "Tethys Festival or the Queen's Wake" on 4.6.1610 to celebrate her brother Henry's creation as Prince of Wales. Queen Anne of Denmark was Tethys, Elizabeth was the "lovely nymph of the Stately Thames", Lady Catherine Windsor was the Usk, Lady Anne (née Somerset), wife of Sir Edward Winter of Lydney, was the Wye and her sisters Lady Elizabeth Guildford, the Olway and Lady Catherine Petre, the Dulas. On 24.9.1610 Elizabeth was at the launching of the "Prince Royal" which stuck fast. It was later launched by her brother Prince Henry who died on 6.11.1612 - a day after the eight anniversary of the Plot. The
ship took her from England on her way to her wedding at Heidelberg two years
later and it was considered an ill omen for her to travel in it.
Henry Howard, earl of Northampton said on 21.4.1613 "she
ought not to venture her person in such a vessel that had to so ill a
beginning". In May 1610 Henry IV of France (formerly Henry of Navarre) was murdered. His daughter Henrietta Maria (by his wife Marie dei Medici) married Elizabeth's younger brother Charles I. Elizabeth married Frederick V, Elector Palatinate of the Rhine, on St. Valentines Day 14.2.1613. Frederick's mother was Louisa Juliana, daughter of William the Silent, Prince of Orange and he was a descendants of the Wittelsbach and Simmern families. Frederick and Elizabeth were called the "Winter King" and "Queen of Snow" because Frederick's reign only lasted the length of one winter. The Emperor Matthias of Hapsburg, king of Bohemia and Hungary (1557-1619) chose a Catholic successor, Ferdinand of Hapsburg, Archduke of Styria (1578-1637) as his heir but the Archduke took such harsh measures against the Protestants that they rebelled, offering Frederick the throne which was elective although the Hapsburgs always considered it their own. Frederick formed the Protestant Union in May 1619, the following year the Catholic League was formed by Maximilian of Bavaria, his kinsman. Frederick was crowned on 4.11.1620 (the 15th anniversary of the eve of the Plot). This resulted in a war against the Hapsburgs and Spain. Frederick lost Bohemia after the battle of the White Mountain, a chalky plateau just outside Prague, on 8.11.1621 (3 days after 16th anniversary of the Plot) and Sir Horace Vere (sent with an English contingent to help) surrendered Mannheim on 5.11.1622 (the 17th anniversary of the Plot). On 18.8.1619-20 Frederick and Elizabeth fled from Heidelberg. She was pregnant and took refuge in Curstin Castle some 50 miles out of Berlin, finally going to the Hague where she lived in exile for 40 years. In 1661 she returned to England against the wishes of Charles II and stayed at Drury Lane with William Craven, son of a Lord Mayor of London who had bought Coombe Abbey, her tutor Harrington's old home. In January 1662 she moved to Leicester House, Leicester Fields and died on 13.2.1662 a few hours before her 48th wedding anniversary. She was buried at Westminster in the Henry VII chapel by the side of her brother Prince Henry amidst a storm of hail, thunder and lightning. She had 13 children, the eldest Frederick Henry born on 21.3.1614) in Heidelburg and died on 7.1.1629 whilst on a boat trip with his father to see the West India booty captured by the Dutch, part of which he had inherited. Her second son Charles Louis, born on 24.12.1617, married Charlotte Elizabeth of Hesse Cassell in 1650 and had a mistress Louise von Degenfeld - he had an unhappy married life. He had two children, a son and a daughter named Elizabeth Charlotte "Liselotte" who married Philip, duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV. Her third child, Elizabeth born on 17.11.1618, became a Protestant nun. Her fourth child, Rupert of the Rhine, born on 7.12.1619 in Prague, was the famous cavalier. In 1620 Elizabeth, pregnant, again, fled the Hradshin Palace and Rupert was nearly left behind by accident. He did not marry although he had an English mistress and died without legitimate heirs. He and his brother Prince Maurice spent their lives away from their mother and partly in England. Her fifth child Maurice born on 6.1.1621 in the palace of Curstin outside Berlin died in September 1652 at sea off the Virgin Islands. His death was not confirmed and rumours persisted that he was alive and captured by Algiers pirates which Elizabeth believed. She arrived at the Hague in 1621 where her sixth child Louise Hollandine born on 8.4.1622. She became a Catholic nun in December 1657 and died in 1709. Her seventh child Louis was born on 21.8.1623 and died a year later on 25.12.1624. Her eighth child Edward (born on 6.12.1624) married Anne de Gonzague, daughter of the Duc de Nevers against Elizabeth's wishes. The ninth child Henrietta Maria (born in 1626) married Prince Siegmund Rakoczy, brother of the Prince of Transylvania in the spring of 1651 but by autumn she was dead and he followed soon after. The tenth child Philip, born in September 1627, killed Jacques d l'Epinay who insulted his mother and died in 1650 during the battle of Rethel, aged 23 years. The eleventh child, Charlotte was born sometime before 7.1.1629 and died on 23.1.1631. The twelfth child Sophia married Ernst Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Luneberg after being betrothed to his brother George Louis who changed his mind about marrying her and abdicated in his brother's favour. Sophia, who became Electress of Hanover, was born in 1658 and married in October 1630. It was said that they cast lots to choose her name. Ironically it was she who became heiress to England and she was ancestress of the Guelphs of Hanover and the present royal family. Elizabeth
Stuart's thirteenth child, an epileptic Gustavus Adolphus, was born on
2.1.1632. Fig.
104 - Hanover & Stuart: William
of Brunswick Luneberg = Dorothea of Denmark > George Duke of Catenberg =
Anna Elenore von Hesse-Darmstadt >: 1.
Sophie Amalie (1628-1685) Frederick III of Denmark (1609-1670) > George
of Denmark = Anne of England (1665-1714). 2.
George William (1624-1705) = Eleonore d'Olbreuse (1639-1722) > Sophie Dorothea (1666-1726) = George Louis (George I of England). 3.
Ernst Augustus (1629-1698), Bishop of Osnabruck, Duke of Hanover, Elector =
Sophie (1630-1714) > George Louis (1660-1727) reigned as George I
of England =
Sophie Dorothea (1666-1726(. > George II (1683-1760) = Caroline of
Ansbach
(1683-1737) > Frederick, Prince of Wales = Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
> George III >:
a. George IV = Caroline of
Brunswick
b. William IV.
c. Duke of Kent > Queen
Victoria James
I = Anne of Denmark >: (A)
Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662) =
Frederick (1596-1632) > Charles Louis
(1617
-1680) = (1) Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel (1627-1686) > Elizabeth
Charlotte
"Liselotte"
(1652-1722) = widowed Philip I, duc d'Orleans >:
(a) Elizabeth Charlotte (1676-1744) = Duc de Lorraine who gave refuge
to the
"Old
Pretender"
(b) Rupert (1619-1682) = (1) Frances Baird "Lady Bellmont"
(d. 1708) by (2) Margaret
Hughes > an illegitimate daughter Ruperta (1673-1740) = Emmanuel Scrope Howe, envoy
to Hanover .
(c) Sophia = Ernst Augustus, duke of Hanover (see above). (B)
Charles I = Henrietta Maria, d. of Henry II of France & Marie dei Medici
(1) Charles II (1630-1685) = Catherine of Braganza (1638-1705)
(2) Mary Stuart (1631-1660) = William II of Orange (1626-1650), son
of Frederick Henry and
Amalia von Solnis > William III (1650-1702) = Mary Stuart
(1662-1694), d. of James II by
Anne Hyde
(3) James II (1633-1701) = (1) Anne Hyde (1637-1671) = (2) Mary
Beatrice d'Este of
Modena (1658-1718) by (1) >: a.
Mary Stuart = William II of Orange b.
Anne Stuart (1665-1714) = George of Denmark (1653-1708) (by
(2) > James Stuart (1688-1766) "The
Old Pretender"
= Clementina Sobieska
>: A.
Charles Edward Stuart, “Bonnie
Prince Charlie, the Young
Pretender”
= Louise Stolberg B.
Henry Stuart, Cardinal York Frederick V died on 19.11.1632 aged only 32 years. In 1648 his son re-possessed Heidelberg but Elizabeth was so poor her daughter Sophia said they had only jewels to eat - many of which she had to pawn. Her champions Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Christian of Brunswick and Count Mansfield died fighting on her behalf. Her friend James Graham of Montrose was executed in 1649. Her advisor Schomberg married Anne Dudley who died in childbirth on 8.1.1650. |