第24章 THE COUNTESS AND THE COZENER(10)

Weston's trial is curious in that at first he refused to plead.It is the first instance I have met with in history of a prisoner standing `mute of malice.' Coke read him a lecture on the subject, pointing out that by his obstinacy he was making himself liable to peine forte et dure, which meant that order could be given for his exposure in an open place near the prison, extended naked, and to have weights laid upon him in increasing amount, he being kept alive with the coarsest bread obtainable and water from the nearest sink or puddle to the place of execution, that day he had water having no bread, and that day he had bread having no water.'' One may imagine with what grim satisfaction Coke ladled this out.It had its effect on Weston.

He confessed that Mrs Turner had promised to give him a reward if he would poison Sir Thomas Overbury.In May she had sent him a phial ofrosalgar,'' and he had received from her tarts poisoned with mercury sublimate.He was charged with having, at Mrs Turner's instance, joined with an apothecary's boy in administering an injection of corrosive sublimate to Sir Thomas Overbury, from which the latter died.Coke'sconduct of the case obscures just how much Weston admitted, but, since it convinced the jury of Weston's guilt, the conviction served finely for accusation against Mrs Turner.

Two days after conviction Weston was executed at Tyburn.

The trial of Anne Turner began in the first week of November.It would be easy to make a pathetic figure of the comely little widow as she stood trembling under Coke's bullying, but she was, in actual fact, hardly deserving of pity.It is far from enlivening to read of Coke's handling of the trial, and it is certain that Mrs Turner was condemned on an indictment and process which to-day would not have a ghost of a chance of surviving appeal, but it is perfectly plain that Anne was party to one of the most vicious poisoning plots ever engineered.

We have, however, to consider this point in extenuation for her.It is almost certain that in moving to bring about the death of Overbury she had sanction, if only tacit, from the Earl of Northampton.By the time that the Great Oyer began Northampton was dead.Two years had elapsed from the death of Overbury.It would be quite clear to Anne that, in the view of the powerful Howard faction, the elimination of Overbury was politically desirable.It should be remembered, too, that she lived in a period when assassination, secret or by subverted process of justice, was a commonplace political weapon.Public executions by methods cruel and even obscene taught the people to hold human life at small value, and hardened them to cruelties that made poisoning seem a mercy.It is not at all unlikely that, though her main object may have been to help forward the plans of her friend the Countess, Anne considered herself a plotter in high affairs of State.

The indictment against her was that she had comforted, aided, and abetted Weston--that is to say, she was made an accessory.If, however, as was accused, she procured Weston and Reeves to administer the poisonous injection she was certainly a principal, and as such should have been tried first or at the same time as Weston.But Weston was already hanged, and so could not be questioned.His various statements were used against her unchallenged, or, at least, when challenging them was useless.

The indictment made no mention of her practices against the Earl of Essex, but from the account given in the State Trials it would seem that evidence on this score was used to build the case against her.Her relations with Dr Forman, now safely dead, were made much of.She and the Countess of Essex had visited the charlatan and had addressed him asFather.'' Their reason for visiting, it was said, was that by force of magick he should procure the then Viscount of Rochester to love the Countess and Sir Arthur Mainwaring to love Mrs Turner, by whom she had three children.'' Letters from the Countess to Turner were read.They revealed the use on Lord Essex of those powders her ladyship had been given by Forman.The letters had been found by Forman's wife in a packet among Forman's possessions after his death.These, with others and with several curious objects exhibited in court, had been demanded by Mrs Turner after Forman's demise.Mrs Turner had kept them, and they were found in her house.

As indicating the type of magic practised by Forman these objects are of interest.Among other figures, probably nothing more than dolls of French make, there was a leaden model of a man and woman in the act of copulation, with the brass mould from which it had been cast.There was a black scarf ornamented with white crosses, papers with cabalistic signs, and sundry other exhibits which appear to have created superstitious fear in the crowd about the court.It is amusing to note that while those exhibits were being examined one of the scaffolds erected for seating gave way or cracked ominously, giving the crowd a thorough scare.It was thought that the devil himself, raised by the power of those uncanny objects, had got into the Guildhall.Consternation reigned for quite a quarter of an hour.

There was also exhibited Forman's famous book of signatures, in which Coke is supposed to have encountered his own wife's name on the first page.

Franklin, apothecary, druggist, necromancer, wizard, and born liar, had confessed to supplying the poisons intended for use upon Overbury.He declared that Mrs Turner had come to him from the Countess and asked him to get the strongest poisons procurable.He accordingly boughtseven: viz., aqua fortis, white arsenic, mercury, powder of diamonds, lapis costitus, great spiders, cantharides.'' Franklin's evidence is a palpable tissue of lies, full of statements that contradict each other, but it is likely enough, judging from facts elicited elsewhere, that his list of poisons is accurate.Enough poison passed from hand to hand to have slain an army.