No. XLVII.1

Essex to the Prince of Wales.

My most gracious Prince,-It is my truest contentment to receive so noble a testimony of your Highness' favor, as it hath pleased you to grace me with in Mr. Newton's letter; I will thereby give myself assurance of your princely goodness, whensoever I shall be emboldened humbly to implore the virtue thereof. And, my most princely master, I can but vow in the uprightness of my innocent heart, that whensoever your Highness shall lend your princely hand to the raising of my poor fortune, it shall be to enable a servant that will always be ready to do you his best and faithfullest services to the last mite of his estate, to the last breath of his life.

Thus much all your Highness' servants will be ready to offer; thus much I will be ever ready to perform.

So most humbly praying your gracious pardon, I presume to kiss your princely hands, and will ever pray to God for the long, happy, and prosperous continuance of your blessed life. Your Highness' most humble and most faithful servant, RO. ESSEX.

1 Harl. MSS. 7008. 104. ; not dated, but endorsed "Lord Essex, No. 5."

CHAPTER VIII.

LIFE OF ROBERT, THIRD EARL OF ESSEX

continued.

RISE OF CARR TO BE FAVOURITE.- -LADY ESSEX BECOMES ATTACHED TO HIM. SHE REFUSES TO LIVE WITH HER HUSBAND. — HER LETTERS TO MRS. TURNER AND DR. FORMAN, FROM CHARTLEY.— THE CONNECTION OF LADY ESSEX AND ROCHESTER BECOMES NOTORIOUS. A COMMISSION APPOINTED TO INQUIRE INTO THE PETITION OF LADY ESSEX FOR DISSOLUTION OF THE MARRIAGE. ITS PROCEEDINGS. ESSEX CHALLENGES MR. HENRY HOWARD.

In the autumn of the year 1607, there appeared at Court, in the suite of Lord Hay1, a youth of "comely "visage and proportionable personage, mixed with a "courtly presence," named Robert Carr. Lord Hay, having a part to perform in a tilting match, sent his device to the King, according to the custom of those pastimes, by Carr, who acted as his esquire. In dismounting from his horse to perform this duty, the animal started, threw him to the ground, and his leg was broken by the fall. This accident happening to one whose good looks he had already noticed, called forth all the sympathies of King James, who directed that he should be carried into the palace,

1 Son of Sir James Hay, of Kingask, created by King James successively Lord Sawlie, Viscount Doncaster, and Earl of Carlisle. His second wife was Lady Lucy Percy, whose beauty was celebrated by Waller and other poets. His expenditure was so enormous, that of 400,000l. of gifts received from the King, he left at his death neither a house nor an acre of land.

and there tended. His Majesty was also pleased to visit the interesting patient every day; the result of which was, that in the month of December, the chrysalis, casting off the grubby form of a page, which till then he had borne, burst forth in all the butterfly glory of a royal favourite. He was sworn Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and knighted. No suit, petition, letter, or grant, from this time, either reached or departed from the royal hand, except through the favourite; by which means, and the lavish gifts of his master, he had become so enriched in a short time, that on the 9th April, 1611, he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Rochester.

At this period Lady Essex was just entering her eighteenth year. She had, says Arthur Wilson, "a "most sweet and bewitching countenance, hiding a "wicked heart." Sir Symons d'Ewes1 positively asserts, that, set on by her great-uncle Northampton, she captivated the Prince of Wales, who first enjoyed her. Sir Charles Cornwallis 2 opposes this notion very strongly; while Arthur Wilson says, that the Prince threw many admiring glances towards her, until observing that she was captivated by Rochester, he soon slighted her. There is an anec dote related, that on one occasion, when she dropped her glove, a courtier picked it up and brought it to the Prince, thinking he was performing an accept

Life written by himself. Harl. MSS. 646. 27.

2 Second son of Sir Thomas Cornwallis, of Brome Hall, Suffolk. He was some time ambassador in Spain, and was treasurer of the Prince's household.

able service.

The Prince, however, rejected it, saying, he would have no glove that was stretched by another.

I incline to the belief that the Prince of Wales, if he ever became an admirer of Lady Essex, was a rejected suitor; and that in the absence of her Lord, forgetting, or possibly indifferent to her duty, she gave her whole heart to Rochester. The exceeding inconsistency of the various writers of this period as to dates and intervals of time, renders it difficult to ascertain, with any approach to exactness, when Lord Essex returned to England to assume his marital rights. I believe it to have been in the summer or autumn of 1611. There is no proof of any criminality between Lady Essex and Rochester up to that time; but probably they were then attached to each other, and the return of her husband hastened a declaration of their mutual feelings. It did more, it brought to maturity all the evil passions of her nature. Nevertheless, she dissembled so well, that Essex ascribed to her "maiden bashfulness" all the coldness she evinced in return for his ardent love, and bore it for a time with the utmost patience and good humour. He was at length, however, forced to call upon Lord Suffolk to use his influence with his daughter. At this crisis, Essex was unluckily attacked by the small-pox; and we may reasonably presume, that the aversion felt towards him by his wife, was not lessened by the disfiguring marks left by the disease. "Yet he," says Arthur Wilson,

"loved her with an extraordinary affection, having a gentle, mild, and courteous disposition, espe"cially to women, as might win upon the roughest "natures." 1

Lord Suffolk again interposed, and insisted that Lady Essex should accompany her husband to Chartley. She was compelled to obey; but, determined not to be defeated, she had recourse to a certain Mrs. Turner, the widow of a doctor of medicine, whose prodigal and profligate life had brought her to want.2 Lady Essex had two objects to attain; the one was to prevent the access of her husband, the other to maintain the constancy of Rochester. By the advice of Mrs. Turner, one Forman, a reputed conjuror and a quack doctor, was called in, who promised, by his art, to afford Lady Essex the assistance she desired. He made little figures of brass and of wax, resembling Lord Rochester, and the Countess, and the Earl of Essex; the former to be strengthened and united, the latter weakened and melted away. But he did not trust entirely to the black art; he supplied philtres and potions to be administered to the two noblemen, which were to work upon them physically, and it is quite possible with rather more effect than the symbols of brass and wax.

On arriving at Chartley, Lady Essex shut herself

1 Life and Reign of James I., 1719, p. 686.

2 Mrs. Turner was celebrated as the inventor of yellow starch for ruffs, which became very fashionable.