Sir Thomas Overbury was born in 1581 he was an English poet and essayist, and the victim of one of the most sensational crimes in English history. He was the son of Nicholas Overbury, of Bourton-on-the-Hill, and was born at Compton Scorpion, near Ilmington in Warwickshire.
In 1595 he became a gentleman commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, He earned his degree of B.A. in 1598. He then went to London to study law in the middle Temple. Soon after, he traveled on the Continent with Robert Cecil. In 1601 he met Robert Carr and the two became great friends. They went to London where they both managed to secure appointments at the court of James I. They Both received expeditious promotions. Carr was to acquire the title of Lord Rochester and subsequently became Lord Somerset after the death of Overbury. Overbury was knighted.
Rochester soon became infatuated with an infamous lady of nobility named the Countess of Essex. Already married, the Countess soon divorced her husband at the age of 17 (she was 13 when she was married), in favor of Lord Rochester. Overbury considered her a woman of very low morals and the two friends argued greatly over this. His poem A Wife, which pictured the virtues that a young man should demand of a woman, played a large role in the events that precipitated his murder. The countess plotted to get Overbury out of the picture and managed to get him thrown into the tower of London.
She wasn't satisfied and decided to kill him. Through many bribes, she had him slowly poisoned while he was in prison. It took four months and he died on September 15, 1613. Soon after suspicions grew as to the manner of his death. Charges were brought and all the accomplices as well as Lord Rochester and Lady Essex were tried in a famous court case. All were found guilty of murdering Overbury and sentenced to death. The king pardoned the Lord and Lady. They spent several years in prison while all the others who were bribed and coerced into helping were hung.
A Wife was published in 1614 and went through several editions within a year because of the publicity aroused by Overbury's cruel misfortune. Its real literary value lies in the Characters, 82 of them, that were added to the second and subsequent editions. These prose portraits of Jacobean types, drawn with wit and satire, give a vivid picture of society at that time.
Sources:
search.eb.com/shakespeare/micro/445/8.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SirThomasOverbury
www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session2/group12/murderto.htm
www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0837129.html
