0:00

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

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of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild

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from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion

0:07

is advised. In

0:14

her early twenties, Francis Howard

0:17

dealt with two scandals. The

0:19

first was certainly the more significant,

0:22

a scandal that occupied courtly

0:24

gossips for years. The

0:27

scandal was she was trying to get

0:29

an annulment from her husband,

0:31

Robert Devereaux. The two had

0:33

been married in their early teens, and

0:36

they had had barely any contact before

0:38

Devereaux went on his grand tour around

0:40

Europe for a few years. When

0:42

he came back, he had smallpox, so

0:45

you couldn't really blame Francis for not

0:47

wanting to go to bed with him, even

0:49

if she hadn't fallen in love with another man

0:52

at court while her husband was gone, which

0:54

she had. Francis

0:57

was a daughter of the powerful Howard

0:59

family, and the gossips surrounding

1:01

the impending annulment gave the

1:03

Court of James the first plenty

1:05

to talk about during the early sixteen hundreds.

1:08

But during the long process of these

1:10

annulment negotiations, Francis

1:13

Howard had to deal with the second scandal,

1:16

much smaller, and much easier resolved.

1:19

Francis had a ring that went missing. The

1:22

ring was stolen, or so Francis

1:24

claimed, by a local faith healer

1:27

who went by the name cunning Mary.

1:30

When the authorities confronted Cunning

1:32

Mary, who did indeed have the

1:34

diamond ring in her possession, Cunning

1:36

Mary protested. She said that

1:39

the ring wasn't stolen, that Francis

1:41

Howard had given the ring as a deposit

1:44

in exchange for her help in killing

1:46

Francis's husband. Cunning

1:49

Mary claimed that, of course she had refused

1:52

Francis's request, and in

1:54

Francis's rage at the rejection,

1:56

she decided that she would frame the old

1:59

woman for robber. No

2:01

one really took cunning Mary's defense

2:04

seriously, after all, she

2:06

was a folk healer with the name cunning

2:09

Mary, and Francis Howard,

2:11

by contrast, was one of

2:13

the most powerful young women in England.

2:16

And so Cunning Mary was tried and

2:19

convicted of the robbery, and Francis

2:21

went back to dealing with the larger problem

2:24

of her annulment from her husband and

2:26

her desire to marry another man. This

2:31

small story with the ring and Cunning

2:34

Mary is often omitted

2:36

in larger stories about Francis Howard.

2:39

It's overshadowed by what comes

2:42

next, an infamous murder

2:44

trial for an actual

2:46

murder that makes gossip about

2:49

her annulment seem almost

2:51

quaint by comparison. But

2:54

I think the ring story is important

2:56

to give the larger story context.

3:00

Other or not Francis actually tried

3:02

to use cunning Mary's folk magic in

3:04

her early twenties to try to kill the

3:06

husband she wanted to get rid of. I'm

3:09

not sure there's really no

3:11

evidence beyond cunning Mary's word,

3:14

but young girls in love have done

3:16

crazier things, and as

3:18

you'll soon discover, Francis Howard

3:21

would do her fair share of crazy

3:23

things in order to secure her

3:25

future. But what I find

3:27

so compelling about the ring story

3:30

is the power dynamic at play. Whether

3:33

or not Francis Howard was attempting murder,

3:35

it was the poor woman who took the blame

3:38

for the missing ring, the poor woman

3:40

who went to trial, who was convicted,

3:42

and who faced the consequences.

3:45

But what I do know is that Francis

3:47

Howard's life for being in the

3:50

seventeenth century feels

3:52

like an all too modern indictment

3:54

of the privileges of wealth. And influence.

3:58

Francis Howard would only ever be

4:00

on trial for one murder, but

4:02

nearly half a dozen bodies would hang

4:05

because of her. Francis

4:07

Howard, or as she's known later

4:10

by her married name, Countess Francis

4:12

Carr, didn't murder her first

4:14

husband, nor was she ever seriously

4:17

accused of it. The murder

4:19

trial would come later. It

4:21

would be a public spectacle, with

4:23

people selling tickets for admission.

4:26

Her first husband would actually be in

4:28

the courtroom that day, and

4:31

at least in my imagination, he

4:33

might have smiled when the judge

4:35

declared Francis Howard guilty.

4:40

I'm Danish Worts and this is

4:42

noble blood. The

4:53

War of the Roses created something

4:55

of a power vacuum among the highest

4:57

echelons of nobles in the English

4:59

court. It was the dawn

5:01

of a brand new dynasty the Tutors,

5:04

and like it would be eventually with the

5:06

American West. With the new

5:09

comes the exciting possibility that

5:11

there's room for social advancement. There

5:13

were new duchies to claim, new earldoms

5:16

to be given away. Titles were

5:18

given and taken back and restored again.

5:21

Families like the Bolins tried to

5:23

lobby for new power. They managed

5:26

to get a queen on the throne before their

5:28

gambit famously collapsed. The

5:30

Howards, another powerful family,

5:32

also managed to achieve the crown

5:34

for one of their daughters, the young,

5:37

beautiful Catherine Howard, But

5:39

like the Bolins, their stellar rise

5:42

was preceded by this spectacular

5:44

fall of another beheading. After

5:48

King Henry the Eighth came the brief reign

5:50

of his son Edward, the brief

5:52

reign of his daughter Mary, and

5:54

then the long reign of his other daughter,

5:57

Queen Elizabeth. The first Elizabeth

5:59

was Miss Lee, a virgin queen, and

6:01

so after Elizabeth, the throne

6:04

went to King James, the first son

6:06

of the executed Mary, Queen of Scots.

6:09

Throughout all of this, families, like the

6:11

Howards, continued to jockey for position,

6:14

their fates rising and falling over

6:17

the decades. The Howards

6:19

were dealing with a particularly

6:21

fallow period. The teenage

6:24

Queen Catherine Howard was executed.

6:27

Another Howard cousin, Thomas Howard,

6:29

was executed by King Henry the Eighth,

6:31

who, in a fit of petulance, deemed

6:33

his coat of arms to be treasonous. Thomas's

6:36

son, another Thomas Howard, was

6:39

also executed for becoming involved

6:41

in a scheme to put Mary, Queen of Scotts,

6:43

on the throne. It was looking

6:45

like all the Howards could do was make

6:47

the current monarch mad at them. But

6:50

then the third Thomas Howard, son

6:52

and grandson of the executed Thomas

6:54

Howard's, flipped the trend. This

6:58

Thomas Howard was celeb rated

7:00

as a hero in the battle against the Spanish

7:02

Armada, and then he went on to an

7:05

incredibly lucrative marriage

7:07

with a young widow slash heiress. Thomas

7:10

and his wife would go on to have fourteen

7:12

children. One of these children

7:14

was Francis, born in fifteen

7:17

nine, and so Francis

7:19

was born at a precarious but cautiously

7:22

optimistic time When it came to her family's

7:25

fortunes. The most important

7:27

thing for Francis to do was Mary well,

7:30

and so her family made absolutely

7:32

sure of that. At fourteen

7:35

years old, Francis was married to

7:37

Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex,

7:40

who was thirteen at the time. While

7:43

young marriages were common enough in the sixteenth

7:46

and seventeen centuries, a new

7:48

line of relatively scientific

7:50

thinking believed that it was dangerous

7:52

and a little unseemly to consummate

7:55

marriages that young. For women,

7:57

it was thought, correctly i

8:00

belief that they would be too small

8:02

and fragile to carry children at that

8:04

young age. And for men, it

8:06

was believed that if they spent themselves

8:09

sexually at a young age, it would

8:11

deplete their vitality and vigor later

8:13

in life. And so even though

8:15

Francis and Devereaux were married, they

8:18

were raised completely separately.

8:20

When they were teenagers, Devereaux was

8:22

sent on a three year grand tour

8:24

of Europe, as was fairly common at

8:27

the time, and Francis was sent

8:29

to court. Here's the problem

8:31

with sending a beautiful teenage

8:34

countess to court when she doesn't

8:36

really know or care about her slightly

8:38

younger husband. She might

8:40

fall in love with someone else, which

8:43

Francis did almost as soon

8:45

as she made eye contact with Robert

8:48

Carr, a handsome man a few

8:50

years older than she was, a man

8:52

with an easy laugh and bright eyes.

8:56

Car was already one of King James's

8:58

favorites, and stock at court

9:01

was rising quickly. When

9:03

he met Francis's I, he was

9:05

equally besotted. They were

9:07

a perfect match, an old

9:09

family and a new favorite. Two

9:12

fair young, attractive people, both

9:15

with charisma and charm.

9:17

There was only one problem,

9:19

the pesky issue of Francis

9:22

already being married. Francis

9:26

wouldn't have been much interested in her

9:28

slightly younger, weedy husband,

9:30

even if he hadn't come back from his grand tour

9:32

with small Box. But as it

9:35

happened, he came back from his grand tour

9:37

with small Box, so perhaps

9:39

justifiably, she did everything

9:42

she could to avoid him. She knew

9:44

that if the marriage was never consummated,

9:46

it might be annulled, so when

9:48

she couldn't outright dodge her husband,

9:50

she did everything in her power to make

9:53

sure that he couldn't successfully accomplished

9:55

the deed of the marriage. Bed she

9:58

mocked him and scorned him him

10:00

ugly called him a coward. By

10:02

now, Francis was a woman of twenty,

10:04

and she saw her future happening one of

10:06

two ways, getting to marry the

10:08

man she was in love with, a rising star

10:10

at court, or being saddled

10:13

with a pox riden teenager who just

10:15

happened to be her husband. Being

10:19

a woman who couldn't take her own annulment

10:22

case forward, Francis's father

10:24

and uncle brought the case only too

10:26

happy to encourage their daughters even

10:28

more, promising second marriage to come.

10:31

The claim was that her first marriage had

10:33

never been consummated, which Devereaux

10:36

reluctantly acknowledged was true,

10:39

but not for lack of trying on his part.

10:42

He scoffed at the Howard's claim

10:44

that Francis had made herself poliant

10:46

and available to her husband at every opportunity.

10:50

With the affair between Francis and

10:52

Robert Carr at Court being an open

10:54

secret, the whole thing was especially

10:57

humiliating for Devereaux. Devereaux

11:00

would take to whipping his erect

11:02

member out of his pants to show

11:04

anyone who asked. Several

11:06

friends testified to seeing it.

11:09

It's not that I can't have sex, Devereau

11:11

moaned, It's just that I can't have sex

11:13

with her. One

11:15

of the key steps in securing

11:17

an annulment by non consummation

11:20

was an examination of Francis

11:22

to confirm that she was in fact still

11:25

a virgin. There was a small

11:27

council of midwives who are appointed

11:29

to do the examination. Yep,

11:32

the midwives said, definitely a virgin,

11:34

but it was slightly less clear cut

11:37

than that Francis had insisted

11:39

on wearing a full veil to protect

11:42

her quote modesty during

11:44

the examination, and so rumors

11:46

circulated at court that she

11:48

had actually employed a virginal body

11:51

double to undergo the examination for

11:53

her. That was the main

11:55

gossip piece of court for a while, and there

11:57

was even a mocking little poem written

11:59

about it. This

12:02

dame was inspected, but fraud

12:04

interjected a maid of more

12:06

perfection, whom the midwives

12:09

did handle whilst the night

12:11

held the candle. Oh, there was a

12:13

clear inspection. Still,

12:16

the people in charge decided that yes,

12:18

Francis Howard was a virgin. But

12:21

still the annulment was slow moving

12:24

to finalize. For one

12:26

thing, the king didn't want to upset the

12:28

status quo or upset the

12:30

Devereaux family and their allies. But

12:33

a larger factor was a courtier

12:35

behind the scenes doing everything

12:38

that he could to prevent the annulment

12:40

from happening, calling in favors

12:42

and influence all to keep

12:44

Francis Howard from being able to

12:46

marry her love, Robert Carr.

12:49

This courtier's name was Thomas

12:52

Overbury. He was Carr's

12:54

best friend and closest adviser.

12:57

He hated Francis and

12:59

he believe that his friend was blinded

13:02

by lust, Overbury

13:04

would make sure that Francis stayed

13:06

married to her first husband so that

13:08

he could save his friend. What

13:10

Overbury didn't realize was that in

13:13

the process he was making

13:15

some very powerful enemies. Thomas

13:20

Overbury met Robert Carr when

13:22

they were both young men living in

13:24

Edinburgh. They were of similar ranks,

13:27

both noble but not landed. Car

13:30

was working as a page, Overbury

13:32

was a student. The two hit it

13:34

off, and almost immediately Overbury

13:37

recognized that Car had

13:39

something that he didn't charm.

13:42

Car was charming. Everyone

13:45

liked him. He was good looking,

13:47

athletic fun. Overbury

13:50

was smart, but no one ever mistook

13:52

him for fun. He just seemed

13:54

to rub people the wrong way. But

13:57

Car Car would be his answer.

14:00

His friend would be his entry into the world

14:02

of power and privilege. Overbury,

14:05

a few years older, positioned

14:07

himself as Carr's mentor and adviser,

14:10

the staffer behind the politician, the

14:13

brains behind the jock. From

14:16

their youth spent in Edinburgh. The

14:18

two men would be reunited at court

14:20

in London, ready to fulfill

14:22

the glorious promise of their futures.

14:25

As it happened, Overbury's prediction

14:28

that Carr was a star was about

14:30

to prove itself correct. In

14:32

sixteen o seven, the very

14:35

same year that Francis Howard's poor

14:37

husband was about to go leave on his

14:39

smallpox infected tour of Europe,

14:42

Carr participated in a joust

14:44

at court where the King James

14:47

the First just so happened

14:49

to be in attendance. Carr,

14:52

looking handsome as ever on his horse,

14:55

lost around and fell from his mount,

14:57

breaking his leg with a sickening

15:00

snap. The King

15:02

visited Car personally in the hospital,

15:05

and from there a close personal friendship

15:07

formed. The King spent days

15:10

at Carr's bedside, teaching him Latin

15:13

and then ultimately knighting him,

15:15

gifting him the confiscated estates

15:17

of Sir Walter Raleigh, and all in

15:19

all just ensuring that Carr would

15:21

have a favorable future at court. Much

15:25

has been written and said about the

15:27

rumors of King James's homosexuality

15:30

or bisexuality, and I'll

15:32

leave it to historians smarter than

15:34

I am to tease out the exact nature

15:36

of the parents relationship. But

15:38

it's true that James openly

15:40

had male favorites, even

15:43

if the law at the time would have prohibited

15:45

him from publicly acting

15:47

on any gay feelings he might have had, and

15:50

even if respect for the crown might

15:52

have meant that gossip at the time that might

15:54

have surrounded those relationships was

15:57

more muted than it otherwise might have

15:59

been. But everything

16:01

was comin' up Car, and by extension,

16:04

coming up Overbury. That

16:06

was until Overbury

16:08

noticed Car beginning to entangle

16:11

himself with the very pretty young

16:13

Francis Howard. Her

16:15

reputation already preceded

16:17

her. She was married,

16:20

first of all, but always flirtatious

16:23

and famous for wearing particularly

16:26

low cut dresses. In

16:28

Overbury's opinion, at least, she

16:30

was not nearly the type of woman that

16:32

Carr should be marrying. Frances

16:35

was outgoing and powerful. Her

16:38

family was almost serpent like in

16:40

their machinations around court. Overbury

16:43

didn't want Car to get sucked up in all of

16:45

that. Carr needed a good girl,

16:48

an unmarried girl from a good family

16:51

who wouldn't say too many opinions,

16:53

and Overbury also privately

16:55

thought a girl whose family

16:58

wouldn't take over the managerial role

17:00

in Car's life. That was

17:02

his job to

17:06

try to convince his friend that Francis

17:08

was totally wrong for him. Overbury

17:11

wrote a poem called The Wife, all

17:13

about what a perfect wife should be in

17:16

short, dutiful, modest, chased

17:19

everything Francis wasn't. The

17:21

poem was a wild hit, going

17:24

into six printings in its first year

17:26

alone. Meanwhile, Overbury

17:29

was working overtime behind the scenes

17:31

to ensure that Francis Howard wouldn't

17:33

be able to get an annulment from her first

17:36

husband. But Overbury

17:38

underestimated his opponents. The

17:41

Howards wanted their daughter to get

17:43

her second brighter marriage, and

17:46

the Howards knew all too well

17:48

how to play the games of court. The

17:51

first step in their plan was manipulating

17:53

Overbury into saying something distasteful

17:56

about the Queen Anne of Denmark. I

17:59

couldn't discover exactly what the insult

18:01

was, but the Queen was apparently

18:03

so put off by the already unlikable

18:06

man that she wrote that Overbury

18:08

shouldn't even be allowed to any event that

18:10

she'd be present at. But

18:13

that wasn't good enough for the Howards. They

18:15

wanted to get rid of Overbury altogether,

18:18

and so using their influence,

18:21

they sweet talked to the King into appointing

18:23

Overbury an ambassadorship to

18:25

Russia. It

18:29

was a checkmate They knew that Overbury

18:31

would want to refuse the post so that

18:34

he could stay close to Car, which

18:36

he did, but of course that meant

18:38

turning down a very prestigious post

18:41

directly given by the King, which

18:43

was a gross insult, and

18:45

so when Overbury refused, the

18:47

King locked Overbury in the tower.

18:51

Some speculate that it was also partially

18:53

thanks to the King's jealousy of Overbury's

18:55

close friendship with Car, the King's favorite,

18:58

but whatever the reason, there it was

19:01

Overbury was locked up and out

19:03

of the picture. Five months

19:05

after that, Overbury died in his

19:07

cell. No one really cared

19:10

or paid much attention. It

19:12

was seemingly of natural causes, but

19:14

we'll get to that later. Two

19:17

weeks after Overbury's death, the King

19:19

tipped the scales in the five to

19:21

five stalemate for Francis Howard's

19:23

annulment and granted it. Francis

19:26

Howard and her lover, Robert Carr,

19:28

were almost immediately married, too

19:30

much rejoicing, and no one gave

19:33

a moment's more thought to the unlikable

19:35

curmudgeon rotting six feet

19:37

under. At least they didn't

19:39

think about him. Then. Two

19:43

years later, Frances and Robert

19:45

Carr were happily married the newly

19:48

minted Countess and Earl of Somerset,

19:51

but there was about to be a ripple in there.

19:53

Happily ever after, on

19:56

his deathbed, a young assistant

19:58

to an apothecary may a startling

20:01

confession. He had sold

20:03

the poison that had been used

20:05

to murder Thomas Overbury in prison,

20:08

and he had received twenty pounds for it.

20:11

The King didn't really want to get involved,

20:14

but at this point his hands were tied, and

20:16

so he ordered an investigation. It

20:19

probably didn't help things that Carr

20:21

was losing favor, becoming replaced

20:23

by another favorite. The

20:26

investigation led to the governor of

20:28

the prison, Mr Elwis, who had

20:30

suspected that maybe something illicit

20:33

was going on, but he had done his best

20:35

to try to keep Overbury safe. A

20:37

guard, Weston, was put

20:40

in place by some well connected nobleman,

20:42

and Mr Elwis was suspicious of

20:44

him from the start, especially

20:46

after seeing their prisoners condition begin

20:49

to deteriorate. When Elwis

20:51

suspected that Overbury's food was

20:53

being poisoned, he tried to prepare

20:56

his own food for Overbury.

20:58

The fact that he wasn't direct complicit

21:00

in the murders didn't prevent his trial

21:03

and subsequent execution. As

21:05

an accessory to the murder, also

21:08

executed the guard Weston, who

21:10

had actually made the deliveries of

21:12

what the investigators determined had killed

21:14

Overbury. The investigators

21:17

figured out that Overbury hadn't

21:20

died of natural causes. It

21:22

had instead been poisoned tarts

21:24

and jellies, and then finally

21:27

a fatal enema laced with sulfuric

21:30

acid. I have

21:32

no more information on how the animal

21:35

was delivered, or whether Overbury

21:37

knew at the time that it was poisoned.

21:40

I have to assume that an animal was

21:42

just considered part of his standard

21:45

daily treatment, and that Overbury

21:47

wasn't aware that this one was

21:50

poison On the day

21:52

of his hanging, the prison governor Mr.

21:54

Elwis continued to deny his

21:57

guilt on the gallows.

21:59

He stated, quote, I was so

22:01

far from thinking myself foul in

22:03

the fact that until I was told

22:06

how deeply I had imbrowed my hands

22:08

in the blood of Overbury, making

22:10

me, by God's law as guilty

22:13

in the concealing of it, as if I

22:15

had been a personal actor in it.

22:18

Till then I held myself ignorant

22:20

of the deed, and my conscience so

22:22

clear that I did never ask

22:24

God's forgiveness. Before

22:27

he was hanged, Always also asked

22:29

God's forgiveness for his gambling

22:31

habit. Two more

22:33

individuals were also hanged as accessories

22:36

to Overbury's murder that chilly November

22:38

day. First, the apothecary

22:41

James Franklin, a seedy man

22:43

who immediately admitted his guilt. Franklin

22:46

claimed that he had sold the poison directly

22:49

to Mr Elwis, even though always

22:51

own personal letters proved that that wasn't

22:54

true. Those letters conveniently

22:56

were left out of evidence. Also

23:02

being hanged was a woman, a former

23:04

lady's servant to Francis Howard,

23:06

named Anne Turner. Anne

23:09

Turner is a fascinating woman, actually

23:11

briefly referenced as a murderess

23:14

in the novel The Scarlet Letter. She

23:16

was the widow of a fashionable London

23:18

doctor. She ran two brothels

23:21

and popularized the use of saffron

23:23

to dye the boring old white ruffs

23:25

that the glitterati were wearing in the seventeenth

23:28

century. When the inspectors

23:30

ransacked her home, they found pornography

23:33

and other heretical material, which

23:36

meant that Anne was all too happy to confess

23:38

to being an accessory to murder. She

23:41

confessed that she had informed a certain

23:43

Francis Howard of where she might buy

23:45

certain poisons. Being an accessory

23:48

to murder meant that Anne would hang

23:51

instead of burning at the stake for being a heretic.

23:54

When Anne was sentenced to death, she

23:57

was told to wear her fashionable yellow

23:59

ruffs around her neck and wrists

24:02

so that her shame would finally cause

24:04

the trend to die. Four

24:06

individuals, the governor of the prison,

24:09

the guard, the apothecary, and the lady's

24:11

maid all arrested and all

24:14

hanged the same day for playing

24:16

tiny rolls in a murder orchestrated

24:19

by those with real power. Francis

24:23

and Robert Carr's guilt, at least

24:25

of being involved in the murder seemed

24:27

like a foregone conclusion, but

24:29

their connections in Royal court made

24:31

it so that their trial was delayed

24:34

by almost a year. Francis

24:36

was twenty five years old when she was finally

24:39

brought before the court on May

24:41

twenty four, sixteen sixteen.

24:44

The man who tried the case for the king was

24:46

none other than the father of the scientific

24:49

method, Sir Francis Bacon, who

24:51

tried his best to treat Francis

24:53

with the utmost kindness after

24:56

she immediately pleaded guilty

24:58

and burst into tears. The

25:00

court case was a public spectacle.

25:03

Not only was Frances already infamous

25:05

for her earlier annulment, but this

25:07

was a countess on the stand accused

25:10

of murder. One man

25:12

was recorded paying ten pounds

25:15

for seats for him and his wife in the

25:17

stands. Extra scaffolding

25:19

had to be built in Westminster Hall

25:21

to contain all of the onlookers. Accounts

25:25

at the time described Frances as

25:27

incredibly beautiful, but

25:29

also as faint and delicate. What

25:32

those accounts don't usually remark on

25:34

is the fact that Frances was heavily pregnant

25:37

at the time she was found

25:39

guilty and sentenced to death, and

25:41

while she was imprisoned, she gave birth to

25:44

what would be the couple's only child, a

25:46

daughter named Anne. The baby

25:49

was cared for by Frances's sister until

25:51

Frances was released, which

25:53

she was fairly quickly. Within

25:56

months, the King commuted her death

25:59

sentence. Francis's

26:01

husband, Robert Carr, was also tried,

26:04

but unlike his wife, he denied all

26:07

knowledge of any wrongdoing. While

26:09

he was imprisoned, the King wrote him letters

26:11

begging him to plead guilty, saying

26:14

that of course he would pardon him immediately,

26:16

he just needed to plead guilty. The

26:18

King, it appeared, was a little

26:20

afraid of what Robert Carr might reveal

26:23

over the course of a trial, which some

26:25

historians believe indicates that the King

26:27

too was responsible in

26:30

some way for Overbury's murder.

26:32

But still Carr maintained that he

26:34

had no involvement in the actual poisoning,

26:37

and that his only guilt was helping to

26:40

cover up for his wife after

26:42

the fact by burning some documents.

26:45

Carr was convicted and sentenced

26:48

to death, but he too was almost

26:50

immediately spared. The pair

26:52

was released from prison, Francis in

26:55

sixteen twenty two and Robert

26:57

Carr in sixteen twenty four, and

26:59

they went on to live perfectly happy,

27:02

private lives in the relative obscurity

27:04

of Oxfordshire. Scandalized,

27:07

sure, but still wealthy, and with

27:09

their heads still attached. Noble

27:12

blood and the King's goodwill

27:15

has the power to do plenty when

27:17

it comes to self preservation. That's

27:23

the story of the infamous Countess

27:25

Francis Carr, but keep listening

27:28

after a brief sponsor break to hear a

27:30

little bit more about her trial. There's

27:45

actually still some speculation today

27:47

among historians as to whether Francis

27:50

Carr was actually guilty or if

27:52

she was just manipulated into taking

27:54

the fall because she knew the King would pardon

27:56

her. But most people do believe

27:59

that she played, if not an active

28:01

role in Overbury's death, then at least

28:03

an orchestral role. Enemies

28:06

had real consequences in the seventeenth

28:08

century. For some it was

28:11

truly kill or be killed. But

28:14

I hope you haven't forgotten that Francis's

28:16

first husband, poor pox

28:18

ridden Devereaux, who was so publicly

28:21

humiliated when the entire world had

28:23

to hear about him being unable

28:26

to have sex with his wife, well

28:28

he got his revenge. Robert

28:31

Devereaux, Earl of Sussex, was

28:33

one of the members of the jury during

28:35

Francis's trial, and he was

28:37

one of the men who listened to the evidence,

28:40

listened to her weep, and then proclaimed

28:43

his former wife guilty.

28:54

Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio

28:57

and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.

28:59

The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz.

29:02

Executive producers include Aaron Manky,

29:04

Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

29:07

The show is produced by rema Ill Kali

29:10

and Trevor Young. Noble Blood

29:12

is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,

29:15

and you can learn more about the show over at Noble

29:17

Blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts

29:19

from I Heart Radio, visit the i heart

29:21

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

29:23

wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M

29:27

M