Sir Thomas Overbury (1581 – 15 September 1613), English poet and essayist, and the victim of one of the most sensational crimes
Sir Thomas Overbury (1581 – 15 September 1613), English poet and essayist, and the victim of one of the most sensational crimes in English history, was the son of Nicholas Overbury, of Bourton-on-the-Hill, and was born at Compton Scorpion, near Ilmington, in Warwickshire. In the autumn of 1595 he became a gentleman commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, took his degree of BA in 1598 and came to London to study law in the Middle Temple. He found favour with Sir Robert Cecil, travelled on the Continent and began to enjoy a reputation for an accomplished mind and free manners. About the year 1601, being in Edinburgh on a holiday, he met Robert Carr, then an obscure page to the earl of Dunbar; and so great a friendship was struck up between the two youths that they came up to London together. The early history of Carr remains obscure, and it is probable that Overbury secured an introduction to Court before his young associate contrived to do so. At all events, when Carr attracted the attention of James I, in 1606, by breaking his leg in the tilt-yard, Overbury had for some time been servitor-in-ordinary to the king. He was knighted in June 1608, and in 1609 he travelled in France and the Low Countries. He seems to have followed the fortunes of Carr very closely, and "such was the warmth of the friendship, that they were inseparable,… nor could Overbury enjoy any felicity but in the company of him he loved [Carr]." When the latter was made Viscount Rochester in 1610, the intimacy seems to have been sustained. After the death of Robert Cecil, in 1612, the Howard party, consisting of Northampton, Suffolk, Suffolk's son-in-law Lord Knollys, and Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, along with Sir Thomas Lake, soon took control of much of the government and its patronage. The powerful Carr, unfitted for the responsibilities thrust upon him and often dependent on his intimate friend, Sir Thomas Overbury, for assistance with government papers,
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