The man who had his cheating wife sentenced to death.
Meet Robert Devereux, the 3rd Earl of Essex.
When he was 13, Robert was married to the 14 year old Frances Howard in a political union. The marriage was not consummated, and Robert immediately left for a two year tour of Europe, leaving his wife in England.
Frances promptly began a very public affair with the Earl of Somerset.
On Robert’s return, Frances reportedly barricaded herself in her room away from him, and eventually filed for an annulment of the marriage on the grounds of impotence, claiming that she had made every effort but Robert couldn’t perform in the bedroom. Robert claimed that everything was working fine down there, but he just couldn’t perform with her, claiming that she “reviled him, and miscalled him, terming him a cow and coward, and beast.“
In order to prove the impotence, Frances had to be examined by 12 women, who reported that she was in fact a virgin, however it was widely suspected that Frances had been switched with another girl for the examination, especially when it transpired that ‘Frances’ had insisted on wearing a veil through the whole thing. A popular song at the time made mockery of this event:
“This Dame was inspected but Fraud interjected
A maid of more perfection
Whom the midwives did handle whilest the knight held the candle
O there was a clear inspection!”
The rumours about Frances and Somerset were all but confirmed when following the annulment, they married 4 months later.
The whole escapade was the 17th century equivalent of a paparazzi feeding frenzy which made Robert a laughing stock in court and across the country. A situation only made worse when he remarried only for that marriage to also fall apart amongst rumours of infidelity. Even on the battlefield he was not safe from jibes, this was the banner one of his rivals flew against him during the Civil War:
Though clearly seething with rage, Robert could not touch Frances because she was now the wife of another powerful man, however that was about to change.
Sir Thomas Overbury, a friend of Somerset, had been strongly advising Somerset not to marry Frances. Frances’ family had carried out a plot which had led to Overbury inadvertently insulting the King and getting locked up in the Tower of London, where he died a mere 12 days after Frances and Somerset’s wedding.
The next year, an apothecary assistant confessed on his deathbed that he had been paid £20 by Frances to provide poisons for the purpose of murdering Overbury, and the prison guard confessed to smuggling poisoned sweets and tarts (provided by Frances) into his cell.
The Somerset’s were arrested and a trial was called, and who did they call to be one of the impartial jury members?:
Why, one Robert Devereux of course.
Robert pressed the King hard to impose the death penalty on his ex-wife, and he duly did so.
Regardless of whether Frances was guilty or not, being judged in a Murder trial by your cuckolded ex-husband is not anyone’s idea of a good time.
Note - it’s always worth remembering with things like this that we don’t, and can’t, know the full story. It was relatively common for women back then to be made out to be witches or adulterous if it suited the needs of the powerful.
