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Dedication

To George Szirtes,

with love and gratitude

The Principal Actors, 1609

Anne Turner, holder of patent for yellow starch, mother of six, wife of Dr. George Turner

Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, ill-treated wife of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. Daughter of the Earl and Countess of Suffolk

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, husband of Frances Howard, father beheaded 1601

George Turner, Treasurer to the College of Physicians and medical doctor at the Court of James VI & I

Katherine, Countess of Suffolk, mother of fourteen children, ten still living, including daughters Elizabeth, Frances and Catherine, and seven sons including Theophilus, Robert and Harry

Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain, one of the King’s Trinity of Knaves with his uncle, Henry Howard (Lord Northampton), and Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury

Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, Lord Privy Seal, great-uncle to Frances Howard

Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, Lord High Treasurer and Secretary of State

King James VI of Scotland & I of England and Ireland, son of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley

Queen Anna, Queen Consort of Scotland, England and Ireland, second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark

Prince Henry, heir to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland

Sir Robert Carr (formerly Kerr), gentleman of the bedchamber and the King’s favorite since 1607

Sir Thomas Overbury, best friend and adviser to Sir Robert Carr, knighted in 1608

Richard Weston, bailiff to Dr. George Turner

Old Maggie, Anne Turner’s maid

Eustace Norton, Anne Turner’s brother

Mary Hinde, Anne Turner’s sister

Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, favorite lady-in-waiting to Queen Anna. Member of the Essex crew

Sir Arthur Waring, close friend to Anne Turner

Simon Forman, necromancer and physician

James Franklin, corrupt apothecary

James Palmer, Purchaser of Paintings to Prince Henry

Sir Edward Coke, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, later Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench

Dr. Edward Whiting, minister of the Church, confessor employed by the King’s Bench

Mary Woods, cunning woman

Sir Gervase Elwes, Lieutenant of the Tower of London

Epigraph

What griefs lie groaning on the nuptial bed?

What dull satiety? In what sheets of lead

Tumble and toss the restless married pair,

Each oft offended with the other’s air?

…

And to their wives men give such narrow scopes,

As if they mean to make them walk on ropes:

No tumblers bide more peril of their necks

In all their tricks than wives in husbands’ checks.

—Ben Jonson’s prophetic Masque of Hymen, 1606,

written to celebrate the wedding of the young

Earl and Countess of Essex

PART ONE

January 1609

1