“Do you deny also that you are a poisoner?” cried Lord Coke, leaning out over his bench to emphasize the words as they struck at me. “Poison. The most devious weapon, for it takes a man away when he expects it least and cannot defend himself. It gives him no time to repent before death, is easily concealed and used, as hard to prevent as to discover. There is no manner in which evidence of poisoning can be attained, thus we dispense with such proofs in trials of poisoners. If testimony were required in cases of poisoning, the King might as well proclaim impunity. It is an Italian device, fit for the Court of Rome, a crime of cowardice, of women, and of Papists. Is it true that you are a Catholic, Mistress Turner? And the Countess too, and Richard Weston, and the Lieutenant of the Tower, and all those involved in this plot to kill an innocent, Protestant man?”

The crowd felt themselves on safe ground with this accusation. They shouted and would have thrown their shoes at me had they been assured of retrieving them.

“The principal in this crime, Richard Weston, confessed to receiving a vial of clear liquid from you, with instructions to give the same to Sir Thomas but to taste not of it himself.” Coke paused. “If this vial were but an innocent tincture, why should you warn him of it? James Franklin has confessed to acquiring poisons, many of them—aqua fortis, mercury water, great spiders, white arsenic, and more. Sir Gervase Elwes at the Tower has confessed to knowing that you and the Countess sent such a vial to Weston, and also jellies and tarts tainted with the same.

“You, lacking title or wealth, made yourself indispensable by slipping between Court and the villainous apothecaries and necromancers who are your friends. You are a canker one knows not of, silently lying within a body until it kills. Corruption at Court poisons the whole land. Like beauty, it secretly works its way into men’s hearts and is hard to defend against. Was it you or the Countess of Somerset who planned the murder of Overbury? When Richard Weston was tried, he said, ‘This be a net for small fishes, that the great ones swim away!’ He was speaking of the Earl and Countess of Somerset, was he not, Mistress Turner? And of the late Earl of Northampton, whose letters to the Tower also condemn him.” Coke nodded at the clerk, who lifted a letter from the high table beside him.

“‘God is Gracious in cutting off ill instruments before the time wherein their mischiefs are to be wrought. Bury him this very day, between three and four in the afternoon, with all haste and without ceremony, for the putrefaction is in an advanced state. Allow not his brother-in-law Lidcote to remove the body.’”

Coke waited for the crowd to quieten.