at one point and from then on took the precaution of having Overbury's food prepared in his private kitchen, taking care to intercept any other food before it could reach Overbury. However, for fear of the Countess of Essex's political influence, and because his own patron was Frances' great uncle Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, he took no action against her. Frances eventually succeeded in poisoning Overbury with a smuggled enema laced with mercury chloride. Frances and her husband were arrested for the murder in mid-October 1615. The trial revealed that Frances had supplied the poisoned enema to Richard Weston through an intermediary, Frances' waiting-woman and companion Mrs. Anne Turner. Helwys was tried as an accessory, and his patron at Court, Sir Thomas Monson, arrested and imprisoned for involvement. Between mid-October and December 1615, Helwys, Turner, Weston, and the apothecary James Franklin, were all found guilty as accessories to murder and hanged. Monson twice had his trial delayed, in November and December 1615, before prosecution was ultimately dropped. Frances Somerset admitted her complicity in the crime; however, her husband maintained his innocence. In 1616 Frances was found guilty of murder, while her husband was found guilty of being an accessory after the deed when it was proven that he burned incriminating documents and made bribes to cover up his wife's involvement. The couple were sentenced to death initially but later confined to the Tower for life on the orders of James I. They received a pardon from the King in January 1622 and were subsequently released from prison. She died 10 years later at the age of 42. Lord and Lady Somerset had one daughter, Anne, born while Frances was under house arrest[4] before she was taken to prison in the Tower of London. She was looked after by Frances's sister Lady Knollys. Anne married William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford. Through her Lady Somerset was the ten-times-great grandmother of the actress Celia Imrie. Frances was buried at the family seat in Audley End, Essex. Notes References Bellany, Alistair. The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England: News Culture and the Overbury Affair, 1603–1660. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel. New York : Knopf, 1984; Haynes, Alan. Sex in Elizabethan England. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1997; King, Betty Nygaard. Hell Hath No Fury: Famous Women in Crime (Borealis Press, 2001) Lindley, David. The Trials