Contents -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

chapman120

The story of ROBERT CARR, Earl of Somerset, is too well known to all who are familiar with the life and times of James Ist. He was a Scotsman by birth, the son of Carr of Fernihurst, so often mentioned in the letters of Mary Queen of Scots. He had been a royal page before the accession of James to the throne of England, and, having spent some years in France, was re-introduced at Court in 1606. The circumstances of this re-introduction are too familiar to need repetition. His rise was rapid. He was knighted on Christmas-eve, 1607; created Lord Carr of Bransprath, and Viscount Rochester, 1610, and made Lord High Treasurer of Scotland; shortly after, Knight of the Garter; and in 1614 created Earl of Somerset, and Lord Chamberlain of the Household. His connection with the infamous Countess of Essex, and their trial for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, their condemnation, imprisonment, and subsequent pardon and release from the Tower in 1621, are matters of history. The Countess died in obscurity in 1632, and the Earl survived till July, 1645; both having lived to see their former passion for each other changed to the bitterest hatred. Their only daughter, Anne, married William, afterwards the first Duke of Bedford.