Sir Thomas Overbury

Sir Thomas Overbury 1581-1613, English author and courtier. He was a friend and adviser to Robert Carr, an Oxford acquaintance. The two quarreled violently when Overbury disapproved of Carr's marriage to Frances Howard, divorced wife of the earl of Essex. Overbury's hostility was so marked that the Howard family brought pressure to bear, and James I had Overbury imprisoned in the Tower, where he was slowly poisoned. Carr and Frances Howard were convicted of his murder, but their lives were spared by the king. Overbury was a notable writer of brief informal essays describing a type or an individual. His best-known sketch in verse, A Wife (1614), outlines his conception of the ideal wife.

Overbury, Sir Thomas (1581–1613), opposed the marriage of his patron Robert Carr (afterwards earl of Somerset) with the divorced countess of Essex, and on the pretext of his refusal of diplomatic employment was sent to the Tower, where he was slowly poisoned by the agents of Lady Essex. Four of these were hanged; Somerset and his wife were convicted and pardoned. The prosecution was conducted by F. Bacon. Overbury is chiefly remembered for his Theophrastian ‘Characters’ which appeared with the second edition of his poem A Wife (1st edn 1614). Later editions added new characters, some by J. Webster and some by Dekker. Earle responded to their harsh and anti-scholastic tone in his own Microcosmographie. (See character-writing.)