CHAPTER XIX

CAPITULATION The moment was one of crisis in other lives than that of Lady Essex. Robert Cecil was dead. He had breathed his last at Marlborough some weeks ago, as he was homing from Bath whither Dr. Mayerne had sent him to take the waters, in a last endeavour to prolong his life. His death and the chances which it must bring them had been watched by many, but by none so closely as the Earl of Northampton on the one hand and Sir Thomas Overbury on the other, both of whom aspired to snatch the seals as they fell fro…