Murder of a Middle Templar: Why Did Sir Thomas Overbury Die?
On a hot July evening Somervillians and their guests gathered at Middle Temple for an evening that took us back to early seventeenth century legal London and the rise and fall and murder of lawyer and courtier Sir Thomas Overbury. First came a tour of the area; we visited the Temple precinct, trying to reconstruct in our heads what it would have been like at that time, and heard stories of the diverse inhabitants of the nefarious Ram Alley, linking Temple Church to Fleet Street.
Portrait of Sir Thomas Overbury, bequeathed to the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1740.
We then moved to Middle Temple Library where Jackie Watson (English, 1986), our Alumni Relations Officer, gave a talk based on her book, Epistolary Courtiership and Dramatic Letters. Jackie discussed social mobility, male friendship and courtiership at the court of James VI and I. Using Sir Thomas Overbury as her model, she explained how upward mobility through the practice of law and the thorough nurturing and working of connections (and picking the right ones!) was possible, how male friendship was used to facilitate this and how rival courtiers sought favour and the ear of the King. The evening ended with drinks and a chance to chat and see the beautiful Library and its exhibition Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court.