Overbury, Thomas (1581–1613)

English poet and courtier. His poem A Wife now the Widow of Sir T Overbury was published 1614, with 21 Theophrastan-type ‘characters’ attached to it (see Theophrastus). They are epigrammatic and witty in a ‘conceited’ style. Later editions contained additions, possibly by John Webster, Thomas Dekker, and John Donne.

Overbury was born in Warwickshire and educated at Oxford University and the Middle Temple. In 1601 he met Robert Carr at Edinburgh, and went with him to court. He became the king's servitor-in-ordinary and in 1609 travelled in the Netherlands. He had been involved in the intrigues of Carr (then Viscount Rochester) with Frances, Lady Essex, but opposed Rochester's plan to obtain her divorce and marry her. For this he gained the lady's enmity, and in 1613 was sent to the Tower on a trivial pretext, where he was apparently slowly poisoned by her agents. An inquiry was held 1615, and four of the conspirators were hanged. Rochester (then Earl of Somerset) and Lady Essex, who had by this time married, were pardoned. Knighted 1608.