Power, scandal, and downfall
In 1614 Carr was appointed Lord Chamberlain. He supported the Earl of Northampton and the Spanish party in opposition to the old tried advisers of the king, such as the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who were endeavouring to maintain the union with the Protestants abroad. As the years progressed James showered Somerset with more gifts, until 1615 when the two men had a falling out and Somerset was replaced by George Villiers (whom James made Duke of Buckingham). James wrote a letter that year detailing a list of complaints he then had against Somerset. Somerset still retained some favour, and might possibly have remained in power for some time longer but for the discovery in July of the murder of Overbury by poisoning.
At the trials in October and November 1615, Edward Coke and Francis Bacon were set to unravel the plot. Four people were convicted for taking part in the murder, and hanged at Tyburn at the end of 1615. They were Sir Gervase Helwys, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, Richard Weston, a gaoler, Mrs Anne Turner, a "waiting woman" of Frances Howard, and an apothecary called Franklin. Sir Thomas Monson, 1st Baronet of Carlton was also implicated in the case, but the charges against him were later dropped.
Somerset and Howard were brought to trial in the spring of 1616. Fearing that Somerset might seek to implicate him, King James repeatedly sent messages to the Tower of London pleading with him to admit his guilt in return for a pardon, and stating to George More, governor of the Tower, "it is easy to be seen that he would threaten me with laying an aspersion upon me of being, in some sort, accessory to his crime".
Frances Howard confessed, and her guilt is widely accepted. Somerset's share is far more difficult to uncover, and probably will never be fully known. The evidence against him rested on mere presumption, and he consistently declared himself innocent. Probabilities are on the whole in favour of the hypothesis that he was no more than an accessory after the fact.
King James eventually let matters take their course, and both Somerset and Howard were found guilty and confined to the Tower. The sentence, however, was not carried into effect against either culprit. Howard was pardoned immediately, but both remained in the Tower until 1622. Somerset appears to have refused to buy forgiveness by concessions, and did not obtain his pardon until 1624.
He emerged into public view only once more when, in 1630, he was prosecuted in the Star Chamber for communicating a paper recommending the establishment of arbitrary government by Robert Dudley to John Holles, 1st Earl of Clare.
Somerset died in July 1645, leaving one daughter, Anne, the sole issue of his ill-fated marriage, afterwards wife of William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford.
