Editing Thomas Overbury (section)

==Robert Carr==
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About 1601, whilst on holiday in [[Edinburgh]], he met [[Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset|Robert Carr]], then an obscure page to the [[George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar|Earl of Dunbar]]. A great friendship was struck up between the two youths, and they came up to London together. Carr's early history is obscure, and it is probable that Overbury secured an introduction to court before his young associate contrived to do so. At all events, when Carr attracted the attention of [[James I of England|James I]] in 1606 by breaking his leg in the [[tilt-yard]],<ref>[https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2018/10/16/a-world-of-poison-the-overbury-scandal/ Poltrack, Emma. "A world of poison: The Overbury scandal", ''Shakespeare & Beyond'', Folger Shakespeare Library, 16 October 2018]</ref> Overbury had for some time been servitor-in-ordinary to the king.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

Knighted by James in June 1608, from October 1608 to August 1609, he travelled in the [[Netherlands]] and France, staying in [[Antwerp]] and [[Paris]]; he spent at least some of this time with his contemporary, the [[Puritan]] theologian [[Francis Rous]].{{sfn|McGee|2004|p=406}}

Upon his return he began following Carr's fortunes very closely. When the latter was made [[Viscount Rochester]] in 1610, the intimacy seems to have been sustained. With Overbury's aid, the young Carr caught the eye of the King, and soon became his favourite  and his lover. Overbury had the wisdom and Carr had the king's ear into which to pour it. The combination took Carr swiftly up the ladder of power. Soon he was the most powerful man in England next to [[Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury|Robert Cecil]].{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} However, Overbury and Rochester somehow offended [[Anne of Denmark]] in May 1611, and when she heard them laughing together in the garden at [[Greenwich Palace]], she complained to the King that they laughed at her. Overbury was excluded from court for a few months.<ref>Jackie Watson, ''Epistolary Courtiership and Dramatic Letters: Thomas Overbury and the Jacobean Playhouse'' (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), pp. 60, 77: A. B. Hinds, ''HMC Downshire'', 3 (London: HMSO, 1938), pp. 83, 180.</ref>