11 Facts About Gervase Helwys

Sir Gervase Helwys, known as Jervis Yelwys, was a Lieutenant of the Tower of London found guilty of complicity in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury and hanged in 1615.

Gervase Helwys's uncle, Geoffrey Helwys, a successful merchant, Alderman and Sheriff of London, was a member of the Inn.

Gervase Helwys had done this after beginning an affair with the married Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, whom James assisted in securing an annulment of her marriage to free her to marry Carr.

At a dinner in Whitehall with the king's new Secretary of State, Sir Ralph Winwood, Gervase Helwys admitted that he suspected there might have been some foul play.

Gervase Helwys immediately became suspect after correspondence surfaced between himself and Northampton concerning Overbury's conduct and health.

Gervase Helwys made the mistake of corresponding with Howard, the chief suspect in Overbury's poisoning.

In 1615, Gervase Helwys was put on trial, along with Monson, Richard Weston, Mrs Anne Turner, and a disreputable apothecary named James Franklin, in Guildhall, London for complicity in the murder of Overbury.

The only evidence against Gervase Helwys was that of Franklin, who asserted that the Lieutenant had been in league with Frances Howard.

Gervase Helwys confessed later that he had entertained suspicions of this after discovering earlier attempts to poison Overbury on the part of the gaoler Weston, who had been placed in that position at the suggestion of Northampton.

Gervase Helwys had done his utmost surreptitiously to save Overbury.

Gervase Helwys had made Weston recognise the "hideousness" of what he had done and made him promise to desist from further attempts upon the prisoner's life.