The writer, Sir Thomas
Overbury, 'the nephew and heir,' says Mr. John Paget, 'of the unhappy
victim of the infamous Countess of Somerset' (who had the elder Overbury
poisoned in the Tower), was the Justice of the Peace who acted
as _Juge d'Instruction_ in the case of Harrison's disappearance.[5]
[Footnote 5: Paget, _Paradoxes and Puzzles_, p. 342. Blackwoods,
1874.]
To come to the story. In 1660, William Harrison, Gent., was steward or
'factor' to the Viscountess Campden, in Chipping Campden,
Gloucestershire, a single-streeted town among the Cotswold hills. The
lady did not live in Campden House, whose owner burned it in the Great
Rebellion, to spite the rebels; as Castle Tirrim was burned by its
Jacobite lord in the '15. Harrison inhabited a portion of the building
which had escaped destruction. He had been for fifty years a servant
of the Hickeses and Campdens, his age was seventy (which deepens the
mystery), he was married, and had offspring, including Edward, his
eldest son.
On a market day, in 1659, Mr. Harrison's house was broken into, at
high noon, while he and his whole family were 'at the Lecture,' in
church, a Puritan form of edification.
Pages:
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79