"I must have some power over him," he said; "I must have something in my hands to give, in order that I may demand that in return which might be otherwise denied, notwithstanding all the services I have rendered him."
Such were his thoughts and feelings at the period when the Court removed from Hampton; and we shall now proceed to show the manner in which he endeavoured to effect his object, premising that for some months he had been labouring to bring the King's mind to the particular tone he wanted.
It was in the King's closet at the palace of Greenwich. The Monarch was dressed in hunting costume; and, as the season was rapidly approaching when he could no longer venture to hunt the hart, he was somewhat eager and impatient to set out upon his sport.
Something, however, had gone wrong in the stables; his horse had not been brought to the door at which he was to mount; and he had sent one after another, first a page, then a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and then Lord Rochester himself, to see what had become of the grooms and huntsmen, upon whose heads he bestowed a torrent of condemnation, in very profane and unkingly language.
To ordinary observers it would have appeared that a more unpropitious moment could not have been selected for pressing a suit or asking a favour; but Sir Thomas Overbury knew King James as well as any one who was about him, and was aware that requests, which he would have denied flatly and resolutely when he had time for consideration, might often be wrung from him by importunity, in a moment of impatience and haste. The moment, then, that he saw Lord Rochester pass through the antechamber, he hurried to the King,--whom he knew to be now alone,--with a small slip of paper in hand half covered with writing.
"Well, sir, well, where are the horses?" cried James, as soon as he saw him. "Those heathen fellows will let the fresh of the morning go by; and the sun's peeping out as hot as a kitchen fire, to drink up all the dew off the grass."
"I think they mistook the hour your Majesty named," replied Overbury, "and, instead of a quarter before, made ready for a quarter after nine."
"Body o' sin! did you ever hear the like of that?" cried James; "did they never go out to track a stag in the early morning? What have you got there? But if that's a supplication, man, you may as well spare your pains.--I'll have nothing to do with it.--Take it away."