[1] Later, as her reputation came in question, rumours spread that she was an illegitimate child of the disreputable London apothecary and astrologer named Simon Forman.

Howard was married at the time to the Earl of Essex, and at his instance was obliged to travel back with him after his return from France to his house at Chartley in Staffordshire.

Her uncle, Sir Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton and her ally Mrs Turner seem to have conspired to get Overbury discredited.

A widow and outwardly respectable, Mrs Turner was an independent businesswoman who ran "houses of ill-repute" at Paternoster Row and Hammersmith, where couples could meet for sexual liaisons.

[4] She was thus able to put Howard in touch with Forman to provide love potions for Carr and a range of poisons, including arsenic, cantharides[5] and sublimate of mercury for Overbury from another apothecary named Franklin.

In passing sentence Chief Justice Coke referred to her as "a whore, a bawd, a sorcerer, a witch, a papist, a felon and a murderer".

Anne Turner is mentioned in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as an "especial friend" of Mistress Hibbins, a suspected witch.