The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies Part 5

It would appear that they had not the means of a.s.suaging a reasonable thirst, for when they mentioned that they had noticed a gentleman's cane, a scabbard, a belt, and some add a pair of gloves, lying at the edge of a deep dry ditch, overgrown with thick bush and bramble, the landlord offered the new comers a shilling to go and fetch the articles.* But the rain was heavy, and probably the men took the shilling out in ale, till about five o'clock, when the weather held up for a while.

*A rather different account by the two original finders, Bromwell and Walters, is in L'Estrange's Brief History, iii. pp. 97, 98. The account above is the landlord's. Lords' MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., xi. pp.

2, 46, 47.

The delay was the more singular if, as one account avers, the men had not only observed the cane and scabbard outside of the ditch, on the bank, but also a dead body within the ditch, under the brambles.* By five o'clock the rain had ceased, but the tempestuous evening was dark, and it was night before Constable Brown, with a posse of neighbours on foot and horseback, reached the ditch. Herein they found the corpse of a man lying face downwards, the feet upwards hung upon the brambles; thus half suspended he lay, and the point of a sword stuck out of his back, through his black camlet coat.** By the lights at the inn, the body was identified as that of Sir Edmund Berry G.o.dfrey, a Justice of the Peace for Westminster, who had been missing since Sat.u.r.day October 12. It is an undeniable fact that, between two and three o'clock, before the body was discovered and identified, Dr. Lloyd, Dean of St. Asaph's, and Bishop Burnet, had heard that G.o.dfrey had been found in Leicester Fields, with his own sword in his body. Dr. Lloyd mentioned his knowledge in the funeral sermon of the dead magistrate. He had the story from a Mr. Angus, a clergyman, who had it from 'a young man in a grey coat,' in a bookseller's shop near St. Paul's, about two o'clock in the afternoon. Angus hurried to tell Bishop Burnet, who sent him on to Dr.

Lloyd.*** Either the young man in the grey coat knew too much, or a mere rumour, based on a conjecture that G.o.dfrey had fallen on his own sword, proved to be accurate by accident; a point to be remembered. According to Roger Frith, at two o'clock he heard Salvetti, the amba.s.sador of the Duke of Tuscany, say: 'Sir E. G.o.dfrey is dead... the young Jesuits are grown desperate; the old ones would do no such thing.' This again may have been a mere guess by Salvetti.****

*Pollock, Popish Plot, pp. 95, 96.

**Brown in Brief History, iii. pp. 212-215, 222.

***L'Estrange, Brief History, iii. pp. 87-89.

****Lords' MSS. p. 48, October 24.

In the circ.u.mstances of the finding of the body it would have been correct for Constable Brown to leave it under a guard till daylight and the arrival of surgical witnesses, but the night was threatening, and Brown ordered the body to be lifted; he dragged out the sword with difficulty, and had the dead man carried to the White House Inn. There, under the candles, the dead man, as we said, was recognised for Sir Edmund Berry G.o.dfrey, a very well-known justice of the peace and wood and coal dealer. All this occurred on Thursday, October 17, and Sir Edmund had not been seen by honest men and thoroughly credible witnesses, at least, since one o'clock on Sat.u.r.day, October 12. Then he was observed near his house in Green Lane, Strand, but into his house he did not go.

Who, then, killed Sir Edmund?

The question has never been answered, though three guiltless men were later hanged for the murder. Every conceivable theory has been tried; the latest is that of Mr. Pollock: G.o.dfrey was slain by 'the Queen's confessor,' Le Fevre, 'a Jesuit,' and some other Jesuits, with lay a.s.sistance.* I have found no proof that Le Fevre was either a Jesuit or confessor of the Queen.

*Pollock, The Popish Plot, Duckworth, London, 1903.

As David Hume says, the truth might probably have been discovered, had proper measures been taken at the moment. But a little mob of horse and foot had trampled round the ditch in the dark, disturbing the original traces. The coroner's jury, which sat long and late, on October 18 and 19, was advised by two surgeons, who probably, like the rest of the world, were bia.s.sed by the belief that G.o.dfrey had been slain 'by the b.l.o.o.d.y Papists.' In the reign of mad terror which followed, every one was apt to accommodate his evidence, naturally, to that belief. If they did not, then, like the two original finders, Bromwell and Walters, they might be thrown, heavily ironed, into Newgate.*

*Lords' MSS. P. 47, note 1.

But when the Popish Plot was exploded, and Charles II. was firm on his throne, still more under James II., every one was apt to be bia.s.sed in the opposite direction, and to throw the guilt on the fallen party of Oates, Bedloe, Dugdale, and the other deeply perjured and infamous informers. Thus both the evidence of 1678-1680, and that collected in 1684-1687, by Sir Roger L'Estrange, J.P. (who took great trouble and was allowed access to the ma.n.u.script doc.u.ments of the earlier inquiries), must be regarded with suspicion.*

*L'Estrange, Brief History of the Times, London, 1687.

The first question is cui bono? who had an interest in G.o.dfrey's death?

Three parties had an interest, first, the Catholics (IF G.o.dfrey knew their secrets); next, the managers of the great Whig conspiracy in favour of the authenticity of Oates's Popish Plot; last, G.o.dfrey himself, who was of an hereditary melancholy (his father had suicidal tendencies), and who was involved in a quandary whence he could scarcely hope to extricate himself with life and honour.

Of the circ.u.mstances of G.o.dfrey's quandary an account is to follow. But, meanwhile, the theory of G.o.dfrey's suicide (though Danby is said to have accepted it) was rejected, probably with good reason (despite the doubts of L'Estrange, Hume, Sir George Sitwell, and others), by the coroner's jury.*

*Sitwell, The First Whig, Sacheverell.

Privately printed, 1894, Sir George's book--a most interesting volume, based on public and private papers--unluckily is introuvable. Some years have pa.s.sed since I read a copy which he kindly lent me.

The evidence which determined the verdict of murder was that of two surgeons. They found that the body had been severely bruised, on the chest, by kicks, blows of a blunt weapon, or by men's knees. A sword-thrust had been dealt, but had slipped on a rib; G.o.dfrey's own sword had then been pa.s.sed through the left pap, and out at the back.

There was said to be no trace of the shedding of fresh living blood on the clothes of G.o.dfrey, or about the ditch. What blood appeared was old, the surgeons averred, and malodorous, and flowed after the extraction of the sword.

L'Estrange (1687) argues at great length, but on evidence collected later, and given under the Anti-Plot bias, that there was much more 'bloud' than was allowed for at the inquest. But the early evidence ought to be best. Again, the surgeons declared that G.o.dfrey had been strangled with a cloth (as the jury found), and his neck dislocated.

Bishop Burnet, who viewed the body, writes (long after the event): 'A mark was all round his neck, an inch broad, which showed he was strangled.... And his neck was broken. All this I saw.'*

*Burnet, History of his own Time, ii. p. 741. 1725.

L'Estrange argued that the neck was not broken (giving an example of a similar error in the case of a dead child), and that the mark round the neck was caused by the tightness of the collar and the flow of blood to the neck, the body lying head downwards. In favour of this view he produced one surgeon's opinion. He also declares that G.o.dfrey's brothers, for excellent reasons of their own, refused to allow a thorough post-mortem examination. 'None of them had ever been opened,'

they said. Their true motive was that, if G.o.dfrey were a suicide, his estate would be forfeited to the Crown, a point on which they undoubtedly showed great anxiety.

Evidence was also given to prove that, on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 15 and 16, G.o.dfrey's body was not in the ditch. On Tuesday Mr. Forsett, on Wednesday Mr. Harwood had taken Mr. Forsett's harriers over the ground, in pursuit of the legendary hare. They had seen no cane or scabbard; the dogs had found no corpse. L'Estrange replied that, as to the cane, the men could not see it if they were on the further side of the bramble-covered ditch. As to the dogs, they later hunted a wood in which a dead body lay for six weeks before it was found. L'Estrange discovered witnesses who had seen G.o.dfrey in St. Martin's Lane on the fatal Sat.u.r.day, asking his way to Paddington Woods, others who had seen him there or met him returning thence. Again, either he or 'the Devil in his clothes' was seen near the ditch on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Again, his clerk, Moore, was seen hunting the fields near the ditch, for his master, on the Monday afternoon. Hence L'Estrange argued that G.o.dfrey went to Paddington Woods, on Sat.u.r.day morning, to look for a convenient place of suicide: that he could not screw his courage to the sticking place; that he wandered home, did not enter his house, roamed out again, and, near Primrose Hill, found the ditch and 'the sticking place.' His rambles, said L'Estrange, could neither have been taken for business nor pleasure. This is true, if G.o.dfrey actually took the rambles, but the evidence was not adduced till several years later; in 1678 the witnesses would have been in great danger. Still, if we accept L'Estrange's witnesses for G.o.dfrey's trip to Paddington and return, perhaps we ought not to reject the rest.*

*Brief History, iii. pp. 252, 300, 174, 175; State Trials, viii. pp.

1387, 1392, 1393, 1359-1389.

On the whole, it seems that the evidence for murder, not suicide, is much the better, though even here absolute certainty is not attained.

Granting G.o.dfrey's const.i.tutional hereditary melancholy, and the double quandary in which he stood, he certainly had motives for suicide. He was a man of humanity and courage, had bravely faced the Plague in London, had withstood the Court boldly on a private matter (serving a writ, as Justice, on the King's physician who owed him money in his capacity as a coal dealer), and he was lenient in applying the laws against Dissenters and Catholics.

To be lenient was well; but G.o.dfrey's singular penchant for Jesuits, and especially for the chief Catholic intriguer in England, was probably the ultimate cause of his death, whether inflicted by his own hand or those of others.

2.

We now study G.o.dfrey's quandary. On June 23, 1678, the infamous miscreant t.i.tus Oates had been expelled from the Jesuit College of St.

Omer's, in France. There he may readily have learned that the usual triennial 'consult' of English Jesuits was to be held in London on April 24, but WHERE it was held, namely in the Duke of York's chambers in St. James's Palace, Oates did not know, or did not say. The Duke, by permitting the Jesuits to a.s.semble in his house, had been technically guilty of treason in 'harbouring' Jesuits, certainly a secret of great importance, as he was the head and hope of the Catholic cause, and the b.u.t.t of the Whigs, who were eager to exclude him from the succession.

Oates had sc.r.a.ps of other genuine news. He returned to London after his expulsion from St. Omer's, was treated with incautious kindness by Jesuits there, and, with Tonge, constructed his monstrous fable of a Popish plot to kill the King and ma.s.sacre the Protestant public.

In August, Charles was apprised of the plot, as was Danby, the Lord Treasurer; the Duke of York also knew, how much he knew is uncertain.

The myth was little esteemed by the King.

On September 6, Oates went to G.o.dfrey, and swore before him, as a magistrate, to the truth of a written deposition, as to treason. But G.o.dfrey was not then allowed to read the paper, nor was it left in his hands; the King, he was told, had a copy.* The thing might have pa.s.sed off, but, as King James II. himself writes, he (being then Duke of York) 'press'd the King and Lord Treasurer several times that the letters'

(letters forged by Oates) 'might be produced and read, and the business examined into at the Committee of Foreign Affairs.'** Mr. Pollock calls the Duke's conduct tactless. Like Charles I., in the mystery of 'the Incident,' he knew himself guiltless, and demanded an inquiry.

*Kirkby, Complete Narrative, pp. 2, 3, cited by Mr. Pollock. At the time, it was believed that G.o.dfrey saw the depositions.

**Clarke's Life of James II. i. p. 518. Cited from the King's original Memoirs.

On September 28, Oates was to appear before the Council. Earlier on that day he again visited G.o.dfrey, handed to him a copy of his deposition, took oath to its truth, and carried another copy to Whitehall. As we shall see, Oates probably adopted this course by advice of one of the King's ministers, Danby or another. Oates was now examined before the King, who detected him in perjury. But he accused Coleman, the secretary of the d.u.c.h.ess of York, of treasonable correspondence with La Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV.: he also said that, on April 24, he himself was present at the Jesuit 'consult' in the White Horse Tavern, Strand, where they decided to murder the King! This was a lie, but they HAD met on ordinary business of the Society, on April 24, at the palace of the Duke of York. Had the Jesuits, when tried, proved this, they would not have saved their lives, and Oates would merely have sworn that they met AGAIN, at the White Horse.

G.o.dfrey, having Oates's paper before him, now knew that Coleman was accused. G.o.dfrey was very intimate with many Jesuits, says Warner, who was one of them, in his ma.n.u.script history.* With Coleman, certainly a dangerous intriguer, G.o.dfrey was so familiar that 'it was the form arranged between them for use when G.o.dfrey was in company and Coleman wished to see him,' that Coleman should be announced under the name of Mr. Clarke.**

* Pollock, p. 91, note 1.

**Ibid. p. 151, note 3. Welden's evidence before the Lords' Committee, House of Lords MSS., p. 48. Mr. Pollock rather overstates the case. We cannot be certain, from Welden's words, that Coleman habitually used the name 'Clarke' on such occasions.

It is extraordinary enough to find a rigid British magistrate engaged in clandestine dealings with an intriguer like Coleman, who, for the purpose, receives a cant name. If that fact came out in the inquiry into the plot, G.o.dfrey's doom was dight, the general frenzy would make men cry for his blood. But yet more extraordinary was G.o.dfrey's conduct on September 28. No sooner had he Oates's confession, accusing Coleman, in his hands, than he sent for the accused. Coleman went to the house of a Mr. (or Colonel) Welden, a friend of G.o.dfrey's, and to G.o.dfrey it was announced that 'one Clarke' wished to see him there. 'When they were together at my house they were reading papers,' said Welden later, in evidence.* It cannot be doubted that, after studying Oates's deposition, G.o.dfrey's first care was to give Coleman full warning. James II. tells us this himself, in his memoirs. 'Coleman being known to depend on the Duke, Sir Edmund Bury (sic) G.o.dfrey made choice of him, to send to his Highness an account of Oates's and Tongue's depositions as soon as he had taken them,' that is, on September 28.** Apparently the Duke had not the precise details of Oates's charges, as they now existed, earlier than September 28, when they were sent to him by G.o.dfrey.

*See previous note (Pollock, p. 151, note 3.)