NEWGATE AFTER THE GREAT FIRE
Newgate refronted in 1638—Destroyed in great fire of 1666—
Suicides frequent—The gaoler Fells indicted for permitting
escapes—Crimes of the period—Clipping and coining greatly
increased—Enormous profits of the fraud—Coining within the
gaol itself deemed high treason—Heavy penalties—Highway
robbery very prevalent—Instances—Officers and paymasters
with the king's gold robbed—Stage-coaches stopped—Whitney—
His capture, and attempts to escape—His execution—Efforts to
check highway robbery—A few types of notorious highwaymen—
"Mulled Sack"—Claude Duval—Nevison—Abduction of heiresses—
Mrs. Synderfin—Miss Rawlins—Miss Wharton—Count Konigsmark—
The "German Princess"—Other criminal names—Titus Oates—
Dangerfield—The Fifth Monarchy men—William Penn—The two
bishops, Ellis and Leyburn.
Newgate was refronted and refaced in 1638, but no further change or
improvement was made in the building until a total reëdification became
inevitable, after the great fire in 1666.
It is difficult to exaggerate the horrors of Newgate, the
mismanagement, tyranny, and lax discipline which prevailed at that
time. Its unsanitary condition was chronic, which at times, but only
for influential inmates, was pleaded as an excuse for release.
Luttrell tells us Lord Montgomery, a prisoner there in 1697, was
brought out of Newgate to the King's Bench Court, there to be bailed,
upon two affidavits, which showed that there was an infectious fever in
Newgate, of which several were sick and some dead. He was accordingly
admitted to bail himself in £10,000, and four sureties—the Duke of
Norfolk, the Earl of Yarmouth, Lord Carrington, and Lord Jeffereys—in
£5,000 each. An effort to secure release was made less successfully
some years later in regard to Jacobite prisoners of note, although the
grounds alleged were the same and equally valid. Some effort was made
to classify the prisoners: there was the master's side, for debtors and
felons respectively; the common side, for the same two classes; and the
press-yard, for prisoners of note.
If a prisoner was hopelessly despondent, he could generally compass the
means of committing suicide. A Mr. Norton, natural son of Sir George
Norton, condemned for killing a dancing-master, because the latter
would not suffer him to take his wife away from him in the street,
poisoned himself the night before his reprieve expired. The drug was
conveyed to him by his aunt without difficulty, "who participated in
the same dose, but she is likely to recover." Nor were prisoners driven
to this last desperate extremity to escape from durance. Pepys tells
us in 1667, August 1, that the gates of the city were shut, "and at
Newgate we find them in trouble, some thieves having this night broken
open prison."
Within the gaol all manner of evil communication went forward unchecked
among the prisoners. That same year Sir Richard Ford, the recorder,
states that it has been made appear to the court of aldermen "that the
keeper of Newgate hath at this day made his house the only nursery of
rogues, prostitutes, pickpockets, and thieves in the world, where they
were held and entertained and the whole society met, and that for the
sake of the sheriffs[92:1] they durst not this day commit him for fear
of making him let out the prisoners, but are fain to go by artifice
to deal with him." The keeper at this time was one Walter Cowday,
as appears from a State pardon "for seven prisoners ordered to be
transported by their own consent," which he endorses. Sharper measure
was dealt out to his successor, Mr. Fells, the keeper in 1696, who
was summoned to appear before the Lords Justices for conniving at the
escape of Birkenhead, _alias_ Fish, _alias_ South, East, West, etc.,
one of the conspirators in Sir John Fenwick's business, and who lay in
prison "to be speedily tried." On examination of Fells, it was stated
that Birkenhead's escape had been effected by a bribe, whereupon the
sheriffs were instructed to find out the truth in order to displace
Fells. Fells was furthermore charged with showing favour to Sir
John Fenwick by suffering him to have pens, ink, and paper "alone;"
a little later he was convicted on two indictments before Lord Chief
Justice Holt at Guildhall, viz., for the escape of Birkenhead already
mentioned, and of another prisoner imprisoned for non-payment of fine.
Fell's sentence was postponed till the next term at the King's Bench
Bar; but he moved the court in arrest of judgment, a motion which the
King's Bench took time to consider, but which must have been ultimately
decided in his favour, as two years later Fells still held the office
of gaoler of Newgate.
The crimes of the latter half of the seventeenth century are of
the same character as those of previous epochs. Many had, however,
developed in degree, and were more widely practised. The offence of
clipping and coining had greatly increased. The extent to which it
was carried seems almost astounding. The culprits were often of high
standing. A clipper, by name White, under sentence of death, was
reprieved by the king upon the petition of the House of Commons in
order that a committee of the House might examine him in Newgate as
to his accomplices and their proceedings. Accordingly, White made "a
large discovery" to the committee, both of clippers and coiners, and
particularly of Esquire Strode, who had been a witness at the trial of
the Earl of Bath (1697). Luttrell says, among twenty persons convicted
of coining was Atkinson, the beau who made such a figure in town about
eight years before, and spent an estate of £500 per annum in Yorkshire.
In the lodgings of a parson, by name Salisbury, who was arrested for
counterfeiting stamped paper, several instruments for clipping and
coining were found. University men were beguiled into the crime of
clipping; so were seemingly respectable London tradesmen. Goldsmiths
and refiners were repeatedly taken up for these malpractices. A
goldsmith in Leicester Fields and his servants are committed to Newgate
for receiving large quantities of broad money from Exeter to clip it. A
refiner's wife and two servants were committed to Newgate for clipping;
the husband escaped. Bird, a laceman, in custody for coining, escaped;
but surrendered and impeached others. Certain gilders committed to
Newgate petitioned therefrom, that if released they would merit the
same by a discovery of a hundred persons concerned in the trade.
The numbers engaged in these nefarious practices were very great. In
1692, information was given of three hundred coiners and clippers
dispersed in various parts of the city, for several of whom warrants
were issued, some by the Treasury, others by the Lord Chief Justice.
The profits were enormous. Of three clippers executed at Tyburn in
1696, one, John Moore, "the tripe-man," was said to have got a good
estate by clipping, and to have offered £6,000 for his pardon. Three
other clippers arrested in St. James's St., and committed to Newgate,
were found to be in possession of £400 in clippings, with a pair of
shears and other implements. The information of one Gregory, a butcher,
who "discovered" near a hundred persons concerned in the trade, went to
prove that they made as much as £6,000 a month in counterfeit money.
"All their utensils and moulds were shown in court, the latter being
in very fine clay, which performed with great dexterity." The extent
of the practice is shown by the ingenuity of the machinery used. "All
sorts of material for coining was found in a house in Kentish town,
with stamps for all coins from James I." The work was performed "with
that exactness no banker could detect the counterfeit." So bold were
the coiners, that the manufacture went forward even within the walls
of Newgate. Three prisoners were taken in the very act of coining
in that prison. One of the medals or tokens struck in Newgate as a
monetary medium among the prisoners is still to be seen in the Beaufoy
Collection at Guildhall. Upon the obverse of the coin the legend is
inscribed: "Belonging to the cellar on the master's side, 1669;" on the
reverse side is a view of Newgate and the debtors' prison.
The heaviest penalties did not check this crime. The offence was high
treason; men sentenced for it were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and
women were burnt. In 1683 Elizabeth Hare was burnt alive for coining
in Bunhill Fields. Special legislation could not cope with this crime,
and to hinder it the Lords of the Treasury petitioned Queen Mary
(in the absence of William III) to grant no pardon to any sentenced
for clipping unless before their conviction they discovered their
accomplices.
Highway robbery had greatly increased. The roads were infested
with banditti. Innkeepers harboured and assisted the highwaymen,
sympathizing with them, and frequently sharing in the plunder. None
of the great roads were safe: the mails, high officials, foreigners
of distinction, noblemen, merchants, all alike were stopped and laid
under contribution. The following are a few of the cases which were
of constant occurrence. "His Majesty's mails from Holland robbed
near Ilford in Essex, and £5,000 taken, belonging to some Jews in
London." "The Worcester wagon, wherein was £4,000 of the king's
money, was set upon and robbed at Gerard's Cross, near Uxbridge, by
sixteen highwaymen. The convoy, being near their inn, went on ahead,
thinking all secure, and leaving only two persons on foot to guard it,
who, having laid their blunderbusses in the wagon, were on a sudden
surprised by the sixteen highwaymen, who took away £2,500, and left the
rest for want of conveniences to carry it." Two French officers (on
their way to the coast) were robbed by nine highwaymen of one hundred
and ten guineas, and bidden to go home to their own country. Another
batch of French officers was similarly dealt with on the Portsmouth
road. Fifteen butchers going to market were robbed by highwaymen, who
carried them over a hedge and made them drink King James's health.
The Portsmouth mail was robbed, but only of private letters; but the
same men robbed a captain going to Portsmouth with £5,000 to pay his
regiment with. Three highwaymen robbed the Receiver-General of Bucks
of a thousand guineas, which he was sending up by the carrier in a
pack; the thieves acted on excellent information, for although there
were seventeen pack-horses, they went directly to that which was laden
with the gold. Seven on the St. Alban's road near Pinner robbed the
Manchester carrier of £15,000 king's money, and killed and wounded
eighteen horses to prevent pursuit. The purser of a ship landed at
Plymouth and rode to London on horseback, with £6,000 worth of rough
diamonds belonging to some London merchants which had been saved out
of a shipwreck. Crossing Hounslow Heath, the purser was robbed by
highwaymen. "Oath was thereupon made before a justice of the peace,"
says Luttrell, in "order to sue the Hundred for the same." The Bath
coach was stopped in Maidenhead thicket, and a footman who had fired
at them was shot through the head. The Dover stage-coach, with foreign
passengers, was robbed near Shooter's Hill, but making resistance, one
was killed.
The western mail was robbed by the two Arthurs, who were captured
and committed to Newgate. They soon escaped therefrom, but were
again arrested at a tavern by Doctors' Commons, being betrayed by
a companion. They confessed that they had gone publicly about the
streets disguised in Grecian habits, and that one Ellis, a tobacconist,
assisted them in their escape, for which he was himself committed to
Newgate. John Arthur was soon afterwards condemned and executed. Henry
Arthur was acquitted, but soon after quarrelling about a tavern bill in
Covent Garden, he was killed in the _mêlée_.
All manner of men took to the road. Some of the royal guards were
apprehended for robbing on the highway. Lifeguardsmen followed the
same gentlemanly occupation when off duty. Thompson, a lifeguardsman,
committed on suspicion of robbing Welsh drovers, was refused bail,
there being fresh evidence against him. Captain Beau, or Bew,
formerly of the Guards, was seized at Knightsbridge as a highwayman,
and afterwards poisoned himself. Seven of his gang were committed
to Newgate. Harris, the lifeguardsman tried at the Old Bailey for
robbing "on the black mare" and acquitted, was again tried a month
later, and condemned. He was then reprieved, and Sir William Penn
obtained the queen's pardon for him, with a commission as lieutenant
in the Pennsylvania militia, to which colony he was to transport
himself. Persons of good social status engaged in the perilous trade.
One Smith, a parson and a lecturer at Chelsea, when brought up at
Westminster for perjury, was found to be a confederate with two
highwaymen, with whom they had shared a gold watch, and planned to rob
Chelsea Church of its plate. Smith when arraigned appeared in court
in his gown, but he was "sent to Newgate, and is like to be hanged."
Disguised highwaymen were often detected in reputable citizens and
quiet tradesmen, who upon the surface seemed honest folk. A mercer of
Lombard Street was taken out of his bed and charged by a cheesemonger
as being the man that robbed him two years previously. Another mercer
was taken up near Ludgate on suspicion of being a highwayman, and
committed. Saunders, a butcher of St. James's market, was charged with
robbing the Hampton coach, and discovered three confederates, who were
captured on Sunday at Westminster Abbey. "Of two highwaymen taken near
Highgate, one was said to be a broken mercer, the other a fishmonger."
Two of Whitney's gang were said to be the tradesmen in the Strand—one
a goldsmith and one a milliner.
Nothing could exceed the cool impudence with which reputed robbers
showed themselves in public places. They did not always escape capture,
however. "A noted highwayman in a scarlet cloak," says Luttrell,
"and coat laced with gold taken in Covent Garden." Another was taken
in the Strand and sent to Newgate. Five more were captured at the
Rummer, Charing Cross; three others, notorious highwaymen, taken at
the "Cheshire Cheeze." At times they fought hard for liberty. "One
Wake, a highwayman, pursued to Red Lion Fields, set his back against
the wall and faced the constables and mob. He shot the former, and
wounded others, but was at last taken and sent to Newgate." Whitney,
the famous highwayman, was taken without Bishopsgate, being "discovered
by one Hill, as he (Whitney) walked the street. Hill observed where
the robber 'housed,' and calling for assistance, went to the door."
Whitney defended himself for about an hour, but the people increasing,
and the officers of Newgate being sent for, he surrendered himself, but
not before he had stabbed Hill with a bayonet, "not mortal." He was
handcuffed and shackled with irons, and committed to Newgate.
Whitney had done business on a large scale. He had been arrested before
by a party of horse despatched by William III, which had come up with
him lurking between St. Alban's and Barnet. He was attacked, but made a
stout defence, killing some and wounding others before he was secured.
He must have got free again very soon afterwards. His second arrest,
which has just been detailed, was followed by that of many others of
his gang. Three were seized near Chelsea College by some soldiers; two
more were in company, but escaped. On Sunday two others were taken; one
kept a livery stable at Moorfield's. Soon after his committal there
was a strong rumour that he had escaped from Newgate, but he continued
closely confined there, and had forty pounds weight of irons on his
legs. He had his tailor make him a rich embroidered suit with peruke
and hat, worth £100; but the keeper refused to let him wear them,
because they would disguise him.
Whitney made many attempts to purchase pardon. He offered to discover
his associates, and those that give notice when and where the money is
conveyed on the roads in coaches and wagons. He was, however, put upon
his trial, and eventually convicted and sentenced to death. He went
in the cart to the place of execution, but was reprieved and brought
back to Newgate with a rope round his neck, followed by a "vast" crowd.
Next night he was carried to Whitehall and examined as to the persons
who hired the highwaymen to rob the mails. But he was again ordered
for execution, and once more sought to gain a reprieve by writing a
letter in which he offered, if he might have his pardon, to betray
a conspiracy to kill the king. His last appeal was refused, and he
suffered at Porter's Block, near Cow Cross, Smithfield.
Determined efforts were made from time to time to put down these
robberies, which were often so disgracefully prevalent that people
hardly dared to travel along the roads. Parties of horse were quartered
in most of the towns along the great highways. Handsome rewards were
offered for the apprehension of offenders. A proclamation promised £10
for every highwayman taken, and this was ere long increased to £40, to
be given to any one who might supply information leading to an arrest.
Horses standing at livery in and about London, whose ownership was at
all doubtful, were seized on suspicion, and often never claimed. It was
customary to parade before Newgate persons in custody who were thought
to be highwaymen. They were shown in their riding-dresses with their
horses, and all gentlemen who had been robbed were invited to inspect
this singular exhibition. But the robberies flourished in spite of all
attempts at repression.
One or two types of the highwaymen of the seventeenth century may
here be fitly introduced. One of the earliest and most celebrated was
Jack Cottington, _alias_ "Mulled Sack," who had been a depredator
throughout the Commonwealth epoch, and who enjoyed the credit of having
robbed Oliver Cromwell himself on Hounslow Heath. His confederate in
this, Horne, once a captain in Downe's foot regiment, was overtaken,
captured, and hanged, but Cottington escaped. Jack Cottington began
as a chimney-sweep, first as an apprentice, then on his own account,
when he gained his soubriquet from his powers of drinking mulled
sack. From this he graduated, and soon gained a high reputation as
a pickpocket, his chief hunting-ground being churches and Puritan
meeting-houses, which he frequented demurely dressed in black with a
black _roquelaire_. He succeeded in robbing Lady Fairfax of a gold
watch set with diamonds, and a gold chain, as she was on her way to
Doctor Jacomb's lecture at Ludgate; and a second time by removing the
linchpin from her ladyship's carriage when on her way to the same
church, he upset the coach, and giving her his arm, relieved her of
another gold watch and seals. After this he became the captain of a
gang of thieves and night prowlers, whom he organized and led to so
much purpose that they alarmed the whole town. His impudence was so
great that he was always ready to show off his skill as a thief in any
public-house if he was paid for it, in a performance he styled "moving
the bung." He was not content to operate in the city, but visited the
Parliament House and Courts of Law at Westminster, and was actually
caught in the act of picking the Protector's pocket. He narrowly
escaped hanging for this, and on coming out of gaol took permanently
to the highway, where he soon achieved a still greater notoriety. With
half a dozen comrades he robbed a government wagon conveying money
to the army, and dispersed the twenty troopers who escorted it, by
attacking them as they were watering their horses. The wagon contained
£4,000, intended to pay the troops quartered at Oxford and Gloucester.
Another account states that near Wheatley, Cottington put a pistol to
the carrier's head and bade him stand, at which both carter and guard
rode off for their lives, fearing an ambuscade. The town of Reading he
laid under frequent contribution, breaking into a jeweller's shop in
that town and carrying off the contents, which he sported on his person
in London. Again at Reading, hearing that the Receiver-General was
about to send £6,000 to London in an ammunition wagon, he entered the
receiver's house, bound the family, and decamped with the money. Being
by this time so notorious a character, he was arrested on suspicion,
and committed for trial at Abingdon Assizes. There, however, being
flush of cash, he found means to corrupt the jury and secure acquittal,
although Judge Jermyn exerted all his skill to hang him. His fame was
now at its zenith. He became the burthen of street songs—a criminal
hero who laughed the gallows to scorn. But about this time he was
compelled to fly the country for the murder of Sir John Bridges, with
whose wife he had had an intrigue. He made his way to Cologne, to the
court of Charles II, whom he robbed of plate worth £1,500. Then he
returned to England, after making overtures to Cromwell, to whom he
offered certain secret papers if he might be allowed to go scot-free.
But he was brought to the gallows, and fully deserved his fate.
Claude Duval is another hero whose name is familiar to all readers of
criminal chronology. A certain halo of romance surrounds this notorious
and most successful highwayman. Gallant and chivalrous in his bearing
towards the fair sex, he would spare a victim's pocket for the pleasure
of dancing a _corranto_ with the gentleman's wife. The money he levied
so recklessly he lavished as freely in intrigue. His success with the
sex is said to have been extraordinary, both in London and in Paris.
"Maids, widows, and wives," says a contemporary account, "the rich,
the poor, the noble, the vulgar, all submitted to the powerful Duval."
When justice at length overtook him, and he was cast for death, crowds
of ladies visited him in the condemned hold; many more in masks were
present at his execution. After hanging he lay in state in the Tangier
Tavern at St. Giles, in a room draped with black and covered with
escutcheons; eight wax tapers surrounded his bier, and "as many tall
gentlemen in long cloaks." Duval was a Frenchman by birth—a native of
Domfront in Normandy, once a village of evil reputation. Its curé was
greatly surprised, it is said, at finding that he baptized as many as
a hundred children and yet buried nobody. At first he congratulated
himself in residing in an air producing such longevity; but on closer
inquiry he found that all who were born at Domfront were hanged at
Rouen.
Duval did not long honour his native country with his presence. On the
restoration of Charles II he came to London as footman to a person
of quality, but soon took to the road. Numerous stories are told of
his boldness, his address, and fertility of resource. One of the most
amusing is that in which he got an accomplice to dress up a mastiff in
a cow's hide, put horns on his head, and let him down a chimney, into a
room where a bridal merrymaking was in progress. Duval, who was one of
the guests, dexterously profited by the general dismay to lighten the
pockets of an old farmer whom he had seen secreting a hundred pounds.
When the money was missed it was supposed that the devil had flown away
with it. On another occasion, having revisited France, he ingratiated
himself with a wealthy priest by pretending to possess the secret of
the philosopher's stone. This he effected by stirring up a potful of
molten inferior metal with a stick, within which were enclosed a number
of sprigs of pure gold, as black lead is in a pencil. When the baser
metals were consumed by the fire, the pure gold remained at the bottom
of the pot. Overjoyed at Duval's skill as an alchemist, the priest made
him his confidant and bosom friend, revealing to him his secret hoards,
and where they were bestowed. One day, when the priest was asleep after
dinner, Duval gagged and bound him, removed his keys, unlocked his
strong boxes, and went off with all the valuables he could carry. Duval
was also an adroit card-sharper, and won considerable sums at play by
"slipping a card;" and he was most astute in laying and winning wagers
on matters he had previously fully mastered. His career was abruptly
terminated by his capture when drunk at a tavern in Chandos Street,
and he was executed, after ten years of triumph, at the early age of
twenty-seven.
William Nevison, a native-born member of the same fraternity, may be
called, says Raine, "the Claude Duval of the north. The chroniclers of
his deeds have told us of his daring and his charities, for he gave
away to the poor much of the money he took from the rich." Nevison
was born at Pontefract in 1639, and began as a boy by stealing his
father's spoons. When chastised by the schoolmaster for this offence,
he bolted with his master's horse, having first robbed his father's
strong box. After spending some time in London thieving, he went to
Flanders and served, not without distinction, in a regiment of English
volunteers commanded by the Duke of York. He returned presently to
England, and took to the road. Stories are told of him similar to those
which made Duval famous. Nevison was on the king's side, and never
robbed Royalists. He was especially hard on usurers. On one occasion
he eased a Jew of his ready money, then made him sign a note of hand
for five hundred pounds, which by hard riding he cashed before the
usurer could stop payment. Again, he robbed a bailiff who had just
distrained a poor farmer for rent. The proceeds of the sale, which the
bailiff thus lost, Nevison restored to the farmer. In the midst of his
career, having made one grand _coup_, he retired from business and
spent eight years virtuously with his father. At the old man's death he
resumed his evil courses, and was presently arrested and thrown into
Leicester Gaol. From this he escaped by a clever stratagem. A friendly
doctor having declared he had the plague, gave him a sleeping draught,
and saw him consigned to a coffin as dead. His friend demanded the
body, and Nevison passed the gates in the coffin. Once outside, he
was speedily restored to life, and now extended his operations to the
capital. It was soon after this that he gained the soubriquet, "Swift
Nick," given by Charles II, it is said. There seems to be very little
doubt that Nevison was actually the hero of the great ride to York,
commonly credited to Turpin. The story goes that he robbed a gentleman
at Gadshill, then riding to Gravesend, crossed the Thames, and galloped
across Essex to Chelmsford. After baiting he rode on to Cambridge and
Godmanchester, thence to Huntingdon, where he baited his mare and slept
for an hour; after that, holding to the north road, and not galloping
his horse all the way, reached York the same afternoon. Having changed
his clothes, he went to the bowling-green, where he made himself
noticeable to the lord mayor. By and by, when recognized and charged
with the robbery at Gadshill, Nevison called upon the mayor to prove
that he had seen him at York; whereupon he was acquitted, "on the bare
supposition that it was impossible for a man to be at two places so
remote on one and the same day."
Nevison appears to have been arrested and in custody in 1676. He was
tried for his life, but reprieved and drafted into a regiment at
Tangier. He soon deserted, and returning to England, again took to
the road. He was next captured at Wakefield, tried, and sentenced to
death; but escaped from prison, to be finally taken up for a trifling
robbery, for which he suffered at York. The depositions preserved by
the Surtees' Society show that he was the life and centre of a gang
of highway robbers who worked in association. They levied blackmail
upon the whole countryside; attended fairs, race meetings, and public
gatherings, and had spies and accomplices, innkeepers and ostlers, who
kept them informed of the movements of travellers, and put them in the
way of likely jobs to be done. Drovers and farmers who paid a tax to
them escaped spoliation; but all others were very roughly handled. The
gang had its headquarters at the Talbot Inn, Newark, where they kept a
room by the year, and met at regular intervals to divide the proceeds
of their robberies.
Many instances are recorded of another crime somewhat akin to highway
robbery. The forcible abduction of heiresses was nothing new; but it
was now prosecuted with more impudence and daring than heretofore.
Luttrell tells us, under date 1st June, 1683, that one Mrs. Synderfin,
a rich widow, was taken out of her carriage on Hounslow Heath, by a
Captain Clifford and his comrades. They carried her into France to
"Calice" against her will, and with much barbarous ill-usage made her
marry Clifford. Mrs. Synderfin or Clifford was, however, rescued, and
brought back to England. Clifford escaped, but presently returning to
London, was seized and committed to custody. He pleaded in defence his
great passion for the lady, and his seeing no other way to win her. It
was not mere fortune-hunting, he declared, as he possessed a better
estate than hers. But the Lord Chief Justice charged the jury that they
must find the prisoners guilty, which they did, and all were sentenced
to imprisonment in Newgate for one year. Captain Clifford was also to
pay a fine of £1,000, two of his confederates £500 each, and two more
£100. In the same authority is an account how—"Yesterday a gentleman
was committed to Newgate for stealing a young lady worth £10,000, by
the help of bailiffs, who arrested her and her maid in a false action,
and had got them into a coach, but they were rescued." Again, a year or
two later, "one Swanson, a Dane, who pretends to be a Deal merchant,
is committed to Newgate for stealing one Miss Rawlins, a young lady of
Leicestershire, with a fortune of £4,000. Three bailiffs and a woman,
Swanson's pretended sister, who assisted, are also committed, they
having forced her to marry him. Swanson and Mrs. Bainton were convicted
of this felony at the King's Bench Bar; but the bailiffs who arrested
her on a sham action were acquitted, with which the court was not well
pleased. Swanson was sentenced to death, and executed. As also the
woman; but she being found with child, her execution was respited."
A more flagrant case was the abduction of Miss Mary Wharton in 1690,
the daughter and heiress of Sir George Wharton, by Captain James
Campbell, brother to the Earl of Argyll, assisted by Sir John Johnson.
Miss Wharton, who was only thirteen years of age, had a fortune of
£50,000. She was carried away from her relations in Great Queen Street,
on the 14th November, 1690, and married against her will. A royal
proclamation was forthwith issued for the apprehension of Captain
Campbell and his abettors. Sir John Johnson was taken, committed to
Newgate, and presently tried and cast for death. "Great application was
made to the king and to the relations of the bride to save his life,"
but to no purpose, "which was thought the harder, as it appeared upon
his trial that Miss Wharton had given evident proof that the violence
Captain Campbell used was not so much against her will as her lawyers
endeavoured to make it." Luttrell says, "Sir John refused pardon unless
requested by the friends of Mrs. Wharton. On the 23d December, he went
in a mourning coach to Tyburn, and there was hanged." No mention is
made of the arrest of Captain Campbell, whom we may conclude got off
the continent. But he benefited little by his violence, for a bill was
brought into the House of Commons within three weeks of the abduction
to render the marriage void, and this, although the Earl of Argyll
on behalf of his brother petitioned against it, speedily passed both
Houses.
The affair of Count Konigsmark may be classed with the foregoing, as
another notorious instance of an attempt to bring about marriage with
an heiress by violent means. The lady in this case was the last of the
Percies, the only child and heiress to the vast fortune of Jocelyn,
the Earl of Northumberland. Married when still of tender years to the
Earl of Ogle, eldest son of the Duke of Newcastle, she was a virgin
widow at fifteen, and again married against her consent, it was said,
to Thomas Thynne, Esq., of Longleat;[112:1] "Tom of Ten Thousand," as
he was called on account of his income. This second marriage was not
consummated; Lady Ogle either repented herself of the match and fled
into Holland, or her relatives wished to postpone her entry into the
matrimonial state, and she was sent to live abroad.
Previous to her second marriage, a young Swedish nobleman, Count
Konigsmark, when on a visit to England, had paid his addresses to her,
but he had failed in his suit. After his rejection he had conceived a
violent hatred against Mr. Thynne.
The count was "a fine person of a man, with the longest hair I ever
saw, and very quick of parts. He was also possessed of great wealth
and influence;" "one of the greatest men," Sir John Reresby tells
us, "in the kingdom of Sweden; his uncle being at that time governor
of Pomerania, and near upon marrying the King of Sweden's aunt."
Konigsmark could command the devoted service of reckless men, and
among his followers he counted one Captain Vratz, to whom he seems to
have entrusted the task of dealing with Mr. Thynne. Vratz, although a
brave soldier, who had won his promotion at the siege of Mons, under
the Prince of Orange, and to whom the King of Sweden had given a
troop of horse, was willing to act as an assassin. The count came to
London, living secretly in various lodgings, as he declared to hide a
distemper from which he suffered, but no doubt to direct privately the
operations of his bravoes. Vratz associated with himself one Stern,
a Swedish lieutenant, and Boroski, "a Polander," who had arrived in
England destitute, and whom, it was subsequently proved, the count had
furnished with clothes and arms. The murderers, having set a watch for
their victim, attacked him at the corner of Pall Mall, about the spot
where Her Majesty's Theatre now stands, as he was riding on Sunday
night, the 21st February, 1681, in his carriage from the Countess of
Northumberland's house. One of them cried to the coachman, "Stop, you
dog!" and a second, Boroski, immediately fired a blunderbuss charged
with bullets into the carriage. Four bullets entered Mr. Thynne's body,
each of which inflicted a mortal wound. The murderers then made off.
The unfortunate gentleman was carried dying to his own house, where
he was presently joined by the Duke of Monmouth, his intimate friend,
Lord Mordaunt, and Sir John Reresby, specially sent by King Charles,
who feared that some political construction would be put upon the
transaction and was anxious that the perpetrators of the crime should
be apprehended. Reresby, who was an active magistrate, granted warrants
at once against several suspected persons, and he himself, accompanied
by the Duke of Monmouth and others, made a close search, which ended
in the arrest of Vratz in the house of a Swedish doctor, in Leicester
Fields. His accomplices were also soon taken, and all three were
examined by the king in Council, when they confessed that they had done
the deed at the instigation of Count Konigsmark, "who was lately in
England."
At the same time a Monsieur Foubert, who kept an Academy in London
which a younger brother of Count Konigsmark attended, was arrested as
being privy to the murder, and admitted that the elder brother had
arrived incognito ten days before the said murder, and lay disguised
till it was committed, which gave great cause to suspect that the
count was at the bottom of the whole bloody affair. The king despatched
Sir John Reresby to seize Konigsmark, but the bird had flown; he went
away early, on the morning of the day after the deed was perpetrated.
He went down the river to Deptford, then to Greenwich, and the day
after to Gravesend, where he was taken by two king's messengers,
accompanied by "Mr. Gibbons, servant to the Duke of Monmouth, and Mr.
Kidd, gentleman to Mr. Thynne." He was dressed "in a very mean habit,
under which he carried a naked sword." When seized he gave a sudden
start, so that his wig fell off, and the fact that he wore a wig,
instead of his own hair as usual, was remembered against him at his
trial, as an attempt at disguise. The count was carried to an inn in
Gravesend, where he expressed very great concern when he heard that
his men had confessed; declaring that it (the murder) was a stain upon
his blood, "although one good action in the wars, or lodging on a
counterscrap, would wash all that away." His captors received the £200
reward, promised in the _Gazette_, and in addition the £500 offered by
Sir Thomas Thynne, Mr. Thynne's heir.
They carried him at once to London, before the king in Council, where
he was examined, but the Council being unwilling to meddle on account
of his quality, as connected with the kingdom of Sweden, he was then
taken before Chief Justice Pemberton, who could, if he thought fit,
send him to gaol. He was examined again till eleven at night, and at
last, "much against the count's desire," was committed to Newgate.
He stood upon his innocency, and confessed nothing, yet "people are
well satisfied that he is taken." While in Newgate, Count Konigsmark
was lodged in the governor's house, and was daily visited by persons
of quality. Great efforts were now made to obtain his release. The M.
Foubert, already mentioned, came to Sir John Reresby, and offered him
any money to withdraw from the prosecution, but the overtures were
stoutly rejected, and his emissary was warned to be cautious "how
he made any offers to pervert justice." A more effectual attempt at
bribery was probably made on the jury, of whom the prisoner challenged
eighteen. He had their names on a list, and knew beforehand whom he
could or could not trust. The judge, Lord Chief Justice Pemberton, was
also clearly in his favour. The defence set up was that Vratz had taken
upon himself to avenge an affront offered by Mr. Thynne to his master,
and Count Konigsmark denied all knowledge of his follower's action. The
count tried to explain the privacy in which he lived, and his sudden
flight. But the counsel for the prosecution laid great stress on the
intimacy between him and the murderers; the absence of any object on
the part of the latter, unless instigated by the former. The Chief
Justice, however, summed up for the count, assuring the jury that a
master could not be held responsible for the acts of his servants, if
ignorant of them, and that if they thought the count knew nothing of
the murder till after it was done, they must acquit him, which they
did, "to the no small wonder of the auditory," as Luttrell says, "as
more than probable good store of guineas went amongst them." Konigsmark
was set at liberty at the end of the trial, but before his discharge
he was bound in heavy securities, in £2,000 himself, and £2,000 from
two friends, to appear at the King's Bench Bar the first day of the
following term. "Yet notwithstanding, the count is gone into France,
and it is much doubted whether he will return to save his bail."
After his departure he was challenged by Lord Cavendish and Lord
Mordaunt, but no duel came off, Konigsmark declaring that he never
received the cartel till too late. His agents or accomplices, or
whatever they may be called, were convicted and executed.
Count Konigsmark did not long survive Mr. Thynne, nor did he succeed
in winning Lady Ogle's hand. That doubly widowed yet virgin wife
presently married the Duke of Somerset, by whom she had two sons. As
for Konigsmark, according to the "Amsterdam Historical Dictionary,"
quoted in Chambers's "Book of Days," he resumed the career of arms, and
was wounded at Cambray in 1683. He afterwards went to Spain with his
regiment, and distinguished himself on several occasions; after that
he accompanied an uncle Otto William to the Morea, where he was present
at the battle of Argas. In this action he so overheated himself that he
was seized with pleurisy, and died at the early age of twenty-seven,
within little more than four years of the murder of Mr. Thynne. It was
another Count Konigsmark, near relative of this one, Count Philip,
whose guilty intrigue with Sophia Dorothea, wife of George I, when
Elector of Hanover, led to his assassination in the electoral palace.
In the foregoing the softer sex were either victims or the innocent
incentives to crime. In the case of that clever and unscrupulous
impostor Mary Moders, otherwise Carelton, commonly called the German
Princess, it was exactly the opposite. The daughter of a chorister in
Canterbury Cathedral, she first married a shoemaker; then, dissatisfied
with her lot, ran off to Dover and committed bigamy with a doctor. She
was apprehended for this, tried, and acquitted for want of evidence.
She next passed over to Holland, and went the round of the German
spas, at one of which she encountered a foolish old gentleman of large
estate, who fell in love with her and offered marriage. She accepted
his proposals and presents; but having cajoled him into entrusting her
with a large sum to make preparations for the wedding, she absconded to
Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where she took ship and came over to London.
Alighting at the Exchange Tavern, kept by a Mr. King, she assumed
the state and title of a princess, giving herself out as the ill-used
child of Count Henry Van Wolway, a sovereign prince of the empire.
John Carelton, a brother-in-law of her landlord, at once, "in the most
dutiful and submissive manner," paid his addresses to her, and she at
last condescended to marry him. Carelton was presently undeceived by an
anonymous letter, which proved his wife to be a cheat and impostor.
The princess was arrested, committed to Newgate, and tried for polygamy
at the Old Bailey, but was again acquitted. On her release, deserted
by Carelton, she took to the stage, and gained some reputation, in
a piece especially written for her entitled the "German Princess."
Her fame spread through the town, and she was courted by numberless
admirers, two of whom she played off against each other; and having
fleeced both of several hundred pounds, flouted them for presuming to
make love to a princess. Another victim to her wiles was an elderly
man, worth about £400 per annum, who loaded her with gifts; he was
continually gratifying her with one costly present or another, which
she took care to receive with an appearance of being ashamed he should
heap so many obligations on her, telling him she was not worthy of so
many favours. One night when her lover came home in liquor, she got
him to bed, and when he was asleep rifled his pockets, securing his
keys and a bill on a goldsmith for a hundred pounds. Opening all his
escritoires and drawers, she stole everything, gold pieces, watches,
seals, and several pieces of plate, and then made off. After this
she led a life of vagabondage, moving her lodgings constantly, and
laying her hands on all she could steal. She was adroit in deceiving
tradesmen, and swindled first one and then another out of goods. At
last she was arrested for stealing a silver tankard in Covent Garden,
and committed again to Newgate. This time she was found guilty and cast
for death, but the sentence was commuted to transportation. She was
sent in due course to Jamaica, but within a couple of years escaped
from the plantations, and reappeared in England. By some means she
managed to pass off as a rich heiress, and inveigled a rich apothecary
into marriage, but presently robbed him of above £300 and left him. Her
next trick was to take a lodging in the same house with a watchmaker.
One night she invited the landlady and the watchmaker to go to the
play, leaving her maid, who was a confederate, alone in the house.
The maid lost no time in breaking open the watchmaker's coffers, and
stole therefrom thirty watches, with about two hundred pounds in cash,
which she carried off to a secure place in another part of the town.
Meanwhile the "princess" had invited her dupes to supper at the Green
Dragon Tavern in Fleet Street, where she managed to give them the
slip and joined her maid. This was one of the last of her robberies.
Soon afterwards fate overtook her quite by accident. The keeper of
the Marshalsea, in search of some stolen property, came to the house
where she lodged, in New Spring Gardens, and saw her "walking in the
two-pair-of-stairs room in a nightgown." He went in, and continuing his
search, came upon three letters, which he proceeded to examine. "Madam
seemed offended with him, and their dispute caused him to look at her
so steadfastly that he knew her, called her by her name, and carried
away both her and her letters." She was committed and kept a prisoner
till 16th January, 1673, when she was arraigned at the Old Bailey, as
the woman Mary Carelton, for returning from transportation. On the last
day of the Sessions she received sentence of death, "which she heard
with a great deal of intrepidity."
She appeared more gay and brisk than ever on the day of her execution.
When the irons were removed from her on her starting for Tyburn, she
pinned the picture of her husband Carelton to her sleeve, and carried
it with her to the gallows. She discovered herself to a gentleman in
the crowd as a Roman Catholic, and having conversed with him for some
time in French, on parting said, "_Mon ami, le bon Dieu vous benisse_."
At the gallows she harangued the crowd at some length, and died as she
had lived, a reckless although undoubtedly a gifted and intelligent
woman.
Prominent among the criminal names of this epoch is that of the
informer, Titus Oates, no less on account of the infamy of his conduct
than from the severe retribution which overtook him in the reign of
James II. The arraignment of Green, Berry, and Laurence Hill for the
trial of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, who were brought for the purpose
"from Newgate to the King's Bench Bar," is a well-known judicial
episode of the year 1678. Oates was the principal witness against
them; but he was followed by Praunce, an approver, and others. After
much evidence for and against, and much equivocation, the Lord Chief
Justice Scroggs summed up the evidence strongly for conviction. When
the jury soon returned a verdict of guilty, the Lord Chief Justice
commended them, and said if it were the last word he had to speak
he would have pronounced them guilty. Sentence was then given, and
within a fortnight they were executed. These victims of the so-called
Popish Plot were, however, amply and ruthlessly avenged. Macaulay
tells the story. Oates had been arrested before Charles II's death for
defamatory words, and cast in damages of £100,000. He was then, after
the accession of James II, tried on two indictments of perjury, and it
was proved beyond doubt that he had by false testimony deliberately
murdered several guiltless persons. "His offence, though in a moral
light murder of the most aggravated kind, was in the eye of the law
merely a misdemeanour." But the tribunal which convicted made its
punishment proportionate to the real offence. Brutal Judge Jeffries
was its mouthpiece, and he sentenced him to be unfrocked and pilloried
in Palace Yard, to be led round Westminster Hall, with an inscription
over his head declaring his infamy; to be pilloried in front of the
Royal Exchange, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and after an
interval of two days to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. He was to
be imprisoned for life, and every year to be brought from his dungeon
and exposed in different parts of the capital. When on the pillory he
was mercilessly pelted, and nearly torn to pieces. His first flogging
was executed rigorously in the presence of a vast crowd, and Oates, a
man of strong frame, long stood the lash without a murmur. "But at last
his stubborn fortitude gave way. His bellowings were frightful to hear.
He swooned several times; but the scourge still continued to descend.
When he was unbound it seemed he had borne as much as the human frame
could bear without dissolution. . . . After an interval of forty-eight
hours Oates was again brought out from his dungeon. He seemed unable
to stand, and it was necessary to drag him to Tyburn on a sledge." He
was again flogged, although insensible, and a person present counted
the stripes as seventeen hundred. "The doors of the prison closed
upon him. During many months he remained ironed in the darkest hole
in Newgate." A contemporary account written by one of his own side
declares he received "upwards of two thousand lashes—such a thing was
never inflicted by any Jew, Turk, or heathen but Jeffries. . . . Had
they hanged him they had been more merciful; had they flayed him alive
it is a question whether it would have been so much torture."[124:1]
Dangerfield, another informer of the Oates type, but of lesser guilt,
was also convicted and sentenced to be similarly flogged from Aldgate
to Newgate, and from Newgate to Tyburn. "When he heard his doom he went
into agonies of despair, gave himself up for dead, and chose a text
for his funeral. His forebodings were just. He was not indeed scourged
quite so severely as Oates had been; but he had not Oates's iron
strength of body and mind." On his way back to prison he was assaulted
by Mr. Francis, a Tory gentleman of Gray's Inn, who struck him across
the face with a cane and injured his eye. "Dangerfield was carried
dying into Newgate. This dastardly outrage roused the indignation
of the bystanders. They seized Francis, and were with difficulty
restrained from tearing him to pieces. The appearance of Dangerfield's
body, which had been frightfully lacerated by the whip, inclined many
to believe that his death was chiefly if not wholly caused by the
stripes which he had received." The Government laid all the blame on
Francis, who was tried and executed for murder.
Religion and politics still continued to supply their quota of inmates.
The law was still cruelly harsh to Roman Catholics, Quakers, and all
Non-conformists.
The Fifth Monarchy men in 1661, when discomfited and captured, were
lodged in Newgate, to the number of twenty or more. Venner, the
ringleader, was amongst them. The State Trials give the trial of one
John James, who was arraigned at the King's Bench for high treason.
He was found guilty of compassing the death of the king, and suffered
the cruel sentence then in force for the crime. James has left some
details of the usage he received in Newgate, especially in the matter
of extortion. Fees to a large amount were exacted of him, although a
poor and needy wretch, "originally a small coal-man." In the press-yard
he paid 16_s._ to the keeper Hicks for the use of his chamber, although
he only remained there three or four days. The hangman also came to
demand money, that "he might be favourable to him at his death,"
demanding twenty pounds, then falling to ten, at last threatening,
unless he got five, "to torture him exceedingly. To which James said he
must leave himself to his mercy, for he had nothing to give him." Yet
at the execution, the report says the sheriff and the hangman were so
civil to him as to suffer him to be dead before he was cut down. After
that he was dismembered; some of the parts were burnt, but the head
and quarters brought back to Newgate in a basket, and exposed upon the
gates of the city. Venner and several others suffered in the same way.
Many Quakers were kept in Newgate, imprisoned during the king's
pleasure for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.
Thus John Crook, Isaac Grey, and John Bolton were so confined, and
incurred a præmunire or forfeiture of their estates. But the most
notable of the Quakers were Penn and Mead. In its way this is a most
remarkable trial, on account of the overbearing conduct of the Bench
towards the prisoners. In 1670 these two, the first described as
gentleman, the second as linen-draper, were indicted at the Old Bailey
for having caused a tumultuous assembly in Gracechurch Street. The
people collected, it was charged, to hear Penn preach. The demeanour
of the prisoners in the court was so bold, that it drew down on them
the anger of the recorder, who called Penn troublesome, saucy, and so
forth. The jury were clearly in their favour, and brought in a verdict
of not guilty, but the court tried to menace them. The lord mayor, Sir
Samuel Stirling, was especially furious with Penn, crying, "Stop his
mouth; gaoler, bring fetters and stake him to the ground." At last the
jury, having refused to reconsider their verdict, were locked up;
while Penn and Mead were remanded to Newgate. Next day the jury came
up, and adhered to their verdict. Whereupon the recorder fined them
forty marks apiece for not following his "good and wholesome advice,"
adding, "God keep my life out of your hands."[127:1] The prisoners
demanded their liberty, "being freed by the jury," but were detained
for their fines imposed by the judge for alleged contempt of court.
Penn protested violently, but the recorder cried, "Take him away!" and
the prisoners were once more haled to Newgate. Edward Bushell, one of
the above-mentioned jurors, who was committed to Newgate in default of
payment of fine, subsequently sued out a Habeas Corpus, and was brought
before Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, who decided in his favour, whereon
he and the other jurymen were discharged from gaol.
There were Roman Catholics too in Newgate, convicted of participation
in the Popish Plot. Samuel Smith, the ordinary, publishes in 1679 an
account of the behaviour of fourteen of them, "late Popish malefactors,
whilst in Newgate." Among them were Whitehead, provincial, and Fenwick,
procurator, of the Jesuits in England, and William Harcourt, pretended
rector of London. The account contains a description of Mr. Smith's
efforts at conversion and ghostly comfort, which were better meant
than successful.
After the revolution of 1688 there was an active search after Romish
priests, and many were arrested; among them two bishops, Ellis and
Leyburn, were sent to Newgate. They were visited in gaol by Bishop
Burnet, who found them in a wretched plight, and humanely ordered their
situation to be improved. Other inmates of Newgate at this troublous
period were the ex-Lord Chief Justice Wright and several judges. It
was Wright who had tried the seven bishops. Jeffries had had him made
a judge, although the lord keeper styled him the most unfit person in
the kingdom for that office. Macaulay says very few lawyers of the time
surpassed him in turpitude and effrontery. He died miserably in Newgate
about 1690, where he remained under a charge of attempting to subvert
the Government.
FOOTNOTES:
[92:1] Who were responsible for the keeper and the prison generally.
[112:1] Still the seat of the Thynnes; and the property of the head of
the family—the present Marquis of Bath.
[124:1] Doctor Oates in the next reign was to some extent indemnified
for his sufferings. When quite an old man he married a young city
heiress with a fortune of £2,000; and a writer who handled this
"Salamanca wedding," as it was called, was arrested. Oates was in the
receipt of a pension of £300 from the Government when he died in 1705.
[127:1] The practice of fining jurors for finding a verdict contrary
to the direction of the judge had already been declared arbitrary,
unconstitutional, and illegal.