BEDLOE AND PRANCE
The change in the situation had been caused by the appearance of a
witness whose evidence about the murder was of the greatest weight,
and whose position in the intrigues of the Popish Plot has always been
of some obscurity. Bedloe’s information was already of a startling
character. It was as follows. Early in October he had been offered by
two Jesuits, Walsh and Le Fevre, the sum of £4000 to assist in killing
a man “that was a great obstacle to their designs.” He gave his word
that he would do so, but when on Friday, October 11, Le Fevre told
him to be ready at four o’clock the next day to do the business, he
became nervous and failed to be at the place of meeting. On Sunday he
met Le Fevre by accident in Fleet Street, and by appointment joined
him between 8 and 9 o’clock P.M. the next day in the court of Somerset
House. Le Fevre told Bedloe that the man whom he had been engaged to
kill was dead and his corpse lying in the building at that moment.
Bedloe was taken into a small room to see the body. Besides himself
and Le Fevre there were also present Walsh, the man who called himself
Atkins, a gentleman in the household of Lord Bellasis, and a person
whom he took to be one of the attendants in the queen’s chapel. A
cloth was thrown off the body, and by the light of a dark lantern he
recognised the features of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. It was agreed to
carry the corpse to Clarendon House, and to take it thence by coach
to the fields at the foot of Primrose Hill. Bedloe promised to return
at eleven o’clock to assist, but went away intending to meddle with
the business no more. The next day he happened to meet Le Fevre in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Le Fevre began to rebuke him for breaking his
word. Bedloe answered that he had been unwilling to come because he
had recognised the dead man. Le Fevre bound him to secrecy and then
proceeded to tell him how the murder had been committed. Under pretence
of making a further discovery of the plot, the two Jesuits and Lord
Bellasis’ gentleman had persuaded Godfrey to come into Somerset House
with him. They then set upon him and with two others dragged him into a
room in the corner of the court. A pistol was held to his head and he
was threatened with death unless he would surrender the examinations
which he had taken concerning the plot. If they could obtain these,
said Le Fevre, fresh examinations would have to be taken, the originals
could then be produced, and the contradictions which would certainly
appear between the two would exonerate the plotters and convict the
informers of falsehood in the eyes of the world. Godfrey refused,
saying that he had sent the papers to Whitehall. Upon this they seized
him, held a pillow over the face until he was nearly stifled, and
then strangled him with a long cravat. On Monday night, after Bedloe
had gone away, the murderers carried the body out into the fields and
placed it where it was found with the sword run through it.[215]
Bedloe’s evidence varied greatly on points of detail. The amount of the
reward which he was offered varied from two guineas to four thousand
pounds; the time at which Godfrey was killed from two o’clock to five;
the day on which his corpse was removed from Monday to Wednesday.
Sometimes he was stifled with one, at others with two pillows. Once
Bedloe said that the body was placed in the room where the Duke of
Albemarle lay in state, while according to another statement it was
hidden in the queen’s chapel. When his evidence was heard in court, a
multitude of further alterations was introduced. In all the different
versions of his story however there appeared with but little variation
the statement that Godfrey had been murdered in Somerset House in the
course of the afternoon on Saturday, October 12, by the means or at
the direction of three Jesuits, Walsh, Pritchard, and Le Fevre, and
that on the night of the following Monday he had seen the body lying
in Somerset House in the presence of these three, and of a man whom he
thought to be a waiter in the queen’s chapel.
Of all those mentioned only one fish had been netted, and it was
certain that even he could not be brought to land. At the trial of
Atkins the Attorney-General darkly hinted that had it not been for the
conviction on the previous day, the prisoner would have been indicted
as a principal in Godfrey’s murder, and would probably have been
condemned.[216] But it may be doubted that this was more than a piece
of bravado. The evidence of Captain Atkins was worth nothing; that of
Bedloe little more. If the informers had expanded and defined their
information to an extent unparalleled even in the history of the Popish
Plot, where such things were not rare, it would hardly have produced
much effect. The evidence produced for Atkins’ alibi was too strong to
be seriously shaken. By the middle of November the investigation into
the murder had thus come to a halt. Proclamations were out for the rest
of the men accused by Bedloe, but there seemed to be every probability
that they would escape. If Atkins were brought to trial and acquitted,
consequences which would be serious to the policy of the Whigs on the
committees of secrecy might ensue. Consequences almost as serious were
to be expected in the event of his being released without a trial. In
either one case or the other the failure to obtain a conviction for the
murder of Godfrey would be damaging to their cause. They had staked
much on the cards, and it seemed as if the game was going against them.
Unless fortune came to their aid, the murder of which there had been
so much talk would go unpunished, and the sensation which it created
would die down.
Meanwhile the public mind was occupied on other points. The trials
of Staley, Coleman, and Ireland for high treason filled the greater
part of one excited month.[217] Almost till Christmas the great murder
case made no progress. Just then, when it must have seemed less than
likely after the lapse of eight weeks and after the only hopeful trail
had disappeared that any substantial advance should be gained, an
extraordinary incident occurred. There was living in Covent Garden
a Roman Catholic silversmith, by name Miles Prance, who did a fair
business with those of his own religion and was occasionally employed
by the queen. He was a friend of the Jesuits who had been imprisoned
on account of the plot and, being in liquor one day at a tavern,
had declared loudly “that they were very honest men.” Suspicion was
aroused, and on inquiry it was found that he had slept away from his
house for three nights about the time of Godfrey’s disappearance. In
point of fact this had been before the date of the murder, and Prance’s
subsequent connection with the case was due to this initial mistake.
His landlord laid information, and on Saturday, December 21, Prance
was arrested for being concerned in Godfrey’s murder. He was taken
into the lobby of the House of Commons and was there waiting until
the committee was ready to examine him, when Bedloe happened to pass
through. His eye fell upon Prance and he cried out without hesitation,
“This is one of the rogues that I saw with a dark lantern about the
body of Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey, but he was then in a periwig.”[218]
Prance was taken before the committee of the House of Lords and
strictly examined. He denied knowing Walsh, Pritchard, or Le Fevre.
He denied that he was guilty of Sir Edmund Godfrey’s death and that
he had assisted in removing his body. When he spoke of Fenwick and
Ireland in the coffee-house he was drunk. He had not worn a periwig
once in the last ten years, but he owned one at home which had been
made twelve months since from his wife’s hair. He had not been to the
queen’s chapel at Somerset House once a month. After denying that he
had received money from Grove, he confessed that Grove had paid him for
some work. He first denied, but afterwards admitted that he had hired
a horse to ride out of town. He had intended to leave London to escape
the oaths administered to Roman Catholics, but had in the meantime been
arrested.[219] Prance was committed a close prisoner to Newgate, and
was lodged in the cell known as the condemned hole. There he remained
during the nights of December 21 and 22. On the morning of Monday,
December 23, he sent a message to the committee of inquiry offering on
the assurance of pardon to confess. By order of the House of Lords the
Duke of Buckingham and other noblemen were sent to Newgate with the
promise of pardon and to take his examination.[220] At the same time
the Commons ordered that the committee of secrecy or any three of them
should examine Prance in prison, and acquaint his fellow-prisoners in
Newgate with the king’s assurance of pardon consequent on discoveries
relating to the plot.[221] Prance confessed that he had been engaged
in the murder and had much information to give on the subject. He was
examined by the lords, and on the next day repeated his deposition
before the privy council. At the beginning of October one Gerald, or
Fitzgerald, an Irish priest belonging to the household of the Venetian
ambassador, had approached him on the subject of putting out of the
way a man whose name was not divulged. About a week later he learned
that this was Sir Edmund Godfrey. Two other men were also concerned in
the matter. Green, a cushion-layer in the chapel at Somerset House,
and Laurence Hill, servant to Dr. Gauden, the treasurer of the queen’s
chapel. They told him that Godfrey was to be killed, “for that he was
a great enemy to the queen or her servants, and that he had used some
Irishmen ill.” Lord Bellasis, said Gerald, had promised a reward.
Prance consented to their proposals, the more readily because he had
a private grudge against the magistrate. During the next week they
watched for an opportunity to waylay Godfrey, and on Saturday, October
12, “did dodge him from his house that morning to all the places he
went to until he came to his death.”[222] The same day the king ordered
the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Ossory to accompany Prance to
Somerset House and examine him on the spot where he said that the
murder had taken place. There he entered into a detailed account of the
crime. At about nine o’clock at night[223] Godfrey was coming from St.
Clement Danes down the Strand, followed by Hill, Green, and Gerald.
Hill walked on ahead, and as Godfrey came opposite the water-gate of
Somerset House begged him to come into the court and put an end to
a quarrel between two men who were fighting. The magistrate turned
in through the wicket, with Hill, Green, and Gerald following them.
Prance, who was waiting inside, came to the gate to keep watch. The
others went down the court until they came to a bench in the right-hand
corner close to the stable-rails, where Berry, the porter of Somerset
House, and an Irishman, whose name Prance did not know, were sitting.
Green crept up close behind, and when they had reached the bench threw
a large twisted handkerchief round Godfrey’s neck and pulled it tight.
The three other men set upon him and dragged him down into the corner
behind the bench. Green knelt upon his chest and pounded it, and then
wrung his neck round until it was broken. This, said Prance, Green had
told him a quarter of an hour afterwards when he came down from the
gate to see what had happened. The body was carried across the court,
through a door in the left-hand corner, from which a flight of stairs
led to a long gallery. From the gallery a door opened on to a flight of
eight steps, leading into Hill’s lodgings. In a small room to the right
of the entrance the body was set on the floor, leaning against the bed.
There it remained for two days. On Monday night at nine or ten o’clock
the same men removed the corpse to another part of Somerset House,
“into some room towards the garden.” As it lay there Prance was taken
by Hill to see it. He could not say if he had seen Bedloe there, but
Gerald and Green were present. Thence twenty-four hours later the body
was taken back, first to a room near Hill’s lodging, and on Wednesday
evening to the same room in which it had been at first. At midnight
Hill procured a sedan chair, and Godfrey’s corpse was put inside.
Berry opened the gate of the court, and Prance, Gerald, Green, and the
Irishman carried the chair as far as the new Grecian Church in Soho.
There Hill met them with a horse, upon which the body was set. Sitting
behind the body. Hill rode off in company with Green and Gerald, and
deposited it where it was found, having first transfixed it with the
sword.
Having taken his examination, Monmouth and Ossory bade Prance guide
them to the places he had mentioned. Without hesitation he led the
way to the bench, and described with assurance the manner in which
the murder had been committed. Then he shewed the room in which the
body had first been laid, and conducted his examiners to every spot
of which he had spoken with unerring direction. To this process there
was one exception. Prance could not find the room in which he said the
corpse had been placed on the night of Monday 14. The three passed
up and down, into the corner of the piazza, down a flight of steps,
up again, across the great court which lay towards the river, into
and out of several rooms, but without success. The room could not be
found. Finally Prance desisted from the search, “saying that he had
never been there but that once, when Hill conveyed him thither with
a dark lantern, but that it was some chamber towards the garden.”
Monmouth and Ossory returned to the council-chamber with the report
of Prance’s examination, upon which the council made a note, “that
the said particulars were very consonant to what he had spoken at the
board in the morning, before his going.”[224] The council sat again in
the afternoon. Green, Hill, and Berry were summoned. All denied with
emphasis the charges which Prance had made against them, and denied
that they knew Sir Edmund Godfrey. Green and Hill admitted knowing
Father Gerald, and Green identified the Irishman mentioned by Prance as
a priest named Kelly. In one point Hill confirmed Prance’s evidence.
While they had been in his lodgings that morning, Monmouth and Ossory
had examined Mrs. Broadstreet, the housekeeper of his master, Dr.
Gauden. She affirmed that Hill left the lodgings at Michaelmas to move
into a house of his own in Stanhope Street. When Prance said she was
mistaken, since Hill had not left his rooms in Somerset House until a
fortnight after Michaelmas, Mrs. Broadstreet contradicted him angrily.
Hill now declared that in the middle of October he had been busy making
arrangements for the move; on the day of Godfrey’s disappearance he was
still occupied with his landlord in drawing up terms of agreement, and
the agreement was not concluded until the Wednesday following.[225]
In addition to his evidence about Godfrey’s murder, Prance made a
statement concerning the plot. Fenwick, Ireland, and Grove, he said,
had told him that “Lord Petre, Lord Bellasis, the Earl of Powis, and
Lord Arundell were to command the army.” As more decisive evidence had
already been given against all these, his information was of little
consequence. He also desired to be set at liberty, that he might be
able to discover some persons connected with the plot whose names were
unknown to him. The request was naturally refused, but Prance was
removed from the dungeon and Hill was confined there in his place.[226]
Within forty-eight hours from this time Prance had recanted his whole
story. On the evening of Sunday, December 29, Captain Richardson, the
keeper of Newgate, received an order of council to bring Prance before
the Lords’ committee for examination. Prance was in a state of great
agitation and begged to be taken to see the king. Charles received him
in the presence of Richardson and Chiffinch, his confidential valet.
Prance fell upon his knees and declared that the whole of his evidence
had been false, that he was innocent of the murder, and the men whom
he had accused as far as he knew were innocent too. The next day he
was taken before the council and persisted that he knew no more of
Godfrey’s murder than was known to the world. He was asked if any one
had been tampering with him and answered, No. Hardly had he been taken
back to Newgate when he begged Captain Richardson to return to the
king and say that all his evidence had been true, and his recantation
false.[227] From this he again departed and reaffirmed his recantation.
He was heavily ironed and a second time imprisoned in the condemned
hole. Here he remained until January 11, 1679, when to complete the
cycle of his contradictions he once more retracted his recantation and
declared that the whole of his original confession was true.
On February 10, 1679 Green, Berry, and Hill were brought to the bar
of the Court of King’s Bench to be tried upon an indictment for the
murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The prosecution began by evidence
to shew that for some days before his disappearance Godfrey had been
in a state of alarm. Oates swore that Godfrey had complained to him
of the treatment he had received in consequence of having taken
his deposition; on the one hand those who wished to accelerate the
discovery of the plot had blamed him for not being sufficiently eager
in its prosecution; those, on the other, who were endangered by Oates’
revelations had threatened the magistrate for the action which he had
taken. Godfrey told Oates that “he went in fear of his life by the
popish party, and that he had been dogged several days.” The testimony
of Oates carries no greater weight on this than on any other occasion,
but he was supported by another and a more respectable witness. Mr.
Robinson, chief protonotary of the court of common pleas, gave evidence
of Godfrey’s disturbance of mind. The two had met on October 7, and
Robinson questioned the magistrate about the depositions which he
had taken. Godfrey replied that he wished that another had been in
his place, for he would have small thanks for his pains; the bottom
of the matter had not yet been reached, he said; and then, turning to
Robinson, exclaimed, “Upon my conscience I believe I shall be the first
martyr,”[228] This was the prelude by which the evidence of Prance
and Bedloe was introduced. Bedloe retold the story to which he had
treated the council, the committee, and the House of Lords. This time
it differed in almost every point of detail from the statements which
he had previously made. The Jesuits who tempted him into the murder had
sent him about a week before to effect an acquaintance with Godfrey.
There were several separate schemes on foot to dispatch the justice.
After seeing the body upon Monday night he had gone away and never
seen the murderers again. The Jesuits told him that Godfrey had been
strangled, but how he did not know. His account of his many interviews
with Le Fevre were hopelessly at variance with what he had said about
them before.[229] But as the rules of legal procedure did not admit
as evidence depositions and reports of testimony given elsewhere, it
was impossible to convict the witness of these alterations. Bedloe’s
evidence too shewed striking points of difference from that of Prance,
who preceded him, even after he had toned it into better accord. The
prisoners, excited and ignorant, unused to sifting evidence and wholly
unskilled in examining witnesses, failed altogether to detect and point
out the discrepancies.
The evidence given by Prance was, on the contrary, remarkably
consistent with the information which he had furnished on other
occasions. He went through all the incidents which he had detailed
first to the council and then on the spot to the Duke of Monmouth and
the Earl of Ossory. He described each point with perfect decision and
answered the questions put to him without hesitation. The only point
on which he showed uncertainty was when he was asked to describe the
room in which the body lay on the night of October 14. He said frankly,
“I am not certain of the room, and so cannot describe it.” In one
particular alone did a statement vary from his previous evidence. He
had told the council that on the morning of the fatal Saturday Green
had called at Godfrey’s house and inquired if he was at home.[230]
Now he said that he could not be certain whether it was Green or Hill
who went to Hartshorn Lane.[231] His motive in altering the distinct
statement is not far to seek. Elizabeth Curtis, who had been maid at
Godfrey’s house, was called as a witness. She testified that on the
morning of October 12 Hill came to see her master and had conversation
with him for several minutes. He wore the same clothes, she said,
in which he appeared in court; and Hill admitted that he had been
dressed in the same way on that day. Green had come to Hartshorn Lane
about a fortnight before to ask for Godfrey, but on the date of his
disappearance Hill was there alone.[232] The suspicion is difficult to
stifle that Prance had some knowledge of the evidence which the maid
would give, and altered his own in order not to contradict it. When
he afterwards published his _True Narrative and Discovery of several
Remarkable Passages relating to the Horrid Popish Plot_, he simply
stated in accordance with the evidence of Curtis that it was Hill who
spoke with Godfrey on that morning.[233] In some other points Prance’s
evidence was supported by independent witnesses. He had spoken of
meetings held by Gerald, Kelly, the prisoners, and himself at a tavern
with the sign of the Plow, where he was enticed to be a party to the
murder. The fact that they were frequenters of the Plow was proved by
the landlord of the inn and his servant.[234] About a fortnight after
the murder Prance had entertained a small party at the Queen’s Head
Inn at Bow. Gerald was there, and a priest named Leweson, and one
Mr. Vernatt, who was described as being in service to Lord Bellasis.
They were joined by a friend of Vernatt, named Dethick, and dined on
flounders and a barrel of oysters. According to Prance’s statement
Vernatt should have been present at the murder, but as he had been
prevented, Gerald furnished the company with an account of the manner
in which it had been accomplished. While the talk ran thus, Prance
heard a noise outside the door. Opening it suddenly, he caught the
drawer eavesdropping and sent him off with threats of a kicking.[235]
This was confirmed by the evidence of the drawer. He had listened at
the door and heard Godfrey’s name mentioned, and one of the party had
threatened to kick him downstairs.[236] Several important witnesses
were called for the defence. Mary Tilden, the niece of Dr. Gauden,
and his housekeeper, Mrs. Broadstreet, gave evidence that Hill was at
home on the evening of the murder and the following nights, when he
was accused of being busy with the body, and that the corpse was never
brought to their lodgings. The judges continually bullied and sneered
at the witnesses. The room in which Prance said the body was laid was
described by Sir Robert Southwell as “an extraordinary little place.”
Mrs. Broadstreet said that it was impossible for a corpse to be placed
there without their knowledge. On this Mr. Justice Wild told her that
it was very suspicious, and Dolben remarked, “It is well you are not
indicted.” The hostile attitude of the court was not mollified when
it appeared that there was some confusion in the evidence of both
witnesses. Mary Tilden stated that during the time when they were in
town she had never been out of the lodgings after eight o’clock in the
evening. “When were you out of town?” asked Mr. Justice Jones. “In
October,” the witness answered. The judge pointed out that October was
just the month in question. Mistress Tilden said that she had made a
mistake; she had meant to say that they were out of town in September.
She said too that there was only one key to the door of the lodgings;
but Prance declared, and was not contradicted, that in her examination
before the Duke of Monmouth, Mrs. Broadstreet had admitted that there
were several. The latter made the mistake of saying that Hill occupied
the rooms until a fortnight after Michaelmas, whereas she had before
sworn, as Sir Robert Southwell testified, that he left them in the
first week in October.[237] The workman who had been employed at
Hill’s new house in Stanhope Street proved that he had been in Hill’s
company from nine to two in the afternoon of Saturday, October 12, and
a neighbour that Hill had been at his house from five to seven o’clock
on the same evening.[238] Green called for his defence his maid, his
landlord, and the landlord’s wife. The maid testified that Green was
always at home before nine o’clock at night; James Warrier and his wife
that he was within doors in their company till after ten o’clock on the
night of October 12. Mrs. Warrier however made the mistake of saying
that this was a fortnight after Michaelmas day, which it was not, and
so raised a doubt that the evidence was directed to a time a week later
than the date in question.[239] The most weighty evidence for the
defence was produced by Berry in the persons of the sentries who had
kept guard at the gate of Somerset House on the night of Wednesday,
October 16. On that night Prance swore that Berry had opened the gate
to let the sedan chair containing Godfrey’s corpse pass out. From seven
to ten o’clock Nicholas Trollop had kept guard, Nicholas Wright from
ten to one, from one to four Gabriel Hasket. During the first watch
a chair had been carried into Somerset House, but all three men were
confident that none had been carried out. They were equally positive
that at no time had they left the beat to drink at Berry’s house or
with any one else. If the gate had been opened and a sedan taken
through, it would certainly have been seen by the soldier on duty.
Berry’s maid also testified that her master had come in that evening at
dusk and had remained at home until he went to bed at midnight.[240]
The only part of the evidence for the prisoners to which the Lord Chief
Justice devoted attention in his summing up was the testimony of the
sentries. He remarked to the jury that it was a dark night and that the
soldier might not have seen the gate opened, or, having seen, might
have forgotten, Scroggs went over the evidence of Bedloe briefly and of
Prance at length, and delivered a harangue on the horrors of the Plot,
of which Godfrey’s murder, he said, was “a monstrous evidence.” After
a short deliberation the jury returned a verdict of guilty against all
the prisoners. The Chief Justice declared if it were the last word he
had to speak in this world he should have pronounced the same verdict,
and the spectators in court met his announcement with a shout of
applause.[241]
On February 11 Green, Berry, and Hill came up to receive sentence, and
ten days later Green and Hill were hanged at Tyburn, denying their
guilt to the last. Berry, who was distinguished from them by being
a Protestant, was granted a week’s respite. To the indignation of
Protestant politicians he made no confession, and when he was executed
on February 28, declaring his innocence to the end, a rumour was spread
that the court party had gained him to a false conversion in order to
give the Roman Catholics the chance of saying that he at least could
not have lied in hope of salvation.[242] It was afterwards remembered
that by an extraordinary coincidence Primrose Hill, at the foot of
which Godfrey’s body was found, had in former days borne the name of
Greenberry Hill.[243]