PRANCE AND BEDLOE
At this point the atmosphere begins somewhat to clear. Two trials have
been discussed, and the result is seen that the two chief witnesses
at them were guilty of wilful perjury. Bedloe contradicted himself
beyond belief. Although it was by no means clear at the time, the men
convicted upon the evidence of Prance were certainly innocent. This
has since been universally recognised. Yet the verdict against them
was not perverse, and small blame attaches to the judges and jury who
acted on the evidence of Prance. For all they knew he was speaking the
truth. The witnesses for the defence were uncertain in points of time
to which they spoke, and Prance was to a certain extent corroborated by
independent evidence. On the case which came into court the conviction
was certainly justifiable. It is now possible to see that the verdict
was wrong. The motive which Prance alleged for the crime was weak
in the extreme, and his subsequent conduct supports the fact of his
perjury. Although an absolute alibi was not proved for any of the
accused at the time of the murder, a considerable body of evidence came
near the point, and an alibi was proved both for Green and for Hill
at the time when Prance stated that each was engaged in dogging Sir
Edmund Godfrey to his death. The sentries proved that the body had not
been removed in the manner which Prance described. The evidence of the
inmates of Hill’s house proved that it had not been placed where Prance
affirmed. Green, Berry, and Hill were wrongfully put to death.
From this point it is necessary to start upon the pursuit of the
truth, and before starting it is well to take a view of the situation.
Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey disappeared on Saturday, October 12. Five
days later his body was found in a field near Primrose Hill. He had
been murdered, and the crime was committed for some motive which was
not that of robbery. He was murdered moreover not where his corpse
was found, but in some other place from which it had afterwards been
conveyed thither. Whoever was the criminal had placed the body in such
a way that those who found it might attribute the magistrate’s death
to suicide. Two witnesses appeared to give evidence to the fact of
the murder. These two were the only men who ever professed to have
direct knowledge on the subject. They both accused innocent men, told
elaborate falsehoods, and contradicted one another. Their stories
were so unlike, and yet had so much in common, that the fact must be
explained by supposing either that there was some truth in what they
said, or that one swore falsely to support the perjury of the other.
The relation between the two is the point to which attention must
be devoted in order to trace the interaction of their motives and
to determine whether both or neither or one and not the other knew
anything about the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey.
Nearly eight years after these events, in the second year of the
reign of King James the Second, Miles Prance pleaded guilty to an
indictment of wilful perjury for having sworn falsely at the trial of
Green, Berry, and Hill.[244] Later, when L’Estrange was writing his
work on _The Mystery of Sir E. B. Godfrey Unfolded_, Prance sent to
him an account of the manner in which his evidence had been procured.
He was, he said, wholly innocent and wholly ignorant of the murder.
Before his arrest he knew no more of Godfrey, Bedloe, or any one else
concerned than was known to the world at large. His arrest took place
upon Saturday, December 21. During the nights of Saturday and Sunday he
lay in irons in the dungeon in Newgate. Early on the Sunday morning he
was disturbed by the entrance of a man, who, as Prance declared, laid
a sheet of paper beside him and went out. Soon after another entered,
set down a candle, and went out. By the light of the candle Prance read
the paper; “wherein,” says L’Estrange, “he found the substance of these
following minutes. So many Popish lords to be mentioned by name; fifty
thousand men to be raised; commissions given out; officers appointed.
Ireland was acquainted with the design; and Bedloe’s evidence against
Godfrey was summed up and abstracted in it too. There were suggestions
in it that Prance must undoubtedly be privy to the plot, with words to
this purpose, you had better confess than be hanged.” In the evening
of the same day he was taken to Shaftesbury’s house and examined by
the earl. The Whig leader threatened him with hanging if he would
not confess and acquiesce in what had been suggested to him in the
paper. He could resist no longer, he said, “and so framed a pretended
discovery in part, with a promise to speak out more at large if he
might have his pardon.” A paper containing this was given him to sign,
and he was sent back to Newgate, where he made a formal confession the
next day. Clearly, thought Prance, the men who came into his cell, and
left instructions for the evidence which he was to give and a light by
which to read them, had acted under orders from Shaftesbury.[245] This
is what Prance and L’Estrange had to say about this first confession.
Before examining it further it will be proper to consider Prance’s
condition between that time and the date when after numerous manœuvres
he finally returned to it. On December 30 he appeared before the
council and recanted his confession. For nine days there seems to have
been no development. Prance lay in the dungeon and adhered to his
last statement. But on January 8 Captain Richardson, the keeper of
Newgate, and his servant, Charles Cooper, appeared before a committee
of the privy council with information that Prance was feigning madness.
When he was fettered he behaved the more sensibly. It was ordered
accordingly that he should be kept in irons and that Dr. Lloyd, the
Dean of Bangor, should be asked to visit and converse with him.[246]
On January 10 a similar order was given for the admittance of William
Boyce, an old friend of Prance, to be with him in prison. Cooper passed
two nights with the prisoner. His sleep was irregular, and he spent
long periods raving and crying out that “it was not he murdered him,
but they killed him.” In spite of his wild talk Prance seemed to behave
rather as if he wished to be thought mad than as if he actually were
so; he ate heartily, used a bed and blankets which had been given him,
and adjusted his dress with care.[247] Boyce also visited him, and
found him sometimes reasonable, at others apparently out of his senses.
Once he found him lying at full length on the boards of his cell and
crying, “Guilty, guilty; not guilty, not guilty; no murder”; but when
he first went to the prison Prance met him quietly and said, “Here
am I in prison, and I am like to be hanged. I am falsely accused.”
Shaftesbury’s threats had terrified him for the safety of his life,
but he was anxious to learn that Green, Berry, and Hill had not been
set at liberty, and in a conversation of January 11 told Boyce “that
he would confess all if he were sure of his pardon.”[248] On Friday,
January 10, Dr. Lloyd visited Newgate and found Prance in a very
wretched condition. The weather was intensely cold, and the prisoner
suffered severely from it, despite the covering with which he had been
provided. He was very weak and denied his guilt sullenly, but after
a time begged Lloyd to come again the next day, when he would tell
everything that he knew.[249] Accordingly on the evening of January 11
the dean returned, and Prance was brought to him by the hall fire. For
some time he remained stupefied by the cold; he was without a pulse
and seemed almost dead; but after warming himself at the fire threw
off the lethargy and conversed with Lloyd briskly and with freedom.
The dean reported to the council: “He appeared very well composed and
in good humour, saying that he had confessed honestly before, and had
not wronged any of those he had accused.” He proceeded further to tell
of a plot to murder the Earl of Shaftesbury, and said that a servant
of Lord Arundel, one Messenger, had undertaken to kill the king. Lloyd
warned him to be careful of speaking the truth; Prance protested that
he would do nothing else. When he had finished his confession he asked
to be lodged in a warmer room and to have the irons knocked off.[250]
From that time onward he remained steadfast to his first confession.
Writing many years later, when everybody connected with the Plot had
fallen into discredit and Prance had pleaded guilty to the charge
of perjury, Lloyd assured L’Estrange that he had never believed the
informer’s evidence. In this he was deceived by his after opinions,
for at the time he told Burnet that it was impossible for him to doubt
Prance’s sincerity.[251] Lloyd did not escape the calumny which pursued
every one who refused to be an uncompromising supporter of all the
evidence offered in the investigation of the Plot. He expressed himself
doubtful as to the guilt of Berry and thought that Prance might have
made a mistake of identity. It was immediately said that Berry had made
horrible confessions to him, and that he had been pressed at court not
to divulge them.[252]
Prison life in the seventeenth century was hard. Prisoners were treated
in a way that would now be considered shameful, and Prance did not
escape his share of ill-treatment. He was kept in the cell reserved
for felons and murderers. According to the general practice he was
heavily ironed. Until his life was thought in danger he had nothing
but the boards on which to lie. The greatest hardship arose from the
cold, against which there was no real provision. But there is no
evidence that Prance more hardly used than his fellow gaol-birds.
A detestable attempt was afterwards made to prove that he had been
tortured in prison to extract confessions from him. In the course of
the year 1680 Mrs. Cellier, the Roman Catholic midwife of otherwise
dubious reputation, published a pamphlet entitled “Malice Defeated;
or a Brief Relation of the Accusation and Deliverance of Elizabeth
Cellier.” The work was an attack upon the prosecutors of the Popish
Plot, conducted with all the coarse weapons of seventeenth-century
controversy. Incidentally she called the crown witnesses “hangman’s
hounds for weekly pensions.” On September 11 she was indicted for a
malicious libel and tried before Baron Weston and the Lord Mayor. The
libel lay in her open declaration that Prance was put on the rack in
Newgate and that Francis Corral, who had been imprisoned on suspicion
of complicity in Godfrey’s murder, was subjected to intolerably ill
treatment and active torture in Newgate in order to make him confess
his guilt.[253] The charges which Mrs. Cellier made were not only
outrageous but ridiculous, and were so improbable as not to deserve
detailed discussion. Witnesses were called for the prosecution who
proved their complete falsity, and Mrs. Cellier’s counsel virtually
threw up his brief. Not only did the keeper of Newgate deny everything
in the publication relating to himself, but the parties who had been
mentioned in it were summoned as witnesses and gave decisive evidence.
Prance denied the whole story and, what was of greater value than his
word, made the pertinent remark that, had he been used in such a way
as Mrs. Cellier suggested, Dr. Lloyd must certainly have known about
it. The man Corral had been kept out of court by the defence, but he
had already denied all Mrs. Cellier’s allegations in a deposition
made before the Lord Mayor. His wife had made a similar deposition
and, being now called as a witness, wholly refused to support the
statements of the accused. Her husband had been treated hardly, as were
all prisoners, but Mrs. Cellier’s charges of torture and brutality
were false. She had been allowed to see her husband occasionally and
to send him food constantly, and he had been given a charcoal fire
in his cell to protect him from the cold weather. Mrs. Cellier had
offered to support them both, apparently on the understanding that they
should acquiesce in what she had said.[254] Another important witness
proved the falsehood of many statements made in the publication, and
after a lengthy summing up of the evidence by Baron Weston the jury
without difficulty returned a verdict of guilty against the prisoner.
Mrs. Cellier was sentenced to stand three times on the pillory, to
a fine of a thousand pounds, and to imprisonment until the fine was
paid.[255] Eight years later the same charges were repeated by Sir
Roger L’Estrange and were supported by Prance, to whose objects this
line of conduct was now better suited. The evidence which L’Estrange
collected was exactly similar to that which Mrs. Cellier had obtained,
and equally worthless. Not only the result of the trial, but the
essential improbability of the facts alleged makes it certain that
these allegations were absolutely devoid of truth.[256] Dr. Lloyd,
who was well acquainted with the hard treatment accorded to Prance,
saw no evidence that it exceeded the common practice of the prison,
and disbelieved the gruesome stories which were industriously spread
abroad.[257]
Whether or no Prance was subjected to illegitimate and illegal
pressure after his recantation in order to secure his adherence to
the earlier confession is a question of less importance than how that
confession was obtained. Prance’s subsequent account has already been
given. It remains to be considered whether that was true or false.
Apart from the rest of the evidence produced at the trials of the
Popish Plot, that of Prance exhibited one remarkable peculiarity. All
the other witnesses altered and rearranged their stories with constant
facility to suit the conditions in which they found themselves at any
moment. Among this rout of shifting informations the evidence of Prance
offers an exception to the rule of self-contradiction. In all but a few
particulars it remained constant. Other witnesses invariably put out
feelers to try in what direction they had best develop their tales. The
methods of Oates, Atkins, and Bedloe are notorious instances of this.
Prance produced the flower of his full-blown. Its bouquet was as strong
when it first met the air as at any later time. The evidence which
he gave to Godfrey’s murder in his first confession was as decisive
and consistent in form as after constant repetition, recantation, and
renewed asseverance. Almost all the other witnesses at their first
appearance told stories which were loose, haphazard, inconsequent.
Prance’s story was from the beginning minute and elaborate. He spoke
of places in great detail and afterwards pointed them out. He gave a
coherent account of what had happened at each spot. On these points he
did not contradict himself. The evidence which he proceeded to give
about the Plot in general throws his account of Godfrey’s death into
high relief. His later information was exactly similar in character to
that offered by all the other witnesses. It was vague and incoherent
and full of absurdities. The contrast to the elaboration and detail of
his previous evidence is striking.
Compared with Bedloe’s account of the murder the testimony of Prance
shows another noteworthy feature. The evidence of the two men hardly
covers the same ground at all. In almost every particular it offers
remarkable points of difference. Up to the date of October 12 the two
stories run in different lines altogether. According to Prance two
priests, named Gerald and Kelly, had, by means of menace and abstract
arguments, induced him to join with them and four others, Green,
Hill, Berry, and Vernatt, in the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey,
on the score that “he was a busy man and going about to ruin all the
Catholics in England.”[258] One Leweson, a priest, was also to have
a hand in the business. Bedloe’s tale on the contrary was that Le
Fevre, Pritchard, Keynes, and Walsh, four Jesuits, had employed him
to effect an introduction to Godfrey for them. Le Fevre afterwards
offered him £4000, to be paid by Lord Bellasis through Coleman, if he
would undertake to kill “a very material man” in order to obtain some
incriminating papers in his possession, without which “the business
would be so obstructed and go near to be discovered” that the great
Plot would come to grief.[259] At this point the stories begin to
converge, and at the same time retain strikingly different features.
Prance’s account ran that on October 12 Gerald, Green, and Hill decoyed
Godfrey as he came down the Strand from St. Clement’s into Somerset
House at about 9 o’clock in the evening under pretence of a quarrel.
Green, Gerald, Hill, and Kelly then attacked him. Green strangled him
with a twisted handkerchief, knelt with all his force upon his chest
and “wrung his neck round,” while Berry and Prance kept watch.[260] On
the nights of Saturday and Sunday the body was left in Hill’s lodgings
in Somerset House, and on Monday was removed to another room across
the court. There Hill shewed it to Prance by the light of a dark
lantern at past 10 o’clock at night: “Gerald and Hill and Kelly and
all were there.”[261] Prance had no knowledge of seeing Bedloe in the
room. At midnight on Wednesday, October 16, the corpse was placed in a
sedan chair and carried, as Prance said, by Gerald, Green, Kelly, and
himself as far as Soho Church. Hill met them there with a horse, on
which he put the body and rode with it to Primrose Hill.[262] Bedloe’s
finished account gave a picture very unlike this. He stated that on
Monday, October 14, between 9 and 10 o’clock P.M. Le Fevre took him to
a room in Somerset House and showed him the body of the murdered man
lying under a cloak. He recognised the body to be that of Sir Edmund
Godfrey. Besides Le Fevre he only saw in the room Walsh, a servant of
Lord Bellasis, the supposed Atkins, and another man whom he had often
seen in the chapel and afterwards recognised as Prance.[263] The next
day Le Fevre described the murder to him in detail. Before 5 o’clock
in the afternoon of October 12 Le Fevre, Walsh, and Lord Bellasis’
gentleman had brought Godfrey from the King’s Head Inn in the Strand
to Somerset House under the pretext of taking him to capture some
conspirators near St. Clement’s Church. They took him into a room and,
holding a pistol to his head, demanded the informations which he had
taken. On his refusal they stifled him with a pillow and then strangled
him with his cravat.[264] On Monday night the murderers agreed with
Bedloe “to carry the body in a chair to the corner of Clarendon House,
and there to put him in a coach to carry him to the place where he was
found.”[265] Two accounts of the same facts could hardly be imagined to
differ more from one another than the stories of Prance and Bedloe. To
state the matter briefly, Bedloe swore that Godfrey was murdered in one
place, at one time, in one manner, for one motive, by one set of men;
Prance swore that he was murdered in another place, at another time, in
another manner, for another motive, by another set of men. Both Prance
and Bedloe swore that they had seen the body of Sir Edmund Godfrey
at nearly the same time in a room in Somerset House on the night of
Monday, October 14, but Prance swore only to the presence of the men
whom he had named as the murderers, while Bedloe swore only to the
presence of the men whom he had named, with the addition of “the other
person he saw often in the chapel,” whom he afterwards recognised to be
Prance.
What then becomes of Prance’s statement that the only source of his
information was the paper introduced into his cell on the morning of
December 22, and containing the substance of Bedloe’s evidence? He
professed that it was solely from this that his elaborate confession
of December 23 and 24 was drawn, and that it was arranged not only
by the connivance, but absolutely at the direction of the Earl of
Shaftesbury. Nor was this all. He told L’Estrange further that after he
had been forced to retract his recantation his friend Boyce had acted
as agent of Bedloe and Shaftesbury in bringing his evidence into line
with that of Bedloe. On one point he refused to yield; he would not own
that he had worn the periwig of which Bedloe had spoken; but for the
rest, according to his own account, he made no difficulty.[266] The
story is glaringly inconsistent with the facts. So far from agreeing
first or last with Bedloe, Prance contradicted him in almost every
possible point. If it was true that, as he said, he was wholly ignorant
of the murder and concocted his confession from minutes of Bedloe’s
evidence which were given to him, the confession would have worn a
very different colour. His only object was to save his neck and get
out of Newgate. He would certainly have taken the material with which
he was provided, and have simply repeated Bedloe’s tale with so much
alteration as was necessary to make himself a partner in the murder.
He had no motive to do anything else. Even alone he could hardly have
missed the point, and by his own statement did not. Under the astute
guidance of Shaftesbury there could be no possible danger of bungling.
Instead of this being the case he acted in a fashion which, if he spoke
the truth, would have been inconceivable. Not only did he not tell the
same story as that which he professed was his only guide, but he told a
tale so entirely different that neither Bedloe’s name nor the name of
a single man given by Bedloe was mentioned in it at all. The idea of
collusion between the informers in this way must be discarded. It is
impossible that it should be true.
The story was adorned with another flourish which Prance did not
himself venture to adopt. On his arrest he was met by Bedloe in the
lobby of the House of Commons and there charged by him with complicity
in the murder. L’Estrange declared that Bedloe had first made inquiries
about him and had seized the opportunity to take a good view of him
under the guidance of Sir William Waller.[267] But it would be little
good to Bedloe to act in this way in accusing a man who might for
all he knew refuse to give evidence, or give evidence which would
not corroborate his own. The more definitely he accused Prance, the
more difficult would be his own position if Prance should not support
him. He must certainly have assured himself beforehand that Prance
would make a good witness. Assurance might have been gained either by
arranging that Prance should be informed of what was expected before
his arrest, or by the knowledge that Shaftesbury would see to the
matter afterwards. Both conjectures are in the same case. The latter
has been shewn to be wide of the mark. For the same reasons the former
must be thought equally inaccurate. Further than this the comparison
between the evidence of Prance and Bedloe shows conclusively that the
two did not arrange beforehand to give false evidence about the murder.
Perjurers may be as stupid as other men, and an awkward muddle might
have ensued; but two men arranging a profitable piece of perjury would
hardly be at the pains to contradict each other’s evidence in every
particular. Also, between the date of Bedloe’s first information and
Prance’s confession there intervened a period of seven long weeks. If
there had been previous collusion between the two. Prance would have
come forward far sooner than four days before Christmas.
Out of the total number of possible hypotheses which may be advanced
to account for the relation between Prance and Bedloe two are thus
disposed of. The witnesses did not arrange together to give evidence
of Godfrey’s murder. Nor was Prance furnished with the information
which he was wanted to give and then subjected to such pressure that
he was compelled to acquiesce in it. What then are the remaining
explanations which may be put forward? The notion that Bedloe, on
seeing Prance in custody on December 21, proceeded to denounce him at
a venture in the bare hope of getting some support from him may be
dismissed briefly. It would in any one have been a mad action to expose
himself to the risk that Prance could prove an alibi, but for Bedloe
to take such a course would have been more than improbable. When at
a former date he accused Atkins of complicity in the murder, he used
the greatest caution to obviate this risk. Until he knew whether or
no Atkins could prove an alibi he would make no positive charge at
all. The fact that his caution was justified would only make him more
careful to avoid being caught in a trap similar to that which he had
only just avoided. A more probable supposition is that Bedloe had
made sufficient inquiries to be sure that Prance could not prove an
alibi, and then denounced him, as if on the spur of the moment. This
is a theory which has likelihood in its favour and deserves to be well
weighed. Bedloe, it is supposed, had given entirely false information
about the murder. After his failure to secure the conviction of Atkins
he was compelled to turn in another direction. Looking round, his eye
fell upon Prance as a suitable tool. He made careful inquiries as to
his opportunity and ability to bear false witness, found that Prance
would be unable to make out an alibi, and denounced him dramatically
at Westminster. Prance was clapped into prison and, without having
any notes of Bedloe’s evidence given him, was so terrified by the two
nights which he spent in the dungeon in Newgate that he concocted
a false story and then made confession of it. There is certainly
something to be said in favour of this view. It was common talk that
Godfrey had been murdered in Somerset House, and Bedloe was well known
to have said as much. Prance was well acquainted with the place and the
people belonging to it. He had at least as fair a chance as another of
making a plausible account of the murder. He was in considerable danger
and in great discomfort. He had already lost his liberty and bade fair
to lose his life for speaking the truth. It was natural enough that he
should renounce his honesty and spin a tale to save his skin. He could
make use of knowledge which would render it unlikely that he should
be caught tripping. He had heard Bedloe say that he saw him on the
Monday night standing by the body with a dark lantern, so that he could
place this incident in his story without hesitation. The publicity of
the manner of Godfrey’s death would enable him to speak with equal
certainty as to the actual murder.
Here is a plausible enough theory of the relation between the witnesses
and the manner in which Prance’s evidence was procured. Unfortunately
there are considerable difficulties in the way of its acceptance. If
Prance was enabled by the words which he heard Bedloe speak to place
the incident of October 14 in his narrative, he was also enabled to
make a connection with Bedloe himself at that point. As according to
the hypothesis this was his only knowledge of the details of Bedloe’s
information, he would have been eager to make the most of it. It would
have been the first point for him to clutch. On the contrary, Prance
did nothing of the kind. He did not mention Bedloe’s name at all. The
question why he did not is, if this theory be true, unanswerable.
Bedloe too went to the trouble of spending four valuable weeks in his
search for a suitable instrument to bear out his story. If that was the
case it is surely strange that he should not have attempted to make
certain that the man whom he obtained at last should be more or less
acquainted with the tale which he was to corroborate. To do this after
the arrest would probably be very difficult, but as a previous step it
would be by no means so hard. Oates and Bedloe had many disreputable
friends, by profession Roman Catholics, who could have easily effected
an introduction to Prance and have held conversation the meaning of
which would after his arrest be plain. Instead of this Bedloe on
the hypothesis preferred to run the risk of having his whole story
contradicted. These are objections of weight; but a still greater lies
in the nature of the evidence which Prance gave on his confession. He
had been in a very cold dungeon for thirty-six hours at most, from
the evening of December 21 to the morning of December 23. If he was
unprepared for Bedloe’s charge, his mind must have been in a turmoil
of conflicting emotions. Yet within this time he evolved a story so
detailed, elaborate, connected, and consistent that he never afterwards
found the need to alter it materially. For such a task phenomenal
powers of memory, imagination, and coolness would be demanded. A man
of Prance’s station, suddenly thrown into a horrible prison on a false
charge, cannot be supposed to have been endowed with such a wealth
of mental equipment. If he had possessed a tithe of the powers which
in this case would have been necessary, he would have made sure of
cementing a firm connection in his narrative between himself and Bedloe.
This consideration then has reached the result that the relation
between the two men is not only inexplicable on the theory just
discussed, but that it is inexplicable except upon the ground that
there was more in Prance’s evidence than a work of mere fancy. Within
the space of thirty-six hours, and with every condition adverse to
clear and connected thought, he could not have produced the evidence
which he gave on December 23 and 24 unless it had been based upon some
reality in fact. On December 24 he was taken to all the places of which
he had spoken, and went to each, describing the transaction on the spot
in a manner perfectly consonant with what he had said under examination
elsewhere. The consistence of his story, its readiness, the minuteness
of its detail point to the certainty that he was speaking, not of
incidents manufactured to order, but of facts within his knowledge.
Prance was in fact a party to the murder.[268] From this it is a sure
deduction that when Bedloe denounced him in the lobby of the House of
Commons he was not, as L’Estrange asserted, making a move in a game
which had been arranged beforehand, but had on the contrary really
recognised the man and on the instant made an accusation not wholly
devoid of truth. Bedloe too must therefore have known something about
the murder. It would be an unbelievable coincidence that, if Bedloe
were wholly ignorant, he should chance to choose, out of all London,
one of the few who were not.
It now becomes evident what part of Prance’s evidence was true and
what false. The three men whose conviction for the murder he procured
were certainly innocent. Almost with equal certainty it can be said
that he was not speaking at random. The truth of what he affirmed
lay therefore in the facts and the manner of the transaction which
he described. The murder had taken place at Somerset House in the
way which he related, but he fastened the crime upon men who were
guiltless of Godfrey’s death. The extent of Bedloe’s information also
can be calculated. On every point of time and place he had prevaricated
and contradicted himself beyond measure. On none of these is his
testimony of the slightest value. Nevertheless he was possessed of
enough knowledge to accuse definitely a man who was actively concerned
in the crime and could relate the facts as they happened. Clearly he
had become acquainted with the persons who were guilty of the murder.
The probability then is that those whose names he first gave directly
were the culprits. Prance he did not know by name, but by sight alone.
From the beginning he had always spoken of “the waiter in the queen’s
chapel,” or of the man whom “he saw often in the chapel.” If this
had been a chance shot, he would afterwards have identified this man
with Green, who actually answered to the description. Instead of this
he recognised him in the person of Prance. As he only mentioned the
fact incidentally and did not insist upon it as a circumstance in
his favour, his word on the point is the more deserving of credit.
If Prance himself was a party to the murder he must have known
the real authors of it. He must have accused the innocent not from
necessity but from choice, and in order to conceal the guilty. As he
was expected and supposed to corroborate Bedloe’s evidence, his most
natural course was to introduce into his story all those whom Bedloe
had named. He carefully avoided mentioning any of them. No other reason
is conceivable except that he knew Bedloe to have exposed the real
murderers, and that he wished to shield them. What then was the motive
of the crime, and how did this extraordinary complication arise?