of the statements of the learned Attorney-general, and Mr. Sidney Taylor
addressed the jury for the defence. Having argued upon the facts of the
case proved by the witnesses for the prosecution, upon which he
contended, first, that it was quite consistent that the pistols were not
fired at the queen, but with a view only to excite alarm; and, secondly,
that the pistols might not have been loaded with ball, both of which
were necessary ingredients of the crime; he proceeded, thirdly, to the
equally important issue of insanity. With regard to this part of the
case, he entreated the jury to pay the most earnest and solemn attention
to it, for the issue raised upon it was of a most important character to
the interests of the prisoner, and he hoped to be able to convince them
of that which he was sure would shed universal satisfaction through the
country, that the prisoner was not a person who wilfully and in the
possession of his senses would commit this crime. He was sure that if
they could conscientiously come to this conclusion, they would most
willingly free the subjects of this realm from the imputation of having
them one who would, under such circumstances, dye his hands in the blood
of the sovereign. It was not the first time, unhappily, that the life of
the sovereign of this country had been attempted to be taken away; but
he rejoiced to say, for the sake of our national character, that in no
one instance had such an act been done by a person possessing a sane
mind. It had been proved in evidence that certain papers had been found
in the possession of the prisoner: and that fact, which had been opened
by the learned Attorney-general as an important feature in this case, he
placed before them as a proof of the prisoner's insanity; and he
contended that that only showed in him a mind diseased, which induced
him to suppose the existence of a society which, in fact, was never
heard of, and of which certainly he was not a member. That no such
society in fact existed, he thought he might take for granted, because
if in truth there had been any such, beyond all question its members and
its proceedings would have been discovered through the indefatigable
exertions made through the means of the highly effective police
possessed by this country, the operations of which would be called forth
from the necessity of finding whether there was anything in reality
beyond the mere act of the prisoner which portended danger to the state.
He contended that it was morally impossible that such a society could be
in existence, for he was sure that the executive government of the
country would not be accessory to the throwing any slur upon its own
character by admitting that such was the fact, and that all its
ramifications had not been brought to light. The prisoner, he contended,
must be taken to have believed that he belonged to such a society; but
in order to prove the utter absurdity of such a belief, he would prove
to the jury that the rules, as well as the letters and papers which had
been found, were all in the handwriting of the boy at the bar--a
striking and cogent proof, he thought, of his insanity. Every effort had
been made to trace the real existence of such a society, but in vain;
and he thought that the only inference which could be drawn from the
existence of these papers was, that the mind of the prisoner had been
worked upon by his own absurd fancy. With regard to the probability of
his being selected to put into operation such a plan as that of the
assassination of her Majesty, he would ask them whether it was likely
that any political society would have employed a boy of his years and
want of discretion to complete a scheme so important and yet so
horrible? How was the act itself committed? The prisoner, amongst a
number of other persons, in the open day, depriving himself of every
chance of escape, had voluntarily been guilty of an offence which
subjected him to condign punishment. Did he then attempt to escape? He
did not; and even when another person was taken under the supposition
that he was the man, he immediately came forward with a declaration that
he was the person, as if courting publicity and apprehension. What, but
insanity, could be inferred from these circumstances? Might he not well
have dreaded his destruction by a mob inflamed and excited against the
perpetrator of an attack so dreadful upon our young Queen? Yet, with a
feeling which could be deemed nothing but insanity, he persisted in
forcing himself into that very situation in which he could hope to meet
with nothing but punishment. He was taken; having been seized, he was
teased and excited, and gave answers which must not be taken into
account as admissions that there were balls in the pistols. Since that
time he had been the subject of great curiosity, and various statements,
many of them false, had been made concerning him. He felt that the jury
must come to the conclusion that he was of unsound mind at the time of
the commission of the act, and that it would be as cruel as the supposed
intended assassination itself to deliver him up to the same doom as a
sane criminal. He should produce evidence to show the tendency of the
boy's mind to insanity. His age was just that at which such a failing
would be likely to develop itself; and as in all cases some particular
period must occur at which such an aberration of intellect would first
appear, so, notwithstanding all the apparent premeditation and
contrivance which he had exhibited, the moment of his attack upon the
life of his sovereign might be that at which it would exhibit itself.
He should show that the paternal grandfather of the prisoner had been
insane, and died in a lunatic asylum. The father, it would be proved,
had been guilty of acts which clearly proved he ought not to have been
permitted to be at large. The opinion of the most eminent medical men
was that the greatest proportion of cases admitted into lunatic asylums
were cases of hereditary insanity, and if they were to refuse to
consider the case of the prisoner in this light, they would be proving
the truth of the words of a celebrated physician, that 'man's vengeance
followed God's visitation.' Let them bear in mind that no ill
consequences had followed this attempt. Her Majesty the next day had
entertained a party at dinner, and had the evening after gone to a
concert. That showed that her Majesty felt that this must have been the
act of an isolated madman, and that she had nothing to fear from the
machinations of any secret society. A great and illustrious female
predecessor of hers was told by some officious courtiers of a conspiracy
against her life; but she said 'I will not believe of my subjects
anything that a mother would not believe of her children;' and such, he
was convinced, were the sentiments of the present illustrious occupant
of the throne. The papers found in the box of the prisoner seemed to be
the commencement of the insanity, and the attempt itself the
consummation of the insanity. The whole of the persons mentioned in the
papers found in his box were creatures of his imagination; and the crape
with the bows, the sword, and the documents showed that he was the
victim of pitiable mental delusion, and the object rather of compassion
than of vengeance. It was impossible to say in what variety of shapes
the noble structure of the human mind might be ruined; and he contended,
that the whole course of conduct of the prisoner, subsequently, as well
as at the time of the commission of this supposed offence, exhibited him
to be the victim of an absurd delusion, driving him to seek notoriety,
by whatever means it was obtained, and not a person capable of any crime
so dreadful as that alleged against him. His inquiries after the safety
of the Queen showed his apprehensions, that by some accident her Majesty
might have been unintentionally injured by the wadding from the weapons
which he had discharged; and his declaration that the pistols were
loaded with ball might equally be taken as a proof of his insanity, as
the absurd desire for celebrity which had prompted him to the commission
of such an act.
A vast body of evidence was then adduced with a view to support the
defence of insanity which was set up. From it, it appeared, that the
grandfather of the prisoner was a person of colour, and that he was
frequently, when intoxicated, guilty of acts of the wildest and most
wanton description. He was a sailor, and when on shore was constantly
drunk; but in his old age he received the benefits of Greenwich
Hospital, where he died, having from his good conduct gained for himself
the rank of boatswain in the establishment, by virtue of which he was
bound to mount guard at one of the gates. Expressions were proved to
have been occasionally used by him, indicating a mind bereft of reason,
and he was stated to have suffered severely at one period of his life
from a fever. With regard to the father of the prisoner, evidence of a
similar tendency was adduced. His wife, the mother of the prisoner, was
called, and she gave a dreadful detail of the injuries which he had
inflicted upon her subsequently to her marriage with him, and of the
brutal treatment to which he had subjected her. He had several times
taken poison in her presence, and had otherwise been guilty of the most
extraordinary and outrageous conduct. The prisoner, she proved, had been
born in the year 1822, and throughout his life had exhibited symptoms of
imbecility. He would frequently burst into tears, or into fits of
laughing, without any assignable cause, and was in the habit of talking
in a strain which exhibited a most anxious desire on his part to obtain
celebrity in the world. He was always fond of the use of fire-arms, and
frequently presented pistols at the head of his sister or his mother.
Medical witnesses were also examined, who gave their decided opinion
that the prisoner was in an unsound state of mind. The general result of
their testimony went to show, that the ordinary senses of affection, and
of personal fear for the consequences of the crime charged against him,
the heinous nature of which he could not comprehend, as well as of
memory, had disappeared from his mind; that he appeared incapable of
estimating the importance of his trial as regarded his interests, and
that he neither possessed any regret for the disgrace or pain which
might be produced to his relations, nor apprehension for his own safety.
In reply to this evidence, the Solicitor-general (Sir T. Wilde) made a
most powerful speech, with consummate skill arguing upon every branch of
the proofs adduced to show the insanity of the prisoner, and contending
that the jury should in nowise be influenced by any of the topics
advanced in his favour upon the case for the prosecution, all of which
tended to show his perfect calmness and self-possession, and the
greatest degree of acuteness. He urged that the evidence of the madness
of the prisoner's father and grandfather was incomplete and
inconclusive, and that their drunken freaks could not be taken to have
had any influence in producing the disease sought to be proved in the
mind of the prisoner, and that the facts sworn to with regard to the
early life of the latter were marks of the waywardness of an indulged
child, and not of that species of madness which could free him from
criminal responsibility.
Lord Denman summed up the evidence, and at the end of the second day's
trial the jury returned a verdict, acquitting the prisoner, upon the
ground of insanity.
He was ordered to be detained, in obedience to the terms of the statute,
during her Majesty's pleasure, and was subsequently conveyed to Bedlam.
ROBERT TAYLOR.
CONVICTED OF BIGAMY.
On Monday the 29th of June, 1840, Robert Taylor, one of the most
impudent impostors that we ever remember to have read of, was tried at
the Durham sessions for polygamy. The offender was a mere youth, between
nineteen and twenty years of age; but his numerous matrimonial
adventures, and devices to obtain money, marked him as a person of
singular cunning and dexterity. His plan seems to have been in all cases
to practise first on the cupidity of his own sex, by holding out a
pecuniary reward to any one who would procure him a suitable alliance,
and then, by representing himself to be of aristocratic birth, and heir
to extensive possessions, to dazzle and win over the victim and her
friends. To aid his views, he represented himself as a son of Lord
Kenedy, of Ashby Hall, Leicestershire. He was furnished with numerous
documents, framed to corroborate his misrepresentations. These, which he
carried in a tin case, were found on his person when he was apprehended.
Amongst them was a parchment, on which was written, in a fine clerkly
hand, what purported to be "The last will and testament of Lord Kenedy,"
&c. By this document Taylor appeared to be the heir to 1,015,000_l._
Three per Cent. Consols, besides immense wealth in coal-mines,
salt-factories, woollen-factories, quarries, machinery, houses, plate,
jewellery, and even ships; and "John Nicholson, Thomas Johnson, and Mrs.
Robinson" appeared to have been constituted "guardians of the said
Robert Taylor." The documents bore date 22nd of September, 1829, and
exhibited the signatures, first, of the supposed testator "Kenedy," and
then of the attesting witnesses, "Samuel Robinson, clerk to James Lee,
and John Turner," and "William Cowley, barrister." He had also an
indenture certifying the correctness of the will, and describing his
person by certain marks on his right arm, and elsewhere. He had sundry
other papers ingeniously enough contrived for the purpose of aiding his
deception; but, as he was a youth of coarse and vulgar manners, the
success which attended his impostures can only be accounted for by the
blind avarice of his dupes. At the time of his trial, six of his
marriages, in several parts of the north of England, had come to the
knowledge of the police; but there was good reason to suppose that there
were many other instances in which he had successfully conducted his
plans. Like many who have pursued a career of base and unprincipled
deception, this scoundrel affected great sanctity, and connected himself
at different times with both the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists.
Indeed, one of his principal dupes was a Mr. Fryer, a preacher in the
last-named connexion; and Taylor, having promised a reward of 10_l._ to
any one who would procure him a young and religious wife, this person
offered him the choice of his two sisters-in-law. Taylor chose the
younger, a girl about eighteen years of age, and was married to her.
This preacher not only failed to obtain the expected reward, but was
swindled out of 12_l._ which he lent to the roguish adventurer. This,
however, proved the last of his exploits; for having made several
fruitless attempts to run away from this wife, he was at length
compelled to take her with him, and on his way through the county of
Durham he was apprehended.
The budget of papers found in the prisoner's possession contained a
multitude of curiosities besides those above alluded to, which our space
will not allow us to particularise. It appeared from one of them, an
indenture of apprenticeship, that at the age of thirteen he had been
apprenticed to a sweep and collier in Staffordshire, till he should be
twenty-one years old. The indenture described him as a poor child from
Fatfield, in the county of Durham. There were several licences and
documents relating to his marriages. One of these was a memorandum of an
agreement between Robert Taylor and Mary Wilson, of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
to marry in three months from October 16, 1839; Taylor to forfeit
20,000_l._ if he married any other woman, and Mary Anne to forfeit
one-third per annum of her yearly salary if she proved faithless.
Annexed to this was a memorandum of a loan of 4_l._ from Mary Anne's
father, with an engagement, on the part of Taylor, to pay 1_l._ per
annum interest. Many of the papers related to the prisoner's connexion
with the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists, and with the Teetotallers,
of which latter society he appears to have been a staunch adherent. The
most curious paper was "a memorandum of agreement made between Robert
Taylor, Esq., son of the late Lord Kenedy, of Ashby Hall, in the parish
of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and those he may engage as servants." We regret
that we cannot give this amusing document entire. It bears what purports
to be the prisoner's signature, and from it he appears to have engaged
an establishment of stewards, butlers, footmen, grooms, coachmen,
gamekeepers, helpers, &c., at salaries of from 20_l._ to 60_l._ per
annum, sufficient for half-a-dozen princes. The stipulation of the
engagement was, that the servants, butlers included, were to observe the
teetotal pledge.
When the prisoner was placed at the bar to take his trial, the court was
excessively crowded, and all eyes were fixed upon the young Lothario who
had so readily succeeded in procuring half-a-dozen wives. Instead of a
handsome, seductive gallant, there stood before the court a
shabby-looking individual, with a face not merely ordinary, but
repulsive. He was evidently much amused at the sensation which his
appearance produced, and joined in the smiles of the bystanders. He was
perfectly unabashed, and conducted himself throughout the trial with the
utmost ease and unconcern.
The first case taken was that of the prisoner's intermarriage with Mary
Ann Davidson, the sister-in-law of Mr. Fryer, the Primitive Methodist
preacher. John Wood, a waggoner, of Birmingham, was called to prove the
first marriage of which the authorities had any knowledge. It appeared,
that this witness met the prisoner in Birmingham, in 1838. The prisoner
told Wood he was heir to 60,000_l._ a-year, under the will of his
father, Lord Kenedy. In proof of this assertion he produced papers. He
said he had a great wish to be married to a respectable young lady, and
if Wood could introduce him to such a one, he would make him a handsome
present. Wood introduced him to Miss Sarah Ann Skidmore, and to her
father, who was a shopkeeper. The documents were shown to the young lady
and her parents; the licence and the wedding-ring were procured that
very day; and the couple were married the next morning. Shortly after,
the prisoner went to London to settle his affairs. He subsequently
returned and lived with his wife; but he had not been married more than
six or seven weeks when he deserted her altogether.
As the prisoner was undefended, the court asked him if he had any
questions to put to the witness.
Prisoner: "I'll ax him one or two. I axed you if you knew a decent girl
as wanted a husband, and you said you did; you knew as how one Sarah Ann
Skidmore wished to be married, and I told you I'd advertised, and
offered a reward of 10_l._ You took me to Benjamin Skidmore. Now, are
you sure as how he saw the dockyments?"
Witness: "Yes, quite sure; you showed him a document stating that you
would have 60,000_l._ a-year when you came of age."
Prisoner's mother (from the middle of the court): "Robert, tell them
thou's under age, and thy marriage can't stand good."
The prisoner gave a lordly wave of the hand, accompanied by a
significant gesture, intimating to his maternal parent to leave the
management of the case to his superior skill. Then, turning to the
witness, he said, "Are you sure that you yourself saw the will?"
Witness: "Yes."
Prisoner: "No, it was not the will; it was only the certicket of my
guardians to show who I was, and what property was coming to me."
Here Mr. Granger, the counsel for the prosecution, drew forth the tin
case, which was a pitman's candle-box, bearing the following
inscription, "Robert Taylor, otherwise Lord Kenedy." From this case the
learned counsel drew the "dockyments." The "will" was rich alike in its
bequests and its odours. It was a foul and filthy affair to look upon
and to approach. Disregarding the usual long and dry prefaces in which
lawyers are accustomed to indulge, it rushed at once into the marrow of
the subject. Mr. Granger tickled the ears of the court with a line or
two. Thus:--"I give and bequeath to Robert Taylor, son of Elizabeth
Taylor, single woman, 1,015,000_l._ Three per Cent. Consols and no
more." The will proceeded to bestow upon him four coal-pits, a
woollen-factory, two or three ships, and sundry other trifles, as before
mentioned.
Mary Davidson, a neat, modest-looking girl, detailed the circumstances
which led to her marriage with the prisoner. The latter, she said, was
introduced to her at the house of her father, on the 4th of April, by
Benjamin Fryer, her brother-in-law, who was a preacher among the
Primitive Methodists. The latter said he had known the prisoner some
time, and he recommended him as a pious young man whom he had brought to
the house on purpose to marry her. The prisoner said he was the son of
Lord Kenedy, and the moment he arrived in London with a wife he would
have 700_l._, and 20_l._ a year till he was of age, when he would have
60,000_l._ per annum. He showed her several documents, one of which was
a certificate that he was Lord Kenedy's son, and would have 60,000_l._ a
year when he came of age. He had previously seen her unmarried sister,
whom he rejected in favour of her. They were married, by licence, the
very next morning. They lived together three weeks, during which time
the prisoner had made several attempts to get away; and many times, in
the night, he had endeavoured to slide the ring off her finger. While
they were together, he lived upon the money which he borrowed from her
brother-in-law, to whom he owed 22_l._
The prisoner being again directed to ask the witness any questions he
pleased, said, placing his hands upon the bar, and leaning forward in a
counsellor-like attitude, "Now, Mary, are you certain that I had 22_l._
from your brother-in-law?"--Witness: "You had 12_l._ in money, and you
were to pay him a reward of 10_l._"
Prisoner: "You say I had 12_l._ in money, Mary. Now there was 10_s._ to
be paid for the ring, 5_s._ for fees, 3_l._ 10_s._ for the licence, and
8_l._ I had in money, which makes 12_l._ 5_s._ So you see, Mary, you are
wrong. You was also wrong when you said I told you I was to have 20_l._
per annum per year."--Witness: "You said 20_l._"
Prisoner: "No, Mary, I said 150_l._ per year per annum. And I wish to ax
you if I didn't say, 'Will you have me, money or no money?'"--Witness:
"No, you did not."
Prisoner: "Yes, Mary, I axed you, would you have me, money or no money,
and you consented either way."
The prisoner spoke at considerable length in his defence, giving a
rambling account of his various migrations from the north to
"Brummagem," from "Brummagem" to the north, &c., with some amusing
particulars of his marriages and courtships, whereby he wished to make
it appear that all the young ladies he came near wanted to have him, and
that he had been in every instance inveigled into wedlock for the sake
of his possessions. His main defence was, that he was under age, and
that all his marriages were illegal; and his conclusion seemed to be,
that having contracted one illegal marriage, he thought himself
perfectly justified in contracting a hundred.
The prisoner's mother having expressed a wish to give evidence, and the
prisoner having consented, she took her place in the witness-box, and
deposed that she was now the wife of Michael Rickaby. The prisoner was
not born in wedlock; she had him in a love-affair. But she would not say
who his father was. She had not come there for that. He was under age.
The jury found the prisoner "Guilty."
The prisoner was next indicted for having, in October 1839, married Mary
Ann Wilson, daughter of George Wilson, a tobacconist, of Newcastle. The
marriage to Miss Skidmore was again proved by the certificate, which
bore his lordship's mark. The prisoner, it appeared, had advertised for
a wife in the Newcastle papers. In that town he appears to have attached
himself to the Wesleyan Methodists. By his professions of religion and
his teetotal pledges, he obtained a high character for morality and
sanctity. Miss Wilson said she first saw the prisoner in October at a
Methodist chapel in Newcastle. On the same day she met him at a
class-meeting. On the 16th of October she was introduced to him by a
friend, when he promised to call upon her at three o'clock that
afternoon. He did so, and as soon as he sat down, he pulled out a tin
case which was marked "Robert Taylor, otherwise Lord Kenedy." He said he
was entitled to 60,000_l._ a year, and other hereditaments. The
following day he made her an offer of marriage, and she accepted him. He
said if he could get the loan of some money, they would be married the
next morning. Her father lent him 4_l._; a licence was bought; and they
were married the day but one after she had accepted him, and three days
after her introduction to him. Eighteen days after this he deserted her,
and she heard no more of him till he was in custody.
By the prisoner: "He spoke of putting in the bans. She did not say 'she
would rather be married off-hand.'"
Prisoner: "Oh, yes, Mary, you did. I consented to take you immediately
if the money was raised, and you raised it."
The jury returned a verdict of "Guilty."
The court having spent some time in deliberation,
The chairman said: "You have for some time been going about the country
in a most unprincipled way, marrying weak and unsuspecting girls, and
bringing misery upon them and their friends. We have seriously
considered whether it is not imperative upon us to visit you with the
severest penalty that the law allows. We have determined, however, to
stop short of this; but you must be punished with great severity for
your wicked conduct. For the first offence of which you have been
convicted, you are sentenced to be imprisoned one year to hard labour;
and for the second, to be imprisoned eighteen months to hard labour,
making altogether two years and a half."
Prisoner: "Gentlemen, when I come out again, will any of my wives have a
claim upon me?"
The court declined to answer the question, and he then requested that
his "dockyments" might be restored to him.
The court thought it better to make no order; they might be placed in
the hands of the governor of the jail.
The mother of the prisoner, on quitting the court, finding herself an
object of some attraction, became somewhat communicative on her family
history. Among other things, she stated that her son was one of General
Evans's "Legion;" and that she had sent a letter into Spain, which had
the effect of procuring his return to England. She had come from
Workington, in Cumberland, a distance of one hundred and fifteen miles,
to attend the trial; for "her son was her son," and she could not rest
without coming. One thing she would not allow curiosity to
penetrate--and that was, the mystery which hung over the prisoner's
birth. She had "kept the secret" nineteen years, and was not going to
reveal it in the twentieth. All that she would say was, that "she had
him to a real gentleman."
THOMAS PATTESON.
CONVICTED OF MANSLAUGHTER.
The trial of this person took place at Aylesbury, on Tuesday, March
10th, 1840, before Mr. Baron Parke, when the indictment charged that the
prisoner had been guilty of the manslaughter of John Charles, on the
21st of October previous, at Buckland, in Buckinghamshire. The case
excited a great deal of interest in the county, from the condition in
life of the deceased and the prisoner, who were both respectable
farmers, and from the close intimacy which had long existed between
them, as well as from the mysterious manner of the death of the former.
Though the coroner's jury returned a verdict of manslaughter only, the
prosecutors sent up a bill of indictment for murder to the grand jury,
which they ignored.