The Duke of York, speaking of Bedloe’s evidence before the Lords
(November 8), says, ‘Upon recollection the King remembered he was
at Sommerset House himself, at the very time he swore the murder was
committed:... his having been there at that time himself, made it
impossible that a man should be assaulted in the Court, murder’d, and
hurryd into the backstairs, when there was a Centry at every door, a
foot Company on the Guard, and yet nobody see or knew anything of it.*
Now evidence was brought that, at 5 P.M. on Saturday, October 12, the
Queen decided to be ‘not at home.’ But Bedloe placed the murder as early
as 2 P.M., sometimes, and between two o’clock and five o’clock the King
may, as the Duke of York says, have been at Somerset House. Reresby, in
his diary, for November 21, 1678, says that the King told him on that
day that he was ‘satisfied’ Bedloe had given false evidence as to
Godfrey’s murder. The Duke of York probably repeats the King’s grounds
for this opinion. Charles also knew that the room selected by Bedloe as
the scene of the deed was impossible.
Life of James II, i. pp. 527, 528.