The Jacobite Murders

by G. M. Best

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘I come to bring you back a friend. She is in my carriage that waits outside your door, having been in my care these past eleven days. Had she not been the victim of a protracted fever I would have sought to bring her to you earlier.’

  Delight spread across Lady Overbury’s face. ‘Is it my maid?’ she asked. ‘Have you found Sarah Darr?’

  ‘No, madam. I said that I brought you a friend not a servant.’ He moved to the window and gave a signal. Lady Overbury crossed over to where he stood and, to her delight, saw Sophia Westbrook stepping out of the carriage with the assistance of a woman whom she assumed was Mrs Newton, her maid. Such was the relief she felt at this sight that she was rendered speechless. A few minutes later Sophia was ushered into the room and she flung herself into Lady Overbury’s arms. Only then did the older woman find her voice again and it shook with emotion. She expressed all the fears that had so dominated her thinking since Sophia’s disappearance and her intense joy that these had proved unfounded. It was only as she spoke that she took in how pale and drawn the young woman was. This was living evidence of the illness that had so recently laid her young friend so low.

  Sophia chose not to dwell on her experiences but outlined as briefly as she could the events of her escape and how she had found Jenny Jones and discovered the true parentage of Tom Jones. She confided all that she knew about the affair between Squire Woodforde’s unfortunate sister and the young Henry Fielding. Then she recounted all the help and support given to her by Charles Wesley and other Methodists at the old foundry, especially after she had fallen ill. ‘I think,’ she concluded, ‘that my sickness stemmed from that first night of our flight. We travelled for too many hours in the cold and then we were soaked. I am fortunate that I fell into such kind hands here in London or else I might have died.’

  Lady Overbury turned to Charles Wesley, who had stood patiently aside while the two women had been speaking to each other. She said very softly, ‘I cannot thank you enough, sir, for all that you have done.’

  ‘It is no more than anyone with a Christian heart would have done,’ he replied modestly. ‘But you can do what I cannot, Lady Overbury.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You can help reconcile a father to his daughter and you can help Miss Westbrook explain to Squire Woodforde and Mr Fielding the surprising news of their relationship to Mr Jones. They may not find it easy to accept what Jenny Jones has said, but I can assure you that she is now telling the real truth about what happened all those years ago. I will confess that I was not sure that Miss Westbrook was wise in her desire to tell you first. There are too many women who love to gossip. However, now that I have met you and seen the way you love her, I admit I was wrong. She will benefit from your wise assistance.’

  Lady Overbury acknowledged his praise with a smile and slight inclination of her head. ‘Sir, I will do all I can to speedily bring matters to a happy conclusion by arranging to return with Miss Westbrook to Bath as soon as we can board an appropriate coach. In return I ask one thing of you.’ She paused and he saw that she still had a troubled mind, despite the happy reunion. ‘Please pray that I may also one day discover what has happened to my lost maid and see her captors brought to justice. Her abduction weighs heavily upon me.’

  ‘Her abduction?’ queried Sophia, looking puzzled.

  Lady Overbury swore them both to secrecy and proceeded to explain all the events that had happened in Bath and how they had culminated in the death of Joseph Graves and the disappearance of Sarah Darr. Sophia could not help herself dwelling on Tom Jones’s brave role so it was left to Wesley to bring a more perceptive mind to the startling account. He asked her to provide him with a description of her missing maid and this she provided with admirable clarity. He immediately looked very worried. ‘I have met someone called Sarah Darr and she was of the age and appearance you describe. If it is the same woman then I fear you may have been most grievously deceived. How long was this maid in your employ?’

  ‘I only acquired her as my maid shortly before I travelled to Bath. My previous maid resigned unexpectedly and I was in a state as to how to quickly replace her with someone dependable. I was enormously relieved when Lady Rudd said she knew a girl who was very reliable and sent me Darr. But what do you know of her?’

  ‘In the summer of 1743 my brother John asked me to travel throughout the south-west preaching and that included going to Cornwall. Some of the clergy made out that I was a Jacobite agent and raised mobs against me in Bodmin, Redruth and St Ives. The longer I stayed in the county the greater the attacks became. My enemies raged and roared like lions, but I persevered because thousands of tinners, who had never before heard the gospel, were coming to hear me. At Gwennap near two thousand hungry souls devoured the word of reconciliation and gave God their hearts.’ He said this without a hint of pride or any attempt to make them admire his bravery. ‘When the time came for me to go back north, I vowed to return and it was on that second visit in July of last year that I first heard about Sarah Darr and the tragic circumstances surrounding her birth.’

  Wesley took a few moments to compose his thoughts before continuing his story. ‘I found the whole county was alarmed because of the increasing fear of a Jacobite invasion. As a consequence mobs were hurling bricks and stones through the windows of any deemed to be Methodist. One stone almost killed a sleeping child in St Ives and, when the mother complained to the authorities, they refused to act, saying they were not prepared to extend justice to traitors. It was because the words Methodist and Jacobite had become synonymous that Sarah Darr came to hear me in early August when I was at Penryn. People had been pouring in all day from Falmouth and the surrounding area and I exhorted them not only to give their hearts to the Lord but also to condemn anyone who sought to bring conflict to this country and to pledge their loyalty to King George. She had not been expecting to hear such loyalty from me and it greatly displeased her.’

  ‘But why should such a young woman support the Jacobites?’ interrupted Lady Overbury.

  ‘That became clear when she demanded that Thomas Meriton, who was my companion on the tour, bring her to see me in private. She entered the room where I was staying in a highly agitated state. Her face was flushed and she shouted at me with venom in her voice, “I came to hear you because I thought you were here to rally the people in support of their true king and instead you call upon them to renew their loyalty to the usurper who wrongly sits on the throne!” Hoping to calm her down, I suggested that she should explain to me why she was so bitterly opposed to King George. In reply she told me the sad history of her father, Henry Darr, who had been a well-respected Cornish innkeeper in St Columb Major. Like many others thirty years ago, he could not understand why the government in London chose to offer the crown to a minor German prince from Hanover, who could not even speak English, in preference to the son of James II.

  ‘Henry Darr was persuaded by a colonel called Maclean to support the Jacobite rebellion in the south-west in 1715. Unfortunately Maclean was in fact a government agent and he secured the arrest of the two key Cornish Jacobite leaders, Sir Richard Vyvyan of Trelowarren and John Anstis, the MP for Launceston. A man called James Paynter, who came from a wealthy family in St Buryan, urged all Cornishmen to raise the standard of rebellion immediately before more were arrested on the information provided by Maclean. Henry Darr was one of the very few who responded. He got up with Paynter in the market square at St Columb Major and proclaimed James Francis Edward Stuart as rightful monarch.’

  ‘A brave act but a very misguided one in the circumstances,’ commented Lady Overbury.

  ‘I agree. The two men were immediately forced to go into hiding. Eventually they fled to London where they were hidden from arrest by their fellow Jacobites. Unfortunately for them James Paynter had taken with him a servant who wrote love letters to the sweetheart he had left behind. These letters were intercepted and handed over to the authorities, who thus discovered
where Paynter and Darr were staying. Both men were sent to Newgate to be tried for high treason. Henry Darr never got a trial. He died within the prison’s grim walls and his grief-stricken wife soon followed him to the grave, leaving the newly-born Sarah an orphan. That is why she is a professed Jacobite who wishes to see the triumph of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Her heart is filled with hatred for those who destroyed her parents.’ He looked at both women, who had listened to his story with mounting interest, and added, ‘I therefore strongly suspect that it is too much of a coincidence to think that all the wicked events that happened in Queen Square happened without any assistance from her. Although I did all I could to persuade Miss Darr that she should replace the anger in her heart with the peace that only God can provide, it was to no avail. She left me still bitter and tormented.’

  Sophia did not know what to make of Charles Wesley’s unexpected revelations about Sarah Darr’s links with the Jacobites, but it did not take long for Lady Overbury’s astute brain to begin re-examining the events in Bath in the light of this new information. Wesley refrained from speaking further because he saw that she was deep in thought. He could almost sense her mind going around various possibilities. Sophia also kept silence though the impatience of youth made the wait seem interminable. Finally Lady Overbury began to speak. ‘I fear, sir, that you are right and Sarah Darr has been acting all along as a Jacobite agent. It makes sense of so much of what has confused me ever since these terrible events began. I can only surmise that somehow the Jacobites gained access to the contents of Miss Grey’s letter to Lord Kearsley. Determined to get their hands on the incriminating evidence they probably bribed my maid to resign so that I would require assistance and then used Lady Rudd to persuade me to hire Sarah Darr.’

  ‘A clever ploy!’ muttered Wesley.

  Lady Overbury swallowed hard and a hint of her internal anger flashed across her face. ‘Yes, and, once she was in the house in Queen Square, she acted swiftly. I have long puzzled why I heard the noise of Miss Grey’s murder that first night because my bedroom was so far removed from hers. Now I suspect that the noise that woke me was made by Darr so that she could deceive me into believing that the murder had just taken place and at a time when she was asleep in bed. In reality I think she had murdered the unfortunate housekeeper long before then. Miss Grey did not meet her death because she opened the house in Queen Square to a stranger or because anyone had broken in; she died because she accepted the fleur-de-lis button shown to her by Darr and arranged to meet her in her room after I had gone to bed.’

  ‘But why did she not hand over the documents to Darr if she thought Lord Kearsley had sent her?’ queried Sophia.

  ‘Presumably because something must have made the housekeeper suspicious and made her refuse to hand over the documents,’ replied Lady Overbury. ‘And her refusal led to her murder.’

  ‘Hatred breeds a wickedness that destroys anyone who stands in its path!’ said Wesley, shaking his head at the thought of how much Sarah Darr had permitted herself to be consumed by unholy passions. His face creased with sorrow at her folly and its tragic outcome.

  ‘But surely,’ intervened Sophia, ‘murdering her meant she had destroyed the one person who knew where the documents were!’

  Lady Overbury acknowledged the correctness of this with a slight inclination of her head. ‘And that is why it must have been Darr who was searching the house at night in an attempt to find them. I cannot be certain but I suspect it was she who knocked out poor Mr Burnett and shot Lord Kearsley.’

  ‘His arrival would have almost certainly compromised her deception,’ agreed Wesley.

  ‘I also suspect that it was Darr whom Tom Jones pursued upstairs,’ continued Lady Overbury. ‘She locked the door to prevent him catching her and then, while he went to fetch Mr Nash and Mr Fielding, she made her escape. We were looking for an intruder and could not find one because there never was one!’

  ‘But surely she had nothing to do with what happened to my poor Tom on Guy Fawkes’ Night?’ questioned Sophia.

  Wesley was touched by her naivety and replied gently, ‘From what Lady Overbury told us earlier, Mr Jones was acting as a good watchdog and I suspect that restricted Sarah Darr’s ability to search for the missing documents. I would therefore not be surprised if she was the person who determined on his permanent removal. Whether she, or one of her fellow Jacobite traitors, hired Humphrey Watson to do the deed we shall probably never know.’ He saw Sophia recoil at the idea that any woman could be so callous as to condemn a man to be burnt to death, but Lady Overbury nodded her agreement. ‘From what you have told me about events in the King’s Bath,’ he continued, ‘it is possible that the hired assassin was murdered by her. She was not with you at the time the man was actually stabbed and his removal ensured that he could not betray her.’

  Lady Overbury flinched at the thought of such a possibility, but saw the sense in what he said. ‘I hate to say it but you may be right, Mr Wesley. She certainly got us both away from the scene of the crime with amazing speed. However, that is not to say she wielded the knife. There is another possibility. We know that there are other Jacobites in Bath because of the way in which Joseph Graves was murdered and one of them could have killed Humphrey Watson on her orders.’

  Wesley shrugged. ‘Either way she was probably responsible for his murder and also for Graves’s capture and subsequent death. She probably overheard the conversation between him and Jones and then acted to prevent the old man speaking further to Mr Nash and Mr Fielding. How she persuaded Graves to accompany her we will never know unless we can capture this wicked woman.’

  ‘And capture her we must because she alone probably knows what happened to the documents after they were taken from Graves’s room!’ exclaimed Lady Overbury in reply. ‘I will immediately write to Sir Robert Benson so that he can alert the appropriate authorities in London and I will personally go and inform Beau Nash. I was going to return to Bath in order to help Sophia but now I have a second reason for going.’

  The preacher grimly nodded his agreement. ‘The Highlanders continue to move southwards and there is no doubt their aim is to seize control of London. Should Sarah Darr still be in Bath, the nation will be deeply in your debt, Lady Overbury, if you can help Mr Nash and Mr Fielding find her and extract from her who is and who is not a potential Jacobite supporter.’

  ‘I will have my servants prepare my things for the return journey and book seats for me and Miss Westbrook on the first available coach back to Bath. Believe me, sir, when I say that we will do all we can to bring Sarah Darr to justice for what she has done.’

  ‘Amen to that!’ added Sophia, grasping Lady Overbury’s hands in hers. ‘My blood boils when I think how she tried to destroy Tom!’

  ‘May God go with you both!’ said Charles Wesley.

  13

  THE BEGGAR’S OPERA

  It was fortuitous that Beau Nash always made it his business to greet new coach arrivals because that meant no sooner had Lady Overbury taken up residence again at Mrs Hodgkinson’s in the Orange Grove on the late afternoon of 25 November, than he arrived to greet her and she was able to inform him of Sarah Darr’s treachery. He was immensely grateful for this new information but he was forced to confess that, as no trace of her missing maid had yet been found, it made no immediate difference to resolving where the vitally important documents were. What, he assured Lady Overbury, it would do was reinvigorate the search for her former maid, because that had largely been abandoned. Such was Nash’s agitation and desire to act on what she had revealed that he only gave the other passengers who had arrived that day a cursory greeting. It was therefore easy for Sophia Westbrook to pass herself off under an assumed name, especially as she had muffled herself up in order to hide her appearance.

  Lady Overbury requested that Nash should tell Fielding and Jones her news about Sarah Darr as soon as he could and she asked him to also pass on to them that she had acquired some information that was of importance to Squire Woo
dforde and his friend, Mr Westbrook. For that reason she would be glad if her friends would delay coming to see her at her lodgings until they could bring the two men with them, preferably the next day. Nash agreed to do as she asked and so Fielding and Jones were amazed to hear Lady Overbury’s news from the Master of Ceremonies later that evening. Like him, they were much annoyed that they had not suspected Sarah Darr at any stage in the proceedings. Jones was all for going to see Lady Overbury immediately because he was desperate to know what she might have found out about Sophia Westbrook, but Fielding told him that it was too late and that they should wait until they had done as she had requested and notified the others. He had no doubt that Lady Overbury would have her reasons why she wanted all four men to be present for whatever she had to say.

  That very night Jones communicated the request for a meeting to Thomas Woodforde, who was staying in the city, while Fielding made arrangements for a messenger to ride first thing the next morning to inform George Westbrook at his home. They thought that waiting for Westbrook might cause a considerable delay in them seeing Lady Overbury, but in the event the distraught father responded to the news by recklessly galloping to Bath as fast as he could. He arrived mid-afternoon and he and the others at once made their way to Mrs Hodgkinson’s house in the Orange Grove, each showing varying degrees of anxiety and puzzlement as to what news Lady Overbury might be going to reveal. Sophia Westbrook and her maid had taken up separate rooms from Lady Overbury and so they were hidden from their sight. Of the four men Jones and Westbrook were the most agitated. Jones’s manner displayed all the hope and fear of a lover who knows not what has happened to the person he adores, whilst Westbrook was obviously in a foul mood. This was partly because he had spent the whole journey to Bath wondering what ruin his daughter might have brought on his family’s good name and partly because he hated being in the presence of Tom Jones, whom he blamed as the cause of his daughter’s flight.