The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey

by Alan Marshall

  Oates also told the council that he had continued to be employed to carry a number of papers between the conspirators. Assassination was their real game. The killers were to be Trusty William, Pickering and Coniers. The latter had dogged the king in St James’s Park in June and July 1678, and when Charles went to Windsor Coniers had undertaken to attempt to murder him with a dagger, aided by four Irish ruffian priests. He had even purchased a set of daggers from Wood, an old Roman Catholic maker of cutlery in Russell Street. Pickering, on the other hand, was used to more conventional means of murder. He was hired to assassinate the king, but various technical problems had prevented it. John Grove and Coniers had both confessed to Oates himself that they had been hired to kill the king. Pickering and Grove even had a pistol with silver bullets to do the deed and had been promised £10,000 for their services from Father La Chaise, Louis XIV’s confessor. They had greedily asked for £15,000 and this also had been promised. Failing the bullet and the knife, the king was to be poisoned by Sir George Wakeman. Oates claimed that Fathers Ireland and Fenwick had personally told him of these plans at a Catholic meeting.

  The most significant part of the interrogation then followed. Oates took a hint in the questioning and claimed that the money for these schemes was to pass through the hands of none other than Edward Coleman. It seems this hint may well have come from Danby, anxious to get something at least out of this plot that he could use as a lever in his war at court with the Duke of York. Oates also claimed that emissaries had been sent throughout the country to spread the word that the king intended to sell his nation to a foreign state. Other methods were also to be used to incense the people and divide the nation from its rulers, whether king or parliament. Oates knew some of these emissaries through the club in Fuller’s Rents and they were, he said, the devil’s representatives. With this matter in hand, further differences were to be engineered between king and parliament, thus creating chaos in the land. Oates’s informants also mocked the king personally and claimed that Charles was so negligent that he minded nothing but whores.

  Oates was also shown the forged and mysterious letters and, naturally enough as Tonge had written them, he claimed to recognise the disguised hands of Fenwick, Blundell and other Jesuits. The Jesuits had even attempted to suborn London conventicles, but the Londoners were too clever to be taken in by their schemes. On 19 August there had been another meeting in Fenwick’s chamber at which Coniers and one Anderson were chosen to go to Windsor to further the plot. Indeed, Oates claimed that he would have had six or seven more packets of secret papers to show had not the plot been discovered. But the story had got out and the secret letters intercepted at Windsor had alarmed the conspirators.

  Oates had by now left his Privy Council audience spellbound and more than a little perplexed. There is little doubt that he had appeared convincing, especially as he had all the answers, dates, times, places and names of those involved. The ministers came to believe, or were at least half convinced, that there might well have been something in his tale.25

  The next day, 29 September, a further meeting of the Privy Council was called and this time King Charles himself decided to attend.26 As he sat down he must have viewed the whole affair with his usual cynicism, but he was willing to listen. Opinions differed as to his reaction. There is little doubt that he caught Oates out on a number of points, yet he did not press him. For example, Oates mentioned Don John of Austria, but Charles caught him out on a description of the man, whereupon Oates feebly responded that he had been told it was Don John ‘and he could say no more than he was tould’.27 The king pressed Oates as to where he had met Father La Chaise and Oates grew confused. He also pressed him as to where the Jesuit Provincial consult had met in London, and Oates boldly claimed at the White Horse in the Strand. But the king knew very well that the Jesuists had actually met in St James’s Palace, the residence of his brother James.

  The cutler Wood was also called in but he, of course, denied everything. Oates rather feebly claimed that as Wood was not in his work clothes he could not recognise him. Some in the room thought the king was showing his courage in making light of the affair, while others thought he had been half persuaded that the Jesuits were guilty of something. The king is reported to have said openly that Oates was a ‘lying knave’, but he did little more than this to ruin Oates’s chances of success and indeed seems to have been criminally irresponsible in now deciding to play no further part in investigating the affair. Coleman’s name had been mentioned, however: ‘Mr. Oats testifyed touching the . . . concern of Mr. Coleman in these matters’ and particularly of his correspondence with La Chaise, Louis XIV’s confessor.28 Perhaps the king, who had personally disliked Coleman’s meddling, thought it worthwhile to expose the man and finally remove him altogether. Whatever the reason, he lazily allowed the Privy Council to issue a number of warrants to seize some of the persons Oates had mentioned. As this was announced, Danby chipped in that Coleman’s papers ought to be seized as well as his person. It was to be a fateful remark, but was possibly based upon the information that Godfrey had given him.

  The warrants were issued but many of the birds had already flown. However, Oates and a guard of soldiers were entrusted to search the buildings and streets of the metropolis for Jesuits and others who had offended. Fathers Whitebread, Fenwick and Ireland were soon arrested. Thomas Pickering, John Grove, and a number of others were also caught up in the net. The most notable catch proved to be Edward Coleman and his interesting papers.29 At further meetings of the Privy Council the arrested men were interrogated. They naturally denied the affair, but not their knowledge of Oates. They were incarcerated in any case. Oates stumbled his way through ever more elaborate accusations and could not even recognise Coleman when he was summoned, but Coleman’s fateful papers did appear to confirm some of the plot. In fact, King Charles was disgusted at what they contained and now once and for all washed his hands of the affair. Even the Duke of York, proved reluctant to assist Coleman.

  The papers themselves were examined by a small private committee of the Privy Council: Prince Rupert, the Earl of Nottingham (who was Lord Chancellor), Danby, the Bishop of London, Secretary Coventry and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They too were dismayed by what they read. Indeed, Sir Robert Southwell noted that the plot was getting out of hand, just as Halifax had predicted, and that it: ‘will unavoidably devolve into the cognizance of the parliament, and then God almighty knows where the matter will stop. For this imprudent man [Coleman] has by his natural madness taken upon him to involve a person of high consideration as a party in his chimeras and the dangerous correspondence maintained between him and the confessor of the French King.’30

  Still the plot was not really proved as yet. Oates was so far the only witness to these schemes and he was proving a feebler instrument in such matters than he might have hoped. Other than Coleman’s correspondence little evidence had been found by interrogating the prisoners or by searching their papers. Once more it seems that the plot and its informers, now safely lodged in Whitehall Palace, were at a standstill. But the ripples of unrest began to spread. The guards at Whitehall were doubled; the Privy Council sat and interrogated many prisoners. There was little doubt that for his folly Coleman was certainly doomed, for the king was incensed at both his actions and the descriptions in the documents. With parliament now due to meet on 21 October, however, the Privy Council began to slacken off in its pursuit of the plot. With less zeal than before, the judges had been asked to rule on whether the evidence of one man made a sufficient case for treason. Unfortunately, on Saturday 12 October the whole situation altered. For on that day Sir Edmund Godfrey disappeared and as the news spread the nation was to be thrown into the greatest crisis of Charles II’s reign.

  EDMUND GODFREY: THE LAST WEEK

  With the plot in the balance, rumours began to circulate in London and further afield. It was not easy to keep the investigations quiet, especially as Oates and his guards were rampaging around the city pick
ing up victims for interrogation. Edmund Godfrey, however, had not been called before the Privy Council. Surprisingly, the magistrate to whom Oates had first delivered his depositions had not been invited to play a further part in this affair. In fact, Sir Joseph Williamson’s suggestion on 28 September that Godfrey be called into the Privy Council to be questioned over what he knew about the design had not been followed up. Neither does the magistrate appear to have volunteered for interrogation. On the contrary, he seems to have become ever more depressed by the situation in which he now found himself.

  Fortunately, there is sufficient evidence, although it is sometimes contradictory, to track Edmund Godfrey’s movement over his last days.31 While Oates was before the Privy Council, Godfrey went about his normal business. By Monday 7 October, however, his friend Edward Coleman had been arrested together with a number of other Catholics. In fact, despite Godfrey’s warning Coleman’s vanity had placed him in deep trouble. When he had talked to the Duke of York on 29 September, he had been reassured that if there was nothing incriminating in his papers he should hand himself over for interrogation. Coleman had also talked to others before his arrest, including Lord Chief Justice Scroggs. In due course Coleman had surrendered to Sir Joseph Williamson. The members of the Privy Council who began, as we have seen, by examining his papers had come to some swift conclusions. Yet still no one had approached Edmund Godfrey about the matter.

  Mrs Mary Gibbon was a family friend of Godfrey.32 She was also, arguably, an important witness to his state of mind just before his disappearance. Her evidence, however, has been somewhat neglected. Yet on at least four separate occasions she related her tale which, the more one reads it, the more it strikes one as a genuine view of Godfrey in his last days. Although she occasionally elaborated on her evidence, taken all in all, it still retains a ring of truth.33 Mary was the wife of Captain Thomas Gibbon and was also ‘somewhat related’ to Godfrey. He appears to have looked upon her as something of a confidante. In fact, their parents had been friends and he frequently went to visit her at her home in Old Southampton Buildings. Interestingly, she was a Catholic and her daughter, also called Mary, appears at one time to have been in the employ of Edward Coleman.34 In any event, she later claimed that a much-troubled magistrate had visited her on the Tuesday prior to his disappearance. As he closed the door of her chamber, he, in a disordered state, asked her ‘If she did not know the news which was all over ye Towne that he was to be hang’d?’ For, he added ‘the entire Town is in an uproar about me’. She asked him what the plot was, to which he replied ‘Oates had outswore himself and so it would come to nothing’, but he had ‘tooke Oates, & Tongs Examinations yesterday . . . moneth, and had never spoken of it to any man, although he had dined at my L[or]d Chancellors and Sir Wil[lia]m Joneses, the Attouney Generalls’.35 At that point, they were interrupted and a confused Godfrey said he would come the next day to let her know more. He did, but as she was not yet dressed, he left without further discussion. She later told Sir Joseph Williamson, however, that Godfrey ‘believed that surely there was a plott. That Oates had sworne largely, so as to confirme ye truth of what he said.’36

  MONDAY 7 OCTOBER

  Monday was the quarter sessions day for Westminster at which Sir Edmund Godfrey attended as a justice of the peace.37 After court was recessed, Godfrey went out with his old friend Thomas Robinson, a fellow justice of the peace, to follow their usual custom after the sessions of dining with the head bailiff. In the course of the dinner, or just after it, Godfrey and Robinson openly discussed the latest news of the plot and the character of Oates. Robinson asked him if it was true that he had taken several statements and Godfrey confirmed his reluctant part in the affair. He also claimed that he no longer had the papers but had already delivered them to ‘a person of quality’.38 It was also during this conversation that Godfrey expressed the view that he was to be the first martyr in the case. Robinson indicated his surprise and Godfrey claimed he would not part with his life tamely, nor would he go about with any servant to protect him. In another version the words appear to imply that Godfrey was rather more concerned about the way in which parliament, which was shortly to meet, would see his part in the affair than about any threat of personal violence. He was right to be fearful, for Godfrey already had a reputation as someone tolerant of papists and his failure to reveal the full details of the plot to higher authorities could well have landed him in a case of misprision of treason. At the least, a subsequent trial may well have led to his incarceration and the loss of his property; at the most his own life might have been in danger.

  TUESDAY 8–WEDNESDAY 9 OCTOBER

  Godfrey’s friend and business acquaintance Thomas Wynnel was later to claim that he met Godfrey in the days that followed and that the magistrate was both disordered and very unhappy. Later still, Wynnel was also to claim that he had repeatedly reasoned with Godfrey about his general unhappiness and that the magistrate had said that he had not long to live.39 Despite his personal problems, however, Godfrey was coherent enough to engage in business and promised to dine with Wynnel on the coming Saturday to discuss some houses that Godfrey was going to buy. Wynnel also claimed that he talked to Godfrey at around the time when the Roman Catholic lords accused by Oates were committed to the Tower. He said that Godfrey told him that the lords were innocent but that Coleman would die; that Oates was foresworn and perjured, and the design was against the Duke of York. He was melancholy, he said, because he was ‘master of a dangerous secret, that would be fatal to him; that his security was Oates’s deposition; that the said Oates had first declared it to a publique minister: and [secondly] that he came to Sir Edmund by his direction’.40 However, the Roman Catholic lords were not arrested until 21 October, so Wynnel’s story falls rather flat at this point and like many another’s evidence it may well have been exaggerated or tampered with.

  THURSDAY 10 OCTOBER

  Captain Thomas Gibbon later claimed that around 10 o’clock that Thursday morning, Godfrey had sent once more for Mary Gibbon. As she was attending her sick mother, the captain went to the magistrate by himself and later claimed to have found Godfrey in some disorder. Gibbon subsequently told this to both his daughter and wife on his return to the house. As we know, it had been to Mrs Gibbon that Godfrey confessed his melancholy about the affair in which he was involved. Later she claimed that some time before, when he was unwell, he had sent to her to make him some jelly, and on visiting the magistrate she found him very upset and intent on eating only whey instead. When she fussily asked him why he asked her to make the jelly and then resorted to whey, he spoke of fears for his sanity: ‘Oh! Cousin, my father’s sharpe melancholy I cannot shake it offe, it is hereditary; I am the only child of my father that takes after him: I was . . . [let] blood severall ounces yesterday, and some ounces before.’41 He was also alleged to have said: ‘I am best alone; I cannot get off this Melancholy’. Her daughter supported this tale and claimed that Godfrey said he had been bled. Captain Gibbon and his wife were naturally concerned about their friend, the more so since Mrs Gibbon was later to claim that it was well known in Kent that the Godfreys had been notorious for such distempers. Indeed, she was later to say that Thomas Godfrey himself had been subject to fits, and that at times she had seen him forcibly tied to his bed. She also said that Thomas had at one stage attacked three of his children and the surgeons had been called in to save their lives.42

  FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER

  On Friday 11 October a meeting of the parish vestry took place and Edmund Godfrey was, as usual, in attendance. The vestry business was full of mundane but, to the men themselves, important matters. The vestrymen made a number of decisions.43 Richard Wheeler was at this meeting and he was to state that the magistrate had looked quite miserable and had even tried to pay off his debts. However, George Weldon saw Godfrey that night, when the magistrate was dining at his public house with others.44 He later said before the Lords Committee that Godfrey was in good humour when last he saw him. The magistrate
also showed him his pocket book (presumably the one in which he made notes of depositions and which was later missing from his dead body) but gloomily said he would not see him so often at Weldon’s house from now on. Weldon went on to say he was a good friend of Godfrey and that the magistrate had previously said that he would be a sacrifice at one time or another. As Godfrey left on the Friday, however, Weldon asked him whether he would dine with him next day and Godfrey replied that he did not know whether he should. However, Weldon later seemed to change his story about Godfrey’s mood several times. Or perhaps the magistrate’s mood really was fluctuating between despair, hysteria and sanguineness, for some at the vestry said he was in a pleasant enough mood there. Whatever the truth of the matter, in the late afternoon (4 or 5 o’clock) Edward Birthy and his wife claimed that they saw Godfrey walking down Drury Lane looking down at the ground and seemingly pensive, melancholic and even distraught enough not to know them.