The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey

by Alan Marshall

  We know that the body was not re-dressed and that at least four medical men saw it on that Friday. One Fisher, a carpenter to Lord Wooton, who had come to see things for himself, assisted in removing the dead man’s clothes. He noted that Godfrey’s shoes were clean. Much was made of this fact, it being thought that it was a clear sign that Godfrey had been carried to the ditch before being dumped there. In undressing the body, however, they removed three pairs of stockings, a pair of socks, his breeches, which were black and his drawers. They then propped the dead man up, unbuttoned his coat and pulled it off; there was blood on the back of his flannel shirt. About his throat were marks of something that had ‘girt’ him and his neck was so weak that it might be turned in any direction. Fisher noted that they could not bend Godfrey’s arms to take off his shirt because of rigor mortis, so they were forced to split open the shirt in order to remove it.93

  Doctors Zachary Skillarne (or Skillard) and Nicholas Cambridge must have then turned up, and they viewed the body in the presence of the coroner John Cooper and his jury at around noon in the White House. If there were some argument about a post mortem, it would have been at this point; some claimed that the Godfrey brothers would not allow the body to be opened. However, that there was a post mortem of sorts is clear, for there are hints about the matter in Sir Joseph Williamson’s notes. It was not likely to have been comprehensive if the family was resistant. Probing the body with medical lances, Skillarne noted that the breast appeared to have been beaten with some obtuse weapon or with the ‘feet or hands or something’. The neck was distorted: ‘you might have taken the chin and set it upon either shoulder’. Two wounds were also noted; one of the surgeons probed these. One wound was an inch deep, then came up against the ribs; the other wound went through the body. There was also a claim that neither the flannel shirt nor waistcoat were penetrated, but in retrospect this does not seem to make much sense. Skillarne said that no more had been done to Godfrey’s neck than in ordinary suffocations, but that the second wound went through his heart. This wound had not killed the magistrate; it had been inflicted after death.

  The next point of debate was whether Godfrey had been strangled or hanged. Skillarne was to note that in his experience a lean man’s muscles, if he had died of wounds, would have been turgid, but that strangled people never swell as such an act hindered the circulation of the blood. The dead man’s face was somewhat swelled and of a fresh colour; he was noted for being pale in his life. As to the time of death, the doctor stated that it occurred some four or five days previously. This would place the death on Sunday or Saturday. He also said that the body might have been kept a week and not swelled, for Godfrey was a lean man. Putrefaction, he later noted, had only set in after the post-mortem examination.94

  Nicholas Cambridge also saw the body on that Friday and he found the neck dislocated, the breast greatly beaten and two puncture wounds under the left breast, one against a rib, another right through the body. These wounds, he said, were made after death. Other notes available claim that there was also a green circle about the dead man’s neck as if he had been strangled, and that the blood had settled about his neck, throat and upper part of the breast. Both surgeons agreed the wounds were not the cause of his death, but could not agree on the means of his demise, settling for a general notion of strangulation. Coroner Cooper was later to state before the Lords that he did not know who had killed Edmund Godfrey, but that he believed it was murder and that the man had been strangled. He also noted a bruise near the dead man’s throat, on his breast, and that the body had been in a posture where Godfrey could not have fallen or put himself. Moreover, the fields over which he would have had to pass would have been dirty and there was no dirt on his shoes. Additionally, it was Cooper who observed the tracks of a coach in the ground where, he said, no coach used to come. But Serjeant Ramsey, who examined these marks, declared them to be merely cart tracks, as one might expect in a field. Cooper also claimed that the dead man’s joints were limber and pliable, and that his clothes were weather beaten. However, his idea that the body was fly-blown was refuted at a later date.

  Cooper also made a more important report to Sir Joseph Williamson on 20 October 1678. In these notes we find mention of the fact that the hilt of the sword, which had passed through the body, had been three inches from the ground on the corpse’s discovery. There was no blood near the place, nor where the body had been placed, nor any under the hilt of the sword. Mention was made of a bruise located on the top of the breast, just under the collar, and a circle round Godfrey’s neck indicating he had been strangled. This report to Williamson also noted that the dead man’s shoes, or at least the soles, were extremely clean. Contrary to the surgeons, Cooper claimed that the body showed signs of putrefaction. The dead man’s face was not only redder than ordinary, Cooper said, he had not died from the wounds in his breast. Godfrey’s neck turned all one way to the left and his eyes and mouth were closed. His stomach was ‘extreme empty, therefore had not eaten in two days or more’.95

  Elizabeth Curtis had been set to washing the body at the magistrate’s house when it was finally brought home. When asked at a later date for her opinion, she said that she had not noticed any spots of blood on it. As for the clothes of the dead man, she was ordered to look at them by Henry Moor to search for some note that was said to be about Godfrey. We are not told what this note was supposed to be, and whatever it was it was not found. Was it the note Godfrey was alleged to have received on the Friday at his home and did not know what to make of? Gobbets of blood and some dry spots of a greenish colour were found upon his waistcoat, linen and drawers, as well spots of white wax. This was seen as the sinister signs of papists who used wax candles. More logically, of course, it could merely have been the result of the blunderings by Brown and company in the dark or of the subsequent post mortem, which was carried out in the poor conditions of the White House. When Elizabeth washed the body, it did not smell, nor were the clothes ragged or tattered, but sound and whole. They were those he had on when he left the house.

  The body had already been stripped at the White House, and, wrapped up in a blanket, it was now returned to the relatives. Indeed Moor, Michael and Benjamin and the sisters had gone to the White House to see the body on the Friday, and the coroner issued a warrant for its release to them on the 18 October, but it seems to have remained in the White House until at least noon on the Saturday.96

  The inquest itself was proving difficult to resolve. If we are to believe the tales of some of the jurors involved, who were later interrogated by Sir Roger L’Estrange, some were unconvinced by the medical evidence, or just plain confused by the surgeons’ reports. Surrounded by a great crowd of people and the dead magistrate’s relatives, they were unable to come to any verdict. As one of them later said ‘the Jury could not tell what to think on’t, it was so ticklish a Bus’ness’. As the debate swayed between a verdict of suicide and murder, Cooper called a halt to the proceedings for the day. The jurymen complained about this, for it meant they would lose another day’s business by having to reconvene the next morning. Also, apparently flustered by the crowd, Cooper decided to change the venue to the Rose and Crown in St Giles.97

  SATURDAY 19 OCTOBER

  Saturday found the jury now sitting at the Rose and Crown, where it was to remain until midnight. Why did a verdict take so long? It is unlikely that the number of witnesses called necessitated such a long debate. So it seems that there was some genuine disagreement over the verdict. Only four verdicts were possible: accidental death, homicide, suicide or an act of God. The coroner and the jury would have sought the most likely verdict by examining the victim’s words and deeds, and the witnesses would have been called merely to bolster their already formulated views. We have noted that the inquest was not carried out in the quiet contemplation of the fact as in a present-day coroner’s court. On the contrary, the rooms at the White House had been packed with people, some of whom had vested interest in the ‘correct’ verdict, and
those at the Rose and Crown were unlikely to have been a less impartial venue. In the end, the interested parties and the family appear to have got their own way. The verdict was that Godfrey had been murdered by persons unknown and that he had been strangled. Skillarne and Cambridge, in between arguing with one another, had apparently been the most important witnesses, and it was their testimony that had persuaded the jury that Godfrey had been murdered.

  Some of the other witnesses called were a poor lot. They included John Wilson, a saddler in St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, who said that he had seen Godfrey some two weeks previously and that the magistrate had told some people that he was in danger for his part in discovering the Popish Plot. Thomas Morgan also testified that he had been around the spot where the body was to be discovered earlier in the week and had seen nothing then. Bromwell, Waters and Rawson told their tale. Caleb Wynnel and Richard Duke said that they had seen Godfrey talking to Joseph Radcliffe after 1 o’clock on the Saturday afternoon. Constable Brown was recalled to tell how he had been sent for and what actions he had taken. Significantly, Godfrey’s clerk Henry Moor was called but poorly questioned. He was only asked at what time Godfrey had left the house on the Saturday and whether he had been wearing a lace band or not! Radcliffe, however, told his story of meeting Godfrey at the vestry on the Friday and of his temper there, although he was later to claim that his evidence had been tampered with and his impressions there of a miserable and melancholy Godfrey had been altered by the coroner. He also told of a second meeting with Godfrey at 1 o’clock on the Saturday and his wife backed up his story. Finally, there was Mrs Gibbon, ever anxious to tell her tale, but she also later claimed that her evidence had been altered. Nonetheless, as the crowd broke up the jury still appeared to be confused. In fact, one of them later confessed that he had not understood any of the evidence and did not understand even now how Edmund Godfrey had met his end.98

  Nor were some other individuals apparently happy with this verdict. Cooper’s actions had not only been called into question, but complaints were made that the body had been released too early. It was said Cooper had performed badly, having been pressed by Dr Lloyd and the Godfreys to come up with a verdict; the witnesses had been of little help, aside from the two surgeons, and his jury was still confused.

  Some days later the Godfrey brothers were said to have visited the Gibbon’s home. While there, Michael and Benjamin talked to Captain and Mrs Gibbon about Godfrey’s behaviour ten days before his disappearance. It soon became apparent that they were there more to persuade the Gibbons that their brother had been murdered than to hear their opinions. Indeed, three or four days after the body’s discovery another visit had been paid to Mrs Gibbon’s home by two of Godfrey’s sisters, Jane Harrison and Sarah Pluncknett. They told Mary Gibbon that Godfrey had been clearly murdered at the Duke of Norfolk’s home (Oates’s old employer when the former had been Earl of Norwich), for that household was all in mourning. Putting on mourning seems like a serious mistake for a murderer to make, and Mrs Gibbon was unconvinced. Mrs Harrison desired Mrs Gibbon to speak ‘sparingly of what she knew of S[i]r Edmund; saying to her, that she knew more of his minde than anybody’. Mrs Gibbon went to see the body next day with Mrs Harrison, who now asked her if she believed the papists had killed her brother, but Mrs Gibbon only replied that Edmund had done many kindnesses for the papists. Despite this she was invited to the funeral, and while there she quizzed Henry Moor about why he had told her his master was not dead; ‘he then saide his Master[’]s two brothers ordered him so to do’. With Godfrey safely dead, however, the moves to uncover his murderers now began.99

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Reaction

  The king is safe, but Godfrey’s slain, now traytors look about yee; You are afraid of every Bush, the truth of God will rout yee.

  New Verses Concerning the Plot (1679)

  ‘Do you think he [Prance] would swear three men out of their lives for nothing?’

  Sir William Scoggs at the Trial of Green, Berry and Hill (1679)

  THE FUNERAL: 31 OCTOBER 1678

  Given Titus Oates’s revelations to the Privy Council in late September, the death of Edmund Godfrey confirmed the reality of the Popish Plot to many Londoners and there were soon moves afoot to discover his killers. The verdict of the coroner in the case, as we have seen, was one of wilful murder and almost inevitably the blame was soon laid on the Catholic community. Few paused to ask why Catholics should murder such a liberal magistrate and apparent friend to themselves as Edmund Godfrey.

  Given the nature of his death in the midst of a growing political crisis, the magistrate’s lying-in-state proved significant. Initially the family moved the body from the White House to Godfrey’s home in Hartshorne Lane. A large crowd, who went to pay their respects, converged on the body as it was laid in the street ‘exposed to the view of all comers’.1 The curious and sightseers who saw the corpse apparently went away distressed and ‘inflamed’. Gilbert Burnet noted that this unofficial lying-in-state had the effect of sharpening men’s spirits, leading to fears that an enraged London mob would soon rise and precipitate a massacre of all the Catholics in the city.2 Nonetheless, although a number of arrests were made of Catholic suspects, the presumed killers of Godfrey still remained at large.

  However, Edmund Godfrey’s recreation as a Protestant icon – a martyr who had died so that others might live – was a more rapid affair. A thick layer of propaganda soon submerged the person he had been. A number of iconographic images were manufactured through a series of set pieces, pamphlets and drawings largely engineered by the growing opposition factions who, because of the crisis, were now coalescing into a political party that many were soon to label as ‘Whig’. Godfrey’s image went through a variety of transformations, from the actual use of his corpse in public display and in a mass funeral, to the use of his image in tableaux and parades, to the illustrative and poetic material of pamphlet literature and popular culture. These set pieces, almost public dramas, that appeared over the next few years were designed to push home the Catholic threat to the nation and the fact that Godfrey had been a martyr for the Protestant cause.3

  Naturally the constraints of Godfrey’s own will, which he had written in the previous year and which was meant to dictate the nature of his funeral, were studiously ignored. In that interesting document Edmund Godfrey had willed, as an ever-practical man of business, that on his death as little fuss should be made as was possible. Indeed he had desired a pauper’s grave and no ‘pompe or pagentry [or] attendants’. He was also eager that his burial should take place early in the morning or late at night, so as to ‘avoid being troublesome to the world . . . especially to the streets’.4 As he saw it, death was not a mere commonplace, but neither should it be the subject of wasteful extravagances or damage to business. By this stage, however, the body had fallen into the hands of those who wished to press home political and religious points; a massive, semiofficial funeral was the result. The growing influence of the leaders of the opposition must be suspected here. Michael Godfrey had already stepped in to take command of Edmund’s affairs by seizing his brother’s papers. Michael also possessed indisputable links with the opponents of Danby’s regime that went back at least to the early 1670s. With parliament now in session – it had begun to sit on 21 October – the moves to exploit the crisis began to grow apace.5

  It was at this point that the small figure of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, John Dryden’s ‘daring pilot in extremity’, entered the scene.6 By 1678 Shaftesbury was a disaffected politician of some note, although his efforts to undermine Danby and the king’s designs in the 1670s had by 1678 reached something of an impasse. Indeed, a recent spell in the Tower because of his activities had done little to assist either his cause or the ailing health of the 57-year-old former Cromwellian and Restoration minister. He was perhaps beginning to doubt that any success would ever come his way again, for as an inveterate enemy of the court there seemed to be no way back into Charles
II’s graces for him. So in the summer of 1678 Shaftesbury journeyed south to his estates at Wimborne St Giles, hoping that the autumn session of parliament might just present fresh opportunities for his shrew, tactical skills.7

  The 1670s had seen Shaftesbury move from government service to outright hostility to the regime of Charles II and Danby. His distrust of the king’s plans and religion had only grown gradually, but like many another politician of his generation he would naturally seize upon the opportunity to re-emerge as a more appropriate adviser to the wily Charles Stuart. Although he was occasionally accused of actually inventing the Popish Plot scare for his own ends, in retrospect this seems highly unlikely. Oates, as we have seen, was an opportunist with his own agenda, but this did not prevent the cunning Shaftesbury from adopting him and his famous plot. Indeed, the frustrations of the previous three years doubtless dropped away as Shaftesbury learned more details of the plot: the opportunity to exploit the fears of popery and arbitrary government, which to some extent he shared, and to lock horns with Danby were too great to resist. ‘Let the Treasurer,’ he is alleged to have said, ‘cry as loud as he pleases against popery, and think to put himself at the head of the Plot, I will cry a note louder and soon take his place’.8