The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey

by Alan Marshall

  None the less news of the death of Edmund Godfrey had meant that suspicion had fallen on many innocent Catholics. Prance was soon picked up because his neighbours had grown suspicious of his ill-considered remarks in favour of the Jesuits, and in subsequent inquiries at his home the lodger, who owed Prance money and could not pay, had maliciously revealed that his landlord had been away from home at the time of the murder.28 Prance never could explain his absences over that week. Together with the fact that he had been employed by the queen’s chapel and did most of his business with Roman Catholics, this was sufficient ammunition for the authorities to proceed with his arrest. As the Lords Committee dragged Prance off for his interrogation, he was unfortunate enough to be spotted by the opportunistic patrons of William Bedloe. Bedloe conveniently claimed that Prance had been one of the very men he had seen near the body of Godfrey as it lay in Somerset House. After a short examination by the Lords, in which he denied being a party to any murder, Prance was conveyed to Newgate, loaded with irons and placed in a cell. The combination of freezing cold and lack of care over forty-eight hours led him to confess that he did in fact have things to reveal.

  Brought before the Privy Council, Prance made many circumstantial revelations about Godfrey’s murder and incriminated three acquaintances. Once placed in better quarters, however, Prance soon changed his tune. Five days after his first confession he was brought before the king and recanted his previous tale. The king sent Prance before the Privy Council again and they, suspecting that the plotters had got to him, soon returned him to the cold cells of Newgate with the threat of the rack for company until he was able to see the error of his ways. There seems to be little doubt that while in Newgate Prance was pressured to stick to his original version of the ‘truth’. He later claimed that he had been visited there by a number of ‘advisers’, who attempted to persuade him that not only a pardon and the truth were at stake but also his life. These advisers included William Boyce, a friend, as well as Gilbert Burnet and Dr Lloyd, whom we last saw giving the sermon at Godfrey’s funeral and prior to that interfering at the inquest. Under the circumstances, Prance once more gave way. He now claimed that his first confession had in fact been true, but fearing a loss of trade with the Catholic community he had recanted. Now, he said, he saw the truth of the matter and henceforward he was even willing to add to his confession.29

  Prance’s tale began in a quiet way in Michaelmas 1678.30 He alleged that one Mr Townley and his two sons came to London on their way to Douai. While in the city they lodged at the house in Drury Lane of a man called Aires, where John Fenwick, the Jesuit, also lived. After Townley and his sons went off to Douai, one of his brothers revealed to Mrs Prance and Adamson, a watchmaker, that there were designs to raise men for the Catholic cause; he boasted that they also had commissions from Lord Bellasis and other Roman Catholic lords. This information was related to Prance at a house in Vere Street where yet another Catholic club met. Other evidence also emerged of Catholic stirrings and gradually Prance had developed a clear idea of the plot and forces being raised. He also had enough evidence to be able to implicate some of his Catholic friends. However, as a good Roman Catholic, at this point he saw no need to reveal the plans.

  The plot against Godfrey came to Prance’s notice on the Sunday before the actual killing through Fathers Girald (or Fitz-gerald) and Kelly, both of whom were Irish priests. At the Plough alehouse by the Water-gate off the Strand, Girald asked Prance whether he knew Edmund Godfrey the magistrate. Although Prance, like many Londoners, had both seen and heard of Godfrey, he knew little of him. Girald then told Prance that the magistrate was in fact a bitter persecutor of the Catholics and ‘particular enemy of the Queen’s servants’, as well as a fixed enemy of the schemes of the Catholics in general. Indeed, so desperate an enemy of Catholics had the magistrate become that he needed to be stopped and, Girald hinted, whoever did this good deed would get a reward from Lord Bellasis and his backers. Prance was invited to join in their plans. At first he reacted in horror to the suggestion that anyone could commit a cold-blooded murder, to which Girald replied that it was really no sin but actually a work of charity to kill such a man. Kelly agreed. Despite this assurance, Prance still needed persuading. Again he was told that ‘Godfrey was a busy man, and was going about to ruine all the Catholicks in England, and that it was necessary to destroy him, else they should all be undone’.31 Others soon came into the business: the elderly Henry Berry, porter to the queen on the upper Court Gate at Somerset House was one; Lewson, another priest and Philip Vernatti, a former paymaster at Tangier and now a servant of Lord Bellasis, were two others; there was also Robert Green, an old Irishman whose task it was to lay out the cushions in the queen’s chapel at Somerset House; and finally there was Lawrence Hill, the son of a shoemaker and now a servant to Dr Goddin, who was the doctor of the treasurer of the Royal Chapel at Somerset House. In the week following, Prance claimed that he met with these men several times to plan how to do the deed, and in the meantime they had decided to follow the magistrate’s movements.

  Throughout the week as they dogged Edmund Godfrey, he went about his business. They were even daring enough to go to Godfrey’s home on the pretext of having some business with him. By Saturday 12 October they were ready. That morning Girald, Green and Hill were observing Godfrey’s movements as usual. Kelly in the meantime came to Prance’s house to get him ready. Hill actually went in to see the magistrate and engaged him in some business, while the others hung about outside. Between 10 and 11 o’clock Godfrey finally left his home. Prance noted that he came out ‘all alone[,] as his manner was, for, being a Plain stout gentleman [sic], he never or very seldom went abroad attended with any servant, which they very well knew’.32 They then followed the magistrate in his wanderings, until at about 6 or 7 o’clock in the evening he came to a great house in St Clement’s, where he dined. Green went off to Prance’s house, but actually found him in the pub nearby. They then hurried off to Somerset House to alert Kelly and Berry. While they waited in the yard there, at about 9 o’clock Edmund Godfrey came out of the house. Seeing this, Hill rushed before him to warn the others he was coming. Their plan, it seems, was to wheedle the magistrate into the yard on the pretext of a quarrel occurring there. Godfrey was to be called in as a magistrate to put a stop to the quarrel and thus fall into their hands. Hill stood by the Water-gate, while Kelly and Berry began their pretended quarrel. Godfrey was walking along the Strand when Hill finally accosted him. Hill knew him well – Prance claimed that they had done some business together over coal: he hastily asked Godfrey to step in and stop the fight. ‘Pough, pough, said Sir Edmundbury, refusing at first to trouble himself’.33 Eventually Godfrey was persuaded by Hill to go to assess the situation. Hill entered the yard first with Godfrey behind him. Girald and Green pushed in behind. Prance was up against the wall in the shadows and when they had passed he went up to the gate to keep watch. Green then threw a twisted handkerchief around the magistrate’s neck and calling upon God, he secured the magistrate’s sword. He then throttled Godfrey. Not content with this, he proceeded to beat the magistrate’s breast angrily. Seeing Godfrey was not quite dead, Girald was intent on running his own sword through him, but the others held him back. Green then punched the prostrate magistrate once more and broke his neck. The bloody-minded Girald, seeing Godfrey lying dead, said ‘Well, if we could not have inticed him in here, I resolved I would have followed him down Hartshorne lane that leads to his own house, and there would have run him through with my own hand.’34 Now that they had killed Godfrey, what were the murderers to do with the body?

  Prance soon joined them and Berry, who had stood at the other gate, also appeared. Together they carried the corpse up a flight of stairs into a long entry that led to the upper court by the coach house, then into Dr Goddin’s lodgings where Hill lived. There they put the body into an empty room. And there, according to Prance, it lay for all of Saturday night, Sunday and most of Monday. It was only after dark on Mo
nday at about 10 o’clock that Prance returned to the place. Hill told him that the body had been shifted once more, this time across the upper court of Somerset House to another room. He then retired to the Plough alehouse where Green, Girald and Kelly were drinking. Hill came in later and together they went to move the body again. They shifted it back into the original room. Clearly they could not go on lugging a dead magistrate about a crowded royal palace forever without someone eventually noticing, and so a solution to their troubles had to be found. Girald and Kelly, perhaps under the orders of their masters, or so Prance thought, came up with a new plan. This was to dump the corpse in the fields in an obscure place ‘in such a manner as that whenever he should be found it might be supposed that he had murthered himself, which would much serve the interest of the church, when it should be publickly known, that he was so busy in charging Catholicks with a Plot . . . that he made away with himself’.35 To lend some credence to this design, none of Godfrey’s property nor his money was to be removed. Prance did not see any pocketbook taken from the corpse in his presence nor did he see what happened to Godfrey’s band. This latter, he presumed, was lost with the continual moving of the body. In the event they agreed to carry the body away after midnight, and Hill undertook to get a sedan chair to carry the corpse. They all agreed to meet Hill by 11 o’clock on the Wednesday night.

  By the time they finally got the corpse into the sedan it was nearly midnight, and when Girald and Prance came to take up the chair they found that it lacked leather carrying straps. The enterprising Hill, however, was able to provide them with some cord to carry it. The soldiers on guard at the gate were now a problem, but Berry was able to inveigle them into a drink and a smoke elsewhere. Thus, grunting and gasping with the dead weight in the sedan chair, the men moved the body out of Somerset House. Hill ran on ahead to get a horse. Girald and Prance carried the sedan to Covent Garden at the end of James Street, and then Kelly and Green took it up. They wandered through King Street, New Street and so up and along Rose Street and at that point, somewhat exhausted, they stopped once more. After a brief rest they again took up the sedan chair and now they proceeded past the Greyhound Tavern and the Grecian Church. Here Hill finally turned up with a horse. The sedan chair was then pushed into a building and the body was bundled up on to the horse. Hill, Girald and Kelly then went off with the horse and its burden, while the tired Miles Prance went home. He finally got home shortly before 1 or 2 o’clock that morning after an exhausting night’s work.

  The next day Girald told Prance that they had laid Godfrey’s corpse in a ditch near Primrose Hill and transfixed him with his own sword. On the Thursday the body was found. That night Prance was in the Horse-Shoe tavern drinking with Philip Vernatti, who pumped him for details of the killing. Vernatti later met Girald, who gave him a blow-by-blow account to tell to Lord Bellasis. It was only after much pressure that Prance began to reveal the names of those involved. A formidable liar, Miles Prance was now to be responsible for the arrest, trial and deaths of three of the men named by him – Robert Green, Henry Berry and Lawrence Hill, all of whom were acquaintances of his. Of the missing Girald, Dominick Kelly and Philip Vernatti there was no trace: they had fled.

  THE TRIAL BY JURY: 5–10 FEBRUARY 1679

  Robert Green was an elderly Irish Catholic and generally a reliable sort of man, although he, like his monarch Charles II, was subject to some occasional lapses in his faith. Indeed both Robert and his wife were frequent visitors to their neighbours Mr and Mrs Warrier and, with a fancy for a little sinful meat, occasionally put their dinner in a Protestant pot, so as not to offend the Catholic fathers whom Robert served in the chapel by eating meat on a Friday.36 The pair were happy and contented, although Mrs Green was insistent that in such troubled times Robert should come straight home after his visits to the Plough Inn and not wander the streets of London. Green spent at least some of his time drinking there with his fellow workers, one of whom was Miles Prance. This habit was to cost him dearly for on 24 December 1678 Green, alongside his fellow Catholic Lawrence Hill and the Protestant Henry Berry, was arrested by the king’s messengers and placed in the cold damp cells of Newgate charged with the murder of the magistrate Edmund Godfrey.

  The series of trials that followed the death of Godfrey and the revelations of the Popish Plot were mostly overseen by the Lord Chief Justice with whom Godfrey had been acquainted: Sir William Scroggs.37 A corpulent, red-faced, intemperate man, who had seen many a prisoner to his fate since being called to the Bar in 1653, Scroggs had risen to his eminence only four months prior to the outbreak of the Popish Plot affair. Having worked his way through the lower courts, he was now at the height of his powers. At the best of times Scroggs would perhaps have sympathised with Robert Green’s ambles to the local public house, for he himself was a formidable drinker and prone to scandal in his private life. His talent in court, noted Roger North, was ‘wit’ and he was also a ‘master of Sagacity and Boldness . . . and many good turns of thought and language.’38 He was, however, fearful of ‘noe man where his kinge and countrie were concerned’ and no doubt looked askance at the Romanist prisoners now before him in the dock of the Court of the King’s Bench on the morning of Wednesday 5 February 1679. Here in the coming days Green, Berry and Hill, the prisoners at the bar, found themselves on trial for their lives over the death of Edmund Godfrey.

  The trial began soon after the three men were brought up from Newgate prison to the King’s Bench. In this case, as with any other murder trials of the day, the accused appeared to have little chance of a successful defence. They were allowed no defence lawyers to advise them, that position, on the technical points of the law, being taken, if he was so inclined, by the presiding judge. After spending some considerable time in a dank gaol that was usually injurious to health, the accused would of necessity have to think on their feet in court. They were generally allowed pen and paper to make notes and were entitled to cross-examine witnesses, but the trials of the day were designed more to convict an accused person than to engage in any search for the truth. Indeed, to most people the fact that the accused were in court in the first place was in itself sufficient evidence that they must be guilty of something; the trial was conducted merely to discover what crime(s) they were actually guilty of.39

  In this case Mr Justice Wild, the clerk of the court, read the arraignment to the prisoners. In this it was claimed that on 12 October 1678 they ‘having the fear of God before your eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil’ had murdered Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey with a ‘certain linen handkerchief of the value of six-pence’ about his neck. All three men were then asked how they pleaded and all three pleaded not guilty. They were then taken down and the trial was ordered to be suspended until Thursday 6 February, and then after a brief discussion it was put off until Monday 10 February in order that ‘the king’s evidence might be the more ready’.40

  Monday 10 February saw the three men once more before the bar of the court. A suitable jury was swiftly sworn in, and the first of the opening statements was made, outlining to the crowds who packed the court the heinous nature of the three men’s crimes. Mr Serjeant Stringer once more related the crime and the Attorney General, Sir William Jones, another former acquaintance of Edmund Godfrey’s, opened the case against them. In their absence Girald, Kelly and Vernatti were also arraigned. Jones’s opening statement was clear enough. He began with a peroration on the crime of murder, a crime of so deep a stain, he noted, that nothing could wash it away. Jones also presumed that everyone knew of Godfrey as a useful and active justice of the peace. This was not unlikely, as some of the jury had known Edmund personally. Jones then related how Godfrey had taken some depositions concerning the plot. His next theme was how the magistrate’s industry had found out some of the principal actors in that design. Discovering this the Jesuits, foreseeing the danger they were in, had decided to prevent any further revelations and had trailed the magistrate, dogged his every step and met frequentl
y at the Plough to plan Godfrey’s elimination. Jones noted that of the six offenders in the case, the priests had fled for they are ‘always the first to contrive the mischief, so are they always the first that fly the punishment’. He then related Prance’s version of the events that led to Godfrey’s murder and the dumping of the body on Primrose Hill in such a manner as to ‘murder his reputation . . . that the world should conclude he had killed himself’. The Recorder of London, the formidable Sir George Jeffreys, then called on the first of the Crown witnesses, Titus Oates, to give his evidence in the case.41

  Oates, by now a practised hand in court, pretended intimacy with Godfrey and related his part in the affair, which, for him, was quite limited. He spoke of the depositions and of how Godfrey had visited him on Monday 30 September and had expressed his concern that some great persons were unhappy with the magistrate’s part in the affair. Godfrey had said that he was damned on both sides and threatened with an appearance before parliament. Oates then went on to say that the week before his disappearance Godfrey had again visited him and claimed that he had been threatened by the popish lords in the Tower and had been ‘dogged’ by suspicious people. Yet, he went on, Godfrey did not want to take his man along with him when he went out to do his business, because he was a ‘poor weak fellow’. Oates had encouraged the magistrate to stand firm.

  The next witness was Thomas Robinson, who related his meetings with Godfrey after the quarter sessions on 7 October and their discourse about the plot. Robinson noted how Godfrey had believed that he would receive little thanks for his work in the affair and for the fact that his involvement was an unwilling one. Although he did not have the examinations about him at the time, Godfrey had agreed to let Robinson see them when he had them back from ‘a person of quality’. It was to Robinson that Godfrey had claimed he would be the ‘first martyr’ but he did not fear open enemies and would not go about with his clerk to protect him.42