The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey

by Alan Marshall

  4. Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, PROB 11/359/46, f.357.

  5. HMC, Lords, p. 3.

  6. J. Dryden, ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681), line 159. The standard work on Shaftesbury remains K.H.D. Haley, The first Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968).

  7. Haley, Shaftesbury, pp. 459–60.

  8. Shaftesbury quoted in ibid., p. 462.

  9. Ibid., pp. 458–9, 473–6.

  10. Ibid., p. 469.

  11. Ibid., pp. 473–6. HMC, Lords, (1887), pp. 1, 46. Journal of the House of Lords, 23 October 1678, pp. 298–9, 310, 346.

  12. Ibid. Also E. Carpenter, The Protestant Bishop, being the life of Henry Compton, 1632–1713, Bishop of London (1956), p. 43.

  13. Haley, Shaftesbury, pp. 474–75. BL, Add. MSS 32095, f.123. Longleat MSS, Coventry Papers, Microfilm, IX, f.237–8.

  14. HMC, Lords, p. 49.

  15. PRO, 31/3/141, Barrillon to Louis XIV, 31 October 1678. J.S. Clarke, The Life of James II (2 vols, 1816), I, p.526. CSPD, 1678, p. 466.

  16. Marshall, To Make a Martyr, pp. 39–45. Tuke, Memoires, pp. 101–2. North, Examen, pp. 204–5.

  17. Tuke, Memoires, pp. 101–2. North, Examen, pp. 204–5. Echard, History, III, p. 474. Burnet, History, I, p. 337. Evelyn, Diary, IV, p. 107.

  18. The sermon’s text was 2 Samuel 3: 33–4. Lloyd, Sermon, pp. 1, 2, 13. For more on Lloyd see Evelyn, Diary, IV, p107. Burnet, History, I, p. 337.

  19. Lloyd, Sermon, p. 17.

  20. Marshall, To Make a Martyr, pp. 39–45.

  21. CSPD, 1678, pp. 472, 480.

  22. Longleat MSS, Coventry papers, Microfilm, XI, ff.272–4. Burnet, History, II, pp.168–9. HMC, Lords, p. 99. Haley, Shaftesbury, pp. 477–8. CSPD, 1678, pp. 495, 503, 505–6. John Warner, The history of the English persecution of Catholics and the Presbyterian plot, ed. T.A. Birrell and J. Blish (Catholic Record Society, 1953) XLVII, pt. 1, XLVIII, pt. 2.

  23. CPSD, 1678, pp. 495, 503, 505–6.

  24. Ibid. Huntingdon Library, Hastings Collection of MSS, 59, 55 HA, 12 November 1678.

  25. Haley, Shaftesbury, pp. 476–7. J.H. Wilson, The Ordeal of Mr. Pepys’s Clerk (Ohio, 1972). HMC, Ormonde MSS NS, IV, pp. 284, 289.

  26. M. Prance, The additional narrative of Miles Prance of Covent Garden goldsmith (1679), p. 9.

  27. Ibid., p. 12.

  28. W. Boys, The narrative of William Boys, citizen of London (1680), p. 2. CSPD, 1678, pp. 425–8, 431–3, 434, 451–3, 544–5, 550–1, 622–3. There was some debate about the methods used to extract Prance’s confession. The Roman Catholics claimed that he was tortured. See A letter from St Omers in farther confirmation of the truth of the plot upon a consideration of divers circumstances of the trials (1679), pp. 5–6.

  29. Ibid., p. 5. M. Prance, A true narrative and discovery of several remarkable passages relating to the horrid Popish Plot as they fell within the knowledge of Mr Miles Prance (1679).

  30. For what follows see Prance, True and perfect narrative, p. 8.

  31. Ibid., p. 11.

  32. Ibid., p. 12.

  33. Ibid., p. 13.

  34. Ibid., p. 14.

  35. Ibid., p. 14.

  36. State Trials, VII, p. 205.

  37. For Scroggs see Kenyon, Popish Plot, pp. 133–4.

  38. North, Examen, pp. 567–8.

  39. For the nature of trials in the period see Sharpe, Crime in seventeenth-century England, p. 23. J.A. Sharpe, Crime in early modern England, 1550–1750 (second edn, 1999), pp. 29–58. V.A.C. Gatrell, The hanging tree, execution and the English people, 1770–1868 (Oxford, 1994).

  40. State Trials, VII, pp. 159–60.

  41. Ibid., pp. 161–7.

  42. Ibid., pp. 167–9. Compendium, p. 15.

  43. State Trials, p. 174.

  44. Ibid., p. 210.

  45. Ibid., pp. 183–4.

  46. Ibid., pp. 184–95.

  47. Ibid., p. 207.

  48. Ibid., pp. 207–9.

  49. Ibid., pp. 210–11.

  50. Ibid., pp. 212–13.

  51. Ibid., pp. 213–23, 230. Also S. Smith, An account of the behaviour of the fourteen late popish malefactors while in Newgate and their discourses with the ordinary (1679), pp. 9–17. HMC, Ormonde MS NS, IV, pp. 117, 325. Coleman was asked whether he knew anything of Godfrey’s death and is alleged to have said ‘on the word of a dying man that he knew nothing of it’ in Compendium, p. 9.

  52. State Trials, VIII, pp. 1359–98.

  53. DNB: Sir Roger L’Estrange. G. Kitchen, Sir Roger L’Estrange, a contribution to the history of the press in the seventeenth century (1971 edn), pp. 347–9.

  54. For Oates’s later life see Lane, Titus Oates, pp. 278–364 also G. Campbell, Imposter at the Bar, William Fuller, 1670–1733 (1961), pp. 80–1, 217, 231–2. William Bedloe, the third great informer, died, still dishonest and unrepentant, in Bristol in 1680. See Life and death, pp. 120–3. The examination of William Bedlow. Also The anti-protestant or Miles against Prance being a solemn protestation of Miles Prance concerning the murder of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, in direct opposition to a late protestation made by him on the same subject (1685). L’Estrange, Times, III, ‘To posterity’ (unpaginated).

  55. L’Estrange, Times, III, ‘To posterity’ (unpaginated). HMC, Downshire, I, pt I, pp. 138–9, 259. BL, Add. MSS 32095, f.123.

  56. L’Estrange, Times, III, ‘To posterity’ (unpaginated). Several affidavits lately taken upon oath by divers of his majesties justices of the peace (1683), p. 43.

  57. L’Estrange, Times, III, ‘To posterity’ (unpaginated).

  58. A. Behn, A poem to Sir Roger L’Estrange on his third part of the history of the times relating to the death of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey (1688). BL, Add. MSS, 38015, f. 316–317v. Harrison, Godfrey of Woodford, p. 9. ‘Family of Godfrey’, p. 488.

  59. D. Hume, The history of England from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the revolution in 1688 (6 vols, [1778] 1983 edn) VI, chapter LXVII.

  60. DNB: Roger North

  61. North, Examen, pp. 196–205.

  62. Hume, History, VI, pp. 343–4.

  63. J. Pollock, The Popish Plot, a study in the history of the reign of Charles II (Cambridge, 1903). A. Lang, The Valet’s Tragedy and other Studies (1903), pp. 55–103.

  64. See Pollock, Popish Plot, pp. 146–8.

  65. The literature, while not extensive in the 1900s, was occasionally very bitter and tinged with religious prejudice. See R. Lodge, ‘Review’, English Historical Review, IXX (1904), 788–92. J. Gerard, ‘History ex-hypothesis and the Popish Plot’, The Month, CII (1912), 2–22. A. Gwynn, ‘Lord Acton and the Popish Plot’, Studies, XXXIII (1944), 451–64. J. Pollock, ‘The case of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’, The Law Quarterly Review, XXII (1906), 431–50. A. Marks, ‘The case of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’, The Month, CIX (1906), 36–54. A. Lang, ‘Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?’ Cornhill Magazine, XV (1903), 174–84. Hay, The Jesuits and the Popish Plot.

  66. A. Marks, Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey? (1905).

  67. Muddiman, ‘Mystery of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey’, pp. 138–45. Adaptations of the Muddiman thesis can be found in N. Pain, ‘Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?’, BBC Home Service broadcast, transcript 16/9/1952. H.R. Williamson, Historical Enigmas (1974), pp. 255–68 and in M. Macklem, ‘Dashed and brew’d with lies: the Popish Plot and the country party’, in H. K. Miller, E. Rothstein and G.S. Rousseau (eds), The Augustan Milieu (Oxford, 1970), pp. 32–58.

  68. See below chapter six.

  69. J. Dickson Carr, The Murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (1936). Also D.G. Greene, John Dickson Carr: the man who explained miracles (New York, 1995), pp. 190–6. Greene’s 1989 edition of Carr, The Murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (New York, 1989) also contains an important foreword and afterword that debates the case, the suspects and Carr’s interpretation.

  70. Kenyon, Popish Plot.

  71. S. Knight, The Killing of Justice Godfrey (1986). See also J. Miller, ‘Review’, Times Literary Supplement, 18 January
1985, 57.

  72. S. Knight, Jack the Ripper: the final solution (1976).

  73. Knight’s views were conclusively undermined in P. Sugden, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper (1995 edn), pp. 7–8.

  6. THE CASE OF OCKHAM’S RAZOR

  1. T. de Quincey, ‘Murder as one of the fine arts’, in T. de Quincey, The English mail-coach and other essays (1933 edn), p. 65.

  2. See H.J. Cook, Trials of an Ordinary Doctor, Joannes Groenvelt in seventeenth-century London (Baltimore, 1994). P. Allen, ‘Medical education in seventeenth-century England’, Journal of the History of Medicine, I (1946), 115–43. A.W. Sloan, English Medicine in the Seventeenth Century (Bishop Auckland, 1996), p. 2. A.G. Debus (ed.), Medicine in Seventeenth-century England, a symposium held at UCLA in honour of C.D. O’Malley (Los Angeles, 1974). T.R. Forbes, Surgeons at the Bailey: English forensic medicine to 1878 (New Haven, 1985), pp. 47, 75, 83. T. Palmer, The admirable secrets of physick and chyurgery (1696).

  3. See also chapter four and State Trials, VIII, pp. 1381–6. L’Estrange, Times, III, pp. 224–57. R. Christison, ‘Murder by suffocation’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, XXXI (1829), 236–50. ‘Family of Godfrey’, pp. 489–90.

  4. Pain, ‘Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?’, pp. 37–42.

  5. B. Lane, The Encyclopaedia of Forensic Science (1992), pp. 380–1.

  6. K. Simpson in Pain, ‘Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?’, pp. 37–42.

  7. Pollock, Case of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, pp. 431–50. Marks, Case of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, pp. 36–54. Lang, ‘Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?’, pp. 174–84.

  8. Pain, ‘Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?’, pp. 34–7.

  9. L. Wolpert, Malignant Sadness, the Anatomy of Depression (1999). M.A. Screech, Montaigne and Melancholy: The Wisdom of the Essays (Harmondsworth, 1991), pp. 22–36. A. Storr, Churchill’s Black Dog and Other Phenomena of the Mind (1994), pp. 3–51.

  10. Kraepelin quoted in Wolpert, Malignant Sadness, p. 2.

  11. Ibid., pp. 3–4.

  12. R. Burton, The anatomy of Melancholy (3 vols, [1621] 1923 edn).

  13. Ibid., III, pp. 493–4. See also Screech, Montaigne, pp. 26–7.

  14. BL, Add. MSS, 38015, f.317.

  15. Burton, Melancholy, I, p. 121.

  16. From Mrs Gibbon in PRO, SP29, 423, f.7, 10. How much of her evidence was local gossip and hearsay it is, of course, difficult to say. Lloyd does appear to confirm some of the rumours (Lloyd, Sermon, p. 86) and Gibbon did claim knowledge of the family when in Kent, her native county, and that she had lived near the family’s residence. Of course, Godfrey’s own letters in the 1660s to Valentine Greatrakes illuminate part of this problem. See chapter two.

  17. L’Estrange, Times, III, p. 183. Lloyd, Sermon, p. 17.

  18. Pain, ‘Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?’, p. 36.

  19. For Oates as a suspect see North, Examen, pp. 196–206, 221–4. Dickson Carr, Murder, pp. 162–4, 321–2.

  20. Smith, Contrivances, p. 25.

  21. Smith, Intrigues, p. 8.

  22. Kirkby, Compleat and true narrative (1679). Dickson Carr, Murder, pp. 167–9, 324–6.

  23. Marshall, Intelligence, chapter eight.

  24. For Christian see ibid., pp. 217–18, 221–2.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Browning, Danby, I, pp. 333–51.

  27. Bray, Homosexuality, Hitchcock, English sexualities. R. Trumbach, ‘Sodomitical subcultures’ in Maccubbin, ’Tis Nature’s fault unauthorized sexuality during the enlightenment, pp. 109–21. Trumbach, ‘London’s sodomites’. Norton, Mother clap’s Molly house. Murray ‘Homosexual acts and selves’, pp. 457–77. Hammond, ‘Titus Oates and Sodomy’ in Black, Culture and Society in Britain, pp. 85–101.

  28. For the details of Thomas Blood’s career see Marshall, Intelligence, pp. 186–223.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Ibid.

  33. Haley, Shaftesbury, pp. 458–60. Lloyd, Sermon, p. 21. See also W. D. Christie, A life of Antony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury, 1667–1683 (2 vols., 1871), II, pp. 286–93.

  34. Knight, Killing, pp. 245–59.

  35. Ibid., pp. 259–82. Waller, a justice of the peace and son of the parliamentary general of the Civil War came to prominence during the course of the crisis and was noted for his hostility to all things Catholic. See Kenyon, Popish Plot, pp. 217–18 and W. Waller, The tragical history of Jetzer (1679). Sir William Waller’s kindness to the cities of London and Westminster particularly exprest (1679). A tale of tubbs or Rome’s masterpiece defeated (1679). An elegy on the much lamented Sir William Waller who valiantly hang’d himself at Rotterdam 21 August 1683 (1683). The latter piece, a satire for Waller did not hang himself, links both Waller and Godfrey: ‘Thou who at Fox hall dids’t inspire those sots,/Tongue, Oats and Kirkby to continue their plots; Who dis’t through wonderous Labarinths of Ill,/Conduct sir Godfrey safe to Primrose Hill;/And by Mysterious ways, and oaths most quaint,/Of an old Faggot made us a young saint. . . ’

  36. For Scott’s career see Marshall, Intelligence, pp. 223–43. See also J. Joyne, ‘A Journal, 1679’, in Greene, Diaries, pp. 55–84.

  37. Marshall, Intelligence, p. 224.

  38. Ibid., pp. 224–41.

  39. Knight, Killing, pp. 259–70. CSPD, 1667–8, p. 361.

  40. Marshall, Intelligence, p. 241. HMC, Ormonde MSS NS, IV, p. 515. Scott accused Pepys of treason and was subsequently investigated in detail by Pepys and his servants. If any evidence of Scott’s part in the killing of Godfrey had existed in fact, there seems little doubt that Pepys would have found it.

  41. For Pembroke see DNB: Philip Herbert, 7th Earl of Pembroke. G.E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage (13 vols, second edn 1910–46), X, eds H.A. Doubleday, G.H. White and Lord Howard de Walden (1945), p. 422. An impartial account of the misfortune that lately happened to the right honourable Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery (1680). Great and bloody news from Turham Green or a relation of a sharp encounter between the Earl of Pembroke and his company and the constable and watch belonging to the parish of Chiswick on the 18th instant (1680). B.R., Great newes from Saxony, or a new and strange relation of the mighty giant, Koorbmep (1680). Aubrey, Brief Lives, I, p. 317. HMC, Report 6, pp.384a, 493. HMC, Report 7, pp. 461–2, 466, 467, 491, 493. HMC, Report 9, p. 100. HMC, Finch II, p. 37. HMC, Hastings, II, p.170. HMC, Ormonde NS IV, pp.128, 361. HMC, Rutland, II, p. 28. Airey, Essex Papers, I, p. 282. Brown ‘Gentlemen and thugs’, p. 30. D.T. Archer, ‘The code of Honour and its critics: the opposition to duelling in England 1700–1850’ Social History, V (1980), 409–34. R. Shoemaker, ‘Reforming Male manners: public insult and the decline of violence in London, 1660–1740’ in Hitchcock and Cohen, English Masculinities, pp. 133–50. F. Dabhoiwala, ‘The constraints of honour, reputation and status in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, sixth series, VI (1996), 201–14.

  42. Muddiman, ‘Mystery’, pp. 138–45.

  43. Aubrey, Brief Lives, I, p. 317.

  44. The poem was alleged to be by Rochester and can be found as, ‘An imitation of the first satyr of Juvenal’ in J. Hayward (ed.), Collected works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1926), p. 86.

  45. HMC, Report 7, p. 466.

  46. Impartial account, p. 1.

  47. HMC, Report 7, p. 493.

  48. The tryal of Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke for the murder of Nathaniel Cony before his peers in Westminster Hall on Thursday 4th of April 1678 (1679).

  49. Ibid., and State Trials, VI, pp. 1310–50.

  50. Tryal, p. 9.

  51. Ibid., p. 10.

  52. Ibid., p.12.

  53. State Trials, VI, pp. 1310–50.

  54. Haley, Shaftesbury, p. 458.

  55. DNB: Philip Herbert, 7th Earl of Pembroke.

  56. Pollock, Popish Plot, is the clearest modern statement against the Catholics. See also Lloyd, Sermon, pp. 20
–1.

  57. Pepys, Diary, Companion volume, X, pp. 380–81. A. Audrey Locke, The Seymour family: history and romance (1911), pp. 359–363. W.H. Hinds, ‘The Strand in the seventeenth century its river front’, London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Transactions, IV (1918–22), 211–27.

  58. Marshall, Intelligence, p. 288.

  59. See above for Prance’s tale, chapter five. For another important assassination of the era see E. Godley, The Trial of Count Königsmarck (1929).

  60. Longleat MSS, Coventry papers, Microfilm, XI, f.272. PRO, 31/3/41, Barrillon to Louis XIV, 24 November 1678, 8 December 1678.

  61. HMC, Ormonde, NS, IV, p. 268.

  62. Nathaniel Thompson had published the details in October 1678, or Prance could have heard the gossip at the White House or elsewhere. We should also recall that he was a regular at the White House and could well have been among the crowd at the first day of the inquest. A succinct narrative of the bloody murder of sir Edmund Bury Godfrey Octob: 12 1678 (1683).