The Westminster Poisoner: Chaloner's Fourth Exploit in Restoration London (Thomas Chaloner Book 4)

by Susanna Gregory

  Notable courtiers and officials of the time include the Earl of Clarendon’s secretary, John Bulteel, and Joseph Williamson, who inherited the intelligence services from Thurloe and had a clerk called John Swaddell. The brilliant and innovative Richard Wiseman was appointed Surgeon to the Person in June 1660. Will Chiffinch was one of the more infamous of the Court debauchees, and his wife was named Barbara. Lady Muskerry, said to be large and not especially lovely, was the butt of several unkind jokes by wickedly spiteful courtiers, especially during the Twelve Days of Christmas – the Season of Misrule.

  Poor Queen Katherine was in a sorry state in December 1663. She was still recovering from an illness that had almost killed her, and was desperate to provide the King with an heir. She applied for funds to take the healing waters at Bath or Tunbridge Wells, but was told she had already spent all her annual household allowance of £40,000. Katherine was astounded: she had lived frugally, and her own accounts showed she was still owed £36,000. She petitioned the Lord Treasurer, demanding to know what had happened to her money, but his main response seems to have been an apologetic shrug. The £36,000 was gone, and there was no more to be had. It was July 1664 before funds were available for Katherine to go to Tunbridge Wells, but the spa did not help her conceive. Lady Castlemaine, by contrast, had provided the King with two sons by the end of 1663.

  On the morning of 21 January 1664, Colonel James Turner was taken to the end of Lymestrete (Lime Street), where a scaffold had been erected. A few days before, he had burgled the house of Francis Tryan, a wealthy merchant and money-lender, and made off with £1050 in coins and £4000 in jewels. Turner may have been a solicitor, and had been employed by Tryan on several occasions.

  Turner was the kind of man who gave cavaliers a bad name – there is no evidence that he was a real colonel, but he swaggered around boasting of his military prowess, and his behaviour was outrageous. He claimed to have sired twenty-eight children (counting only the ones born in wedlock), and on the scaffold, he announced to the crowd that his worst sin was swearing. He gave an inordinately long speech as the executioner waited to do his duty, confident that the King would pardon him. He had been warned that no such pardon would be forthcoming, but arrogant to the last, he refused to believe the King would not rush to his rescue. His Majesty wisely remained aloof from the affair, and Turner was hanged in the afternoon before an enormous crowd.