The Road to Newgate

by Kate Braithwaite

  His pamphlet, A Brief History of This Latest Conspiracy, is ready to be distributed to every coffee shop in the capital. Scorn for Oates’s plot laces every line of it. But Nat is nervous this morning.

  “You’re up early,” I say, as he scrambles into his breeches and pulls a fresh linen shirt over his head.

  “I am. The magistrate’s murder trial begins today.”

  He has chosen today of all days to publish – the first day of the trial of three men for the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey. Oates will be centre stage in Westminster Hall, his plot on everyone’s mind. Nat could not throw his doubts and accusations out at a more inflammatory moment. I won’t remain here quietly, waiting for Nat to come home and describe it all. It’s time I saw Titus Oates for myself.

  “Good,” I say. “I am coming with you.”

  ***

  Westminster Hall is another new world to me, a huge cavern of activity where lawyers bustle past shoppers, sightseers, stray dogs, and men of business on their way to the court set up in the south east corner. The workings of the Court of the King’s Bench are open for all to see. The Judge sits on a raised dais under the window, and Nat leads me up a short number of steps to a row of seating to the Judge’s right. This gallery view makes the proceedings appear rather theatrical, but I quickly realise this is no light-hearted matter.

  Fat old Justice Scroggs and Attorney General Jones waste no time. They use their opening remarks to batter home the point that Sir Edmund Godfrey was a devout Protestant. The jury nod and turn, as I do, to examine the men in the dock. At least two of them are Catholic. All three are employed, in varying capacities, by the Queen at Somerset House. In the current climate, that fact in itself will probably be enough to see them hanged.

  Oates is called first. Beside me, Nat straightens up, pen in hand, ready to take down his testimony word for word. My first impression is that Oates is immensely sure of himself. I try to imagine William as his teacher and fail miserably. As we look on, Oates swaggers to the witness stand and reels off his oath as if these are words he has said many, many times. He declares that he has indeed known Sir Edmund Godfrey and that he and Israel Tonge – I glance at Nat; this is not a name I’m familiar with – visited Godfrey twice to make depositions about the infamous plot against King and country. Afterwards, Oates says, Godfrey also visited him. The magistrate expressed concern that his involvement with Oates and Tonge had made him unpopular in certain quarters and might even have put his life in danger.

  As Oates’s testimony concludes, Nat writes furiously. His mistrust of Titus Oates only grows. It is not what the public thinks, or what my father thinks, but Nat is certain that Oates is a liar. I don’t know if I agree but, if he is right, then it is a sorry thing this trial, for there are three men fighting for their lives. With a deepening sense of concern, I listen as the court moves to the details of Edmund Godfrey’s disappearance. A thin, slightly chinless, fellow named Thomas Robinson is called as a witness. Robinson describes himself as a long-standing friend to Godfrey, and says they last saw each other on Monday the 7th of October, five days before he disappeared.

  “He was not himself,” Robinson states. “Edmund was normally very calm, very precise. That night, he was confused. Often, he opened his mouth as if to speak, only to shut it again. He talked to me about the deposition he had taken. It was evidently praying on his mind. He said, ‘I will get little thanks for my involvement in this matter, Thomas.’ Those were his exact words.”

  “Did Sir Edmund Godfrey give you any reason to suppose he felt threatened or afraid?” asks Jones.

  “Certainly. He said he feared he would be the first martyr – his words – but that he would not part easily with his life. I urged him to take a man about with him, to give him some protection and ease his fears, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “And did you gain any impression about which group or individual had made your friend so terrified?”

  “No. I was struck by his choice of the word martyr, but he was very vague. I can’t say any more.”

  “Just that he told you he would be the first martyr?”

  “Yes. Just that.”

  Robinson leaves the witness box. My eyes linger on the accused men: Robert Green, Lawrence Hill, and Henry Berry. They don’t inspire sympathy, although I pity them. Two are older, their weathered faces fat with worry. The other is younger. He has the set of a labourer about his shoulders, an unlined, pale face, and long yellow hair. He keeps his eyes down, but every minute or so he looks fleetingly across the courtroom toward a young woman, presumably his wife. Her eyes are rimmed red although the day’s events have hardly begun. The way her dress swells across her belly tells a story. She has so much to be concerned about, yet still she manages to smile at her husband, albeit a thin crust of a smile, clamping anguished words behind tight lips and clenched teeth. Do they have children already, or will this be their first?

  As the next witness is sworn in, I study her, ashamed by how little I’ve considered the realities of this event. I haven’t distinguished enough between the three men in the dock to know if she is Mistress Green, or Berry, or Hill. I must pay better attention. The new witness is ready to begin. His name is Miles Prance.

  My first impression is of a weak, limp sort of fellow. He is short and narrow-shouldered, with thinning gingery hair and too-large eyes, but he appears very composed in the witness box. He’s a Catholic and a successful silversmith with a shop near Covent Garden. Prance speaks quietly but clearly. He is an educated man and the jurors take him seriously.

  A few months previously, Prance says, he fell into company with some priests, and through them came to know Lawrence Hill, Robert Green, and Henry Berry. They stiffen as he names them. The blond, younger man reacts first, and I assume that he is Lawrence Hill. My eyes are drawn again to the frightened face of his wife. I am sick at heart for her. Meanwhile, the courtroom falls silent as Prance describes the murder.

  Hill and Green, he says, followed Godfrey for at least a week before his death. On the Saturday afternoon in question, Hill ran to Prance’s house in Princess Street, not far from Somerset House, and begged him to help them. Prance glances across at the jury. He’s nervous. It was the priests, he says. The priests convinced him that Godfrey was actively working against English Catholics.

  “Priests?” I whisper to Nat.

  “Jesuits. Three of them. Arrested by Oates.”

  Below us, Prance admits that he went with Hill. Mistress Hill hugs her arms around her chest.

  “We followed Sir Godfrey for hours,” says Prance. “And in the evening, when he returned from some business in a house near St Clement’s Church, they murdered him. It was about seven or eight o’clock, quite dark. Lawrence Hill stopped Sir Edmund Godfrey just at the back-gate of Somerset House. He told him that a quarrel was taking place between two of the Queen’s servants in the yard there. He said he was afraid they would kill each other, and needed help to pull them apart. Berry and I pretended to fight. But as soon as Godfrey was in the yard, Green lunged out of the shadows. Berry ran to block the lower water-gate entrance, Hill took the back-gate and I stood guard at the upper-gate.”

  Prance clears his throat and then points across at the accused. “It was Robert Green. He took a twisted handkerchief and drew it about the magistrate’s neck. Then he called us back. The others fell on him, holding him down while Green choked the life from him.”

  A collective gasp breaks from the listening crowd. Nat squeezes my hand, but my eyes are fastened on Green, Berry, and Hill. There’s no reaction. All three stand with their heads bent, gazing at their feet. Prance isn’t finished, though.

  “The old man was strong. I returned from the gate, but his body wasn’t still. I saw his leg and an arm stirring. Robert Green went back, straddled the body, and grabbed the head in his hands. Then he twisted his neck round sharply and stamped on his chest.” Prance’s face twists. It’s the first emotion I’ve observed from him. “They talked about stabbing him to m
ake certain he was finished off, but Hill said they must not spill any blood. We set about concealing the body.”

  Poor, poor Mistress Hill. Her hand is over her mouth and her eyes are wet. Who will take her home when this is done?

  Next, Prance describes how Hill directed them to take the corpse to a room within Somerset House. He says it lay there for two nights. There’s a muttering through the crowd at this. Everyone remembers the week of Godfrey’s disappearance. We all wondered and gossiped about what had happened to him. Inevitably, I remember Nat and Henry discussing it. No-one would have imagined Godfrey was lying dead for days in a room in the Queen’s household. After two days, Prance says, the body was moved to a different room. By the Wednesday, they were ready to remove it altogether.

  “We carried the body out of Somerset House in a sedan chair. Berry was a porter there. He opened the gate. We took it like that as far as the Greek Church in Soho. From there, we shovelled him up on a horse, and Hill led the horse and its load out to Primrose Hill.” His face is flushed now. “That was my suggestion,” he says. “I’m a member of a club at the Horseshoe Tavern nearby.”

  Prance says the murderers met up again a few days later. They told him that Hill had taken Godfrey’s own sword and stabbed the dead man before leaving him in a ditch.

  “Why did you meet?” asks Jones, the Attorney General.

  “It was in the manner of a celebration.”

  “Did you dine together?”

  “Yes. On a barrel of oysters and a dish of fish. I bought the fish myself.” A snigger ripples around the crowd while Justice Scroggs scowls.

  “And what were you all about there?” says Jones.

  “Reading an account of the murder. And making merry about it.”

  “There were priests present?”

  “Several.”

  Jones looks meaningfully at the Jurymen and the Judges.

  “And now, I must ask you a question which is of great importance to the strength of the evidence we have to put before our jury. Do you know a Mr. Bedloe, Mr. Prance?”

  Nat scribbles down the name.

  “I do,” says Prance.

  “Had you ever had any discussion with him since you were imprisoned?”

  “None.”

  “Inevitable,” whispers Nat in my ear. “Oates could not remain a lone voice for long. Watch. This Bedloe is another scoundrel, just like Oates. Full of information of dubious provenance, especially when that information may lead to a reward.”

  The new witness slides into the witness box. Mr. Bedloe has a crooked smile. He runs his fingers through his hair and winks at some wench in the crowd, drawing whistles.

  “It’s rumoured that he has fortune-hunted all over Europe, blackmailing, seducing, and thieving as it suited him,” says Nat, and it’s not hard to believe. Bedloe is in his mid-twenties and looks to me to be good-humoured, light of heart, and entirely untrustworthy. “The five hundred-pound reward offered to help find Godfrey’s murderers brought him up to London from Bristol like a rat up a drain,” mutters Nat. “Since his arrival, Bedloe has made himself indispensable as a second witness to all of Oates’s claims.”

  Like Oates, Bedloe is at ease in the courtroom, and he has a lot to say for himself. He reels off a list of priests who, he claims, tried to tempt him take part in this and other crimes.

  “Did these priests explain why they wanted Justice Godfrey murdered?” he is asked.

  Bedloe shrugs. “They told me he was an important man. Said he had all the information gathered by Titus Oates and Israel Tonge, and that they needed him dead and the papers taken from him. They said that there was money available to those who helped them; money made available by Lord Bellasis and Edward Coleman.”

  “Ah, the merry sound of the ring of truth,” says my husband. He writes the word ‘tenuous’ in angry capital letters in his notes. “What a happy knack these witnesses have of picking on people who are already dead, like Coleman, hanged on the back of Oates’s evidence; or disgraced, like Lord Bellasis, who has been thrown in the Tower of London with no right of redress. It surely shames us that we call this justice.”

  Bedloe proves to be a slick witness. He speaks clearly and never hesitates. His testimony is scattered with little details and familiar asides that give his words an appearance of truth. He doesn’t corroborate Prance’s story closely or incriminate himself. But he does swear that he saw the body at Somerset House, and firmly identifies Prance, Hill, Berry, and Green as having all been present at a discussion about what to do with it.

  “I was for tying weights to his hands and feet and throwing him in the Thames,” Bedloe declares, “but they wouldn’t have that.” His grin makes my fingers twitch. If I were Hill’s wife, I’d long to slap his handsome face.

  “Tell us how you came to identify the witness, Miles Prance,” asks Jones.

  “I came across him again quite by chance,” says Bedloe. “I was in the lobby of the House of Lords, awaiting their Lordship’s pleasure, when Dr. Oates pointed out Mr. Prance. I recognised him at once. As he was already in custody, I told the guard to keep a firm hold of him while I laid out what I knew.”

  ***

  After Bedloe’s evidence is over, the trial moves swiftly toward its inevitable conclusion. My eyes continue to be drawn to Mistress Hill. Can she see her husband’s life slipping away from her as clearly as I do? Her mouth is set in a thin white line and her hand rubs at her back. She keeps her eyes fixed on her husband, but he looks to her less and less often. Beside me, Nat continues taking notes. A Constable Brown takes the stand and confirms that he recovered the body from a ditch on Primrose Hill. Godfrey’s own sword had pierced right through his chest and they found another, slighter, stab wound, but there was no blood found in the ditch at all. There were bruises to the victim’s chest, and his neck appeared to be broken. Godfrey’s stick and gloves were found near his body, and there was plenty of gold and silver in his pockets, ruling out robbery as a motive. Then a surgeon, Zackary Skillard, is asked to give a cause of death. I know nothing about such matters and his testimony leaves me none the wiser.

  “Are you sure his neck was broken?” asks the Attorney General.

  “I am sure,” says Skillard.

  “Did it appear that he was strangled or hanged?”

  He puffs out his chest. “I would say that there was more done to his neck than ordinary suffocation. And I would say that the sword wound through his heart would have produced some blood if it had been done quickly after his death.”

  “And what of the condition of the body?”

  “He was a lean man,” says the surgeon. “His muscles, if he had died of the sword wound, would have been turgid. Then again, all strangled people never swell, because there is a sudden deprivation of all the spirits and a hindering of the circulation of the blood.”

  Nat has written these words down verbatim while I study the jury. Their faces, as I am sure mine is, are as blank of understanding as white cotton bleaching in the sun.

  “You examined the body at midday on Friday the 18th of October,” continues Jones. “How many days dead do you believe he was?”

  “Four or five days. Or they may have kept him a week,” says Skillard. “He never swelled, being a lean man. Only when we cut him open, did putrefaction begin.”

  His evidence is confused, but on one thing Skillard’s certain. He is adamant that Godfrey’s injuries could not have been self-inflicted. The man was murdered. In this surgeon’s view, Prance’s story is plausible. There’s a shuffling amongst the prisoners. It’s becoming difficult to look at them.

  More witnesses follow. Godfrey’s maid, Elizabeth Curtis – a young, thin girl with a pretty but pinched expression – fixes her eyes on a space somewhere off in the distance, and swears firmly that she saw Hill and Berry at the house in Hartshorn Lane in the days just before Godfrey’s disappearance. She’s far from convincing – I’ve seen children of eight make better recitals from their prayer books – yet her evidenc
e goes unchallenged. Nat shifts a little when Sir Robert Southwell takes the stand. He is becoming as prolific in these cases as Oates, but Henry says he hates the attention.

  We learn that Southwell was responsible for testing Prance’s veracity by asking him to point out where in Somerset House the body of Justice Godfrey was hidden.

  “At His Majesty’s suggestion, My Lord,” says Southwell, “Mr. Prance showed the Duke of Monmouth and myself the actual places he has described.”

  “And was Mr. Prance clear and ready in showing you these areas?” asks Scroggs.

  “Yes,” says Southwell. “Although he did afterwards show some confusion.”

  “In what way?”

  “When we asked to be shown the other room to which the body was moved, Mr. Prance undertook to do so, but although we followed him and at first he was sure of the way, he could not find out the room for certain.”

  “Excellent!” declares Scroggs. Nat and I exchange surprised glances as the Judge continues. “Mr. Prance’s doubtfulness and his reluctance to commit himself falsely, speak directly to his honesty. The dishonest man lies brazenly, showing no signs of doubt or confusion. Only the honest man will not swear to facts of which he is uncertain.”

  Southwell gazes at Scroggs, his eyebrows just fractionally raised. Lawrence Hill stares open-mouthed up at the bench, and his wife has covered her face with both hands. Their child will be born without a father.

  The man has spirit, which makes it even harder to watch. With his fists at his side and in a clear, brave voice, Hill asserts that he has several witnesses who will prove that he was always in the house from eight o’clock every evening and therefore could have taken no part in these terrible activities. It gets him nowhere. One sweet-faced young woman from Dr. Godwin’s lodgings in Somerset House swears that there could never have been a body hidden there without the whole house knowing, but Scroggs is instantly wriggling in his seat, snorting his derision, making it very apparent to the jury that a pack of Catholics are not to be relied on one bit.