APPENDIX D
“The trial of John Giles at the Old Bailey, for assaulting and attempting to murder John Arnold, Esq.,” is a case which presents some difficulty.[770]
Arnold’s character for activity against the Roman Catholics has already been mentioned. The way in which this trial is regarded materially affects the answer to the question whether or no he exceeded the legitimate bounds of his magisterial duty. If Giles was rightly convicted, the excess was not great; if wrongly and the attempt on Arnold’s life was a sham, not only did Arnold lend himself to a criminal and most disreputable intrigue, but all his other actions must be more severely judged. The case was as follows. Arnold had accused Mr. Herbert, a Roman Catholic gentleman of Staffordshire, of speaking seditious words against the king and government.[771] They were both ordered to appear before the privy council on April 16, 1680.[772] On the day before that date it was alleged that Giles, who was a friend of Herbert,[773] attempted to murder Captain Arnold. For this Giles was tried on July 7, before Jeffreys, the Recorder of London, and convicted after what seemed to be a singularly fair trial. The case for the prosecution was that, as Arnold was going between ten and eleven o’clock on the night of April 15 to see his solicitor, he was assaulted in Bell-yard, Fleet Street, by the accused and one or two other persons, and but for the appearance of the neighbours would have been murdered. Giles had spoken disrespectfully of the Plot and the Protestant religion, had been seen to dip handkerchiefs in the blood of the Jesuit Lewis who was executed the year before at Usk,[774] and was supposed to have attacked Arnold in revenge for the part he had played in the capture of Evans. Arnold himself gave evidence of the fact. He swore that he had been dogged by two or three men into Bell-yard. One of these went by him and then stood still while the magistrate passed. By the light of a candle which a woman was holding at the door of a neighbouring house Arnold saw the man whom he afterwards recognised to be the prisoner. As he crossed a lane which ran into the yard, a cloak was thrown over his head and he was knocked down into the gutter, though not before he had time to draw his sword. As he lay on the ground the men stabbed at him with their swords. He was cut in the face, the arm, and the stomach, but the men were unable to pierce the bodice of whalebone which he wore under his coat. One of them cried, “Damme, he has armour on; cut his throat.” A light in Sir Timothy Baldwin’s house, hard by, and a boy coming into the yard with a link disturbed the murderers and they made off. As the cloak was pulled from his head, Arnold again recognised the prisoner by the light of the link. The men swaggered away and one turned back to call, “Now, you dog, pray for, or pray again for the soul of Captain Evans.”[775]
The evidence called to support and to oppose this was very contradictory. It was sworn that, talking about the affray at a tavern next day, Giles said, “God damn him, God rot him, he had armour on”; but the witness admitted that he might have said, “God rot him, he had armour on, they say.”[776] The prisoner declared that he merely told it as a common piece of news that Arnold would have been killed had he not worn armour, and called a witness who affirmed that this was so, that Giles had called the attempt “a cruel assassination” of which he was sorry to hear, and had made use of no oaths at all.[777] Evidence was given for the crown that Giles had hurried through Usk on May 5, saying that he was afraid of being arrested for the assault on Arnold, and at a cutler’s shop where he went to have a sword mended said he had been fighting “with damned Arnold.”[778] This was contradicted by the Mayor of Monmouth, who proved that Giles had not hurried through Usk, but stayed there several hours; and by the cutler’s apprentice, who proved that when the prisoner was asked, “How came your sword broke? Have you been fighting with the devil?” so far from speaking the words alleged, he had answered, “No, for I never met with Arnold.”[779] A great deal of evidence was given concerning the prisoner’s movements on the night of April 15. He had passed the evening in company at various taverns, and had finally gone to sleep at the King’s Arms in St. Martin’s Lane; but as the witnesses arrived at the times o’clock to which they deposed by guess-work alone, their evidence was naturally contradictory; and it seems now quite impossible to know certainly whether Giles was, as the prosecution contended, seen last at ten o’clock and did not go to bed till one in the morning, or, as the witnesses for the defence stated, had been in company till the hour of eleven or twelve.[780] According to the evidence therefore, which Jeffreys summed up at length and with moderation,[781] it was open to the jury to find either for or against the prisoner, and after deliberating for half an hour they returned a verdict of guilty. Giles was sentenced to the fine of £500 and to be pilloried three times. On July 26 he was pilloried in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and was pelted so severely that his life was in danger; and when the remainder of the sentence was carried out in Holborn and the Strand, he had to be protected from the mob by a guard of constables and watchmen.[782]
The real case against Arnold and in favour of the prisoner did not come into court. Sir Leoline Jenkins, secretary of state, employed an agent to draw up a report on the subject. The report was confined entirely to the assault itself and did not discuss the movements of either Arnold or Giles before or afterwards. It is notable that Arnold himself was the only witness as to the manner of the attack and the incidents connected with it, and that the important part of his evidence was wholly uncorroborated. Although he wished to deny the fact, he was well acquainted with Giles, who had been his chief constable, and probably knew enough of his movements to lay a false charge against him without running too great a risk of detection.[783] Jenkins’ information throws a curious light upon his evidence. It does not afford proof that Arnold lent himself to a bogus attempt on his life, but it raises strong suspicion that this was the case. There was no motive for the reporter not to tell the truth in points of fact. His deductions are lucid and apparently sound. The government probably refrained from bringing forward the new material owing to the intense opposition which the effort to obtain Giles’ acquittal would have raised. I quote the most important portion of the minute at length from the S.P. Dom. Charles II 414: 245. The paper is undated, but from internal evidence is seen to have been composed before the trial. It is without title, but is endorsed by Jenkins: “Mr. Arnold and about his being assassinated.”[784]
“1. Mr. Arnold was found near two at night April 15th, 1680 sitting in the dirt, wounded, leaning his head against the wall, some four yards within Jackanapes Lane, and immediately upon crying out, Murther.
“2. Quaere:—the manner of the assault. When and where he received his wounds; whether before his crying out or just at the time: what words passed on the one side and on the other, and concerning their going away laughing and triumphing.
“3. He was struck down, muffled in a cloak, and they stamped upon his breast; and yet he was found with a white hat on his head, no dirt upon it, and his clothes only dirty where he sat; though the land was fouler at that time than ordinary.
“4. Two pricks in his arm, the one so just against the other, that it seemed to be one wound; and yet hard to imagine how it should pass, for the bone.
“5. Upon his crying out, a woman held a candle from a window just over him, and two of the neighbours’ servants went immediately to him; but neither could see nor hear of anybody near him.
“6. If wounded before he cried out, ’tis a wonder that one of these boys should not hear either the blows or the scuffle; especially standing within 6 or 7 yards of him in the street, and having a duskish view of his body so long before he cried out, till upon his knocking at the door of the Sugar-loaf for drink, a servant of the house came downstairs, took his errand, went down for drink and came up again, in the meantime.
“7. Or if before this boy knocked, ’tis a wonder that upon that knocking he did not immediately cry out for succour, hearing people within distance of relieving him.
“8. If he was stunded when they left him, how could he take notice of what they said, and that they went laughing and triumphing away? Beside the danger of being heard into Sir Timothy Baldwin’s house, on the one side, and Mrs. Camden’s on the other, that looked just on to the place.
“9. If he could not be heard to cry out because he was muffled, how should he hear what the ruffians said? For they durst not speak so loud as he might cry; neither with a cloak over him could they well come at his throat.
“10. If they meant to kill him, they might have stabbed the knife into his throat; as well as have cut him; or having him down they might well have thrust him into his belly when they found the sword would not enter his bodice.
“11. There was no blood seen upon the ground neither where he lay, or thereabouts.”
The balance of probability seems to be undoubtedly that no attempt whatever was made on Arnold’s life, and that he deliberately engaged in a worse than dishonest scheme to inflame popular prejudice against the Catholics.
This result supports the evidence received from other quarters. The opinion at court and of the king himself was that the attack on Arnold was a part of the Whig political machinery. Barillon, writing on April 26/May 6, 1680, says:—“Ce prince (Charles II) n’est sans inquiétude, il voit bien par ce qu’il s’est fait sur le prétendu assassinat de Arnold que ses ennemis ne se rebuttent pas et qu’ils veulent de temps à temps faire renaître quelque occasion d’animer le peuple contre les Catholiques.”
In his manuscript history of the Plot (118) Warner gives the following account of the affair: “Supra dictum nihil magis commovisse plebem quam Godefridae eirenarchae caedes. Tentandam alterius caedem visum, eundem ad finem et aptus visus Arnoldus personam in ista tragicomica fabula sustineret, et Londini ... qui tum versabatur. Omnibus ad eam exhibendam paratis, designata hora ix vespertina, nocte illumi. Cum ergo biberet cum sociis in taberna publica, monitus a famulo instare tempus, quod ad causidicum condixerat, se statim inde proripit et conjicit in obscurissimam [sic] angiportum, destinatam scenam. Illic magnis clamoribus civium opem implorat; a papistis sibi structas insidias, sicarios ibi expectasse, jugulum haurire voluisse, sed errante ictu mentum vulnerasse; eos fuga elapsos, ubi cives convenire vidissent; eorum neminem sibi notum sed unum in tibia laesum; hunc ex vulnere, reliquos ejus indicio comprehendi posse. Hoc xix Aprilis contigit. Hinc tragice debacchant in Catholicos factiosi, Oate praeeunte: legum beneficio juste privari qui leges susque deque haberent; gladio utendum in publicos sicarios, internecione delendos, ut ne catulus quidem reliquatur; averruncandam semel pestem omnium vitae imminentem. Inventae una nocte omnes Catholicorum domus cruce cretacea signatae, percussoribus indiciae, ubi hospitarentur. Nihil deesse visum quam qui signum daret: hoc saluti fuit Catholicis sub cruce militantibus, cruce signatis. Brevi motus ipsi subsiderunt, dum constitit leniter tantum perstrictam cutem; nec constare a se, an ab alio id factum; nemo vero Catholicus erat, in quem facinoris invidia derivaretur. Testati chirurgi neminem in tota civitate vulnus in tibia habere. Unus tandem inventus in familia Powisii qui attritam lapsu tibiam oleo lenibat. Hic tentatae caedis arcessitur coram consilio regio inde ad Arnoldum deducitur. Sed cum hic eum non accusaret, et ipse probaret se navem conscendisse Brillae xix Aprilis (id est, eodem die quo tentatum facinus) et tantum tertio post die Londinum appulisse, et ipse demissus est, et Arnoldi fictae querimoniae cum risu transmissae.”
Strangely enough, Warner seems to have known nothing about the arrest and trial of Giles. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, judging from the report of the trial, regards the attempt to murder Arnold as an act of revenge for the magistrate’s energy against the Roman Catholics, and quotes it in support of Macaulay’s suggestion that Sir Edmund Godfrey was murdered by some Catholic zealot for a similar motive.[785] In the face of the probability that no real attack was made on Arnold, this support falls to the ground. It is far more likely that the rumours at court that Oates had murdered Godfrey to gain credit for the plot suggested to Arnold or his wire-pullers the method of continuing the credit of the Whig party by the shameful means of a bogus attempt on his own life.