*Pollock, The Popish Plot, Duckworth, London, 1903.
As David Hume says, the truth might probably have been discovered, had proper measures been taken at the moment. But a little mob of horse and foot had trampled round the ditch in the dark, disturbing the original traces. The coroner’s jury, which sat long and late, on October 18 and 19, was advised by two surgeons, who probably, like the rest of the world, were biassed by the belief that Godfrey had been slain ‘by the bloody Papists.’ In the reign of mad terror which followed, every one was apt to accommodate his evidence, naturally, to that belief. If they did not, then, like the two original finders, Bromwell and Walters, they might be thrown, heavily ironed, into Newgate.*
*Lords’ MSS. P. 47, note 1.
But when the Popish Plot was exploded, and Charles II. was firm on his throne, still more under James II., every one was apt to be biassed in the opposite direction, and to throw the guilt on the fallen party of Oates, Bedloe, Dugdale, and the other deeply perjured and infamous informers. Thus both the evidence of 1678-1680, and that collected in 1684-1687, by Sir Roger L’Estrange, J.P. (who took great trouble and was allowed access to the manuscript documents of the earlier inquiries), must be regarded with suspicion.*
*L’Estrange, Brief History of the Times, London, 1687.
The first question is cui bono? who had an interest in Godfrey’s death? Three parties had an interest, first, the Catholics (IF Godfrey knew their secrets); next, the managers of the great Whig conspiracy in favour of the authenticity of Oates’s Popish Plot; last, Godfrey himself, who was of an hereditary melancholy (his father had suicidal tendencies), and who was involved in a quandary whence he could scarcely hope to extricate himself with life and honour.
Of the circumstances of Godfrey’s quandary an account is to follow. But, meanwhile, the theory of Godfrey’s suicide (though Danby is said to have accepted it) was rejected, probably with good reason (despite the doubts of L’Estrange, Hume, Sir George Sitwell, and others), by the coroner’s jury.*
*Sitwell, The First Whig, Sacheverell.
Privately printed, 1894, Sir George’s book—a most interesting volume, based on public and private papers—unluckily is introuvable. Some years have passed since I read a copy which he kindly lent me.
The evidence which determined the verdict of murder was that of two surgeons. They found that the body had been severely bruised, on the chest, by kicks, blows of a blunt weapon, or by men’s knees. A sword-thrust had been dealt, but had slipped on a rib; Godfrey’s own sword had then been passed through the left pap, and out at the back. There was said to be no trace of the shedding of fresh living blood on the clothes of Godfrey, or about the ditch. What blood appeared was old, the surgeons averred, and malodorous, and flowed after the extraction of the sword.