To his great misfortune he now fell in with one Captain Rookwood. It was about the time of the discovery of the assassination plot, of which Major Bernardi declares that he was in absolute ignorance till he heard of it like the rest of the world. He was by chance in the company of Captain Rookwood at a tavern, and was with him arrested on suspicion of being "evil-minded men." While in the Compter Rookwood incautiously revealed his own identity, and was lost. Rookwood seems at the same time to have unintentionally betrayed Bernardi, whose name had, it appears, and in spite of his protestations of perfect innocence, been included in a proclamation. The inference is that the Government was in the possession of certain information that Bernardi was mixed up in the plot.[153:1] Both men were carried before the Council, and committed close prisoners to Newgate, "loaded with heavy
irons, and put into separate dismal, dark, and stinking apartments." Rookwood was speedily condemned and executed at Tyburn. Bernardi remained in prison without trial, until after Sir John Fenwick had suffered. Then with his fellow prisoners he was taken to the Old Bailey to be bailed out, but at the instance of the Treasury solicitor, who "whispered the judges upon the bench," they were relegated to Newgate, and a special act passed rapidly through the House to keep them for another twelvemonth on the plea of waiting for further evidence against them. A second act was passed prolonging the imprisonment for another year; then a third, to confine them during the king's pleasure. On the death of the king (William III), a fresh act extended the imprisonment during the reign of Queen Anne. During this long lapse of time repeated applications were made to judges, but the release of the prisoners was always bitterly opposed by the law officers. Bernardi's doctors certified that imprisonment was killing him; he was said to suffer from fits and the constant trouble of an old wound. Nevertheless he lived on; and when in his sixty-eighth year he married, in Newgate, a second, "virtuous, kind, and loving wife, who proved a true helpmeet," supporting him by her good management, and keeping his heart from breaking in the "English Bastile." Bernardi had ten children born in Newgate of this second wife. The imprisonment
continued through the reigns of George I and II. Frequent petitions were unheeded, and finally Bernardi died in Newgate in 1736, the last survivor, after forty years' incarceration, and aged eighty-two.
FOOTNOTES:
[136:1] "Secret History of the Rebels in Newgate: giving an account of their daily behaviour from their commitment to their gaol delivery." Taken from "the diary of a gentleman in the same prison"—one who was evidently no particular admirer of theirs.
[137:1] It will be remembered that Mr. Forster's want of generalship lost the battle of Prestonpans.
[140:1] For this Dalton was convicted and fined fifty marks, with imprisonment for one year, also to find security for three more years.
[144:1] Parson Paul was the Rev. William Paul, M. A., vicar of Orton-on-the-Hill, in Leicestershire. He met the rebels at Preston, and performed service there, praying for the Pretender as King James the Third. When the royal troops invested Preston, Mr. Paul escaped "in coloured clothes, a long wig, a laced hat, and a sword by his side." He came to London, and was recognized in St. James's Park by a Leicestershire magistrate, who apprehended him, and he was committed to Newgate.
[144:2] One of the Halls of Otterburn, Northumberland, and a magistrate for the county. He joined the Pretender early, and was one of his most active and staunch supporters.