He gave the following account of the transaction:—He said he had no design of destroying the infant, but put it in a bag lined with wool, and made a hole in the bag that it might not be stifled. He added, that the child was handsomely dressed, and he had intended to have left it at the door of Mr. Chaworth, of Annesley; but the dogs barking, and there being a light in the house, he desisted from his first intention, in the fear of a discovery. After some hesitation, he said, he resolved to place it under a warm hay-stack, in the hope that, when the servants came to fodder the cattle in the morning, it would be found.
He acknowledged to a clergyman who assisted him in his devotions that he forgave all his enemies, even his brother Charles; but made the following strange addition to his speech: “that if, at the day of judgment, God Almighty should ask him how his brother behaved, he would not give him a good character.”
The hopes of a pardon which he had entertained soon proved unfounded; and an order arrived for his execution on the 11th December 1759, on which day he completed his 74th year, and terminated his life on a scaffold erected at Nottingham.
LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS, was a man of singular and most unhappy disposition. Descended of an ancient and noble family, he was doomed to expiate a crime, of which he had been guilty, at Tyburn.
It would appear that the royal blood of the Plantagenets flowed in his veins, and the earl gained his title in the following manner:—The second baronet of the family, Sir Henry Shirley, married a daughter of the celebrated Earl of Essex, who was beheaded in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and his son, Sir Robert Shirley, died in the Tower, where he was confined during the Protectorate, for his attachment to the cause of the Stuarts. Upon the Restoration, the second son of Sir Robert succeeded to the title and estates; and Charles, anxious to cement the bonds which attached his friends to him, summoned him to the Upper House of Parliament by the title of Lord Ferrers of Chartley, as the descendant of one of the co-heiresses of the Earl of Essex; the title, which had existed since the reign of Edward III., having been in abeyance since the death of that unfortunate nobleman. In the year 1711, Robert, Lord Ferrers, was created by Queen Anne, Viscount Tamworth and Earl Ferrers; and it appears that although the estates of the family were very great, they were vastly diminished by the provisions which the Earl thought proper to make for his numerous progeny, consisting of fifteen sons and twelve daughters, born to him by his two wives. At the death of the first earl, his title descended to his second son; but he dying without issue, it went in succession to the ninth son, who was childless, and the tenth son, who was the father of the earl, Laurence, the subject of the present sketch.
This nobleman was united in the year 1752 to the youngest daughter of Sir William Meredith; but although his general conduct when sober was not such as to be remarkable, yet his faculties were so much impaired by drink, that when under the influence of intoxication, he acted with all the wildness and brutality of a madman. For a time his wife perceived nothing which induced her to repent the step she had taken in being united to him; but he subsequently behaved to her with such unwarrantable cruelty, that she was compelled to quit his protection, and rejoining her father’s family, to apply to Parliament for redress. An act was in consequence passed, allowing her a separate maintenance to be raised out of her husband’s estate; and trustees being appointed, the unfortunate Mr. Johnson, who fell a sacrifice to the ungovernable passions of Lord Ferrers, having been bred up in the family from his youth, and being distinguished for the regular manner in which he kept his accounts, and his fidelity as a steward, was proposed as receiver of the rents for her use. He at first declined the office; but subsequently, at the desire of the Earl himself, he consented to act, and continued in this employment for a considerable time.
His lordship at this time lived at Stanton, a seat about two miles from Ashby de la Zouch, in Leicestershire; and his family consisted of Mrs. Clifford, a lady who lived with him, and her four natural daughters, besides five men-servants, exclusive of an old man and a boy, and three maids.
Mr. Johnson lived at the house belonging to the farm, which he held under his lordship, called the Lount, about half a mile distant from Stanton. It appears that it was his custom to visit his noble master occasionally, to settle the accounts which were placed under his care; but his lordship gradually conceived a dislike for him, grounded upon the prejudice raised in his mind on account of his being the receiver of the countess’ portion, and charged him with having combined with the trustees to prevent his receiving a coal contract. From this time he spoke of him in opprobrious terms, and said he had conspired with his enemies to injure him, and that he was a villain; and with these sentiments he gave him warning to quit an advantageous farm which he held under his lordship. Finding, however, that the trustees under the act of separation had already granted him a lease of it, it having been promised to him by the earl or his relations, he was disappointed, and probably from that time he meditated a more cruel revenge.