Before further steps could be taken definite news came to hand. On Thursday, October 17, a man, who could never afterwards be found, came into the shop of a London bookseller in the afternoon with the information that Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey had been found dead near St. Pancras’ Church with a sword thrust through his body. A Scotch minister and his friend were in the shop and carried the news to Burnet.[157] The report was correct. At two o’clock in the afternoon two men were walking across the fields at the foot of Primrose Hill, when they saw, lying at the edge of a ditch, a stick, a scabbard, a belt, and a pair of gloves. Pushing aside the brambles, they found a man’s corpse in the ditch, head downwards. With this discovery they proceeded to the Whitehouse Inn, which stood in a lane not far off. John Rawson, the innkeeper, offered them a shilling to fetch the articles which they had seen on the bank, but rain had begun to fall, and they decided to wait till it should cease. By five o’clock the rain had stopped, and Rawson, with a constable and several of his neighbours, set out, guided by the men who had brought the news. They found the body at the bottom of the ditch resting in a crooked position; “the left hand under the head upon the bottom of the ditch; the right hand a little stretched out, and touching the bank on the right side; the knees touching the bottom of the ditch, and the feet not touching the ground, but resting upon the brambles”: through the body, which hung transversely, a sword had been driven with such force that its point had pierced the back and protruded for the length of two hand-breadths. In the ditch lay the dead man’s hat and periwig. The constable called the company to notice particularly the details of the situation. They then hoisted the corpse out of the ditch, and to facilitate the carriage withdrew the sword; it was “somewhat hard in the drawing, and crashed upon the bone in the plucking of it forth.” The body was set upon two watchmen’s staves and carried to the Whitehouse Inn, where it was placed upon a table. As they came into the light the men recognised, what they had already guessed, that the dead man was Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. A note of the articles found was taken. Besides those brought from the bank and the ditch, a large sum of money was found in the pockets.[158] On the fingers were three rings. Leaving two watchmen to guard the body, the constable and half a dozen others rode off to Hartshorn Lane. There they found Godfrey’s brothers and his brother-in-law, Mr. Plucknet. Towards ten o’clock at night the constable returned to the inn with Plucknet, who formally identified the body. Rawson and Brown, the constable, then took him to view the place where it had been found, by the light of a lantern. The same night the brothers Godfrey sent to Whitehall to notify what had passed, and a warrant was issued for the summons of a jury to take the inquest.[159]

On the following morning a jury of eighteen men and Mr. Cooper, coroner of Middlesex, met at the Whitehouse. At the instance of some officious tradesmen the coroner of Westminster offered his services also, but they were properly refused.[160] The jury sat all day, and as the evidence was unfinished, adjourned in the evening. On Saturday, October 19, the inquest was continued at the Rose and Crown in St. Giles’ in the Fields, and late at night the verdict was returned: “That certain persons to the jurors unknown, a certain piece of linen cloth of no value, about the neck of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, then and there, feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did tie and fasten; and therewith the said Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did suffocate and strangle, of which suffocation and strangling he, the said Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, then and there instantly died.”[161] Stripped of its cumbrous verbiage the jury gave a verdict of murder by strangling against some person or persons unknown. They were determined in this chiefly by the medical evidence.[162] Testimony was given at great length on the position and appearance of the corpse in the ditch. A number of people had examined the body and the spot where it was found. Five surgeons and two of the king’s apothecaries formed professional opinions on the subject. At the inquest only two of the surgeons gave evidence, but the testimony of the others, taken at a later date, entirely supported their judgment. To points of fact there was no lack of witnesses.

Godfrey’s movements were traced to one o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday, October 12. At nine o’clock in the morning one of the jurymen had seen him talking to a milk-woman near Paddington; at eleven another had seen him returning from Paddington to London; at one Radcliffe, an oilman, had seen him pass his house in the Strand, near Charing Cross.[163] It was proved that on Tuesday there had been nothing in the ditch where Godfrey’s corpse was found two days later.[164] Further evidence of this was given at the trial of Thompson, Pain, and Farwell in 1682 for a libel “importing that Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey murdered himself,” Mr. Robert Forset was then subpœnaed to appear as a witness, but was not called. He deposed before the Lord Mayor that on Tuesday, October 15, 1678 he had hunted a pack of harriers over the field where the body was found, and that his friend Mr. Harwood, lately deceased, had on the next day hunted the hounds over the same place and along the ditch itself; on neither occasion was anything to be seen of cane, gloves, or corpse.[165] An examination of the body revealed remarkable peculiarities. From the neck to the top of the stomach the flesh was much bruised, and seemed to have been stamped with a man’s feet or beaten with some blunt weapon.[166] Below the left ear was a contused swelling, as if a hard knot had been tied underneath. Round the neck was a mark indented in the flesh, merging above and below into thick purple creases. The mark was not visible until the collar had been unbuttoned. The surgeons’ opinion was unanimous to the effect that it had been caused by a cloth or handkerchief tightly tied, and that the collar had been fastened over it.[167] The neck was dislocated.[168] The body was lissom, and in spots on the face and the bruised part of the chest showed signs of putrefaction. Two wounds had been inflicted on the breast. One pierced as far as a rib, by which the sword had been stopped. From the other, which was under the left breast, the sword had been extracted by the constable; it had been driven through the cavity of the heart and had transfixed the body.[169] These facts were suggestive, but the point which deservedly attracted most attention was the striking absence of blood from the clothes of the dead man and the place where his corpse had been found. In spite of the rain the ditch, which was thickly protected by brambles and bushes, was dry, and would certainly have shewn marks of blood if any had been there. The evidence is positive that there was none. Brown, the constable, Rawson, and Mr. Plucknet examined the spot with lanterns on the night of Thursday, October 17. Early the next morning the ditch was searched by several other persons. At no time did it contain traces of any blood whatever. A few yards to the side of the ditch the grass was stained with blood and serum which had oozed from the wound in the back after the withdrawal of the sword. Some stumps, over which the men carrying the body to the inn had stumbled, were stained in the same way. As they had entered the house the body had been jerked against the doorpost; similar marks were found there; and when it was set on the table there was a further effusion of blood and serum which dripped upon the floor of the inn parlour. With the exception of the part of the shirt which covered the wound at the back, the clothes of the dead man were without any stain of blood.[170] The importance of this is obvious. A sword driven through the living heart must produce a great discharge of blood. The clothes of a man thus killed would be saturated with blood. The ground on which he lay would be covered with it. Only in one case would this not happen. If the sword plugged the orifice of the wound in such a way as wholly to stop the flow of blood from it, the quantity which escaped would be inconsiderable. In the case of Sir Edmund Godfrey this could not have taken place. L’Estrange says: “The sword stopped the fore part of the wound, as tight as a tap.”[171] But the only manner in which he could suggest that Godfrey committed suicide was by resting his sword on the edge of the bank beyond the ditch and falling forward on it.[172] It is impossible to believe that if he had killed himself in this manner the sword should not have been disturbed or twisted by his fall. As he fell, it must have been violently wrenched, the wound would have been torn, and the ensuing rush of blood have flooded the ditch and his body lying in it.[173] Apart from L’Estrange’s bare word, there is no reason to believe that the wound was plugged by the blade of the sword. This would have been in itself a remarkable circumstance; and the fact that there is no evidence to the point, when every other detail was so carefully noted, raises a presumption that the statement was untrue. Even if it had been the case, the second wound would still afford matter for consideration. It would be sufficiently strange that a man wishing to end his life should bethink himself of falling on his sword only after bungling over the easier way of suicide by stabbing himself. But it is hardly credible that a considerable flesh wound should be made and the weapon withdrawn from it without some flow of blood resulting; and there was no blood at all on the front of Godfrey’s body or on the clothes covering the two wounds. The surgeons and the jury who trusted them were perfectly right in their conclusion. There can be no substantial doubt that the wounds found on Godfrey’s body were not the cause of his death, but were inflicted at some time after the event. As a dead man cannot be supposed to thrust a sword through his own corpse, he had certainly been murdered. When this point was reached, the nature of his end was evident. The neck was dislocated and showed signs of strangulation. Clearly the magistrate had been throttled in a violent struggle, during which his neck was broken and his body hideously bruised. The clerk proved that when his master went out on the morning of October 12 “he had then a laced band about his neck.” When the body was found, this had disappeared. Presumably it was with this that the act had been accomplished.

That the murder was not for vulgar ends of robbery was proved by the valuables found upon the body. Another fact of importance which came to light at the inquest shewed as clearly that it was dictated by some deeper motive. The lanes leading to the fields surrounding Primrose Hill were deep and miry. If Godfrey had walked thither to commit suicide, his shoes would have told a tale of the ground over which he had come. When his body was found the shoes were clean.[174] Upon this was based the conclusion that Godfrey had not walked to Primrose Hill on that day at all. It was clear that he had been murdered in some other place, that the murderers had then conveyed his body to Primrose Hill, had transfixed it with his sword, and thrown it into the ditch, that the dead man might seem to have taken his own life.

The result of the inquest was confirmed by what passed some years later. In the course of the year 1681 a series of letters were published in the Loyal Protestant Intelligencer, purporting to prove that Sir Edmund Godfrey had committed suicide. Thompson, Pain, and Farwell, the publisher and authors of the letters, were tried before Chief Justice Pemberton on June 20, 1682 for libel and misdemeanour. The accused attempted to justify their action, but the witnesses whom they called gave evidence which only established still more firmly the facts elicitated at the inquest. Belief in the Popish Plot was at this time on the wane throughout the country, and at court was almost a sign of disloyalty. The men were tried in the fairest manner possible, and upon full evidence were convicted. Thompson and Farwell were pilloried and fined £100 each, and Pain, whose share in the business had been less than theirs, escaped with a fine.[175] None but those who were willing to accept L’Estrange’s bad testimony, assertions, and insinuations could refrain from believing that Godfrey’s death was a cold-blooded murder. Even some who would have been glad to credit his suicide were convinced. The king certainly could not be suspected of a desire to establish belief in the murder. When news of the discovery of the body first reached him, he thought that Godfrey had killed himself.[176] But when Dr. Lloyd, who went with Burnet to view the body at the Whitehouse Inn, brought word of what they had seen, Charles was, to outward appearance at all events, convinced that this could not have been the case. He was open enough in his raillery at the witnesses of the plot, but he never used his witty tongue to turn Godfrey’s murder into a suicide.[177]

The rumours which had before connected the magistrate’s disappearance with the Roman Catholics were now redoubled in vigour.[178] Conviction of their truth became general. The Whig party under the lead of Shaftesbury boomed the case. Portrait medals of Godfrey were struck representing the Pope as directing his murder. Ballads were composed in Godfrey’s memory. Sermons were preached on the subject. Dr. Stillingfleet’s effusion ran into two editions in as many days, and ten thousand copies were sold in less than a month.[179] An enterprising cutler made a special “Godfrey” dagger and sold three thousand in one day. On one side of the blade was graven: Remember the murder of Edmond Bury Godfrey; on the other: Remember religion. One, ornamented with a gilt handle, was sent to the Duke of York. Ladies of high degree carried these daggers about their persons and slept with them beneath their pillows, to guard themselves from a similar doom. Others as timid followed the lead of the Countess of Shaftesbury, who had a set of pocket pistols made for her muff.[180] The corpse of the murdered magistrate was brought to London in state, and lay exposed in the street for two days. A continual procession of people who came to gaze on the sight passed up and down. Few who came departed without rage, terror, and revenge rooted in their hearts. On October 31 the body was borne to burial at St. Martin’s in the Fields. Seventy-two clergymen walked before; above a thousand persons of distinction followed after. The church was crowded. Dr. Lloyd, afterwards Dean of Bangor and Bishop of St. Asaph, himself a friend of Godfrey, preached a funeral sermon from the text: “Died Abner as a fool dieth?” It consisted of an elaborate eulogy of the dead man and an inflammatory attack upon the Roman Catholics. To crown the theatrical pomp of this parade, there mounted the pulpit beside the preacher two able-bodied divines, to guard his life from the attack which it was confidently expected would be made. “A most portentous spectacle, sure,” exclaims North. “Three parsons in one pulpit! Enough of itself, on a less occasion, to excite terror in the audience.”[181] There was one thing still lacking. As yet no evidence had appeared to connect any one with the crime. On October 21 a committee of secrecy was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the Popish Plot and the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. On the 23rd a similar committee was established by the House of Lords.[182]

The secretaries of state and the privy council were already overwhelmed with work which the investigation of the plot had thrown upon their shoulders. For ten days the committees laboured at the inquiry, and examined some dozens of witnesses without drawing nearer to the desired end. Nothing appeared to throw light upon the subject. Every clue which was taken up vanished in a haze of rumour and uncertainty. There seemed every probability that the murderers would escape detection. But information was soon to be forthcoming to shed a ray of light upon the scene.

CHAPTER II

BEDLOE AND ATKINS

On October 20 a proclamation was published offering a pardon and the reward of £500 to any one whose evidence should lead to the apprehension and conviction of the murderers. Four days later a second proclamation was issued containing in addition to these a promise of protection to the discoverer of the culprits. It is easy to point out that this course offered temptations to perjury and to sneer at the motives of the government, but it must be remembered that in the days when the police were a force of the future it was only by obtaining an accomplice in the crime to give evidence that criminals could in many cases be brought to justice. The proclamations took effect. At five o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, November 1, Samuel Atkins was arrested at the offices of the Admiralty in Derby House for being concerned in the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey. Atkins was clerk to Samuel Pepys, the secretary of the navy board. He was arrested on the evidence of a certain Captain Charles Atkins. The two men were not related by blood, but were acquaintances, and “for name-sake have been called cousins.” Captain Atkins had laid information before Henry Coventry on October 27.[183] Three days later he made the same relation to the privy council, and on Friday, November 1, swore to his statement before Sir Philip Howard, justice of the peace for the county of Middlesex. He deposed: “That in Derby-house, being in discourse with Samuel Atkins (clerk of Mr. Pepys, secretary of the Admiralty), the said Samuel did say that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey had very much vilified his master, and that if he lived long would be the ruin of him; upon which the said Samuel did ask this examinant whether he did think Child to be a man of courage and secrecy; to which this examinant did reply that the said Child had been at sea, and had behaved himself very well, as he had been informed; upon which the said Samuel bid this examinant send the said Child to his master, Mr. Pepys, but not to him the said Samuel, for that he would not be seen to know anything of it. This examinant did endeavour to find out the said Child, but did not meet with him till the day after the discourse had happened between him and Samuel Atkins, at the Three Tobacco Pipes in Holborn, where this examinant did tell Child that Secretary Pepys would speak with him; and the next time that this examinant did see the said Child (after he had given him that direction) he, the said Child, did endeavour to engage the said examinant to join him in the murder of a man.”[184] The quarrel between Pepys and Godfrey, he said further, was occasioned by the discovery of the Popish Plot.[185]