The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841
Pelham, Camden
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England)
On Monday the 14th of May, Messrs. E. G. and W. Wakefield were carried
to the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, to receive judgment, when
affidavits were put in on their behalf, declaring that the latter had
acted entirely under the guidance and direction of his elder brother.
Mr. E. G. Wakefield also swore, that the expenses of his trial to him
had exceeded 3000_l._ The counsel on behalf of the prosecution having
addressed the court in aggravation, pressing for the severest penalty
allowed by the law, Mr. Justice Bayley addressed the prisoners. He dwelt
in impressive terms upon the falsehood and art used by them to entrap
the young lady into the marriage, and the gross delusions resorted to
for the purpose of lulling her suspicions, and inducing her to yield to
the design in carrying her off. Having then referred separately to the
conduct of the defendants, the learned Judge passed sentence, that
Edward Gibbon Wakefield should be imprisoned in Newgate for the space of
three years and that W. Wakefield should be imprisoned in Lancaster
Castle for the like term of three years. Mrs. Frances Wakefield,
against whom a verdict of Guilty had also been returned, was not brought
up for judgment; the generous feelings of Mr. Turner, much injured as
his family had been, preventing him from proceeding with harshness
against a female.
On the next day, a motion was made in the House of Lords by Lord
Redesdale, for leave to bring in a bill to annul the marriage between
Miss Turner and Mr. Wakefield, when, after some discussion, the bill was
granted in the usual way, Mr. Wakefield, upon his petition, was
subsequently brought from Newgate to oppose the second reading of the
bill; but the opposition was fruitless, and it eventually passed both
houses of parliament. Messrs. Wakefield afterwards completed the term of
their imprisonment; at the conclusion of which they were liberated from
the jails in which they were respectively confined.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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