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]