Meanwhile the public mind was occupied on other points. The trials of Staley, Coleman, and Ireland for high treason filled the greater part of one excited month.[217] Almost till Christmas the great murder case made no progress. Just then, when it must have seemed less than likely after the lapse of eight weeks and after the only hopeful trail had disappeared that any substantial advance should be gained, an extraordinary incident occurred. There was living in Covent Garden a Roman Catholic silversmith, by name Miles Prance, who did a fair business with those of his own religion and was occasionally employed by the queen. He was a friend of the Jesuits who had been imprisoned on account of the plot and, being in liquor one day at a tavern, had declared loudly “that they were very honest men.” Suspicion was aroused, and on inquiry it was found that he had slept away from his house for three nights about the time of Godfrey’s disappearance. In point of fact this had been before the date of the murder, and Prance’s subsequent connection with the case was due to this initial mistake. His landlord laid information, and on Saturday, December 21, Prance was arrested for being concerned in Godfrey’s murder. He was taken into the lobby of the House of Commons and was there waiting until the committee was ready to examine him, when Bedloe happened to pass through. His eye fell upon Prance and he cried out without hesitation, “This is one of the rogues that I saw with a dark lantern about the body of Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey, but he was then in a periwig.”[218] Prance was taken before the committee of the House of Lords and strictly examined. He denied knowing Walsh, Pritchard, or Le Fevre. He denied that he was guilty of Sir Edmund Godfrey’s death and that he had assisted in removing his body. When he spoke of Fenwick and Ireland in the coffee-house he was drunk. He had not worn a periwig once in the last ten years, but he owned one at home which had been made twelve months since from his wife’s hair. He had not been to the queen’s chapel at Somerset House once a month. After denying that he had received money from Grove, he confessed that Grove had paid him for some work. He first denied, but afterwards admitted that he had hired a horse to ride out of town. He had intended to leave London to escape the oaths administered to Roman Catholics, but had in the meantime been arrested.[219] Prance was committed a close prisoner to Newgate, and was lodged in the cell known as the condemned hole. There he remained during the nights of December 21 and 22. On the morning of Monday, December 23, he sent a message to the committee of inquiry offering on the assurance of pardon to confess. By order of the House of Lords the Duke of Buckingham and other noblemen were sent to Newgate with the promise of pardon and to take his examination.[220] At the same time the Commons ordered that the committee of secrecy or any three of them