The Valet's Tragedy, and Other StudiesLang, Andrew
History
The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies
Lang, Andrew
History; World history
Lord Chief Justice Scroggs actually told the jury that ‘for two
witnesses to agree as to many material circumstances with one another,
that had never conversed together, is impossible.... They agree so
in all things.’* The two witnesses did not agree at all, as we have
abundantly seen, but, in the fury of Protestant fear, any injustice
could be committed, and every kind of injustice was committed at this
trial. Prance later pleaded guilty on a charge of perjury, and well he
might. Bedloe died, and went to his own place with lies in his mouth.
*State Trials, vii. 216.
5.
If I held a brief against the Jesuits, I should make much of a point
which Mr. Pollock does not labour. Just about the time when Prance began
confessing, in London, December 24, 1678, one Stephen Dugdale, styled
‘gentleman,’ was arrested in Staffordshire, examined, and sent up to
town. He was a Catholic, and had been in Lord Aston’s service, but was
dismissed for dishonesty. In the country, at Tixall, he knew a Jesuit
named Evers, and through Evers he professed to know much about the
mythical plot to kill the King, and the rest of the farrago of lies. At
the trial of the five Jesuits, in June 1679, Dugdale told what he had
told privately, under examination, on March 21, 1679.* This revelation
was that Harcourt, a Jesuit, had written from town to Evers, a Jesuit
at Tixall, by the night post of Saturday, October 12, 1678, ‘This very
night Sir Edmundbury (sic) Godfrey is dispatched.’ The letter reached
Tixall by Monday, October 14.
*Fitzherbert MSS; State Trials, vii. 338.
Mr. Pollock writes: ‘Dugdale was proved to have spoken on Tuesday,
October 15, 1678, of the death of a justice of the peace in Westminster,
which does not go far.’* But if this is PROVED, it appears to go all the
way; unless we can explain Dugdale’s information without involving
the guilty knowledge of Harcourt. The proof that Dugdale, on Tuesday,
October 15, spoke at Tixall of Godfrey’s death, two days before
Godfrey’s body was found near London, stands thus: at the trial of the
Jesuits a gentleman, Chetwyn, gave evidence that, on the morning of
Tuesday, October 15, a Mr. Sanbidge told him that Dugdale had talked
at an alehouse about the slaying of a justice of peace of Westminster.
Chetwyn was certain of the date, because on that day he went to
Litchfield races. At Litchfield he stayed till Saturday, October 19,
when he heard from London of the discovery of Godfrey’s body.** Chetwyn
asked Dugdale about this, when Dugdale was sent to town, in December
1678. Dugdale said he remembered the facts, but, as he did not report
them to his examiners (a singular omission), he was not called as a
witness at the trial of Berry, Green, and Hill. Chetwyn later asked
Dugdale why he was not called, and said: ‘Pray let me see the copy of
your deposition sworn before the Council. He showed it me, and there was
not a syllable of it, that I could see, BUT AFTERWARDS IT APPEARED TO BE
THERE.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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