Alan Marshall - The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey: Plots & Politics in Restoration London

Plots and Politics in
Restoration London

Alan Marshall

First published in 1999 by Sutton Publishing

The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL 5 2 QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

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Alan Marshall, 2013

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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9474 6

Original typesetting by The History Press

As is usual with any historical work, this one has benefited from discussions with a number of friends and colleagues. Particular thanks must go to Erica Fudge and Dominic Aidan Bellenger, who took time out from their own work to read a version of the whole manuscript. I am also grateful for the help and interest of William Hughes, who offered his own insights into some of the medical matters. I would like to acknowledge the advice and encouragement given by Clyve Jones, Denis Judd, Bobby Anderson, Stuart Handley, Mark Knights, John Miller, Janet Clare, John Newsinger, Paul Hyland, Mark Annand, Kimberly Luke and Mark and Emily Smith. I also wish to acknowledge the advice and assistance given by Christopher Feeney and Sarah Moore of Sutton Publishing. The staffs of a number of libraries and institutions also gave their time and assistance, in particular the Guildhall Library, London; the British Museum, London; the British Library, London; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Institute of Historical Research, London; the Public Records Office at Kew; the National Library of Ireland, Dublin; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Greater London Records Office; the BBC Written Archives Centre; the University of Bristol Library; the Senate House Library, University of London; the Wellcome Institute Library; and the Warburg Institute, London.

I should also like to acknowledge the following for permission to reproduce the portraits and images in their care: the British Museum; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Guildhall Library, London; the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards, City of London; the British Library and Sothebys.

Every book should have a dedicatee and in this case it is Claire Tylee, for her patience in enduring many discussions on the life of Edmund Godfrey and for her ingenious solution (which, unfortunately, I had to omit) to Godfrey and his troublesome sword.

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1890)

Good people I pray you give ear unto me,
A story so strange you have never been told.
How the Jesuit, Devil and Pope did agree
Our State to destroy and religion so old
To Murder our King
A Most Horrible Thing!
But first of Sir Godfrey his death I must sing;
Who Murderd that knight no good Christian could be.
The truth of my story if any man doubt
Whave witnesses ready to swear it all out.

A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish Plot: The First Part (1680)

Primrose Hill near Hampstead was a noted beauty spot on the outskirts of London. On Thursday 17 October 1678, at around 6 oclock in the evening, a group of fourteen men, led by the local constable of the parish of Marylebone, John Brown, approached the south side of the hill where a dead body had been reported lying among the brambles in a drainage ditch. They were uneasy with the task at hand, as various rumours had already circulated around London in the course of that week. The well-known magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was missing, arrests were being made and talk of a new popish scandal was in the air. An informer by the name of Titus Oates had apparently revealed a deeply laid popish conspiracy that threatened the kings life. It was said that even the normally unflappable Charles II was disturbed by these events.

It was soon apparent to the men now standing next to the ditch that whatever the rumours, the man lying face down and run through with a sword really was dead and this was no trick of the light or courtiers ruse. In the gathering gloom the local parish constable and his neighbour William Lock descended into the ditch for a closer look. Pray God it be not Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, said one of them, for he hath been missing for sometime. With some difficulty Brown and Lock turned over the body and pulled back the coat that had been thrown up over the head. At first both men were unable to recognise the ruddy face of the magistrate who was a well-known figure about the City. With nightfall beginning to close in and the weather turning blustery, Brown, who seems to have been a man of some intelligence and who took his office seriously, finally made his decision. It was no use leaving the body lying there and none of the men with him wished to spend the night on the Hill. With no higher authority readily available, the constable drew out the sword that had pierced the body from chest to back and he, together with his assistants, heaved the corpse of the magistrate out of the ditch. The men then laid the corpse on two staves and raised them up. One of the group gingerly picked up the hat, scabbard, belt, stick and gloves of the dead man, which were lying nearby. They then carried the body over the fields to a somewhat disreputable public house nearby, where further inquiries could be made and a coroners inquest would sit on the strange death of Edmund Godfrey.

In the seventeenth century death was a familiar matter, so what made this death so singular? In the first place the death of Edmund Godfrey had an air of mystery that could never quite be dispelled. As we shall see, it is a historical puzzle of great complexity and so it had a longevity not usually given to other contemporary deaths. The nature of Godfreys demise, the sword through the body and the marks on the neck, the fact of his death in the course of that crisis known to contemporaries and to history as the Popish Plot, have all puzzled investigators since 1678. To his contemporaries the death of Edmund Godfrey was naturally attributed to Roman Catholics; the villainous papists had murdered the Protestant magistrate as part of a wider Popish Plot and were intent upon other malicious actions if they were given the chance. Indeed, because of this apparent Catholic involvement three innocent men, Robert Green, Henry Berry and Lawrence Hill, were to die upon the scaffold.

Yet historical mysteries require more than obvious solutions to fascinate and to be sustained. In an era troubled by plots and crimes of one sort or another, this affair stood out. In fact, although the evidence first pointed to murder, then to the possibility of suicide, then again to murder, this political