The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey Read online

  The Strange Death of

  Edmund Godfrey

  The Strange Death of

  Edmund Godfrey

  Plots and Politics in

  Restoration London

  Alan Marshall

  First published in 1999 by Sutton Publishing

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  All rights reserved

  © Alan Marshall, 2013

  The right of Alan Marshall to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9474 6

  Original typesetting by The History Press

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  INTRODUCTION: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

  1. FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE

  2. THE LONDON WOODMONGER

  3. TITUS OATES AND THE POPISH PLOT

  4. THE LAST DAYS OF EDMUND GODFREY

  5. REACTION

  6. THE CASE OF OCKHAM’S RAZOR

  EPILOGUE: MEMORIALS

  Notes

  Select Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  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 Sotheby’s.

  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 Murder’d that knight no good Christian could be.

  The truth of my story if any man doubt

  W’have witnesses ready to swear it all out.

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

  Introduction: A Death in the Family

  Primrose Hill near Hampstead was a noted beauty spot on the outskirts of London. On Thursday 17 October 1678, at around 6 o’clock 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 king’s 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 courtier’s 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 coroner’s inquest would sit on the strange death of Edmund Godfrey.1

  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 Godfrey’s 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 th
e evidence first pointed to murder, then to the possibility of suicide, then again to murder, this political cause célèbre was muddied by a number of interested parties over the following years and was frequently re-examined and reinterpreted thereafter. The basic facts of the case appeared clear enough. Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a melancholy fifty-six-year-old bachelor and businessman, was also a justice of the peace of good standing in his local community. He left his home early on the morning of Saturday 12 October 1678, having recently become embroiled in the beginnings of a series of lies and exaggerations known as the Popish Plot. He disappeared at some point before 3 o’clock that day and was found five days later, on Thursday 17 October, some miles from his home and dead in a ditch at the foot of Primrose Hill. The question of who killed Godfrey or how he died was of some importance to contemporaries for, as we shall see, the magistrate’s death appeared, at least in part, to confirm the truth of the Popish Plot, whose ramifications were daily becoming ever more sinister. Plans to murder the King, raise armies of Roman Catholics and return the nation to popery could all apparently be proven by the death of this one magistrate.

  With regard to the case itself, however, it is arguable that most previous investigators have in fact begun at the wrong end of the problem. There is a natural tendency when examining the Godfrey affair to look for a killer, obvious or not, create a profile that fits the suspect and thus ‘solve’ the mystery. In reality the solution, if any can now really be found as to how Edmund Godfrey met his death, might arguably lie by looking in another direction – namely, Godfrey’s background, life and personality. It is through an examination of his life that we may find clues as to his death, and subsequently gauge the impact of his death on Restoration London. In other words we need to know who Godfrey was before we can say why he had to die.

  By adopting this approach, we will be recreating more than just a murder mystery. Edmund Godfrey was a real man, not a fictional character, and although he died in brutal circumstances, he was also someone with a past. His life of nearly fifty-seven years had taken him from his native Kent to Oxford in his early career, and then to London and Westminster in the Restoration period. He had his own thoughts, feelings, friends, enemies and acquaintances who knew him and his doings long before his life ended in so mysterious a fashion. Naturally, as with most men and women of that period, the evidence of Godfrey’s life is often sparse and towards its conclusion can be plainly contradictory. Nevertheless, the recent discovery of a series of personal letters between the magistrate and his great friend, the Irish healer Valentine Greatrakes, has done much to place some flesh on the bare bones of the Godfrey story, and with this in mind a re-examination of the mystery of his death now seems in order.2

  This book will attempt to place Edmund Godfrey, the man at the centre of the story, before examining the circumstances of his death. Consequently, chapters one and two are taken up with exploring Godfrey’s early life, his background, family, character and business interests. The context of the Popish Plot and the momentous events in which he became embroiled form the subject of chapter three. Godfrey’s last days and his part in the Popish Plot, as well as the reaction to his death, are dealt with in chapters four and five. In the case of Godfrey’s last days, I have tried to stay as close as possible to the contemporary evidence, rather than rely upon modern theories, and thus to build up an image of the man as he moved towards his eventual fate. Finally, a review of the evidence relating to his demise, as well as a re-examination of the hunt for a solution to the mystery, are left to chapter six.

  As one contemporary put it, for those of ‘liquorish fancies, who delight in hearing strange stories’, this affair is one of the strangest of the seventeenth century.3 It is to be hoped that in this most mysterious of mysteries

  the art of the reasoner should be used . . . for the sifting of details [rather] than for the acquiring of fresh evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete, and of such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact – of absolute, undeniable fact – from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences may be drawn, and which are the special points upon which the whole mystery turns.4

  CHAPTER ONE

  Family and Early Life

  I was by birth a gentleman living neither in any considerable height nor yet in obscurity

  Oliver Cromwell

  My wife was delivered of another son the 23 Decemb[er] 1621, between the 3 and 4 of the clock in the morning, being Sunday . . . They named my son Edmund Berrie.

  Thomas Godfrey, Domestic Chronicle

  THE GODFREYS OF KENT

  Edmund Berry Godfrey was born on Sunday 23 December 1621 into the prosperous and growing family of Thomas and Sarah Godfrey. He was the fifth son of his father’s second marriage. The Godfreys themselves were a family of ancient Kentish lineage, who had been quietly rising among the gentry of Kent for many years.1 Indeed, it was said that the Godfrey family tree stretched back, with some distinction, to one Godfrey le Falconer, himself a son of William FitzBalderic who had been granted land in Kent by King Henry II in the twelfth century. Like many another enterprising county family, the Godfreys had evidently taken to Kent, settling in Lydd where a Thomas Godfrey, a direct ancestor of our Edmund Godfrey, was buried in 1430. The family flourished there for over two hundred years, with many of the Godfreys becoming mayors of the local community until at least the eighteenth century. They were held in ‘good Esteem and Reputation’ by most of their neighbours, and they were also part of an existing sense of Kentish community common to those days.2 Indeed, Kent was a ‘community of blood and feeling’ in the seventeenth century and the inhabitants Lydd personified Kentish folk.3 A small town of fewer than 350 people, it had seen better days.4 Nevertheless, the Godfreys retained a native pride in the county and high on the list of any Kentish family’s agenda was a willingness to serve their community. So it seems to have been Edmund’s grandfather, imbued with such feelings and also called Thomas, who instilled in the family a desire to make a name for itself in the seventeenth century, and under his guidance the Godfreys became conspicuous among the lesser gentry of the county and sought links with the aristocracy.5

  His second son, and Edmund’s father, who was also given the family Christian name of Thomas, was not the least conspicuous of the Godfrey family, if only because of his ability to sire enormous numbers of offspring by his two marriages.6 It was said of Thomas, as it had been said of his father, that he was a man who served his ‘generation eminently and faithfully’, and he was particularly noted as a ‘good lover of learning and all ingenuity’. He was certainly generous to all of his children in respect of their education, seeming to see in it the root of success in public life. Indeed, with an inbuilt family pride in all of his doings Thomas even set about keeping a record of the family, and in 1608 he began to write a domestic chronicle of his affairs that he kept, on and off, for the next forty-seven years. It is because of his labours that we are able to perceive the type of family into which the young Edmund Godfrey was born.7

  In a number of ways, Thomas Godfrey represented many of the unusual features in the Godfrey family. Born on 3 January 1585, he was baptized six days later at Lydd church. He proved to be a man long-lived like much of his family; he was eventually to die in 1664, and was buried at Sellinge in his native Kent after a busy seventy-nine years.8 In a crowded family home Thomas’s upbringing was typical of that of a man from his social background. His father being apparently too busy to look after his second son, Thomas was farmed out to his aunt Berrie, until, aged eight, he was installed in 1593 in Challock Grammar School. This was common at the time. Many children found themselves brought up in a relative’s home rather than their own during their minority. While at Challock, Thomas boarded out with yet another of the innumerable Godfrey clan and in 159
9, aged fourteen, he was finally sent up to St John’s College, Cambridge. There he underwent the standard education of an English gentleman of his day. Thomas Godfrey’s tutors were to be Robert Spalding and Peter Benlos. Neither man was particularly prominent in college affairs, but Benlos ultimately proved to be the more interesting, not the least because he was shortly to leave England to become a Jesuit priest. He was certainly enough of an influence upon Thomas Godfrey for his former pupil to want to visit him much later at Louvaine (modern-day Leuven) in 1615. After Cambridge Thomas went on to the Middle Temple of the Inns of Court and there he spent the next three years gaining the legal training thought necessary for a gentleman to survive in the world.9

  At this point Thomas Godfrey was rescued from the law or a legal career, or, like most of his fellow Kentish gentry, from a swift return to Kent. As the second son he could not inherit his father’s estate, so as recompense he was given an introduction by his father to the patronage of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Lord Privy Seal and an important figure in the political life of the state.10 It was in the Earl of Northampton’s household that Thomas Godfrey found a position as a gentleman in ordinary, where he remained for some two years. Northampton’s religion had been Roman Catholic. Although he had adopted the state religion of the day under King James I, he was to return to the beliefs of his youth towards the end of his life. Thomas Godfrey’s clientage to Northampton was to prove yet another of his connections with the old religion. Nonetheless in May 1609, aged twenty-four, Thomas Godfrey decided to leave his patron’s immediate service and he married for the first time. His new wife was Margaret Lambarde, daughter of William Lambarde of Greenwich.11 Thomas and his wife retired into the country, although not from an active life. Indeed, he soon purchased the manor of Hodiford in the parish of Sellinge in the Weald of Kent.