The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies Part 6

**Life of James II. i, p. 534.

It is Mr. Pollock's argument that, when G.o.dfrey and Coleman went over the Oates papers, Coleman would prove Oates's perjury, and would to this end let out that, on April 24, the Jesuits met, not as Oates swore, at a tavern, but at the Duke of York's house, a secret fatal to the Duke and the Catholic cause. The Jesuits then slew G.o.dfrey to keep the secret safe.*

*Pollock, p. 153.

Now, first, I cannot easily believe that Coleman would blab this secret (quite unnecessarily, for this proof of Oates's perjury could not be, and was not, publicly adduced), unless G.o.dfrey was already deep in the Catholic intrigues. He may have been, judging by his relations with Coleman. If G.o.dfrey was not himself engaged in Catholic intrigues, Coleman need only tell him that Oates was not in England in April, and could not have been, as he swore he was, at the 'consult.' Next, G.o.dfrey was not the man (as Mr. Pollock supposes) to reveal his knowledge to the world, from a sense of duty, even if the Court 'stifled the plot.' Mr.

Pollock says: 'G.o.dfrey was, by virtue of his position as justice of the peace, a Government official.... Sooner or later he would certainly reveal it.... The secret... had come into the hands of just one of the men who could not afford, even if he might wish, to retain it.'* Mr.

Pollock may conceive, though I do not find him saying so, that G.o.dfrey communicated Oates's charges to Coleman merely for the purpose of 'pumping' him and surprising some secret. If so he acted foolishly.

*Pollock, p. 154.

In fact, G.o.dfrey was already 'stifling the plot.' A Government official, he was putting Coleman in a posture to fly, and to burn his papers; had he burned all of them, the plot was effectually stifled. Next, G.o.dfrey could not reveal the secret without revealing his own misprision of treason. He would be asked 'how he knew the secret.' G.o.dfrey's lips were thus sealed; he had neither the wish nor the power to speak out, and so his knowledge of the secret, if he knew it, was innocuous to the Jesuits. 'What is it nearer?' Coleman was reported, by a perjured informer, to have asked.*

*State Trials, vii. 1319. Trial of Lord Stafford, 1680.

To this point I return later. Meanwhile, let it be granted that G.o.dfrey knew the secret from Coleman, and that, though, since G.o.dfrey could not speak without self-betrayal--though it was 'no nearer'--still the Jesuits thought well to mak sikker and slay him.

Still, what is the evidence that G.o.dfrey had a mortal secret? Mr.

Pollock gives it thus: 'He had told Mr. Wynnel that he was master of a dangerous secret, which would be fatal to him. "Oates," he said, "is sworn and is perjured."'* These sentences are not thus collocated in the original. The secret was not, as from Mr. Pollock's arrangement it appears to be, that Oates was perjured.

*Pollock, p. 150.

The danger lay, not in knowledge that Oates was perjured--all the Council knew the King to have discovered that. 'Many believed it,' says Mr. Pollock. 'It was not an uncommon thing to say.'* The true peril, on Mr. Pollock's theory, was G.o.dfrey's possession of PROOF that Oates was perjured, that proof involving the secret of the Jesuit 'consult' of April 14, AT THE DUKE OF YORK'S HOUSE. But, by a singular oversight, Mr. Pollock quotes only part of what G.o.dfrey said to Wynell (or Wynnel) about his secret. He does not give the whole of the sentence uttered by Wynell. The secret, of which G.o.dfrey was master, on the only evidence, Wynell's, had nothing to do with the Jesuit meeting of April 24. Wynell is one of L'Estrange's later witnesses. His words are:

G.o.dfrey: 'The (Catholic) Lords are as innocent as you or I. Coleman will die, but not the Lords.'

Wynell: 'If so, where are we then?'

G.o.dfrey: 'Oates is sworn and is perjured.'

'Upon Wynell's asking Sir Edmund some time why he was so melancholy, his answer has been, "he was melancholy because he was master of a dangerous secret that would be fatal to him, THAT HIS SECURITY WAS OATE'S DEPOSITION, THAT THE SAID OATES HAD FIRST DECLARED IT TO A PUBLIC MINISTER, AND SECONDLY THAT HE CAME TO SIR EDMUND BY HIS (the Minister's) DIRECTION."**

*Pollock, p. 152.

**L'Estrange, part iii. p. 187.

We must accept all of Mr. Wynell's statement or none; we cannot accept, like Mr. Pollock, only G.o.dfrey's confession of owning a dangerous secret, without G.o.dfrey's explanation of the nature of the danger.

Against THAT danger (his knowing and taking no action upon what Oates had deposed) G.o.dfrey's 'security' was Oates's other deposition, that his information was already in the Minister's hands, and that he had come to G.o.dfrey by the Minister's orders. The invidiousness of knowing and not acting on Oates's 'dangerous secret,' G.o.dfrey hoped, fell on the Minister rather than on himself. And it did fall on Danby, who was later accused of treason on this very ground, among others. Such is Wynell's evidence, true or false. C'est a prendre ou a laisser in bulk, and in bulk is of no value to Mr. Pollock's argument.

That G.o.dfrey was in great fear after taking Oates's deposition, and dealing with Coleman, is abundantly attested. But of what was he afraid, and of whom? L'Estrange says, of being made actual party to the plot, and not of 'bare misprision' only, the misprision of not acting on Oates's information.* It is to prove this point that L'Estrange cites Wynell as quoted above. Bishop Burnet reports that, to him, G.o.dfrey said 'that he believed he himself should be knocked on the head.'** Knocked on the head by whom? By a frightened Protestant mob, or by Catholic conspirators? To Mr. Robinson, an old friend, he said, 'I do not fear them if they come fairly, and I shall not part with my life tamely.'

Qu'ils viennent! as Tartarin said, but who are 'they'? G.o.dfrey said that he had 'taken the depositions very unwillingly, and would fain have had it done by others.... I think I shall have little thanks for my pains.... Upon my conscience I believe I shall be the first martyr.'***

He could not expect thanks from the Catholics: it was from the frenzied Protestants that he expected 'little thanks.'

*L'Estrange, iii. p. 187.

**Burnet, ii. p. 740.

***State Trials, vii. pp. 168, 169.

Oates swore, and, for once, is corroborated, that G.o.dfrey complained 'of receiving affronts from some great persons (whose names I name not now) for being so zealous in this business.' If Oates, by 'great persons,'

means the Duke of York, it was in the Duke's own cause that G.o.dfrey had been 'zealous,' sending him warning by Coleman. Oates added that others threatened to complain to Parliament, which was to meet on October 21, that G.o.dfrey had been 'too remiss.' Oates was a liar, but G.o.dfrey, in any case, was between the Devil and the deep sea. As early as October 24, Mr. Mulys attested, before the Lords, G.o.dfrey's remark, 'he had been blamed by some great men for not having done his duty, and by other great men for having done too much.' Mulys corroborates Oates.*

If G.o.dfrey knew a secret dangerous to the Jesuits (which, later, was a current theory), he might be by them silenced for ever. If his conduct, being complained of, was examined into by Parliament, misprision of treason was the lowest at which his offence could be rated. Never was magistrate in such a quandary. But we do not know, in the state of the evidence, which of his many perils he feared most, and his possession of 'a dangerous secret' (namely, the secret of the consult of April 24) is a pure hypothesis. It is not warranted, but refuted, by G.o.dfrey's own words as reported by Wynell, when, unlike Mr. Pollock, we quote Wynell's whole sentence on the subject. (see previous exchange between G.o.dfrey and Wynell.)

*Lords' MSS., P. 48.

3.

The theories of G.o.dfrey's death almost defy enumeration. For suicide, being a man of melancholic temperament, he had reasons as many and as good as mortal could desire. That he was murdered for not being active enough in prosecuting the plot, is most improbable. That he was taken off by Danby's orders, for giving Coleman and the Duke of York early warning, is an absurd idea, for Danby could have had him on THAT score by ordinary process of law. That he was slain by Oates's gang, merely to clinch the fact that a plot there veritably was, is improbable. At the same time, G.o.dfrey had been calling Oates a perjurer: he KNEW that Oates was forsworn. This was an unsafe thing for any man to say, but when the man was the magistrate who had read Oates's deposition, he invited danger. Such were the chances that G.o.dfrey risked from the Plot party.

The Catholics, on the other hand, if they were aware that G.o.dfrey possessed the secret of the Jesuit meeting of April 24, and if they deemed him too foolish to keep the secret in his own interest, could not but perceive that to murder him was to play into the hands of the Whigs by clinching the belief in a Popish plot. Had they been the murderers, they would probably have taken his money and rings, to give the idea that he had been attacked and robbed by vulgar villains. If they 'were not the d.a.m.nedest fools' (thus freely speaks L'Estrange), they would not have taken deliberate steps to secure the instant discovery of the corpse. Whoever pitched G.o.dfrey's body into the bramble-covered ditch, meant it to be found, for his cane, scabbard, and so on were deliberately left outside of the ditch. Your wily Jesuit would have caused the body to disappear, leaving the impression that G.o.dfrey had merely absconded, as he had the best reasons for doing. On the other hand, Oates's gang would not, if they first strangled G.o.dfrey, have run his own sword through his body, as if he had committed suicide--unless, indeed, they calculated that this would be a likely step for your wily Jesuit to take, in the circ.u.mstances. Again, an educated 'Jesuit,' like Le Fevre, 'the Queen's confessor,' would know that the sword trick was futile; even a plain man, let alone a surgeon, could detect a wound inflicted on a corpse four or five days old.

Two other theories existed, first, that G.o.dfrey hanged himself, and that his brothers and heirs did the sword trick, to suggest that he had not committed suicide by strangulation, but had been set on and stabbed with his own sword. In that case, of course, the brothers would have removed his rings and money, to prove that he had been robbed. The other theory, plausible enough, held that G.o.dfrey was killed by Catholics, NOT because he took Oates's deposition (which he was bound to do), but because he officiously examined a number of persons to make discoveries. The Attorney-General at the trial of G.o.dfrey's alleged murderers (February 1679), declared that Sir Edmund had taken such examinations: 'we have proof that he had some... perhaps some more than are now extant'* This theory, then, held that he was taken off to prevent his pursuing his zealous course, and to seize the depositions which he had already taken. When this was stated to Charles II., on November 7, 1678, by the perjured Bedloe, the King naturally remarked: 'The parties were still alive' (the deponents) 'to give the informations.' Bedloe answered, that the papers were to be seized 'in hopes the second informations taken from the parties would not have agreed with the first, and so the thing would have been disproved.'** This was monstrously absurd, for the slayers of G.o.dfrey could not have produced the doc.u.ments of which they had robbed him.

*State Trials, vii. p. 163.

**Pollock, p. 385.

The theory that Sir Edmund was killed because Coleman had told him too many secrets did not come to general knowledge till the trial of Lord Stafford in 1680. The hypothesis--G.o.dfrey slain because, through Coleman, he knew too many Catholic secrets--is practically that of Mr.

Pollock. It certainly does supply a motive for G.o.dfrey's a.s.sa.s.sination.

Hot-headed Catholics who knew, or suspected, that G.o.dfrey knew too much, MAY have killed him for that reason, or for the purpose of seizing his papers, but it is improbable that Catholics of education, well aware that, if he blabbed, G.o.dfrey must ruin himself, would have put their hands into his blood, on the mere chance that, if left alive, he might betray both himself and them.

4.

It is now necessary to turn backward a little and see what occurred immediately after the meeting of Coleman and G.o.dfrey on September 28.

On that day, Oates gave his lying evidence before the Council: he was allowed to go on a Jesuit drive, with warrants and officers; he caught several of the most important Jesuits. On September 29, the King heard his tale, and called him a 'lying knave.' None the less he was sent on another drive, and, says Mr. Pollock, 'before dawn most the Jesuits of eminence in London lay in gaol.' But Le Fevre, 'the Queen's confessor,'

and the other 'Jesuits' whom Mr. Pollock suspects of G.o.dfrey's murder, were not taken. Is it likely (it is, of course, possible) that they stayed on in town, and killed G.o.dfrey twelve days later?

Meanwhile Coleman, thanks to G.o.dfrey's warning, had most of September 28, the night of that day, and September 29, wherein to burn his papers and abscond. He did neither; if he destroyed some papers, he left others in his rooms, letters which were quite good enough to hang him for high treason, as the law stood. Apparently Coleman did not understand his danger. On Sunday night, September 29, a warrant for his apprehension was issued, and for the seizure of his papers. 'He came voluntarily in on Monday morning,' having heard of the warrant. This is not the conduct of a man who knows himself guilty. He met the charges with disdain, and made so good a case that, instead of being sent to Newgate, he was merely entrusted to a messenger, who was told 'to be very civil to Mr.

Coleman.'

Charles II. went to the Newmarket Autumn Meeting, Coleman's papers were examined, and 'sounded so strange to the Lords' that they sent him to Newgate (October 1). The papers proved that Coleman, years before, had corresponded (as Oates had sworn) with the confessor of Louis XIV. and had incurred the technical guilt of treason. Either Coleman did not understand the law and the measure of his offence (as seems probable), or he thought his papers safely hidden. But the heather was on fire. The belief in Oates's impossible Plot blazed up, 'h.e.l.l was let loose'.*

*State Trials, vii. p. 29.

Coleman had thought himself safe, says James II., then Duke of York.

'The Duke perceiving' (from G.o.dfrey's information of September 28) 'Oates had named Coleman, bade him look to himself, for he was sure to find no favour, and therefore, if he had any papers that might hurt him, to secure them immediately; but he, apprehending no danger, let them be seized, however kept close himself, and sent to advise with the Duke whether he should deliver himself up or not. The Duke replyd, "He knew best what was in his papers; if they contain'd any expression which could be wrested to an ill sence, he had best not appear, otherwise the surrendering himself would be an argument of innocency." He did accordingly,' and was condemned in November, and hanged.*