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diff --git a/2073-0.txt b/2073-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d676456 --- /dev/null +++ b/2073-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9545 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s The Valet’s Tragedy and Other Stories, by Andrew Lang + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Valet’s Tragedy and Other Stories + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: February, 2000 [EBook #2073] +Last Updated: December 17, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VALET’S TRAGEDY *** + + + + +Produced by Les Bowler and David Widger + + + + + + +THE VALET’S TRAGEDY AND OTHER STUDIES + +By Andrew Lang + + + + +TO THE MARQUIS D’EGUILLES ‘FOR THE LOVE OF THE MAID AND OF CHIVALRY’ + + + +CONTENTS + + PREFACE + I. THE VALET’S TRAGEDY + II. THE VALET’S MASTER + III. THE MYSTERY OF SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY + IV. THE FALSE JEANNE D’ARC. + V. JUNIUS AND LORD LYTTELTON’S GHOST + VI. THE MYSTERY OF AMY ROBSART + VII. THE VOICES OF JEANNE D’ARC + VIII. THE MYSTERY OF JAMES DE LA CLOCHE + IX. THE TRUTH ABOUT ‘FISHER’S GHOST’ + X. THE MYSTERY OF LORD BATEMAN + XI. THE QUEEN’S MARIE + XII. THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON IMBROGLIO + + + + +PREFACE + + +These studies in secret history follow no chronological order. The +affair of James de la Cloche only attracted the author’s attention after +most of the volume was in print. But any reader curious in the veiled +intrigues of the Restoration will probably find it convenient to peruse +‘The Mystery of James de la Cloche’ after the essay on ‘The Valet’s +Master,’ as the puzzling adventures of de la Cloche occurred in the +years (1668-1669), when the Valet was consigned to lifelong captivity, +and the Master was broken on the wheel. What would have been done to +‘Giacopo Stuardo’ had he been a subject of Louis XIV., ‘’tis better only +guessing.’ But his fate, whoever he may have been, lay in the hands +of Lord Ailesbury’s ‘good King,’ Charles II., and so he had a good +deliverance. + +The author is well aware that whosoever discusses historical mysteries +pleases the public best by being quite sure, and offering a definite and +certain solution. Unluckily Science forbids, and conscience is on the +same side. We verily do not know how the false Pucelle arrived at her +success with the family of the true Maid; we do not know, or pretend to +know, who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey; or how Amy Robsart came by +her death; or why the Valet was so important a prisoner. It is only +possible to restate the cases, and remove, if we may, the errors and +confusions which beset the problems. Such a tiny point as the year +of Amy Robsart’s marriage is stated variously by our historians. To +ascertain the truth gave the author half a day’s work, and, at last, +he would have voted for the wrong year, had he not been aided by the +superior acuteness of his friend, Mr. Hay Fleming. He feels morally +certain that, in trying to set historians right about Amy Robsart, he +must have committed some conspicuous blunders; these always attend such +enterprises of rectification. + +With regard to Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, Mr. A. W. Crawley-Boevey points +out to me that in an unpublished letter of Mr. Alexander Herbert Phaire +in 1743-44 (Addit. MSS. British Museum 4291, fol. 150) Godfrey is spoken +of in connection with his friend Valentine Greatrakes, the ‘miraculous +Conformist,’ or ‘Irish Stroker,’ of the Restoration. ‘It is a pity,’ Mr. +Phaire remarks, ‘that Sir Edmund’s letters, to the number of 104, are +not in somebody’s hands that would oblige the world by publishing them. +They contain many remarkable things, and the best and truest secret +history in King Charles II.’s reign.’ Where are these letters now? Mr. +Phaire does not say to whom they were addressed, perhaps to Greatrakes, +who named his second son after Sir Edmund, or to Colonel Phaire, the +Regicide. This Mr. Phaire of 1744 was of Colonel Phaire’s family. It +does not seem quite certain whether Le Fevre, or Lee Phaire, was the +real name of the so-called Jesuit whom Bedloe accused of the murder of +Sir Edmund. + +Of the studies here presented, ‘The Valet’s Master,’ ‘The Mystery of +Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey,’ ‘The False Jeanne d’Arc,’ ‘The Mystery of Amy +Robsart,’ and ‘The Mystery of James de la Cloche,’ are now published for +the first time. Part of ‘The Voices of Jeanne d’Arc,’ is from a paper by +the author in ‘The Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.’ +‘The Valet’s Tragedy’ is mainly from an article in ‘The Monthly Review,’ +revised, corrected, and augmented. ‘The Queen’s Marie’ is a recast of a +paper in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’; ‘The Truth about “Fisher’s Ghost,”’ and +‘Junius and Lord Lyttelton’s Ghost’ are reprinted, with little change, +from the same periodical. ‘The Mystery of Lord Bateman’ is a recast of +an article in ‘The Cornhill Magazine.’ The earlier part of the essay on +Shakespeare and Bacon appeared in ‘The Quarterly Review.’ The author is +obliged to the courtesy of the proprietors and editors of these serials +for permission to use his essays again, with revision and additions.* + + + *Essays by the author on ‘The False Pucelle’ and on ‘Sir Edmund +Berry Godfrey’ have appeared in The Nineteenth Century (1895) and in The +Cornhill Magazine, but these are not the papers here presented. + +The author is deeply indebted to the generous assistance of Father +Gerard and Father Pollen, S.J.; and, for making transcripts of +unpublished documents, to Miss E. M. Thompson and Miss Violet Simpson. + +Since passing the volume for the press the author has received from +Mr. Austin West, at Rome, a summary of Armanni’s letter about Giacopo +Stuardo. He is led thereby to the conclusion that Giacopo was identical +with the eldest son of Charles II.--James de la Cloche--but conceives +that, at the end of his life, James was insane, or at least was a +‘megalomaniac,’ or was not author of his own Will. + + + + + +I. THE VALET’S TRAGEDY + + + +1. THE LEGEND OF THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK + +The Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask is, despite a pleasant saying +of Lord Beaconsfield’s, one of the most fascinating in history. By a +curious coincidence the wildest legend on the subject, and the correct +explanation of the problem, were offered to the world in the same year, +1801. According to this form of the legend, the Man in the Iron Mask was +the genuine Louis XIV., deprived of his rights in favour of a child of +Anne of Austria and of Mazarin. Immured in the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, +in the bay of Cannes (where you are shown his cell, looking north to +the sunny town), he married, and begot a son. That son was carried to +Corsica, was named de Buona Parte, and was the ancestor of Napoleon. The +Emperor was thus the legitimate representative of the House of Bourbon. + +This legend was circulated in 1801, and is referred to in a proclamation +of the Royalists of La Vendee. In the same year, 1801, Roux Fazaillac, +a Citoyen and a revolutionary legislator, published a work in which he +asserted that the Man in the Iron Mask (as known in rumour) was not one +man, but a myth, in which the actual facts concerning at least two men +were blended. It is certain that Roux Fazaillac was right; or that, if +he was wrong, the Man in the Iron Mask was an obscure valet, of French +birth, residing in England, whose real name was Martin. + +Before we enter on the topic of this poor menial’s tragic history, +it may be as well to trace the progress of the romantic legend, as it +blossomed after the death of the Man, whose Mask was not of iron, but +of black velvet. Later we shall show how the legend struck root and +flowered, from the moment when the poor valet, Martin (by his prison +pseudonym ‘Eustache Dauger’), was immured in the French fortress of +Pignerol, in Piedmont (August 1669). + +The Man, IN CONNECTION WITH THE MASK, is first known to us from a kind +of notebook kept by du Junca, Lieutenant of the Bastille. On September +18, 1698, he records the arrival of the new Governor of the Bastille, +M. de Saint-Mars, bringing with him, from his last place, the Isles +Sainte-Marguerite, in the bay of Cannes, ‘an old prisoner whom he had at +Pignerol. He keeps the prisoner always masked, his name is not spoken... +and I have put him, alone, in the third chamber of the Bertaudiere +tower, having furnished it some days before with everything, by order +of M. de Saint-Mars. The prisoner is to be served and cared for by M. de +Rosarges,’ the officer next in command under Saint-Mars.* + + + *Funck-Brentano. Legendes et Archives de la Bastille, pp. 86, 87, +Paris, 1898, p. 277, a facsimile of this entry. + +The prisoner’s death is entered by du Junca on November 19, 1703. To +that entry we return later. + +The existence of this prisoner was known and excited curiosity. On +October 15, 1711, the Princess Palatine wrote about the case to +the Electress Sophia of Hanover, ‘A man lived for long years in the +Bastille, masked, and masked he died there. Two musketeers were by his +side to shoot him if ever he unmasked. He ate and slept in his mask. +There must, doubtless, have been some good reason for this, as otherwise +he was very well treated, well lodged, and had everything given to him +that he wanted. He took the Communion masked; was very devout, and read +perpetually.’ + +On October 22, 1711, the Princess writes that the Mask was an English +nobleman, mixed up in the plot of the Duke of Berwick against William +III.--Fenwick’s affair is meant. He was imprisoned and masked that the +Dutch usurper might never know what had become of him.* + + + * Op. cit. 98, note 1. + +The legend was now afloat in society. The sub-commandant of the Bastille +from 1749 to 1787, Chevalier, declared, obviously on the evidence of +tradition, that all the Mask’s furniture and clothes were destroyed at +his death, lest they might yield a clue to his identity. Louis XV. is +said to have told Madame de Pompadour that the Mask was ‘the minister +of an Italian prince.’ Louis XVI. told Marie Antoinette (according to +Madame de Campan) that the Mask was a Mantuan intriguer, the same +person as Louis XV. indicated. Perhaps he was, it is one of two possible +alternatives. Voltaire, in the first edition of his ‘Siecle de Louis +XIV.,’ merely spoke of a young, handsome, masked prisoner, treated with +the highest respect by Louvois, the Minister of Louis XIV. At last, in +‘Questions sur l’Encyclopedie’ (second edition), Voltaire averred that +the Mask was the son of Anne of Austria and Mazarin, an elder brother of +Louis XIV. Changes were rung on this note: the Mask was the actual +King, Louis XIV. was a bastard. Others held that he was James, Duke of +Monmouth--or Moliere! In 1770 Heiss identified him with Mattioli, the +Mantuan intriguer, and especially after the appearance of the book by +Roux Fazaillac, in 1801, that was the generally accepted opinion. + +It MAY be true, in part. Mattioli MAY have been the prisoner who died in +the Bastille in November 1703, but the legend of the Mask’s prison life +undeniably arose out of the adventure of our valet, Martin or Eustache +Dauger. + + + +2. THE VALET’S HISTORY + + + +After reading the arguments of the advocates of Mattioli, I could not +but perceive that, whatever captive died, masked, at the Bastille in +1703, the valet Dauger was the real source of most of the legends about +the Man in the Iron Mask. A study of M. Lair’s book ‘Nicholas Foucquet’ +(1890) confirmed this opinion. I therefore pushed the inquiry into a +source neglected by the French historians, namely, the correspondence +of the English ambassadors, agents, and statesmen for the years 1668, +1669.* One result is to confirm a wild theory of my own to the effect +that the Man in the Iron Mask (if Dauger were he) may have been as great +a mystery to himself as to historical inquirers. He may not have +known WHAT he was imprisoned for doing! More important is the probable +conclusion that the long and mysterious captivity of Eustache Dauger, +and of another perfectly harmless valet and victim, was the mere +automatic result of the ‘red tape’ of the old French absolute monarchy. +These wretches were caught in the toils of the system, and suffered to +no purpose, for no crime. The two men, at least Dauger, were apparently +mere supernumeraries in the obscure intrigue of a conspirator known as +Roux de Marsilly. + + + *The papers are in the Record Office; for the contents see the +following essay, ‘The Valet’s Master.’ + +This truly abominable tragedy of Roux de Marsilly is ‘another story,’ +narrated in the following essay. It must suffice here to say that, in +1669, while Charles II. was negotiating the famous, or infamous, secret +treaty with Louis XIV.--the treaty of alliance against Holland, and +in favour of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England--Roux de +Marsilly, a French Huguenot, was dealing with Arlington and others, in +favour of a Protestant league against France. + +When he started from England for Switzerland in February 1669, Marsilly +left in London a valet, called by him ‘Martin,’ who had quitted his +service and was living with his own family. This man is the ‘Eustache +Dauger’ of our mystery. The name is his prison pseudonym, as ‘Lestang’ +was that of Mattioli. The French Government was anxious to lay hands on +him, for he had certainly, as the letters of Marsilly prove, come and +gone freely between that conspirator and his English employers. How much +Dauger knew, what amount of mischief he could effect, was uncertain. +Much or little, it was a matter which, strange to say, caused the +greatest anxiety to Louis XIV. and to his Ministers for very many years. +Probably long before Dauger died (the date is unknown, but it was more +than twenty-five years after Marsilly’s execution), his secret, if +secret he possessed, had ceased to be of importance. But he was now in +the toils of the French red tape, the system of secrecy which rarely +released its victim. He was guarded, we shall see, with such unheard-of +rigour, that popular fancy at once took him for some great, perhaps +royal, personage. + +Marsilly was publicly tortured to death in Paris on June 22, 1669. By +July 19 his ex-valet, Dauger, had entered on his mysterious term of +captivity. How the French got possession of him, whether he yielded +to cajolery, or was betrayed by Charles II., is uncertain. The French +ambassador at St. James’s, Colbert (brother of the celebrated Minister), +writes thus to M. de Lyonne, in Paris, on July 1, 1669:* ‘Monsieur Joly +has spoken to the man Martin’ (Dauger), ‘and has really persuaded him +that, by going to France and telling all that he knows against Roux, he +will play the part of a lad of honour and a good subject.’ + + + *Transcripts from Paris MSS. Vol. xxxiii., Record Office. + +But Martin, after all, was NOT persuaded! + +Martin replied to Joly that HE KNEW NOTHING AT ALL, and that, once in +France, people would think he was well acquainted with the traffickings +of Roux, ‘AND SO HE WOULD BE KEPT IN PRISON TO MAKE HIM DIVULGE WHAT HE +DID NOT KNOW.’ The possible Man in the Iron Mask did not know his own +secret! But, later in the conversation, Martin foolishly admitted that +he knew a great deal; perhaps he did this out of mere fatal vanity. +Cross to France, however, he would not, even when offered a safe-conduct +and promise of reward. Colbert therefore proposes to ask Charles to +surrender the valet, and probably Charles descended to the meanness. +By July 19, at all events, Louvois, the War Minister of Louis XIV., +was bidding Saint-Mars, at Pignerol in Piedmont, expect from Dunkirk a +prisoner of the very highest importance--a valet! This valet, now called +‘Eustache Dauger,’ can only have been Marsilly’s valet, Martin, who, by +one means or another, had been brought from England to Dunkirk. It is +hardly conceivable, at least, that when a valet, in England, is ‘wanted’ +by the French police on July 1, for political reasons, and when by July +19 they have caught a valet of extreme political importance, the two +valets should be two different men. Martin must be Dauger. + +Here, then, by July 19, 1669, we find our unhappy serving-man in the +toils. Why was he to be handled with such mysterious rigour? It is +true that State prisoners of very little account were kept with great +secrecy. But it cannot well be argued that they were all treated with +the extraordinary precautions which, in the case of Dauger, were not +relaxed for twenty-five or thirty years. The King says, according to +Louvois, that the safe keeping of Dauger is ‘of the last importance to +his service.’ He must have intercourse with nobody. His windows must be +where nobody can pass; several bolted doors must cut him off from the +sound of human voices. Saint-Mars himself, the commandant, must feed the +valet daily. ‘YOU MUST NEVER, UNDER ANY PRETENCE, LISTEN TO WHAT HE MAY +WISH TO TELL YOU. YOU MUST THREATEN HIM WITH DEATH IF HE SPEAKS ONE WORD +EXCEPT ABOUT HIS ACTUAL NEEDS. He is only a valet, and does not need +much furniture.’* + + + *The letters are printed by Roux Fazaillac, Jung, Lair, and others. + +Saint-Mars replied that, in presence of M. de Vauroy, the chief officer +of Dunkirk (who carried Dauger thence to Pignerol), he had threatened +to run Dauger through the body if he ever dared to speak, even to him, +Saint-Mars. He has mentioned this prisoner, he says, to no mortal. +People believe that Dauger is a Marshal of France, so strange and +unusual are the precautions taken for his security. + +A Marshal of France! The legend has begun. At this time (1669) +Saint-Mars had in charge Fouquet, the great fallen Minister, the richest +and most dangerous subject of Louis XIV. By-and-by he also held Lauzun, +the adventurous wooer of la Grande Mademoiselle. But it was not they, it +was the valet, Dauger, who caused ‘sensation.’ + +On February 20,1672, Saint-Mars, for the sake of economy wished to use +Dauger as valet to Lauzun. This proves that Saint-Mars did not, after +all, see the necessity of secluding Dauger, or thought the King’s fears +groundless. In the opinion of Saint-Mars, Dauger did not want to be +released, ‘would never ask to be set free.’ Then why was he so anxiously +guarded? Louvois refused to let Dauger be put with Lauzun as valet. In +1675, however, he allowed Dauger to act as valet to Fouquet, but with +Lauzun, said Louvois, Dauger must have no intercourse. Fouquet had then +another prisoner valet, La Riviere. This man had apparently been accused +of no crime. He was of a melancholy character, and a dropsical habit of +body: Fouquet had amused himself by doctoring him and teaching him to +read. + +In the month of December 1678, Saint-Mars, the commandant of the prison, +brought to Fouquet a sealed letter from Louvois, the seal unbroken. +His own reply was also to be sealed, and not to be seen by Saint-Mars. +Louvois wrote that the King wished to know one thing, before giving +Fouquet ampler liberty. Had his valet, Eustache Dauger, told his other +valet, La Riviere, what he had done before coming to Pignerol? (de ce +a quoi il a ete employe auparavant que d’etre a Pignerol). ‘His Majesty +bids me ask you [Fouquet] this question, and expects that you will +answer without considering anything but the truth, that he may know what +measures to take,’ these depending on whether Dauger has, or has not, +told La Riviere the story of his past life.* Moreover, Lauzun was never, +said Louvois, to be allowed to enter Fouquet’s room when Dauger was +present. The humorous point is that, thanks to a hole dug in the wall +between his room and Fouquet’s, Lauzun saw Dauger whenever he pleased. + + + *Lair, Nicholas Foucquet, ii. pp. 463, 464. + +From the letter of Louvois to Fouquet, about Dauger (December 23, 1678), +it is plain that Louis XIV. had no more pressing anxiety, nine years +after Dauger’s arrest, than to conceal WHAT IT WAS THAT DAUGER HAD DONE. +It is apparent that Saint-Mars himself either was unacquainted with this +secret, or was supposed by Louvois and the King to be unaware of it. He +had been ordered never to allow Dauger to tell him: he was not allowed +to see the letters on the subject between Louvois and Fouquet. We still +do not know, and never shall know, whether Dauger himself knew his own +secret, or whether (as he had anticipated) he was locked up for not +divulging what he did not know. + +The answer of Fouquet to Louvois must have satisfied Louis that Dauger +had not imparted his secret to the other valet, La Riviere, for Fouquet +was now allowed a great deal of liberty. In 1679, he might see his +family, the officers of the garrison, and Lauzun--it being provided that +Lauzun and Dauger should never meet. In March 1680, Fouquet died, and +henceforth the two valets were most rigorously guarded; Dauger, because +he was supposed to know something; La Riviere, because Dauger might have +imparted the real or fancied secret to him. We shall return to these +poor serving-men, but here it is necessary to state that, ten months +before the death of their master, Fouquet, an important new captive had +been brought to the prison of Pignerol. + +This captive was the other candidate for the honours of the Mask, Count +Mattioli, the secretary of the Duke of Mantua. He was kidnapped on +Italian soil on May 2, 1679, and hurried to the mountain fortress of +Pignerol, then on French ground. His offence was the betraying of the +secret negotiations for the cession of the town and fortress of Casal, +by the Duke of Mantua, to Louis XIV. The disappearance of Mattioli was, +of course, known to the world. The cause of his enlevement, and the +place of his captivity, Pignerol, were matters of newspaper comment at +least as early as 1687. Still earlier, in 1682, the story of Mattioli’s +arrest and seclusion in Pignerol had been published in a work named ‘La +Prudenza Trionfante di Casale.’* There was thus no mystery, at the time, +about Mattioli; his crime and punishment were perfectly well known to +students of politics. He has been regarded as the mysterious Man in the +Iron Mask, but, for years after his arrest, he was the least mysterious +of State prisoners. + + + *Brentano, op. cit. p. 117. + +Here, then, is Mattioli in Pignerol in May 1679. While Fouquet then +enjoyed relative freedom, while Lauzun schemed escapes or made insulting +love to Mademoiselle Fouquet, Mattioli lived on the bread and water of +affliction. He was threatened with torture to make him deliver up some +papers compromising to Louis XIV. It was expressly commanded that he +should have nothing beyond the barest necessaries of life. He was to +be kept dans la dure prison. In brief, he was used no better than the +meanest of prisoners. The awful life of isolation, without employment, +without books, without writing materials, without sight or sound of man +save when Saint-Mars or his lieutenant brought food for the day, drove +captives mad. + +In January 1680 two prisoners, a monk* and one Dubreuil, had become +insane. By February 14, 1680, Mattioli was daily conversing with God and +his angels. ‘I believe his brain is turned,’ says Saint-Mars. In March +1680, as we saw, Fouquet died. The prisoners, not counting Lauzun +(released soon after), were now five: (1) Mattioli (mad); (2) Dubreuil +(mad); (3) The monk (mad); (4) Dauger, and (5) La Riviere. These two, +being employed as valets, kept their wits. On the death of Fouquet, +Louvois wrote to Saint-Mars about the two valets. Lauzun must be made +to believe that they had been set at liberty, but, in fact, they must be +most carefully guarded IN A SINGLE CHAMBER. They were shut up in one of +the dungeons of the ‘Tour d’en bas.’ Dauger had recently done something +as to which Louvois writes: ‘Let me know how Dauger can possibly have +done what you tell me, and how he got the necessary drugs, as I cannot +suppose that you supplied him with them’ (July 10, 1680).** + + + *A monk, who may have been this monk, appears in the following +essay. + + + **Lair, Nicholas Foucquet, ii. pp. 476, 477. + +Here, then, by July 1680, are the two valets locked in one dungeon of +the ‘Tour d’en bas.’ By September Saint-Mars had placed Mattioli, with +the mad monk, in another chamber of the same tower. He writes: ‘Mattioli +is almost as mad as the monk,’ who arose from bed and preached naked. +Mattioli behaved so rudely and violently that the lieutenant of +Saint-Mars had to show him a whip, and threaten him with a flogging. +This had its effect. Mattioli, to make his peace, offered a valuable +ring to Blainvilliers. The ring was kept to be restored to him, if ever +Louis let him go free--a contingency mentioned more than once in the +correspondence. + +Apparently Mattioli now sobered down, and probably was given a separate +chamber and a valet; he certainly had a valet at Pignerol later. By May +1681 Dauger and La Riviere still occupied their common chamber in the +‘Tour d’en bas.’ They were regarded by Louvois as the most important +of the five prisoners then at Pignerol. They, not Mattioli, were the +captives about whose safe and secret keeping Louis and Louvois were most +anxious. This appears from a letter of Louvois to Saint-Mars, of May 12, +1681. The gaoler, Saint-Mars, is to be promoted from Pignerol to Exiles. +‘Thither,’ says Louvois, ‘the king desires to transport SUCH OF YOUR +PRISONERS AS HE THINKS TOO IMPORTANT TO HAVE IN OTHER HANDS THAN YOURS.’ +These prisoners are ‘THE TWO IN THE LOW CHAMBER OF THE TOWER,’ the two +valets, Dauger and La Riviere. + +From a letter of Saint-Mars (June 1681) we know that Mattioli was not +one of these. He says: ‘I shall keep at Exiles two birds (merles) whom +I have here: they are only known as THE GENTRY OF THE LOW ROOM IN THE +TOWER; MATTIOLI MAY STAY ON HERE AT PIGNEROL WITH THE OTHER PRISONERS’ +(Dubreuil and the mad monk). It is at this point that Le Citoyen Roux +(Fazaillac), writing in the Year IX. of the Republic (1801), loses +touch with the secret.* Roux finds, in the State Papers, the arrival +of Eustache Dauger at Pignerol in 1669, but does not know who he is, +or what is his quality. He sees that the Mask must be either Mattioli, +Dauger, the monk, one Dubreuil, or one Calazio. But, overlooking or not +having access to the letter of Saint-Mars of June 1681, Roux holds that +the prisoners taken to Les Exiles were the monk and Mattioli. One +of these must be the Mask, and Roux votes for Mattioli. He is wrong. +Mattioli beyond all doubt remained at Pignerol. + + + *Recherches Historiques, sur l’Homme au Masque de Fer, Paris. An +IX. + +Mountains of argument have been built on these words, deux merles, ‘two +gaol-birds.’ One of the two, we shall see, became the source of the +legend of the Man in the Iron Mask. ‘How can a wretched gaol-bird +(merle) have been the Mask?’ asks M. Topin. ‘The rogue’s whole furniture +and table-linen were sold for 1 pound 19 shillings. He only got a new +suit of clothes every three years.’ All very true; but this gaol-bird +and his mate, by the direct statement of Louvois, are ‘the prisoners +too important to be entrusted to other hands than yours’--the hands +of Saint-Mars--while Mattioli is so unimportant that he may be left at +Pignerol under Villebois. + +The truth is, that the offence and the punishment of Mattioli were well +known to European diplomatists and readers of books. Casal, moreover, +at this time was openly ceded to Louis XIV., and Mattioli could not +have told the world more than it already knew. But, for some inscrutable +reason, the secret which Dauger knew, or was suspected of knowing, +became more and more a source of anxiety to Louvois and Louis. What can +he have known? The charges against his master, Roux de Marsilly, had +been publicly proclaimed. Twelve years had passed since the dealings of +Arlington with Marsilly. Yet, Louvois became more and more nervous. + +In accordance with commands of his, on March 2, 1682, the two valets, +who had hitherto occupied one chamber at Exiles as at Pignerol, were +cut off from all communication with each other. Says Saint-Mars, ‘Since +receiving your letter I have warded the pair as strictly and exactly +as I did M. Fouquet and M. Lauzun, who cannot brag that he sent out +or received any intelligence. Night and day two sentinels watch their +tower; and my own windows command a view of the sentinels. Nobody speaks +to my captives but myself, my lieutenant, their confessor, and the +doctor, who lives eighteen miles away, and only sees them when I am +present.’ Years went by; on January 1687 one of the two captives died; +we really do not know which with absolute certainty. However, the +intensified secrecy with which the survivor was now guarded seems more +appropriate to Dauger; and M. Funck-Brentano and M. Lair have no doubt +that it was La Riviere who expired. He was dropsical, that appears in +the official correspondence, and the dead prisoner died of dropsy. + +As for the strange secrecy about Dauger, here is an example. +Saint-Mars, in January 1687, was appointed to the fortress of the Isles +Sainte-Marguerite, that sun themselves in the bay of Cannes. On January +20 he asks leave to go to see his little kingdom. He must leave Dauger, +but HAS FORBIDDEN EVEN HIS LIEUTENANT TO SPEAK TO THAT PRISONER. This +was an increase of precaution since 1682. He wishes to take the captive +to the Isles, but how? A sedan chair covered over with oilcloth seems +best. A litter might break down, litters often did, and some one might +then see the passenger. + +Now M. Funck-Brentano says, to minimise the importance of Dauger, ‘he +was shut up like so much luggage in a chair hermetically closed with +oilcloth, carried by eight Piedmontese in relays of four.’ + +Luggage is not usually carried in hermetically sealed sedan chairs, but +Saint-Mars has explained why, by surplus of precaution, he did not use +a litter. The litter might break down and Dauger might be seen. A new +prison was built specially, at the cost of 5,000 livres, for Dauger at +Sainte-Marguerite, with large sunny rooms. On May 3, 1687, Saint-Mars +had entered on his island realm, Dauger being nearly killed by twelve +days’ journey in a closed chair. He again excited the utmost curiosity. +On January 8, 1688, Saint-Mars writes that his prisoner is believed +by the world to be either a son of Oliver Cromwell, or the Duc de +Beaufort,* who was never seen again, dead or alive, after a night battle +in Crete, on June 25, 1669, just before Dauger was arrested. Saint-Mars +sent in a note of the TOTAL of Dauger’s expenses for the year 1687. He +actually did not dare to send the ITEMS, he says, lest they, if the bill +fell into the wrong hands, might reveal too much! + + + *The Duc de Beaufort whom Athos releases from prison in Dumas’s +Vingt Ans Apres. + +Meanwhile, an Italian news-letter, copied into a Leyden paper, of August +1687, declared that Mattioli had just been brought from Pignerol to +Sainte-Marguerite. There was no mystery about Mattioli, the story of +his capture was published in 1682, but the press, on one point, was +in error: Mattioli was still at Pignerol. The known advent of the late +Commandant of Pignerol, Saint-Mars, with a single concealed prisoner, at +the island, naturally suggested the erroneous idea that the prisoner +was Mattioli. The prisoner was really Dauger, the survivor of the two +valets. + +From 1688 to 1691 no letter about Dauger has been published. Apparently +he was then the only prisoner on the island, except one Chezut, who was +there before Dauger arrived, and gave up his chamber to Dauger while +the new cells were being built. Between 1689 and 1693 six Protestant +preachers were brought to the island, while Louvois, the Minister, died +in 1691, and was succeeded by Barbezieux. On August 13, 1691, Barbezieux +wrote to ask Saint-Mars about ‘the prisoner whom he had guarded for +twenty years.’ The only such prisoner was Dauger, who entered Pignerol +in August 1669. Mattioli had been a prisoner only for twelve years, and +lay in Pignerol, not in Sainte-Marguerite, where Saint-Mars now was. +Saint-Mars replied: ‘I can assure you that nobody has seen him but +myself.’ + +By the beginning of March 1694, Pignerol had been bombarded by the +enemies of France; presently Louis XIV. had to cede it to Savoy. The +prisoners there must be removed. Mattioli, in Pignerol, at the end of +1693, had been in trouble. He and his valet had tried to smuggle out +letters written on the linings of their pockets. These were seized and +burned. On March 20, 1694, Barbezieux wrote to Laprade, now commanding +at Pignerol, that he must take his three prisoners, one by one, with all +secrecy, to Sainte-Marguerite. Laprade alone must give them their food +on the journey. The military officer of the escort was warned to ask +no questions. Already (February 26, 1694) Barbezieux had informed +Saint-Mars that these prisoners were coming. ‘They are of more +consequence, one of them at least, than the prisoners on the island, and +must be put in the safest places.’ The ‘one’ is doubtless Mattioli. +In 1681 Louvois had thought Dauger and La Riviere more important than +Mattioli, who, in March 1694, came from Pignerol to Sainte-Marguerite. +Now in April 1694 a prisoner died at the island, a prisoner who, like +Mattioli, HAD A VALET. We hear of no other prisoner on the island, +except Mattioli, who had a valet. A letter of Saint-Mars (January +6, 1696) proves that no prisoner THEN had a valet, for each prisoner +collected his own dirty plates and dishes, piled them up, and handed +them to the lieutenant. + +M. Funck-Brentano argues that in this very letter (January 6, 1696) +Saint-Mars speaks of ‘les valets de messieurs les prisonniers.’ But in +that part of the letter Saint-Mars is not speaking of the actual state +of things at Sainte-Marguerite, but is giving reminiscences of Fouquet +and Lauzun, who, of course, at Pignerol, had valets, and had money, as +he shows. Dauger had no money. M. Funck-Brentano next argues that early +in 1694 one of the preacher prisoners, Melzac, died, and cites M. Jung +[‘La Verite sur le Masque de Fer,’ p. 91). This is odd, as M. Jung says +that Melzac, or Malzac, ‘DIED IN THE END OF 1692, OR EARLY IN 1693.’ +Why, then, does M. Funck-Brentano cite M. Jung for the death of the +preacher early in 1694, when M. Jung (conjecturally) dates his decease +at least a year earlier?* It is not a mere conjecture, as, on March 3, +1693, Barbezieux begs Saint-Mars to mention his Protestant prisoners +under nicknames. There are three, and Malzac is no longer one of them. +Malzac, in 1692, suffered from a horrible disease, discreditable to one +of the godly, and in October 1692 had been allowed medical expenses. +Whether they included a valet or not, Malzac seems to have been +non-existent by March 1693. Had he possessed a valet, and had he died +in 1694, why should HIS valet have been ‘shut up in the vaulted prison’? +This was the fate of the valet of the prisoner who died in April 1694, +and was probably Mattioli. + + + *M. Funck-Brentano’s statement is in Revue Historique, lvi. p. 298. +‘Malzac died at the beginning of 1694,’ citing Jung, p. 91. Now on P. 91 +M. Jung writes, ‘At the beginning of 1694 Saint-Mars had six prisoners, +of whom one, Melzac, dies.’ But M. Jung (pp. 269, 270) later writes, ‘It +is probable that Melzac died at the end of 1692, or early in 1693,’ and +he gives his reasons, which are convincing. M. Funck-Brentano must have +overlooked M. Jung’s change of opinion between his P. 91 and his pp. +269, 270. + +Mattioli, certainly, had a valet in December 1693 at Pignerol. He went +to Sainte-Marguerite in March 1694. In April 1694 a prisoner with +a valet died at Sainte-Marguerite. In January 1696 no prisoner at +Sainte-Marguerite had a valet. Therefore, there is a strong presumption +that the ‘prisonnier au valet’ who died in April 1694 was Mattioli. + +After December 1693, when he was still at Pignerol, the name of +Mattioli, freely used before, never occurs in the correspondence. But we +still often hear of ‘l’ancien prisonnier,’ ‘the old prisoner.’ He +was, on the face of it, Dauger, by far the oldest prisoner. In 1688, +Saint-Mars, having only one prisoner (Dauger), calls him merely ‘my +prisoner.’ In 1691, when Saint-Mars had several prisoners, Barbezieux +styles Dauger ‘your prisoner of twenty years’ standing.’ When, in +1696-1698, Saint-Mars mentions ‘mon ancien prisonnier,’ ‘my prisoner of +long standing,’ he obviously means Dauger, not Mattioli--above all, +if Mattioli died in 1694. M. Funck-Brentano argues that ‘mon ancien +prisonnier’ can only mean ‘my erstwhile prisoner, he who was lost and is +restored to me’--that is, Mattioli. This is not the view of M. Jung, or +M. Lair, or M. Loiseleur. + +Friends of Mattioli’s claims rest much on this letter of Barbezieux +to Saint-Mars (November 17, 1697): ‘You have only to watch over the +security of all your prisoners, WITHOUT EVER EXPLAINING TO ANY ONE +WHAT IT IS THAT YOUR PRISONER OF LONG STANDING DID.’ That secret, it is +argued, MUST apply to Mattioli. But all the world knew what Mattioli had +done! Nobody knew, and nobody knows, what Eustache Dauger had done. +It was one of the arcana imperii. It is the secret enforced ever since +Dauger’s arrest in 1669. Saint-Mars (1669) was not to ask. Louis XIV. +could only lighten the captivity of Fouquet (1678) if his valet, La +Riviere, did not know what Dauger had done. La Riviere (apparently a +harmless man) lived and died in confinement, the sole reason being that +he might perhaps know what Dauger had done. Consequently there is the +strongest presumption that the ‘ancien prisonnier’ of 1697 is Dauger, +and that ‘what he had done’ (which Saint-Mars must tell to no one) was +what Dauger did, not what Mattioli did. All Europe knew what Mattioli +had done; his whole story had been published to the world in 1682 and +1687. + +On July 19, 1698, Barbezieux bade Saint-Mars come to assume the command +of the Bastille. He is to bring his ‘old prisoner,’ whom not a soul is +to see. Saint-Mars therefore brought his man MASKED, exactly as another +prisoner was carried masked from Provence to the Bastille in 1695. M. +Funck-Brentano argues that Saint-Mars was now quite fond of his old +Mattioli, so noble, so learned. + +At last, on September 18, 1698, Saint-Mars lodged his ‘old prisoner’ +in the Bastille, ‘an old prisoner whom he had at Pignerol,’ says the +journal of du Junca, Lieutenant of the Bastille. His food, we saw, was +brought him by Rosarges alone, the ‘Major,’ a gentleman who had always +been with Saint-Mars. Argues M. Funck-Brentano, all this proves that the +captive was a gentleman, not a valet. Why? First, because the Bastille, +under Louis XIV., was ‘une prison de distinction.’ Yet M. Funck-Brentano +tells us that in Mazarin’s time ‘valets mixed up with royal plots’ were +kept in the Bastille. Again, in 1701, in this ‘noble prison,’ the Mask +was turned out of his room to make place for a female fortune-teller, +and was obliged to chum with a profligate valet of nineteen, and a +‘beggarly’ bad patriot, who ‘blamed the conduct of France, and approved +that of other nations, especially the Dutch.’ M. Funck-Brentano himself +publishes these facts (1898), in part published earlier (1890) by M. +Lair.* Not much noblesse here! Next, if Rosarges, a gentleman, served +the Mask, Saint-Mars alone (1669) carried his food to the valet, Dauger. +So the service of Rosarges does not ennoble the Mask and differentiate +him from Dauger, who was even more nobly served, by Saint-Mars. + + + *Legendes de la Bastille, pp. 86-89. Citing du Junca’s Journal, +April 30, 1701. + +On November 19, 1703, the Mask died suddenly (still in his velvet mask), +and was buried on the 20th. The parish register of the church names him +‘Marchialy’ or ‘Marchioly,’ one may read it either way; du Junca, the +Lieutenant of the Bastille, in his contemporary journal, calls him ‘Mr. +de Marchiel.’ Now, Saint-Mars often spells Mattioli, ‘Marthioly.’ + +This is the one strength of the argument for Mattioli’s claims to the +Mask. M. Lair replies, ‘Saint-Mars had a mania for burying prisoners +under fancy names,’ and gives examples. One is only a gardener, Francois +Eliard (1701), concerning whom it is expressly said that, as he is a +State prisoner, his real name is not to be given, so he is registered as +Pierre Maret (others read Navet, ‘Peter Turnip’). If Saint-Mars, looking +about for a false name for Dauger’s burial register, hit on Marsilly +(the name of Dauger’s old master), that MIGHT be miswritten Marchialy. +However it be, the age of the Mask is certainly falsified; the +register gives ‘about forty-five years old.’ Mattioli would have been +sixty-three; Dauger cannot have been under fifty-three. + +There the case stands. If Mattioli died in April 1694, he cannot be the +Man in the Iron Mask. Of Dauger’s death we find no record, unless he +was the Man in the Iron Mask, and died, in 1703, in the Bastille. He was +certainly, in 1669 and 1688, at Pignerol and at Sainte-Marguerite, the +centre of the mystery about some great prisoner, a Marshal of France, +the Duc de Beaufort, or a son of Oliver Cromwell. Mattioli was no +mystery, no secret. Dauger is so mysterious that probably the secret of +his mystery was unknown to himself. By 1701, when obscure wretches were +shut up with the Mask, the secret, whatever its nature, had ceased to +be of moment. The captive was now the mere victim of cruel routine. +But twenty years earlier, Saint-Mars had said that Dauger ‘takes things +easily, resigned to the will of God and the King.’ + +To sum up, on July 1, 1669, the valet of the Huguenot intriguer, Roux +de Marsilly, the valet resident in England, known to his master as +‘Martin,’ was ‘wanted’ by the French secret police. By July 19, a valet, +of the highest political importance, had been brought to Dunkirk, from +England, no doubt. My hypothesis assumes that this valet, though now +styled ‘Eustache Dauger,’ was the ‘Martin’ of Roux de Marsilly. He was +kept with so much mystery at Pignerol that already the legend began its +course; the captive valet was said to be a Marshal of France! We then +follow Dauger from Pignerol to Les Exiles, till January 1687, when one +valet out of a pair, Dauger being one of them, dies. We presume that +Dauger is the survivor, because the great mystery still is ‘what he +HAS DONE,’ whereas the other valet had done nothing, but may have known +Dauger’s secret. Again, the other valet had long been dropsical, and the +valet who died in 1687 died of dropsy. + +In 1688, Dauger, at Sainte-Marguerite, is again the source and centre +of myths; he is taken for a son of Oliver Cromwell, or for the Duc +de Beaufort. In June 1692, one of the Huguenot preachers at +Sainte-Marguerite writes on his shirt and pewter plate, and throws them +out of window.* Legend attributes these acts to the Man in the Iron +Mask, and transmutes a pewter into a silver plate. Now, in 1689-1693, +Mattioli was at Pignerol, but Dauger was at Sainte-Marguerite, and the +Huguenot’s act is attributed to him. Thus Dauger, not Mattioli, is the +centre round which the myths crystallise: the legends concern HIM, +not Mattioli, whose case is well known, and gives rise to no legend. +Finally, we have shown that Mattioli probably died at Sainte-Marguerite +in April 1694. If so, then nobody but Dauger can be the ‘old prisoner’ +whom Saint-Mars brought, masked, to the Bastille, in September 1698, and +who died there in November 1703. However, suppose that Mattioli did not +die in 1694, but was the masked man who died in the Bastille in 1703, +then the legend of Dauger came to be attributed to Mattioli: these two +men’s fortunes are combined in the one myth. + + + *Saint-Mars au Ministre, June 4, 1692. + +The central problem remains unsolved, + +WHAT HAD THE VALET, EUSTACHE DAUGER, DONE?* + + + *One marvels that nobody has recognised, in the mask, James Stuart +(James de la Cloche), eldest of the children of Charles II. He came to +England in 1668, was sent to Rome, and ‘disappears from history.’ See +‘The Mystery of James de la Cloche.’ + + + + +II. THE VALET’S MASTER + + + +The secret of the Man in the Iron Mask, or at least of one of the two +persons who have claims to be the Mask, was ‘WHAT HAD EUSTACHE DAUGER +DONE?’ To guard this secret the most extraordinary precautions were +taken, as we have shown in the fore-going essay. And yet, if secret +there was, it might have got wind in the simplest fashion. In the +‘Vicomte de Bragelonne,’ Dumas describes the tryst of the Secret-hunters +with the dying Chief of the Jesuits at the inn in Fontainebleau. They +come from many quarters, there is a Baron of Germany and a laird from +Scotland, but Aramis takes the prize. He knows the secret of the Mask, +the most valuable of all to the intriguers of the Company of Jesus. + +Now, despite all the precautions of Louvois and Saint-Mars, despite +sentinels for ever posted under Dauger’s windows, despite arrangements +which made it impossible for him to signal to people on the hillside at +Les Exiles, despite the suppression even of the items in the accounts of +his expenses, his secret, if he knew it, could have been discovered, as +we have remarked, by the very man most apt to make mischievous use of +it--by Lauzun. That brilliant and reckless adventurer could see Dauger, +in prison at Pignerol, when he pleased, for he had secretly excavated +a way into the rooms of his fellow-prisoner, Fouquet, on whom Dauger +attended as valet. Lauzun was released soon after Fouquet’s death. It is +unlikely that he bought his liberty by the knowledge of the secret, and +there is nothing to suggest that he used it (if he possessed it) in any +other way. + +The natural clue to the supposed secret of Dauger is a study of the +career of his master, Roux de Marsilly. As official histories say next +to nothing about him, we may set forth what can be gleaned from the +State Papers in our Record Office. The earliest is a letter of Roux de +Marsilly to Mr. Joseph Williamson, secretary of Lord Arlington (December +1668). Marsilly sends Martin (on our theory Eustache Dauger) to bring +back from Williamson two letters from his own correspondent in Paris. He +also requests Williamson to procure for him from Arlington a letter of +protection, as he is threatened with arrest for some debt in which he +is not really concerned. Martin will explain. The next paper is endorsed +‘Received December 28, 1668, Mons. de Marsilly.’ As it is dated December +27, Marsilly must have been in England. The contents of this piece +deserve attention, because they show the terms on which Marsilly and +Arlington were, or, at least, how Marsilly conceived them. + +(1) Marsilly reports, on the authority of his friends at Stockholm, that +the King of Sweden intends, first to intercede with Louis XIV. in favour +of the French Huguenots, and next, if diplomacy fails, to join in arms +with the other Protestant Powers of Europe. + +(2) His correspondent in Holland learns that if the King of England +invites the States to any ‘holy resolution,’ they will heartily lend +forces. No leader so good as the English King--Charles II! Marsilly had +shown ARLINGTON’S LETTER to a Dutch friend, who bade him approach +the Dutch ambassador in England. He has dined with that diplomatist. +Arlington had, then, gone so far as to write an encouraging letter. The +Dutch ambassador had just told Marsilly that he had received the same +news, namely, that, Holland would aid the Huguenots, persecuted by Louis +XIV. + +(3) Letters from Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphine say that the +situation there is unaltered. + +(4) The Canton of Zurich write that they will keep their promises and +that Berne IS ANXIOUS TO PLEASE THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, and that +it is ready to raise, with Zurich, 15,000 men. They are not afraid of +France. + +(5) Zurich fears that, if Charles is not represented at the next Diet, +Bale and Saint Gal will be intimidated, and not dare to join the Triple +Alliance of Spain, Holland, and England. The best plan will be +for Marsilly to represent England at the Diet of January 25, 1669, +accompanied by the Swiss General Balthazar. This will encourage friends +‘TO GIVE HIS BRITTANIC MAJESTY THE SATISFACTION WHICH HE DESIRES, and +will produce a close union between Holland, Sweden, the Cantons, and +other Protestant States.’ + +This reads as if Charles had already expressed some ‘desire.’ + +(6) Geneva grumbles at a reply of Charles ‘through a bishop who is their +enemy,’ the Bishop of London, ‘a persecutor of our religion,’ that is, +of Presbyterianism. However, nothing will dismay the Genevans, ‘si S. M. +B. ne change.’ + +Then comes a blank in the paper. There follows a copy of a letter as +if FROM CHARLES II. HIMSELF, to ‘the Right High and Noble Seigneurs of +Zurich.’ He has heard of their wishes from Roux de Marsilly, whom he +commissions to wait upon them. ‘I would not have written by my Bishop of +London had I been better informed, but would myself have replied to +your obliging letter, and would have assured you, as I do now, that I +desire....’ + +It appears as if this were a draft of the kind of letter which Marsilly +wanted Charles to write to Zurich, and there is a similar draft of a +letter for Arlington to follow, if he and Charles wish to send Marsilly +to the Swiss Diet. The Dutch ambassador, with whom Marsilly dined on +December 26, the Constable of Castille, and other grandees, are all of +opinion that he should visit the Protestant Swiss, as from the King of +England. The scheme is for an alliance of England, Holland, Spain, and +the Protestant Cantons, against France and Savoy. + +Another letter of Marsilly to Arlington, only dated Jeudi, avers that he +can never repay Arlington for his extreme kindness and liberality. ‘No +man in England is more devoted to you than I am, and shall be all my +life.’* + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 125, 106. + +On the very day when Marsilly drafted for Charles his own commission +to treat with Zurich for a Protestant alliance against France, Charles +himself wrote to his sister, Madame (Henriette d’Orleans). He spoke of +his secret treaty with France. ‘You know how much secrecy is necessary +for the carrying on of the business, and I assure you that nobody does, +nor shall, know anything of it here, but myself and that one person +more, till it be fit to be public.’* (Is ‘that one person’ de la +Cloche?) + + + *Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 275. + +Thus Marsilly thought Charles almost engaged for the Protestant League, +while Charles was secretly allying himself with France against Holland. +Arlington was probably no less deceived by Charles than Marsilly was. + +The Bishop of London’s share in the dealing with Zurich is obscure. + +It appears certain that Arlington was not consciously deceiving +Marsilly. Madame wrote, on February 12, as to Arlington, ‘The man’s +attachment to the Dutch and his inclination towards Spain are too well +known.’* Not till April 25, 1669, does Charles tell his sister that +Arlington has an inkling of his secret dealings with France; how he +knows, Charles cannot tell.** It is impossible for us to ascertain how +far Charles himself deluded Marsilly, who went to the Continent early in +spring, 1669. Before May 15/25 1669, in fact on April 14, Marsilly had +been kidnapped by agents of Louis XIV., and his doom was dight. + + + *Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 281. + + + **Ibid. p. 285. + +Here is the account of the matter, written to ------ by Perwich in +Paris: + +W Perwich to ------ + +Paris, May 25, ‘69. + +Honored Sir, + +. . . . . . + +The Cantons of Switzerland are much troubled at the French King’s having +sent 15 horsemen into Switzerland from whence the Sr de Maille, +the King’s resident there, had given information of the Sr Roux de +Marsilly’s being there negociating the bringing the Cantons into the +Triple League by discourses much to the disadvantage of France, giving +them very ill impressions of the French King’s Government, who was +BETRAYED BY A MONK THAT KEPT HIM COMPANY and intercepted by the said +horsemen brought into France and is expected at the Bastille. I believe +you know the man.... I remember him in England. + + +Can this monk be the monk who went mad in prison at Pignerol, sharing +the cell of Mattioli? Did he, too, suffer for his connection with +the secret? We do not know, but the position of Charles was awkward. +Marsilly, dealing with the Swiss, had come straight from England, where +he was lie with Charles’s minister, Arlington, and with the Dutch and +Spanish ambassadors. The King refers to the matter in a letter to his +sister of May 24, 1669 (misdated by Miss Cartwright, May 24, 1668.)* + +‘You have, I hope, received full satisfaction by the last post in the +matter of Marsillac [Marsilly], for my Ld. Arlington has sent to Mr. +Montague [English ambassador at Paris] his history all the time he was +here, by which you will see how little credit he had here, and that +particularly my Lord Arlington was not in his good graces, because he +did not receive that satisfaction, in his negotiation, he expected, and +that was only in relation to the Swissers, and so I think I have said +enough of this matter.’ + + + *Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 264. + +Charles took it easily! + +On May 15-25 Montague acknowledged Arlington’s letter to which Charles +refers; he has been approached, as to Marsilly, by the Spanish resident, +‘but I could not tell how to do anything in the business, never having +heard of the man, or that he was employed by my Master [Charles] in any +business. I have sent you also a copy of a letter which an Englishman +writ to me that I do not know, in behalf of Roux de Marsilly, but that +does not come by the post,’ being too secret.* + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 126. + +France had been well informed about Marsilly while he was in England. +He then had a secretary, two lackeys, and a valet de chambre, and was +frequently in conference with Arlington and the Spanish ambassador to +the English Court. Colbert, the French ambassador in London, had written +all this to the French Government, on April 25, before he heard of +Marsilly’s arrest.* + + + *Bibl. Nat., Fonds Francais, No. 10665. + +The belief that Marsilly was an agent of Charles appears to have been +general, and, if accepted by Louis XIV., would interfere with Charles’s +private negotiations for the Secret Treaty with France. On May 18 Prince +d’Aremberg had written on the subject to the Spanish ambassador in +Paris. Marsilly, he says, was arrested in Switzerland, on his way to +Berne, with a monk who was also seized, and, a curious fact, Marsilly’s +valet was killed in the struggle. This valet, of course, was not Dauger, +whom Marsilly had left in England. Marsilly ‘doit avoir demande la +protection du Roy de la Grande Bretagne en faveur des Religionaires +(Huguenots) de France, et passer en Suisse AVEC QUELQUE COMMISSION DE SA +PART.’ D’Aremberg begs the Spanish ambassador to communicate all this to +Montague, the English ambassador at Paris, but Montague probably, like +Perwich, knew nothing of the business any more than he knew of Charles’s +secret dealings with Louis through Madame.* + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 126. + +To d’Aremberg’s letter is pinned an unsigned English note, obviously +intended for Arlington’s reading. + +‘Roux de Marsilly is still in the Bastille though they have a mind to +hang him, yet they are much puzzled what to do with him. De Lionne has +beene to examine him twice or thrice, but there is noe witnes to prove +anything against him. I was told by one that the French king told it +to, that in his papers they find great mention of the DUKE OF BUCKS: AND +YOUR NAME, and speak as if he were much trusted by you. I have enquired +what this Marsilly is, and I find by one Mr. Marsilly that I am +acquainted withall, and a man of quality, that this man’s name is onely +Roux, and borne at Nismes and having been formerly a soldier in his +troope, ever since has taken his name to gain more credit in Switserland +where hee, Marsilly, formerly used to bee employed by his Coll: the +Mareschall de Schomberg who invaded Switserland.’ + +We next find a very curious letter, from which it appears that the +French Government inclined to regard Marsilly as, in fact, an agent +of Charles, but thought it wiser to trump up against him a charge of +conspiring against the life of Louis XIV. On this charge, or another, +he was executed, while the suspicion that he was an agent of English +treachery may have been the real cause of the determination to destroy +him. The Balthazar with whom Marsilly left his papers is mentioned with +praise by him in his paper for Arlington, of December 27, 1668. He is +the General who should have accompanied Marsilly to the Diet. + +The substance of the letter (given in full in Note I.) is to the +following effect. P. du Moulin (Paris, May 19-29, 1669) writes to +Arlington. Ever since Ruvigny, the late French ambassador, a Protestant, +was in England, the French Government had been anxious to kidnap Roux +de Marsilly. They hunted him in England, Holland, Flanders, and +Franche-Comte. As we know from the case of Mattioli, the Government of +Louis XIV. was unscrupulously daring in breaking the laws of nations, +and seizing hostile personages in foreign territory, as Napoleon did +in the affair of the Duc d’Enghien. When all failed, Louis bade Turenne +capture Roux de Marsilly wherever he could find him. Turenne sent +officers and gentlemen abroad, and, after four months’ search, they +found Marsilly in Switzerland. They took him as he came out of the house +of his friend, General Balthazar, and carried him to Gex. No papers were +found on him, but he asked his captors to send to Balthazar and get ‘the +commission he had from England,’ which he probably thought would give +him the security of an official diplomatic position. Having got this +document, Marsilly’s captors took it to the French Ministers. +Nothing could be more embarrassing, if this were true, to Charles’s +representative in France, Montague, and to Charles’s secret +negotiations, also to Arlington, who had dealt with Marsilly. On his +part, the captive Marsilly constantly affirmed that he was the envoy +of the King of England. The common talk of Paris was that an agent +of Charles was in the Bastille, ‘though at Court they pretend to know +nothing of it.’ Louis was overjoyed at Marsilly’s capture, giving out +that he was conspiring against his life. Monsieur told Montague that he +need not beg for the life of a would-be murderer like Marsilly. But as +to this idea, ‘they begin now to mince it at Court,’ and Ruvigny assured +du Moulin ‘that they had no such thoughts.’ De Lyonne had seen Marsilly +and observed that it was a blunder to seize him. The French Government +was nervous, and Turenne’s secretary had been ‘pumping’ several +ambassadors as to what they thought of Marsilly’s capture on foreign +territory. One ambassador replied with spirit that a crusade by +all Europe against France, as of old against the Moslems, would be +necessary. Would Charles, du Moulin asked, own or disown Marsilly? + +Montague’s position was now awkward. On May 23, his account of the case +was read, at Whitehall, to the Foreign Committee in London. (See Note +II. for the document.) He did not dare to interfere in Marsilly’s +behalf, because he did not know whether the man was an agent of Charles +or not. Such are the inconveniences of a secret royal diplomacy carried +on behind the backs of Ministers. Louis XV. later pursued this method +with awkward consequences.* The French Court, Montague said, was +overjoyed at the capture of Marsilly, and a reward of 100,000 crowns, ‘I +am told very privately, is set upon his head.’ The French ambassador in +England, Colbert, had reported that Charles had sent Marsilly ‘to draw +the Swisses into the Triple League’ against France. Montague had +tried to reassure Monsieur (Charles’s brother-in-law), but was himself +entirely perplexed. As Monsieur’s wife, Charles’s sister, was working +with Charles for the secret treaty with Louis, the State and family +politics were clearly in a knot. Meanwhile the Spanish ambassador kept +pressing Montague to interfere in favour of Marsilly. After Montague’s +puzzled note had been read to the English Foreign Committee on May 23, +Arlington offered explanations. Marsilly came to England, he said, when +Charles was entering into negotiations for peace with Holland, and when +France seemed likely to oppose the peace. No proposition was made to him +or by him. Peace being made, Marsilly was given money to take him out +of the country. He wanted the King to renew his alliance with the Swiss +cantons, but was told that the cantons must first expel the regicides +of Charles I. He undertook to arrange this, and some eight months later +came back to England. ‘He was coldly used, and I was complained of for +not using so important a man well enough.’ + + + *Cf. Le Secret du Roi, by the Duc de Broglie. + +As we saw, Marsilly expressed the most effusive gratitude to Arlington, +which does not suggest cold usage. Arlington told the complainers that +Marsilly was ‘another man’s spy,’ what man’s, Dutch, Spanish, or even +French, he does not explain. So Charles gave Marsilly money to go away. +He was never trusted with anything but the expulsion of the regicides +from Switzerland. Arlington was ordered by Charles to write a letter +thanking Balthazar for his good offices. + +These explanations by Arlington do not tally with Marsilly’s +communications to him, as cited at the beginning of this inquiry. +Nothing is said in these about getting the regicides of Charles I. +out of Switzerland: the paper is entirely concerned with bringing the +Protestant Cantons into anti-French League with England, Holland, Spain, +and even Sweden. On the other hand, Arlington’s acknowledged letter +to Balthazar, carried by Marsilly, may be the ‘commission’ of which +Marsilly boasted. In any case, on June 2, Charles gave Colbert, the +French ambassador, an audience, turning even the Duke of York out of the +room. He then repeated to Colbert the explanations of Arlington, already +cited, and Arlington, in a separate interview, corroborated Charles. +So Colbert wrote to Louis (June 3, 1669); but to de Lyonne, on the same +day, ‘I trust that you will extract from Marsilly much matter for the +King’s service. IT SEEMED TO ME THAT MILORD D’ARLINGTON WAS UNEASY ABOUT +IT [EN AVAIT DE L’INQUIETUDE].... There is here in England one Martin’ +(Eustace Dauger), ‘who has been that wretch’s valet, and who left him +in discontent.’ Colbert then proposes to examine Martin, who may know +a good deal, and to send him into France. On June 10, Colbert writes to +Louis that he expects to see Martin.* + + + *Bibl. Nat., Fonds Francais, No. 10665. + +On June 24, Colbert wrote to Louis about a conversation with Charles. +It is plain that proofs of a murder-plot by Marsilly were scanty or +non-existent, though Colbert averred that Marsilly had discussed the +matter with the Spanish Ministers. ‘Charles knew that he had had much +conference with Isola, the Spanish ambassador.’ Meanwhile, up to July 1, +Colbert was trying to persuade Marsilly’s valet to go to France, which +he declined to do, as we have seen. However, the luckless lad, by nods +and by veiled words, indicated that he knew a great deal. But not by +promise of security and reward could the valet be induced to return to +France. ‘I might ask the King to give up Martin, the valet of Marsilly, +to me,’ Colbert concludes, and, by hook or by crook, he secured the +person of the wretched man, as we have seen. In a postscript, Colbert +says that he has heard of the execution of Marsilly. + +By July 19, as we saw in the previous essay, Louvois was bidding +Saint-Mars expect, at Pignerol from Dunkirk, a prisoner of the highest +political importance, to be guarded with the utmost secrecy, yet a +valet. That valet must be Martin, now called Eustache Dauger, and his +secret can only be connected with Marsilly. It may have been something +about Arlington’s negotiations through Marsilly, as compromising Charles +II. Arlington’s explanations to the Foreign Committee were certainly +incomplete and disingenuous. He, if not Charles, was more deeply engaged +with Marsilly than he ventured to report. But Marsilly himself avowed +that he did not know why he was to be executed. + +Executed he was, in circumstances truly hideous. Perwich, June 5, wrote +to an unnamed correspondent in England: ‘They have all his papers, +which speak much of the Triple Alliance, but I know not whether they +can lawfully hang him for this, having been naturalised in Holland, and +taken in a privileged country’ (Switzerland). Montague (Paris, June +22, 1669) writes to Arlington that Marsilly is to die, so it has been +decided, for ‘a rape which he formerly committed at Nismes,’ and after +the execution, on June 26, declares that, when broken on the wheel, +Marsilly ‘still persisted that he was guilty of nothing, nor did know +why he was put to death.’ + +Like Eustache Dauger, Marsilly professed that he did not know his own +secret. The charge of a rape, long ago, at Nismes, was obviously trumped +up to cover the real reason for the extraordinary vindictiveness with +which he was pursued, illegally taken, and barbarously slain. Mere +Protestant restlessness on his part is hardly an explanation. There was +clearly no evidence for the charge of a plot to murder Louis XIV., in +which Colbert, in England, seems to have believed. Even if the French +Government believed that he was at once an agent of Charles II., and at +the same time a would-be assassin of Louis XIV., that hardly accounts +for the intense secrecy with which his valet, Eustache Dauger, was +always surrounded. Did Marsilly know of the Secret Treaty, and was it +from him that Arlington got his first inkling of the royal plot? If +so, Marsilly would probably have exposed the mystery in Protestant +interests. We are entirely baffled. + +In any case, Francis Vernon, writing from Paris to Williamson (?) (June +19-29 1669), gave a terrible account of Marsilly’s death. (For the +letter, see Note V.) With a broken piece of glass (as we learn from +another source), Marsilly, in prison, wounded himself in a ghastly +manner, probably hoping to die by loss of blood. They seared him with a +red-hot iron, and hurried on his execution. He was broken on the wheel, +and was two hours in dying (June 22). Contrary to usage, a Protestant +preacher was brought to attend him on the scaffold. He came most +reluctantly, expecting insult, but not a taunt was uttered by the +fanatic populace. ‘He came up the scaffold, great silence all about.’ +Marsilly lay naked, stretched on a St. Andrew’s cross. He had seemed +half dead, his head hanging limp, ‘like a drooping calf.’ To greet the +minister of his own faith, he raised himself, to the surprise of all, +and spoke out loud and clear. He utterly denied all share in a scheme to +murder Louis. The rest may be read in the original letter (Note V.). + +So perished Roux de Marsilly; the history of the master throws no light +on the secret of the servant. That secret, for many years, caused the +keenest anxiety to Louis XIV. and Louvois. Saint-Mars himself must +not pry into it. Yet what could Dauger know? That there had been a +conspiracy against the King’s life? But that was the public talk of +Paris. If Dauger had guilty knowledge, his life might have paid for it; +why keep him a secret prisoner? Did he know that Charles II. had been +guilty of double dealing in 1668-1669? Probably Charles had made some +overtures to the Swiss, as a blind to his private dealings with Louis +XIV., but, even so, how could the fact haunt Louis XIV. like a ghost? We +leave the mystery much darker than we found it, but we see reason good +why diplomatists should have murmured of a crusade against the cruel +and brigand Government which sent soldiers to kidnap, in neighbouring +states, men who did not know their own crime. + +To myself it seems not improbable that the King and Louvois were but +stupidly and cruelly nervous about what Dauger MIGHT know. Saint-Mars, +when he proposed to utilise Dauger as a prison valet, manifestly did not +share the trembling anxieties of Louis XIV. and his Minister; anxieties +which grew more keen as time went on. However, ‘a soldier only has +his orders,’ and Saint-Mars executed his orders with minute precision, +taking such unheard-of precautions that, in legend, the valet blossomed +into the rightful king of France. + + * * * + +APPENDIX. + +ORIGINAL PAPERS IN THE CASE OF ROUX DE MARSILLY.* + +Note I. Letter of Mons. P. du Moulin to Arlington.** + + Paris, May ye 19-29, 1669. + +My Lord, + +. . . . . . + +Ever since that Monsieur de Ruvigny was in England last, and upon the +information he gave, this King had a very great desire to seize if it +were possible this Roux de Marsilly, and several persons were sent to +effect it, into England, Holland, Flanders, and Franche Comte: amongst +the rest one La Grange, exempt des Gardes, was a good while in Holland +with fifty of the guards dispersed in severall places and quarters; +But all having miscarried the King recommended the thing to Monsieur de +Turenne who sent some of his gentlemen and officers under him to find +this man out and to endeavour to bring him alive. These men after foure +months search found him att last in Switzerland, and having laid waite +for him as he came out from Monsr Balthazar’s house (a commander well +knowne) they took him and carryed him to Gex before they could be +intercepted and he rescued. This was done only by a warrant from +Monsieur de Turenne but as soone as they came into the french dominions +they had full powers and directions from this court for the bringing of +him hither. Those that tooke him say they found no papers about him, but +that he desired them to write to Monsr Balthazar to desire him to take +care of his papers and to send him THE COMMISSION HE HAD FROM ENGLAND +and a letter being written to that effect it was signed by the prisoner +and instead of sending it as they had promised, they have brought it +hither along with them. THEY DO ALL UNANIMOUSLY REPORT THAT HE DID +CONSTANTLY AFFIRME THAT HE WAS IMPLOYED BY THE KING OF GREAT BRITTAIN +AND DID ACT BY HIS COMMISSION; so that the general discourse here in +towne is that one of the King of England’s agents is in the Bastille; +though att Court they pretend to know nothing of it and would have the +world think they are persuaded he had no relacion to his Majesty. Your +Lordship hath heard by the publique newes how overjoyed this King was +att the bringing of this prisoner, and how farr he expressed his thanks +to the cheife person employed in it, declaring openly that this man had +long since conspired against his life, and agreable to this, Monsieur, +fearing that My lord Ambr. was come to interpose on the prisoner’s +behalfe asked him on Friday last att St. Germains whether that was the +cause of his coming, and told him that he did not think he would speake +for a man that attempted to kill the King. The same report hath been +hitherto in everybody’s mouth but they begin now to mince it att court, +and Monsieur de Ruvigny would have persuaded me yesterday, they had no +such thoughts. The truth is I am apt to believe they begin now to be +ashamed of it: and I am informed from a very good hand that Monsieur de +Lionne who hath been at the Bastille to speake with the prisoner hath +confessed since that he can find no ground for this pretended attempting +to the King’s life, and that upon the whole he was of opinion that this +man had much better been left alone than taken, and did look upon what +he had done as the intemperancy of an ill-settled braine. And to satisfy +your Lordship that they are nettled here, and are concerned to know what +may be the issue of all this, Monsieur de Turenne’s secretary was on +Munday last sent to several forreigne Ministers to pump them and to +learne what their thoughts were concerning this violence committed in +the Dominions of a sovereign and an allye whereupon he was told by one +of them that such proceedings would bring Europe to the necessity of +entering into a Croisade against them, as formerly against the infidels. +If I durst I would acquaint your Lordship with the reflexions of all +publique ministers here and of other unconcerned persons in relation +to his Majesty’s owning or disowning this man; but not knowing the +particulars of his case, nor the grounds his Ma’ty may go upon, I shall +forbeare entering upon this discourse.. .. + + Your Lordships’ etc. + + P. Du MOULIN. + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 126. + + **Ibid. + + ------ + +Note II. Paper endorsed ‘Mr. Montague originally in Cypher. Received May +19, ‘69. Read in foreigne Committee, 23 May. Roux de Marsilli.’* + +I durst not venture to sollicite in Monsr Roux Marsilly’s behalfe +because I doe not know whether the King my Master hath imployed him or +noe; besides he is a man, as I have beene told by many people here of +worth, that has given out that hee is resolved to kill the French king +at one time or other, and I think such men are as dangerous to one +king as to another: hee is brought to the Bastille and I believe may be +proceeded against and put to death, in very few daies. There is great +joy in this Court for his being taken, and a hundred thousand crownes, +I am told very privately, set upon his head; the French Ambassador in +England watcht him, and hee has given the intelligence here of his being +employed by the King, and sent into Switzerland by my Master to draw the +Swisses into the Triple League. Hee aggravates the business as much +as hee can to the prejudice of my Master to value his owne service the +more, and they seeme here to wonder that the King my Master should have +imployed or countenanced a man that had so base a design against the +King’s Person, I had a great deal of discourse with Monsieur about it, +but I did positively say that he had noe relation to my knowledge to the +King my Master, and if he should have I make a question or noe whither +in this case the King will owne him. However, my Lord, I had nothing to +doe to owne or meddle in a buisines that I was so much a stranger to.... + +This Roux Marsilly is a great creature of the B. d’Isola’s, wch makes +them here hate him the more. The Spanish Resident was very earnest with +mee to have done something in behalfe of Marsilly, but I positively +refused. + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 126. + + ------ + +Note III. [A paper endorsed ‘Roux de Marsilli. Read in for. Committee, +23d May.’]* + +Roux de Marsilly came hither when your Majesty had made a union with +Holland for making the Peace betwixt the two Crownes and when it was +probable the opposition to the Peace would bee on the side of France. + +Marsilly was heard telling of longe things but noe proposition made to +him or by him. + +Presently the Peace was made and Marsilly told more plainly wee had no +use of him. A little summe of money was given him to returne as he said +whither he was to goe in Switzerland. Upon which hee wishing his Ma’ty +would renew his allience wth the Cantons hee was answerd his M’ty would +not enter into any comerce with them till they had sent the regicides +out of their Country, hee undertooke it should bee done. Seven or +eight months after wth out any intimation given him from hence or +any expectation of him, he comes hither, but was so coldly used I was +complained off for not using so important a man well enough. I answerd +I saw noe use the King could make of him, because he had no credit in +Switzerlande and for any thing else I thought him worth nothing to us, +but above all because I knew by many circumstances HEE WAS ANOTHER MAN’S +SPY and soe ought not to be paid by his Majesty. Notwithstanding this +his Ma’ty being moved from compassion commanded hee should have some +money given him to carry him away and that I should write to Monsieur +Balthazar thanking him in the King’s name for the good offices hee +rendered in advancing a good understanding betwixt his Ma’ty and the +Cantons and desiring him to continue them in all occasions. + +The man was always looked upon as a hot headed and indiscreete man, +and soe accordingly handled, hearing him, but never trusting him with +anything but his own offered and undesired endeavours to gett the +Regicides sent out of Switzerland. + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 126. + + ------ + +Note IV. Letter of W. Perwich to ------ .* + + Paris: June 5, 1669. + +Honored Sir, + +. . . . . . + +Roux Marsilly has prudently declared hee had some what of importance to +say but it should bee to the King himselfe wch may be means of respiting +his processe and as he hopes intercession may bee made for him; but +people talk so variously of him that I cannot tell whether hee ought to +bee owned by any Prince; the Suisses have indeed the greatest ground to +reclayme him as being taken in theirs. They have all his papers which +speak much of the Triple Alliance; if they have no other pretext of +hanging him I know not whether they can lawfully for this, hee having +been naturallised in Holland and taken in a priviledged Country.... + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 126. + + ------ + +Note V. Francis Vernon to [Mr. Williamson?].* + + Paris: June 19-29 1669. + +Honored Sir, + +My last of the 26th Currt was soe short and soe abrupt that I fear you +can peck butt little satisfaction out of it. + +. . . . . . + +I did intend to have written something about Marsilly but that I had +noe time then. In my letter to my Lord Arlington I writt that Friday 21 +Currt hee wounded himself wch he did not because hee was confronted with +Ruvigny as the Gazettes speake. For he knew before hee should dye, butt +he thought by dismembering himself that the losse of blood would carry +him out of the world before it should come to bee knowne that he had +wounded himselfe. And when the Governor of the Bastille spied the blood +hee said It was a stone was come from him which caused that effusion. +However the governor mistrusted the worst and searcht him to see what +wound he had made. So they seared him and sent word to St. Germaines +which made his execution be hastened. Saturday about 1 of the clock +hee was brought on the skaffold before the Chastelet and tied to St. +Andrew’s Crosse all wch while he acted the Dying man and scarce stirred, +and seemed almost breathlesse and fainting. The Lieutenant General +presst him to confesse and ther was a doctor of the Sorbon who was a +counsellr of the Castelet there likewise to exhort him to disburthen +his mind of any thing which might be upon it. Butt he seemed to take no +notice and lay panting. + +Then the Lieutenant Criminel bethought himself that the only way to +make him speake would bee to sende for a ministre soe hee did to Monsr +Daillie butt hee because the Edicts don’t permitt ministres to come +to condemned persons in publique butt only to comfort them in private +before they goe out of prison refused to come till hee sent a huissier +who if hee had refused the second time would have brought him by force. +At this second summons hee came butt not without great expectations +to bee affronted in a most notorious manner beeing the first time a +ministre came to appeare on a scaffold and that upon soe sinister an +occasion. Yet when he came found a great presse of people. All made way, +none lett fall soe much as a taunting word. Hee came up the Scaffold, +great silence all about. Hee found him lying bound stretched on St +Andrew’s Crosse, naked ready for execution. Hee told him hee was +sent for to exhort him to die patiently and like a Christian. Then +immediately they were all surprized to see him hold up his head wch he +lett hang on one side before like a drooping calfe and speake as loud +and clear as the ministre, to whom he said with a chearful air hee was +glad to see him, that hee need not question butt that hee would dye like +a Christian and patiently too. Then hee went and spoke some places of +Scripture to encourage him which he heard with great attention. They +afterward came to mention some things to move him to contrition, and +there hee tooke an occasion to aggravate the horrour of a Crime of +attempting against the King’s person. Hee said hee did not know what hee +meant. For his part hee never had any evill intention against the Person +of the King. + +The Lieutenant Criminel stood all the while behind Monsieur Daillie and +hearkened to all and prompted Monsr Daillie to aske him if hee had said +there were 10 Ravillacs besides wch would doe the King’s businesse. Hee +protested solemnly hee never said any such words or if hee did hee never +remembred, butt if hee had it was with no intention of Malice. +Then Monsieur Daillie turned to the people and made a discourse in +vindication of those of the Religion that it was no Principle of theirs +attempts on the persons of King[s] butt only loyalty and obedience. This +ended hee went away; hee staid about an hour in all, and immediately as +soon as he was gone, they went to their worke and gave him eleven blows +with a barre and laid him on the wheele. Hee was two houres dying. All +about Monsr Daillie I heard from his own mouth for I went to wait on him +because it was reported hee had said something concerning the King of +England butt hee could tell mee nothing of that. There was a flying +report that he should say going from the Chastelet--The Duke of +York hath done mee a great injury--The Swisses they say resented his +[Marsilly’s] taking and misst butt half an hour to take them which +betrayed him [the monk] after whom they sent. When he was on the wheele +hee was heard to say Le Roy est grand tyrant, Le Roy me traitte d’un +facon fort barbare. All that you read concerning oaths and dying en +enrage is false all the oaths hee used being only asseverations to Monsr +Daillie that he was falsely accused as to the King’s person. + + Sr I am etc + + FRANS. VERNON. + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 126. + + ------ + + +Note VI. The Ambassador Montague to Arlington.* + + Paris: June 22, 1669. + +My Lord, + +. . . . . . + +The Lieutenant criminel hath proceeded pretty farre with Le Roux +Marsilly. The crime they forme their processe on beeing a rape which he +had formerly committed at Nismes soe that he perceiving but little hopes +of his life, sent word to the King if hee would pardon him he could +reveale things to him which would concerne him more and be of greater +consequence to him, than his destruction. + + + *State Papers, France, vol. 126. + + ------ + +Note VII. The same to the same. + + Paris: June 26, ‘69. +My Lord, + +. . . . . . + +I heard that Marsilly was to be broke on the wheel and I gave order then +to one of my servants to write Mr. Williamson word of it, soe I suppose +you have heard of it already: they hastened his execution for feare he +should have dyed of the hurt he had done himself the day before; they +sent for a minister to him when he was upon the scaffold to see if he +would confesse anything, but he still persisted that he was guilty of +nothing nor DID NOT KNOW WHY HE WAS PUT TO DEATH.... + + + + +III. THE MYSTERY OF SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY + + + +When London was a pleasanter place than it is to-day, when anglers +stretched their legs up Tottenham Hill on their way to fish in the Lee; +when the ‘best stands on Hackney river’ were competed for eagerly by +bottom fishers; when a gentleman in St. Martin’s Lane, between the +hedges, could ‘ask the way to Paddington Woods;’ when a hare haunted +Primrose Hill and was daily pursued by a gallant pack of harriers; +enfin, between three and four on the afternoon of October 17, 1678, two +common fellows stepped into the White House tavern in the fields north +of Marylebone, a house used as a club by a set of Catholic tradesmen. +They had been walking in that region, and, as the October afternoon was +drawing in, and rain was falling, they sought refuge in the White House. +It would appear that they had not the means of assuaging a reasonable +thirst, for when they mentioned that they had noticed a gentleman’s +cane, a scabbard, a belt, and some add a pair of gloves, lying at the +edge of a deep dry ditch, overgrown with thick bush and bramble, +the landlord offered the new comers a shilling to go and fetch the +articles.* But the rain was heavy, and probably the men took the +shilling out in ale, till about five o’clock, when the weather held up +for a while. + + + *A rather different account by the two original finders, Bromwell +and Walters, is in L’Estrange’s Brief History, iii. pp. 97, 98. The +account above is the landlord’s. Lords’ MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., xi. pp. +2, 46, 47. + +The delay was the more singular if, as one account avers, the men had +not only observed the cane and scabbard outside of the ditch, on the +bank, but also a dead body within the ditch, under the brambles.* By +five o’clock the rain had ceased, but the tempestuous evening was dark, +and it was night before Constable Brown, with a posse of neighbours on +foot and horseback, reached the ditch. Herein they found the corpse of a +man lying face downwards, the feet upwards hung upon the brambles; thus +half suspended he lay, and the point of a sword stuck out of his back, +through his black camlet coat.** By the lights at the inn, the body was +identified as that of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a Justice of the Peace +for Westminster, who had been missing since Saturday October 12. It is +an undeniable fact that, between two and three o’clock, before the +body was discovered and identified, Dr. Lloyd, Dean of St. Asaph’s, +and Bishop Burnet, had heard that Godfrey had been found in Leicester +Fields, with his own sword in his body. Dr. Lloyd mentioned his +knowledge in the funeral sermon of the dead magistrate. He had the story +from a Mr. Angus, a clergyman, who had it from ‘a young man in a grey +coat,’ in a bookseller’s shop near St. Paul’s, about two o’clock in the +afternoon. Angus hurried to tell Bishop Burnet, who sent him on to Dr. +Lloyd.*** Either the young man in the grey coat knew too much, or a mere +rumour, based on a conjecture that Godfrey had fallen on his own sword, +proved to be accurate by accident; a point to be remembered. According +to Roger Frith, at two o’clock he heard Salvetti, the ambassador of the +Duke of Tuscany, say: ‘Sir E. Godfrey is dead... the young Jesuits are +grown desperate; the old ones would do no such thing.’ This again may +have been a mere guess by Salvetti.**** + + + *Pollock, Popish Plot, pp. 95, 96. + + **Brown in Brief History, iii. pp. 212-215, 222. + + ***L’Estrange, Brief History, iii. pp. 87-89. + + ****Lords’ MSS. p. 48, October 24. + +In the circumstances of the finding of the body it would have been +correct for Constable Brown to leave it under a guard till daylight and +the arrival of surgical witnesses, but the night was threatening, and +Brown ordered the body to be lifted; he dragged out the sword with +difficulty, and had the dead man carried to the White House Inn. There, +under the candles, the dead man, as we said, was recognised for Sir +Edmund Berry Godfrey, a very well-known justice of the peace and wood +and coal dealer. All this occurred on Thursday, October 17, and +Sir Edmund had not been seen by honest men and thoroughly credible +witnesses, at least, since one o’clock on Saturday, October 12. Then he +was observed near his house in Green Lane, Strand, but into his house he +did not go. + +Who, then, killed Sir Edmund? + +The question has never been answered, though three guiltless men were +later hanged for the murder. Every conceivable theory has been tried; +the latest is that of Mr. Pollock: Godfrey was slain by ‘the Queen’s +confessor,’ Le Fevre, ‘a Jesuit,’ and some other Jesuits, with lay +assistance.* I have found no proof that Le Fevre was either a Jesuit or +confessor of the Queen. + + + *Pollock, The Popish Plot, Duckworth, London, 1903. + +As David Hume says, the truth might probably have been discovered, had +proper measures been taken at the moment. But a little mob of horse and +foot had trampled round the ditch in the dark, disturbing the original +traces. The coroner’s jury, which sat long and late, on October 18 and +19, was advised by two surgeons, who probably, like the rest of the +world, were biassed by the belief that Godfrey had been slain ‘by the +bloody Papists.’ In the reign of mad terror which followed, every one +was apt to accommodate his evidence, naturally, to that belief. If they +did not, then, like the two original finders, Bromwell and Walters, they +might be thrown, heavily ironed, into Newgate.* + + + *Lords’ MSS. P. 47, note 1. + +But when the Popish Plot was exploded, and Charles II. was firm on his +throne, still more under James II., every one was apt to be biassed in +the opposite direction, and to throw the guilt on the fallen party +of Oates, Bedloe, Dugdale, and the other deeply perjured and infamous +informers. Thus both the evidence of 1678-1680, and that collected in +1684-1687, by Sir Roger L’Estrange, J.P. (who took great trouble and was +allowed access to the manuscript documents of the earlier inquiries), +must be regarded with suspicion.* + + + *L’Estrange, Brief History of the Times, London, 1687. + +The first question is cui bono? who had an interest in Godfrey’s death? +Three parties had an interest, first, the Catholics (IF Godfrey knew +their secrets); next, the managers of the great Whig conspiracy in +favour of the authenticity of Oates’s Popish Plot; last, Godfrey +himself, who was of an hereditary melancholy (his father had suicidal +tendencies), and who was involved in a quandary whence he could scarcely +hope to extricate himself with life and honour. + +Of the circumstances of Godfrey’s quandary an account is to follow. But, +meanwhile, the theory of Godfrey’s suicide (though Danby is said to have +accepted it) was rejected, probably with good reason (despite the doubts +of L’Estrange, Hume, Sir George Sitwell, and others), by the coroner’s +jury.* + + + *Sitwell, The First Whig, Sacheverell. + +Privately printed, 1894, Sir George’s book--a most interesting volume, +based on public and private papers--unluckily is introuvable. Some years +have passed since I read a copy which he kindly lent me. + +The evidence which determined the verdict of murder was that of two +surgeons. They found that the body had been severely bruised, on +the chest, by kicks, blows of a blunt weapon, or by men’s knees. A +sword-thrust had been dealt, but had slipped on a rib; Godfrey’s own +sword had then been passed through the left pap, and out at the back. +There was said to be no trace of the shedding of fresh living blood on +the clothes of Godfrey, or about the ditch. What blood appeared was old, +the surgeons averred, and malodorous, and flowed after the extraction of +the sword. + +L’Estrange (1687) argues at great length, but on evidence collected +later, and given under the Anti-Plot bias, that there was much more +‘bloud’ than was allowed for at the inquest. But the early evidence +ought to be best. Again, the surgeons declared that Godfrey had been +strangled with a cloth (as the jury found), and his neck dislocated. +Bishop Burnet, who viewed the body, writes (long after the event): +‘A mark was all round his neck, an inch broad, which showed he was +strangled.... And his neck was broken. All this I saw.’* + + + *Burnet, History of his own Time, ii. p. 741. 1725. + + +L’Estrange argued that the neck was not broken (giving an example of a +similar error in the case of a dead child), and that the mark round the +neck was caused by the tightness of the collar and the flow of blood +to the neck, the body lying head downwards. In favour of this view +he produced one surgeon’s opinion. He also declares that Godfrey’s +brothers, for excellent reasons of their own, refused to allow a +thorough post-mortem examination. ‘None of them had ever been opened,’ +they said. Their true motive was that, if Godfrey were a suicide, +his estate would be forfeited to the Crown, a point on which they +undoubtedly showed great anxiety. + +Evidence was also given to prove that, on Tuesday and Wednesday, October +15 and 16, Godfrey’s body was not in the ditch. On Tuesday Mr. Forsett, +on Wednesday Mr. Harwood had taken Mr. Forsett’s harriers over the +ground, in pursuit of the legendary hare. They had seen no cane or +scabbard; the dogs had found no corpse. L’Estrange replied that, as to +the cane, the men could not see it if they were on the further side of +the bramble-covered ditch. As to the dogs, they later hunted a wood +in which a dead body lay for six weeks before it was found. L’Estrange +discovered witnesses who had seen Godfrey in St. Martin’s Lane on the +fatal Saturday, asking his way to Paddington Woods, others who had seen +him there or met him returning thence. Again, either he or ‘the Devil in +his clothes’ was seen near the ditch on Saturday afternoon. Again, +his clerk, Moore, was seen hunting the fields near the ditch, for his +master, on the Monday afternoon. Hence L’Estrange argued that Godfrey +went to Paddington Woods, on Saturday morning, to look for a convenient +place of suicide: that he could not screw his courage to the sticking +place; that he wandered home, did not enter his house, roamed out again, +and, near Primrose Hill, found the ditch and ‘the sticking place.’ His +rambles, said L’Estrange, could neither have been taken for business nor +pleasure. This is true, if Godfrey actually took the rambles, but the +evidence was not adduced till several years later; in 1678 the witnesses +would have been in great danger. Still, if we accept L’Estrange’s +witnesses for Godfrey’s trip to Paddington and return, perhaps we ought +not to reject the rest.* + + + *Brief History, iii. pp. 252, 300, 174, 175; State Trials, viii. pp. +1387, 1392, 1393, 1359-1389. + +On the whole, it seems that the evidence for murder, not suicide, is +much the better, though even here absolute certainty is not attained. +Granting Godfrey’s constitutional hereditary melancholy, and the double +quandary in which he stood, he certainly had motives for suicide. He was +a man of humanity and courage, had bravely faced the Plague in London, +had withstood the Court boldly on a private matter (serving a writ, as +Justice, on the King’s physician who owed him money in his capacity as a +coal dealer), and he was lenient in applying the laws against Dissenters +and Catholics. + +To be lenient was well; but Godfrey’s singular penchant for Jesuits, and +especially for the chief Catholic intriguer in England, was probably the +ultimate cause of his death, whether inflicted by his own hand or those +of others. + +2. + +We now study Godfrey’s quandary. On June 23, 1678, the infamous +miscreant Titus Oates had been expelled from the Jesuit College of St. +Omer’s, in France. There he may readily have learned that the usual +triennial ‘consult’ of English Jesuits was to be held in London on April +24, but WHERE it was held, namely in the Duke of York’s chambers in +St. James’s Palace, Oates did not know, or did not say. The Duke, by +permitting the Jesuits to assemble in his house, had been technically +guilty of treason in ‘harbouring’ Jesuits, certainly a secret of great +importance, as he was the head and hope of the Catholic cause, and the +butt of the Whigs, who were eager to exclude him from the succession. +Oates had scraps of other genuine news. He returned to London after +his expulsion from St. Omer’s, was treated with incautious kindness by +Jesuits there, and, with Tonge, constructed his monstrous fable of a +Popish plot to kill the King and massacre the Protestant public. +In August, Charles was apprised of the plot, as was Danby, the Lord +Treasurer; the Duke of York also knew, how much he knew is uncertain. +The myth was little esteemed by the King. + +On September 6, Oates went to Godfrey, and swore before him, as a +magistrate, to the truth of a written deposition, as to treason. But +Godfrey was not then allowed to read the paper, nor was it left in his +hands; the King, he was told, had a copy.* The thing might have passed +off, but, as King James II. himself writes, he (being then Duke of York) +‘press’d the King and Lord Treasurer several times that the letters’ +(letters forged by Oates) ‘might be produced and read, and the business +examined into at the Committee of Foreign Affairs.’** Mr. Pollock calls +the Duke’s conduct tactless. Like Charles I., in the mystery of ‘the +Incident,’ he knew himself guiltless, and demanded an inquiry. + + + *Kirkby, Complete Narrative, pp. 2, 3, cited by Mr. Pollock. At the +time, it was believed that Godfrey saw the depositions. + + **Clarke’s Life +of James II. i. p. 518. Cited from the King’s original Memoirs. + +On September 28, Oates was to appear before the Council. Earlier on that +day he again visited Godfrey, handed to him a copy of his deposition, +took oath to its truth, and carried another copy to Whitehall. As we +shall see, Oates probably adopted this course by advice of one of the +King’s ministers, Danby or another. Oates was now examined before the +King, who detected him in perjury. But he accused Coleman, the secretary +of the Duchess of York, of treasonable correspondence with La Chaise, +the confessor of Louis XIV.: he also said that, on April 24, he himself +was present at the Jesuit ‘consult’ in the White Horse Tavern, Strand, +where they decided to murder the King! This was a lie, but they HAD met +on ordinary business of the Society, on April 24, at the palace of the +Duke of York. Had the Jesuits, when tried, proved this, they would not +have saved their lives, and Oates would merely have sworn that they met +AGAIN, at the White Horse. + +Godfrey, having Oates’s paper before him, now knew that Coleman was +accused. Godfrey was very intimate with many Jesuits, says Warner, who +was one of them, in his manuscript history.* With Coleman, certainly +a dangerous intriguer, Godfrey was so familiar that ‘it was the form +arranged between them for use when Godfrey was in company and Coleman +wished to see him,’ that Coleman should be announced under the name of +Mr. Clarke.** + + + * Pollock, p. 91, note 1. + + **Ibid. p. 151, note 3. Welden’s evidence before the Lords’ Committee, +House of Lords MSS., p. 48. Mr. Pollock rather overstates the case. We +cannot be certain, from Welden’s words, that Coleman habitually used the +name ‘Clarke’ on such occasions. + +It is extraordinary enough to find a rigid British magistrate engaged +in clandestine dealings with an intriguer like Coleman, who, for the +purpose, receives a cant name. If that fact came out in the inquiry into +the plot, Godfrey’s doom was dight, the general frenzy would make men +cry for his blood. But yet more extraordinary was Godfrey’s conduct on +September 28. No sooner had he Oates’s confession, accusing Coleman, in +his hands, than he sent for the accused. Coleman went to the house of +a Mr. (or Colonel) Welden, a friend of Godfrey’s, and to Godfrey it was +announced that ‘one Clarke’ wished to see him there. ‘When they were +together at my house they were reading papers,’ said Welden later, in +evidence.* It cannot be doubted that, after studying Oates’s deposition, +Godfrey’s first care was to give Coleman full warning. James II. tells +us this himself, in his memoirs. ‘Coleman being known to depend on the +Duke, Sir Edmund Bury (sic) Godfrey made choice of him, to send to his +Highness an account of Oates’s and Tongue’s depositions as soon as he +had taken them,’ that is, on September 28.** Apparently the Duke had +not the precise details of Oates’s charges, as they now existed, earlier +than September 28, when they were sent to him by Godfrey. + + + *See previous note (Pollock, p. 151, note 3.) + + **Life of James II. i, p. 534. + +It is Mr. Pollock’s argument that, when Godfrey 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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey was already deep in the +Catholic intrigues. He may have been, judging by his relations with +Coleman. If Godfrey 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, Godfrey +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: ‘Godfrey 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 Godfrey +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, Godfrey 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, Godfrey +could not reveal the secret without revealing his own misprision of +treason. He would be asked ‘how he knew the secret.’ Godfrey’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 Godfrey +knew the secret from Coleman, and that, though, since Godfrey 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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey’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 Godfrey said to Wynell (or Wynnel) +about his secret. He does not give the whole of the sentence uttered by +Wynell. The secret, of which Godfrey 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: + +Godfrey: ‘The (Catholic) Lords are as innocent as you or I. Coleman will +die, but not the Lords.’ + +Wynell: ‘If so, where are we then?’ + +Godfrey: ‘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 Godfrey’s confession of owning a dangerous +secret, without Godfrey’s explanation of the nature of the danger. +Against THAT danger (his knowing and taking no action upon what Oates +had deposed) Godfrey’s ‘security’ was Oates’s other deposition, that his +information was already in the Minister’s hands, and that he had come to +Godfrey by the Minister’s orders. The invidiousness of knowing and +not acting on Oates’s ‘dangerous secret,’ Godfrey 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 Godfrey 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, Godfrey 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’? Godfrey 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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey had been ‘too remiss.’ Oates was a liar, but Godfrey, in +any case, was between the Devil and the deep sea. As early as October +24, Mr. Mulys attested, before the Lords, Godfrey’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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey’s own +words as reported by Wynell, when, unlike Mr. Pollock, we quote Wynell’s +whole sentence on the subject. (see previous exchange between Godfrey +and Wynell.) + + + *Lords’ MSS., P. 48. + +3. + +The theories of Godfrey’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, Godfrey 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 Godfrey risked from the Plot party. +The Catholics, on the other hand, if they were aware that Godfrey +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 damnedest fools’ (thus freely speaks L’Estrange), they would +not have taken deliberate steps to secure the instant discovery of the +corpse. Whoever pitched Godfrey’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 Godfrey had +merely absconded, as he had the best reasons for doing. On the other +hand, Oates’s gang would not, if they first strangled Godfrey, 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 circumstances. 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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey’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 Godfrey could not have produced the documents 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--Godfrey slain because, through +Coleman, he knew too many Catholic secrets--is practically that of Mr. +Pollock. It certainly does supply a motive for Godfrey’s assassination. +Hot-headed Catholics who knew, or suspected, that Godfrey 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, Godfrey 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 Godfrey 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 Godfrey’s murder, +were not taken. Is it likely (it is, of course, possible) that they +stayed on in town, and killed Godfrey twelve days later? + +Meanwhile Coleman, thanks to Godfrey’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, ‘hell was let loose’.* + + + *State Trials, vii. p. 29. + +Coleman had thought himself safe, says James II., then Duke of York. +‘The Duke perceiving’ (from Godfrey’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.* + + + *Life of James II., i. p. 534. + +King James’s tale agrees with the facts of Coleman’s surrender. ‘He came +in voluntarily.’ He did not appreciate the resources of civilisation at +the service of the English law of treason: he had dabbled in intrigue +without taking counsel’s advice, and knowing for certain that Oates +was an inconsistent liar, Coleman took his chance with a light heart. +However, not only did some of his letters bring him (though he could +not understand the fact) within the elastic law of treason; but Oates’s +evidence was accepted when conspicuously false; Coleman was not +allowed to produce his diary and prove an alibi as to one of Oates’s +accusations, and a new witness, Bedloe, a perjurer who rivalled Oates, +had sprung up out of the filth of London streets. So Coleman swung for +it, as Godfrey, according to Wynell, had prophesied that he would. + +Coleman’s imprisonment began twelve days before Godfrey’s disappearance. +At Coleman’s trial, late in November, a mere guess was given that +Godfrey was slain to prevent him (a Protestant martyr) from blabbing +Catholic secrets. This cause of Godfrey’s taking off was not alleged by +Bedloe. This man, a notorious cosmopolitan rogue, who had swindled his +way through France and Spain, was first heard of in the Godfrey case at +the end of October. He wrote to the Secretaries of State from Bristol +(L’Estrange says from Newbury on his way to Bristol), offering +information, as pardon and reward had been promised to contrite +accomplices in the murder. He came to town, and, on November 7, gave +evidence before the King. Bedloe gave himself out as a Jesuit agent; +concerning the Plot he added monstrous inventions to those of Oates. + +‘As to Sir Edmund Godfrey; was promised 2,000 guineas to be in it by +Le Fere’ (Le Fevre, ‘the Queen’s confessor),’ [by] ‘my Lord Bellasis +gentleman, AND THE YOUNGEST OF THE WAITERS IN THE QUEENE’S CHAPEL, IN A +PURPLE GOWN, and to keep the people orderly.’* + + + *See Pollock, pp. 384, 387. The report is from Secretary Coventry’s +MSS., at Longleat. The evidence as to Bedloe’s deposition before the +King (November 7) is in a confused state. Mr. Pollock prints (pp. 383, +384, cf. p. 110) a document from ‘Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 11058, f. 244.’ +This is also given, with the same erroneous reference, by Mr. Foley, in +Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, vol. v. p. 30, +note. The right reference is 11055. The document is quite erroneously +printed, with variations in error, by Mr. Foley and Mr. Pollock. Bedloe +really said that Godfrey was lured into Somerset House Yard, not into +‘some house yard’ (Foley), or ‘into a house yard’ (Pollock). Bedloe, so +far, agreed with Prance, but, in another set of notes on his deposition +(Longleat MSS., Coventry Papers, xi. 272-274, Pollock, 384-387), he +made Somerset House the scene of the murder. There are other errors. Mr. +Pollock and Mr. Foley make Bedloe accuse Father Eveley, S.J., in whom +I naturally recognised Father Evers or Every, who was then at Tixall in +Staffordshire. The name in the MS. is ‘Welch,’ not Eveley. The MS. was +manifestly written not before September 12. It does not appear that +Bedloe, on November 7, knew the plot as invented by Oates, on which +compare Mr. Pollock, p. 110, who thinks that ‘it is quite possible that +Charles II. deceived him,’ Bishop Burnet, ‘intentionally,’ on this head +(Burnet, ii. 745-746, 1725). By printing ‘he acquainted’ instead of ‘he +acquainteth the Lords,’ in the British Museum MS., and by taking the +document, apparently, to be of November 7, Mr. Pollock has been led +to an incorrect conclusion. I am obliged to Father Gerard, S.J., for a +correct transcript of the British Museum MS.; see also Note iii., ‘The +Jesuit Murderers,’ at the end of this chapter, and Father Gerard’s The +Popish Plot and its Latest Historian (Longman’s, 1903). + +Bedloe here asserts distinctly that one accomplice was an official of +the Queen’s chapel, in her residence, Somerset House: a kind of verger, +in a purple gown. This is highly important, for the man whom he later +pretended to recognise as this accomplice was not a ‘waiter,’ did not +‘wear a purple gown;’ and, by his own account, ‘was not in the chapel +once a month.’ Bedloe’s recognition of him, therefore, was worthless. He +said that Godfrey was smothered with a pillow, or two pillows, in a room +in Somerset House, for the purpose of securing ‘the examinations’ that +Godfrey had taken. ‘Coleman and Lord Bellasis advised to destroy him.’ +His informant was Le Fevre. One Walsh (a ‘Jesuit’), Le Fevre, Lord +Bellasis’s man, and ‘the chapel keeper’ did the deed. The chapel keeper +carried him’ (Godfrey) ‘off.’ ‘HE DID NOT SEE HIM’ (Godfrey) ‘AFTER HE +WAS DEAD.’ + +On the following day Bedloe told his tale at the bar of the House of +Lords. He now, contradicting himself, swore THAT HE SAW GODFREY’S DEAD +BODY IN SOMERSET HOUSE. He was offered 2,000 guineas to help to carry +him off. This was done by chairmen, ‘retainers to Somerset House,’ on +Monday night (October 14).* + + + *Pollock, p. 387, Lords’ Journals, xiii. p. 343. + +On that night, Bedloe saw Samuel Atkins, Mr. Pepys’s clerk, beside the +corpse, by the light of a dark lantern. Atkins had an alibi, so Bedloe +shuffled, and would not swear to him. + +On November 14, before the Lords’ Committee, Bedloe again gave evidence. +The 2,100 pounds were now 4,000 pounds offered to Bedloe, by Le Fevre, +early in October, to kill a man. The attendant in the Queen’s chapel +was at the scene (a pure figment) of the corpse exposed under the dark +lantern. The motive of the murder was to seize Godfrey’s examinations, +which he said he had sent to Whitehall. At a trial which followed in +February 1679, Mr. Robinson, who had known Godfrey for some forty years, +deposed that he had said to him, ‘I understand you have taken several +examinations.’ ‘Truly,’ said he, ‘I have.’ ‘Pray, Sir, have you the +examinations about you, will you please to let me see them?’ ‘No, I have +them not, I delivered them to a person of quality.’* + + + *State Trials, vii. 168. + +This person of quality was not the Duke of York, for it may be noted +that, on the day before his disappearance, Godfrey had, in fact, +received back from the Lord Chief Justice the original copy of Oates’s +depositions. This copy was found in his house, after his death, and +handed over by his brother to the Government.* To get the examinations +was always the motive of the murder, with Bedloe. The hour of Godfrey’s +death was now 2 P.M.; now 3, or 4, or 5 P.M., on October 12. The body +was hidden in various rooms of Somerset House, or under the high altar +in the Queen’s Chapel. The discrepancies never affected the faith given +to Bedloe. + + + *Lords’ MSS., Hist. MSS. Commission Report, xi. Appendix, part ii., +pp. 2,3. + +At the end of December came in a new accomplice-witness. This was +an Irishman, Miles Prance, a silversmith, who had a business among +Catholics, and worked for the Queen’s Chapel. Unlike all the other +informers, Prance had hitherto been an ordinary fellow enough, with a +wife and family, not a swindling debauchee. He was arrested on December +21, on information given by John Wren, a lodger of his, with whom he had +quarrelled. Wren had noticed that Prance lay out of his own house while +Godfrey was missing, which Prance admitted to be true.* + + + *Op. cit. p. 51. Prance both said, and denied, that he slept out +while Sir Edmund was missing. He was flurried and self-contradictory. + +Bedloe, passing through a room in the House of Commons, saw Prance in +custody, and at once pretended to recognise in him the ‘chapel keeper,’ +‘under waiter,’ or ‘man in the purple gown,’ whom he had seen by the +light of a dark lantern, beside Godfrey’s body, in a room of Somerset +House, on October 14. ‘There was very little light’ on that occasion, +Bedloe had said, and he finally refused, we saw, to swear to Atkins, +who had an alibi. But, as to Prance, he said: ‘This is one of the rogues +that I saw with a dark lantern about the body of Sir Edmund, but he was +then in a periwig.’* The periwig was introduced in case Prance had an +alibi: Oates had used the same ‘hedge,’ ‘a periwig doth disguise a man +very much,’ in Coleman’s case.** + + + *L’Estrange, iii. pp. 52, 53, 65. + + **State Trials, vii. 27. + +What was Bedloe’s recognition of Prance worth? Manifestly nothing! He +had probably seen Prance (not as a ‘waiter’) in the Queen’s Chapel. Now +he found him in custody. Cautious as regards Atkins, six weeks earlier, +Bedloe was emboldened now by a train of successes. He had sworn away +Coleman’s life. His self-contradictions had been blindly swallowed. If +Prance could prove an alibi, what was that to Bedloe? The light of the +dark lantern had been very bad; the rogue, under that light, had worn a +periwig, which ‘doth disguise a man very much.’ Bedloe could safely say +that he had made an innocent error. Much worse blunders had not impaired +his credit; later he made much worse blunders, undetected. He saw his +chance and took it. + +Prance, who denied everything, was hurried to Newgate, and thrown, +without bed or covering, into the freezing ‘condemned hole,’ where he +lay perishing of cold through the night of December 21, December 22, +and the night of that day. On December 23, he offered, no wonder, to +confess. He was examined by the Lords, and (December 24) by the Council. + +Prance knew, all the world knew, the details about Godfrey’s bruises; +the state of his neck, and the sword-thrusts. He knew that Bedloe had +located the murder in Somerset House. As proclamations for the men +accused by Bedloe had long been out, he MAY have guessed that Le Fevre, +Walsh, and Pritchard were wanted for Godfrey’s murder, and had been +denounced by Bedloe. But this is highly improbable, for nothing about +Godfrey’s murder is hinted at in the proclamation for Le Fevre, Walsh, +and Pritchard.* We have no reason, then, to suppose that Prance knew +who the men were that Bedloe had accused; consequently he had to select +other victims, innocent men of his acquaintance. But, as a tradesman of +the Queen, Prance knew her residence, Somerset House, the courts, outer +stairs, passages, and so on. He knew that Bedloe professed to have +recognised him there in the scene of the dark lantern. + + + *Lords’ Journals, xiii. p. 346; Lords’ MSS., p. 59. + +Prance had thus all the materials of a confession ready made, but not of +a confession identical with Bedloe’s. He was ‘one of the most acute +and audacious of the Jesuit agents,’ says Mr. Pollock.* Yet Mr. Pollock +argues that for Prance to tell the tale which he did tell, in his +circumstances of cold and terror, required a most improbable ‘wealth +of mental equipment,’ ‘phenomenal powers of memory, imagination, and +coolness,’ if the tale was false.** Therefore Prance’s story of the +murder was true, except in the details as to the men whom he accused. +On December 24, he was taken to the places which he described (certainly +lying in his tale), and preserved consistency, though, after long +search, he could not find one of the rooms in which he said that the +corpse was laid.*** + + + *Pollock, p.166. + + **Ibid. p. 146. + + ***Lords’ Journals, xii. pp. 436-438. + +As Prance, by Mr. Pollock’s theory, was one of the most acute of Jesuit +agents, and as he had all the materials, and all the knowledge necessary +for a confession, he had, obviously, no difficulty in making up his +evidence. Even by Mr. Pollock’s showing, he was cool and intellectual +enough; for, on that showing, he adapted into his narrative, very +subtly, circumstances which were entirely false. If, as Mr. Pollock +holds, Prance was astute enough to make a consistent patchwork of fact +and lie, how can it be argued that, with the information at his command, +he could not invent a complete fiction? + +Again, Prance, by misstating dates wildly, hoped, says Mr. Pollock, to +escape as a mere liar.* But, when Prance varied in almost every detail +of time, place, motive, and person from Bedloe, Mr. Pollock does not see +that his own explanation holds for the variations. If Prance wished +to escape as a babbling liar, he could not do better than contradict +Bedloe. He DID, but the Protestant conscience swallowed the +contradictions. But again, if Prance did not know the details of +Bedloe’s confession, how could he possibly agree with it? + + + *Pollock, p. 160. + +The most essential point of difference was that Bedloe accused +‘Jesuits,’ Le Fevre, Walsh, and Pritchard, who had got clean away. +Prance accused two priests, who escaped, and three hangers on of +Somerset House, Hill, Berry (the porter), and Green. All three were +hanged, and all three confessedly were innocent. Mr. Pollock reasons +that Prance, if guilty (and he believes him guilty), ‘must have known +the real authors’ of the crime, that is, the Jesuits accused by Bedloe. +‘He must have accused the innocent, not from necessity, but from choice, +and in order to conceal the guilty.’ ‘He knew Bedloe to have exposed the +real murderers, and... he wished to shield them.’* How did he know whom +Bedloe had exposed? How could he even know the exact spot, a room in +Somerset House, where Bedloe placed the murder? Prance placed it in +Somerset YARD. + + + *Pollock, p. 148. + +It is just as easy to argue, on Mr. Pollock’s other line, that Prance +varied from Bedloe in order that the inconsistencies might prove his +own falsehood. But we have no reason to suppose that Prance did know +the details of Bedloe’s confession, as to the motive of the murder, +the hour, the exact spot, and the names of the criminals. Later he told +L’Estrange a palpable lie: Bedloe’s confession had been shown to him +before he made his own. If that were true, he purposely contradicted +Bedloe in detail. But Mr. Pollock rejects the myth. Then how did Prance +know the details given by Bedloe?* Ignorant of Bedloe’s version, except +in two or three points, Prance could not but contradict it. He thus +could not accuse Bedloe’s Jesuits. He did not name other men, as Mr. +Pollock holds, to shield the Jesuits. Practically they did not need +to be shielded. Jesuits with seven weeks’ start of the law were safe +enough. Even if they were caught, were guilty, and had the truth +extracted from them, involving Prance, the truth about HIM would come +out, whether he now denounced them or not. But he did not know that +Bedloe had denounced them. + + + *Pollock, pp. 142, 143. + +Mr. Pollock’s theory of the relation of Bedloe to Godfrey’s murder is +this: Bedloe had no hand in the murder, and never saw the corpse. The +crime was done in Somerset House, ‘the Queen’s confessor,’ Father Le +Fevre, S.J., having singular facilities for entering, with his friends, +and carrying a dead body out ‘through a private door’--a door not +mentioned by any witnesses, nor proved to exist by the evidence of a +chart. This Le Fevre, with Walsh, lived in the same house as Bedloe. +From them, Bedloe got his information. ‘It is easy to conjecture how he +could have obtained it. Walsh and Le Fevre were absent from their rooms, +for a considerable part of the nights of Saturday and Wednesday, October +12 and 16. Bedloe’s suspicions must have been aroused, and, either by +threats or cajolery, he wormed part of the secret out of his friends. +He obtained a general idea of the way in which the murder had been +committed and of the persons concerned in it. One of these was a +frequenter of the Queen’s chapel whom he knew by sight. He thought him +to be a subordinate official there.’* + + + *Pollock, pp. 157, 158. + +On this amount of evidence Bedloe invented his many contradictions. Why +he did not cleave to the facts imparted to him by his Jesuit friends, +we do not learn. ‘A general idea of the way in which the murder was +committed’ any man could form from the state of Godfrey’s body. There +was no reason why Walsh and Le Fevre ‘should be absent from their rooms +on a considerable part of the night of Saturday 12,’ and so excite +Bedloe’s suspicions, for, on his versions, they slew Godfrey at 2 P.M., +5 P.M., or any hour between. No proof is given that they were in their +lodgings, or in London, during the fortnight which followed Oates’s +three successful Jesuit drives of September 28-30. In all probability +they had fled from London before Godfrey’s murder. No evidence can I +find that Bedloe’s Jesuits were at their lodgings on October 12-16. They +were not sought for there, but at Somerset House.* Two sisters, named +Salvin, were called before the Lords’ Committee, and deposed that Bedloe +and Le Fevre had twice been at their house when Walsh said mass there.** + + + *Lords’ Journals, xiii. pp. 343 346. + + **Ibid. p. 353. + +That is all! Bedloe had some acquaintance with the men he accused; so +had Prance with those he denounced. Prance’s victims were innocent, and +against Bedloe’s there is not, so far, evidence to convict a cat on +for stealing cream. He recognised Prance, therefore he really knew the +murderers--that is all the argument. + +Mr. Pollock’s theory reposes on the belief, rejected by L’Estrange, that +the Jesuits ‘were the damnedest fools.’ Suppose them guilty. The first +step of a Jesuit, or of any gentleman, about to commit a deliberate +deeply planned murder, is to secure an alibi. Le Fevre did not, or, when +questioned (on Mr. Pollock’s theory) by Bedloe, he would have put him +off with his alibi. Again, ‘a Jesuit,’ ‘the Queen’s confessor,’ does not +do his murders in the Queen’s house: no gentleman does. But, if Le Fevre +did commit this solecism, he would have told Bedloe a different story; +if he confessed to him at all. These things are elementary. + +Prance’s confession, as to the share of Hill, Berry, and Green in the +murder, was admittedly false. On one point he stumbled always: ‘Were +there no guards at the usual places at the time of the carrying on this +work?’ he was asked by one of the Lords on December 24,1678. He mumbled, +‘I did not take notice of any.’* He never, on later occasions, could +answer this question about the sentries. Prance saw no sentries, and +there is nowhere any evidence that the sentries were ever asked whether +they saw either Prance, Le Fevre, or Godfrey, in Somerset House or the +adjacent Somerset Yard, on October 12. They were likely to know both the +Queen’s silversmith and ‘the Queen’s confessor,’ and Godfrey they may +have known. Prance and the sentries had, for each other, the secret of +fern-seed, they walked invisible. This, of itself, is fatal to Prance’s +legend. + + + *Lords’ Journals, xiii. p. 438. + +No sooner had Prance confessed than he withdrew his confession. He +prayed to be taken before the King, knelt, and denied all. Next day +he did the same before the Council. He was restored to his pleasant +quarters in Newgate, and recanted his recantation. He again withdrew, +and maintained that his confession was false, before King and Council +(December 30), ‘He knows nothing in the world of all he has said.’ The +Lord Chancellor proposed ‘to have him have the rack.’* + + + *State Papers, Domestic, Charles II., Dec. 30, 1678, Bundle 408. + +Probably he ‘did not have the rack,’ but he had the promise of it, and +nearly died of cold, ironed, in the condemned cell. ‘He was almost dead +with the disorder in his mind, and with cold in his body,’ said Dr. +Lloyd, who visited him, to Burnet. Lloyd got a bed and a fire for +the wretch, who revived, and repeated his original confession.* Lloyd +believed in his sincerity, says Burnet, writing many years later. In +1686, Lloyd denied that he believed. + + + *Burnet, ii. p. 773. + +Prance’s victims, Hill, Berry, and Green, were tried on February 5, +1679. Prance told his story. On one essential point he professed to know +nothing. Where was Godfrey from five to nine o’clock, the hour when he +was lured into Somerset House? He was dogged in fields near Holborn to +somewhere unknown in St. Clement’s. It is an odd fact that, though at +the dinner hour, one o’clock, close to his own house, and to that of +Mr. Welden (who had asked him to dine), Sir Edmund seems to have dined +nowhere. Had he done so, even in a tavern, he must have been recognised. +Probably Godfrey was dead long before 9 P.M. Mr. Justice Wild pressed +Prance on this point of where Godfrey was; he could say nothing.* Much +evidence (on one point absurd) was collected later by L’Estrange, and +is accepted by North in his ‘Examen,’ to prove that, by some of his +friends, Godfrey was reckoned ‘missing’ in the afternoon of the fatal +Saturday.** But no such evidence was wanted when Hill, Berry, and +Green were tried.*** The prosecution, with reckless impudence, +mingled Bedloe’s and Prance’s contradictory lies, and accused Bedloe’s +‘Jesuits,’ Walsh and Le Fevre, in company with Prance’s priests, Gerald +and Kelly.**** Bedloe, in his story before the jury, involved himself in +even more contradictory lies than usual. But, even now, he did not say +anything that really implicated the men accused by Prance, while +Prance said not a word, in Court or elsewhere, about the men accused by +Bedloe.***** + + + *State Trials, vii. 177. + + **This is said in 1681 in A Letter to Miles Prance. + + ***North, Examen, p. 201. + + ****State Trials, vii, 178 (Speech of Serjeant Stringer). + + *****Ibid. vii. 179-183. + +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.’ + + + *Pollock, p. 341, note 2. + + **State Trials, vii. 339, 341, + +Lord Chief Justice. ‘That is not very material, if the thing itself be +true.’ + +Chetwyn. ‘But its not being there made me remember it.’ + +Its later appearance, ‘there,’ shows how depositions were handled! + +Chetwyn, in June 1679, says that he heard of Dugdale’s words as to the +murder, from Mr. Sanbidge, or Sambidge, or Sawbridge. At the trial of +Lord Stafford (1680) Sanbidge ‘took it upon his salvation’ that Dugdale +told him nothing of the matter, and vowed that Dugdale was a wicked +rogue.* Mr. Wilson, the parish clergyman of Tixall, was said to have +heard Dugdale speak of Godfrey’s death on October 14. He also remembered +no such thing. Hanson, a running-man, heard Dugdale talk of the murder +of a justice of the peace at Westminster as early as the morning of +Monday, October 14, 1678: the London Saturday post arrived at Tixall on +Monday morning. Two gentlemen, Birch and Turton, averred that the +news of the murder ‘was all over the country’ near Tixall, on Tuesday, +October 15; but Turton was not sure that he did not hear first of the +fact on Friday, October 18, which, by ordinary post from London, was +impossible. + + + *State Trials, vii. 1406. + +Such was the evidence to show that Dugdale spoke of Godfrey’s death, in +the country, two or three days before Godfrey’s body was found. The fact +can scarcely be said to be PROVED, considering the excitement of men’s +minds, the fallacies of memory, the silence of Dugdale at his first +examination before the Council, Sanbidge’s refusal to corroborate +Chetwyn, and Wilson’s inability to remember anything about a matter +so remarkable and so recent. To deny, like Sanbidge, to be unable to +remember, like Wilson, demanded some courage, in face of the frenzied +terror of the Protestants. Birch confessedly took no notice of the +rumour, when it first reached him, but at the trial of Green, Berry, +and Hill, ‘I told several gentlemen that I did perfectly remember before +Thursday it was discoursed of in the country by several gentlemen where +I lived.’* The ‘several gentlemen’ whom Birch ‘told’ were not called +to corroborate him. In short, the evidence seems to fall short of +demonstrative proof. + + + *State Trials. vii. 1455. + +But, if it were all true, L’Estrange (and a writer who made the +assertion in 1681) collected a good deal of evidence* to show that +a rumour of Godfrey’s disappearance, and probable murder by bloody +Papists, was current in London on the afternoon of the day when he +disappeared, Saturday, October 12.*** Mr. Pollock says that the evidence +is ‘not to be relied on,’ and part of it, attributing the rumour to +Godfrey’s brothers, is absurd. THEY were afraid that Godfrey had killed +himself, not that he was murdered by Papists. That ‘his household could +not have known that he would not return,’ is not to the point. The +people who raised the rumour were not of Godfrey’s household. Nor is it +to the point, exactly, that, being invited to dine on Saturday by Mr. +Welden, who saw him on Friday night, ‘he said he could not tell whether +he should.’** For Wynell had expected to dine with him at Welden’s to +talk over some private business about house property.*** Wynell (the +authority for Godfrey’s being ‘master of a dangerous secret’) did expect +to meet Godfrey at dinner, and, knowing the fears to which Godfrey often +confessed, might himself have originated, by his fussy inquiries, the +rumour that Sir Edmund was missing. The wild excitement of the town +might add ‘murdered by Papists,’ and the rumour might really get into a +letter from London of Saturday night, reaching Tixall by Monday morning. +North says: ‘It was in every one’s mouth, WHERE IS GODFREY? HE HAS +NOT BEEN AT HIS HOUSE ALL THIS DAY, THEY SAY HE IS MURDERED BY THE +PAPISTS.’**** That such a pheemee might arise is very conceivable. In +all probability the report which Bishop Burnet and Dr. Lloyd heard of +the discovery of Godfrey’s body, before it was discovered, was another +rumour, based on a lucky conjecture. It is said that the report of the +fall of Khartoum was current in Cairo on the day of the unhappy event. +Rumour is correct once in a myriad times, and, in October 1678, London +was humming with rumours. THIS report might get into a letter to Tixall, +and, if so, Dugdale’s early knowledge is accounted for; if knowledge he +had, which I have shown to be disputable. + + + *Letter to Miles Prance, March, 1681. L’Estrange, Brief History, +iii. pp. 195-201. + + **Lords’ MSS., p. 48; Pollock, p. 93, and note 2. + + ***L’Estrange, Brief History, iii. pp. 188, 190, 195. + + ****Examen, p. 201. Anglicised version of the author’s +original Greek text. + +Dugdale’s talk was thought, at the time, to clinch the demonstration +that the Jesuits were concerned in Godfrey’s murder, L’Estrange says, +and he brings in his witnesses to prove, that the London rumour existed, +and could reach the country by post. In fact, Chetwyn, on the evidence +of Sanbidge, suggested this improvement of his original romance to +Dugdale, and Sanbidge contradicted Chetwyn. He knew nothing of the +matter. Such is the value of the only testimony against the Jesuits +which deserves consideration. + +We do not propose to unriddle this mystery, but to show that the most +recent and industrious endeavour to solve the problem is unsuccessful. +We cannot deny that Godfrey may have been murdered to conceal Catholic +secrets, of which, thanks to his inexplicable familiarity with Coleman, +he may have had many. But we have tried to prove that we do not KNOW him +to have had any such Catholic secrets, or much beyond Oates’s fables; +and we have probably succeeded in showing that against the Jesuits, as +Sir Edmund’s destroyers, there is no evidence at all. + +Had modern men of science, unaffected by political and religious +bias, given evidence equivalent to that of the two surgeons, one might +conceive that Godfrey was probably slain, as Macaulay thought, by +hotheaded Catholics. But I confess to a leaning in favour of the picture +of Godfrey sketched by L’Estrange; of the man confessing to hereditary +melancholy; fretted and alarmed by the tracasseries and perils of his +own position, alarming his friends and endangering himself by his gloomy +hints; settling, on the last night of his life (Friday, October 11), +with morbid anxiety, some details of a parish charity founded by +himself; uncertain as to whether he can dine with Welden (at about one) +next day; seen at that very hour near his own house, yet dining nowhere; +said to have roamed, before that hour, to Paddington Woods and back +again; seen vaguely, perhaps, wandering near Primrose Hill in the +afternoon, and found dead five days later in the bush-covered ditch near +Primrose Hill, his own sword through his breast and back, his body in +the attitude of one who had died a Roman death. + +Between us and that conclusion--suicide caused by fear--nothing +stands but the surgical evidence, and the grounds of that evidence are +disputed. + +Surgical evidence, however, is a fact ‘that winna ding,’ and I do +not rely on the theory of suicide. But, if Godfrey was murdered by +Catholics, it seems odd that nobody has suggested, as the probable +scene, the Savoy, which lay next on the right to Somerset Yard. The +Savoy, so well described by Scott in Peveril of the Peak, and by +Macaulay, was by this time a rambling, ruinous, labyrinth of lanes and +dilapidated dwellings, tenanted by adventurers and skulking Catholics. +It was an Alsatia, says Macaulay, more dangerous than the Bog of Allen, +or the passes of the Grampians. A courageous magistrate might be lured +into the Savoy to stop a fight, or on any similar pretence; and, once +within a rambling old dwelling of the Hospital, would be in far greater +peril than in the Queen’s guarded residence. Catholic adventurers might +here destroy Godfrey, either for his alleged zeal, or to seize his +papers, or because he, so great a friend of Catholics as he was, might +know too much. The body could much more easily be removed, perhaps by +water, from the Savoy, than from the guarded gates of Somerset House. +Oates knew the Savoy, and said falsely that he had met Coleman there.* +If murder was done, the Savoy was as good a place for the deed as the +Forest of Bondy. + + + *State Trials, vii. 28. + + * * * + +NOTE I. + +CHARLES II. AND GODFREY’S DEATH. + +The Duke of York, speaking of Bedloe’s evidence before the Lords +(November 8), says, ‘Upon recollection the King remembered he was +at Sommerset House himself, at the very time he swore the murder was +committed:... his having been there at that time himself, made it +impossible that a man should be assaulted in the Court, murder’d, and +hurryd into the backstairs, when there was a Centry at every door, a +foot Company on the Guard, and yet nobody see or knew anything of it.* +Now evidence was brought that, at 5 P.M. on Saturday, October 12, the +Queen decided to be ‘not at home.’ But Bedloe placed the murder as early +as 2 P.M., sometimes, and between two o’clock and five o’clock the King +may, as the Duke of York says, have been at Somerset House. Reresby, in +his diary, for November 21, 1678, says that the King told him on that +day that he was ‘satisfied’ Bedloe had given false evidence as to +Godfrey’s murder. The Duke of York probably repeats the King’s grounds +for this opinion. Charles also knew that the room selected by Bedloe as +the scene of the deed was impossible. + +Life of James II, i. pp. 527, 528. + +NOTE II. + +PRANCE AND THE WHITE HOUSE CLUB. + +The body of Godfrey was found in a ditch near the White House Tavern, +and that tavern was used as a club by a set of Catholic tradesmen. Was +Prance a member? The landlord, Rawson, on October 24, mentioned as +a member ‘Mr. PRINCE, a silversmith in Holborn.’ Mr. PRANCE was a +silversmith in Covent Garden. On December 21, Prance said that he had +not seen Rawson for a year; he was asked about Rawson. The members of +the club met at the White House during the sitting of the coroner’s +inquest there, on Friday, October 18. Prance, according to the author of +‘A Letter to Miles Prance,’ was present. He may have been a member, he +may have known the useful ditch where Godfrey’s corpse was found, but +this does not rise beyond the value of conjecture.* + + + *Lords’ MSS. pp. 46, 47, 51. + +NOTE III. + +THE JESUIT MURDERERS. + +There is difficulty in identifying as Jesuits the ‘Jesuits’ accused +by Bedloe. The chief is ‘Father Le Herry,’ * called ‘Le Ferry’ by Mr. +Pollock and Mr. Foley. He also appears as Le Faire, Lee Phaire, Le Fere, +but usually Le Fevre, in the documents. There really was a priest styled +Le Fevre. A man named Mark Preston was accused of being a priest and a +Jesuit. When arrested he declared that he was a married layman with a +family. He had been married in Mr. Langhorne’s rooms, in the Temple, +by Le Fevre, a priest, in 1667, or, at least, about eleven years before +1678.** I cannot find that Le Fevre was known as a Jesuit to the English +members of the Society. He is not in Oates’s list of conspirators. He +does not occur in Foley’s ‘Records,’ vol. v., a very painstaking work. +Nor would he be omitted because accused of a crime, rather he would be +reckoned as more or less of a martyr, like the other Fathers implicated +by the informers. The author of ‘Florus Anglo-Bavaricus’ *** names +‘Pharius’ (Le Phaire), ‘Valschius’ (Walsh), and ‘Atkinsus,’ as denounced +by Bedloe, but clearly knows nothing about them. ‘Atkinsus’ is Mr. +Pepys’s clerk, Samuel Atkins, who had an alibi. Valschius is Walsh, +certainly a priest, but not to be found in Foley’s ‘Records’ as a +Jesuit. + + + *Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 11055, 245. + + **Lords’ Journals, xiii. 331, 332. Lords’ MSS., p. 99. + + ***Liege, 1685, p. 137. + +That Le Fevre was the Queen’s confessor I find no proof. But she had +a priest named Ferrera, who might be confused with Le Faire.* He was +accused of calling a waterman to help to take two persons down the river +on November 6, 1678. He was summoned before the Lords, but we do not +know that he came. Ferrera MAY have been the Queen’s confessor, he was +‘one of the Queen’s priests.’ In 1670 she had twenty-eight priests as +chaplains; twelve were Portuguese Capuchins, six were Benedictines, two, +Dominicans, and the rest seculars.** Mrs. Prance admitted that she knew +‘Mr. Le Phaire, and that he went for a priest.’*** Of Le Fevre, ‘Jesuit’ +and ‘Queens confessor,’ I know no more. + + + *Lords’ MSS., p. 49. + + **Maziere Brady, Episcopal Succession in England, p. 124 (1876). + + ***Lords’ MSS p. 52. + +It appears that Mr. Pollock’s authority for styling Le Fevre ‘the +Queen’s confessor’ is a slip of information appended to the Coventry +notes, in the Longleat MSS., on Bedloe’s deposition of November 7.* I +do not know the authority of the writer of the slip. It is admitted +that the authority of a slip pinned on to a letter of Randolph’s is +not sufficient to prove John Knox to have been one of the Riccio +conspirators. The same slip appears to style Charles Walsh a Jesuit of +the household of Lord Bellasis. This Walsh is unknown to Foley. + + + *Pollock, pp. 155, 157, note 2, in each case. + +As to Father Pritchard, a Jesuit, Bedloe, in the British Museum MS., +accuses ‘Penthard, a layman.’ He develops into Pridgeot, a Jesuit.* +Later he is Father Pritchard, S.J. There was such a Jesuit, and, +according to the Jesuit Annual Letter of 1680, he passed sixteen years +in the South Wales Mission, and never once went to London. In 1680 he +died in concealment.** It is clear that if Le Fevre was the Queen’s +confessor, the sentries at Somerset House could prove whether he was +there on the day of Godfrey’s murder. No such evidence was adduced. +But if Le Fevre was not the Queen’s confessor, he would scarcely have +facilities for smuggling a dead body out of ‘a private door.’ + + + *Longleat MS., Pollock, p. 386. + + **Foley, v. 875-877. + + + + +IV. THE FALSE JEANNE D’ARC. + + +Who that ever saw Jeanne d’Arc could mistake her for another woman? No +portrait of the Maid was painted from the life, but we know the light +perfect figure, the black hair cut short like a soldier’s, and we can +imagine the face of her, who, says young Laval, writing to his mother +after his first meeting with the deliverer of France, ‘seemed a thing +all divine.’ Yet even two of her own brothers certainly recognised +another girl as the Maid, five years after her death by fire. It is +equally certain that, eight years after the martyrdom of Jeanne, an +impostor dwelt for several days in Orleans, and was there publicly +regarded as the heroine who raised the siege in 1429. Her family +accepted the impostor for sixteen years. These facts rest on undoubted +evidence. + +To unravel the threads of the story is a task very difficult. My table +is strewn with pamphlets, papers, genealogies, essays; the authors +taking opposite sides as to the question, Was Jeanne d’Arc burned at +Rouen on May 30, 1431? Unluckily even the most exact historians (yea, +even M. Quicherat, the editor of the five volumes of documents and +notices about the Maid) (1841-1849) make slips in dates, where dates are +all important. It would add confusion if we dwelt on these errors, or on +the bias of the various disputants. + +Not a word was said at the Trial of Rehabilitation in 1452-1456 about +the supposed survival of the Maid. But there are indications of the +inevitable popular belief that she was not burned. Long after the fall +of Khartoum, rumours of the escape of Charles Gordon were current; even +in our own day people are loth to believe that their hero has perished. +Like Arthur he will come again, and from Arthur to James IV. of +Scotland, from James IV. to the Duke of Monmouth, or the son of Louis +XVI., the populace believes and hopes that its darling has not perished. +We destroyed the Mahdi’s body to nullify such a belief, or to prevent +worship at his tomb. In the same way, at Rouen, ‘when the Maid was dead, +as the English feared that she might be said to have escaped, they bade +the executioner rake back the fire somewhat that the bystanders might +see her dead.’* An account of a similar precaution, the fire drawn back +after the Maid’s robes were burned away, is given in brutal detail +by the contemporary diarist (who was not present), the Bourgeois de +Paris.** + + + *Quicherat, iii. p. 191. These lines are not in MS. 5970. M. +Save, in Jehanne des Armoises, Pucelle d’Orleans, p. 6 (Nancy, 1893), +interpolates, in italics, words of his own into his translation of this +text, which improve the force of his argument! + + **Quicherat, iv. p. 471. + +In spite of all this, the populace, as reflected in several chronicles, +was uncertain that Jeanne had died. A ‘manuscript in the British Museum’ +says: ‘At last they burned her, or another woman like her, on which +point many persons are, and have been, of different opinions.’* + + + *Save, p. 7, citing Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Chartes, ii., Second +Series. + +This hopeful rumour of the Maid’s escape was certain to arise, populus +vult decipi. + +Now we reach a point at which we may well doubt how to array the +evidence. But probably the best plan is first to give the testimony of +undoubted public documents from the Treasury Accounts of the town of +Orleans. In that loyal city the day of the Maid’s death had been duly +celebrated by religious services; the Orleanese had indulged in no +illusions. None the less on August 9, 1436, the good town pays its +pursuivant, Fleur-de-lys, ‘because he had brought letters to the town +FROM JEHANNE LA PUCELLE’! On August 21 money is paid to ‘Jehan du Lys, +brother of Jehanne la Pucelle,’ because he has visited the King, Charles +VII., is returning to his sister, the Maid, and is in want of cash, +as the King’s order given to him was not fully honoured. On October 18 +another pursuivant is paid for a mission occupying six weeks. He has +visited the Maid at Arlon in Luxembourg, and carried letters from her to +the King at Loches on the Loire. Earlier, in August, a messenger brought +letters from the Maid, and went on to Guillaume Belier, bailiff of +Troyes, in whose house the real Maid had lodged, at Chinon, in the dawn +of her mission, March 1429. Thus the impostor was dealing, by letters, +with some of the people who knew the Maid best, and was freely accepted +by her brother Jehan.* + + + *Quicherat, v. pp. 326-327. + +For three years the account-books of Orleans are silent about this +strange Pucelle. Orleans has not seen her, but has had Jeanne’s +brother’s word for her reappearance, and the word, probably, of the +pursuivants sent to her. Jeanne’s annual funeral services are therefore +discontinued. + +Mention of her in the accounts again appears on July 18, 1439. Money is +now paid to Jaquet Leprestre for ten pints and a chopine of wine given +to DAME JEHANNE DES ARMOISES. On the 29th, 30th, and on August 1, when +she left the town, entries of payments for quantities of wine and food +for Jehanne des Armoises occur, and she is given 210 livres ‘after +deliberation with the town council,’ ‘for the good that she did to the +said town during the siege of 1429.’ + +The only Jehanne who served Orleans in the siege was Jehanne d’Arc. +Here, then, she is, as Jehanne des Armoises, in Orleans for several +days in 1439, feasted and presented with money by command of the town +council. Again she returns and receives ‘propine’ on September 4.* The +Leprestre who is paid for the wine was he who furnished wine to the real +Maid in 1429. + + + *Quicherat, v. pp. 331-332. + +It is undeniable that the people of Orleans must have seen the impostor +in 1439, and they ceased to celebrate service on the day of the true +Maid’s death. Really it seems as if better evidence could not be that +Jeanne des Armoises, nee Jeanne d’Arc, was alive in 1439. All Orleans +knew the Maid, and yet the town council recognised the impostor. + +She is again heard of on September 27, 1439, when the town of Tours pays +a messenger for carrying to Orleans letters which Jeanne wrote to +the King, and also letters from the bailli of Touraine to the King, +concerning Jeanne. The real Jeanne could not write, but the impostor, +too, may have employed a secretary.* + + + *Quicherat, v. p. 332. + +In June 1441 Charles VII. pardoned, for an escape from prison, one de +Siquemville, who, ‘two years ago or thereabouts’ (1439), was sent by the +late Gilles de Raiz, Marechal de France, to take over the leadership of +a commando at Mans, which had hitherto been under ‘UNE APPELEE JEHANNE, +QUI SE DISOIT PUCELLE.’* The phrase ‘one styled Jehanne who called +herself Pucelle’ does not indicate fervent belief on the part of the +King. Apparently this Jeanne went to Orleans and Tours after quitting +her command at Mans in 1439. If ever she saw Gilles de Raiz (the +notorious monster of cruelty) in 1439, she saw a man who had fought in +the campaigns of the true Maid under her sacred banner, argent a dove on +an azure field.** + + + *Quicherat, v. p. 333. + + **She never used the arms given to her and her family by Charles VII. + +Here public documents about the impostor fall silent. It is not known +what she was doing between August 9, 1436, and September 1439. At the +earlier date she had written to the town of Orleans; at the later, she +was writing to the King, from Tours. Here an error must be avoided. +According to the author of the ‘Chronicle of the Constable of Alvaro de +Luna,’ * the impostor was, in 1436, sending a letter, and ambassadors, +to the King of Spain, asking him to succour La Rochelle. The ambassadors +found the King at Valladolid, and the Constable treated the letter, ‘as +if it were a relic, with great reverence.’ + + + *Madrid, 1784, p. 131. + +The impostor flies high! But the whole story is false. + +M. Quicherat held at first that the date and place may be erroneously +stated, but did not doubt that the False Pucelle did send her +ambassadors and letter to the King of Spain. We never hear that the true +Maid did anything of the sort. But Quicherat changed his mind on the +subject. The author of the ‘Chronicle of Alvaro de Luna’ merely cites +a Coronica de la Poncella. That coronica, says Quicherat later, ‘is a +tissue of fables, a romance in the Spanish taste,’ and in this nonsense +occurs the story of the embassy to the Spanish King. That story does not +apply to the False Pucelle, and is not true, a point of which students +of Quicherat’s great work need to be warned; his correction may escape +notice.* + + + *Revue des Questions Historiques, April 1, 1881, pp. 553-566. +Article by the Comte de Puymaigre. + +We thus discard a strong trump in the hand of believers that the +impostor was the real Maid; had a Pucelle actually sent ambassadors to +Spain in 1436, their case would be stronger than it is. + +Next, why is the false Pucelle styled ‘Jeanne des Armoises’ in the town +accounts of Orleans in 1439? + +This leads us to the proofs of the marriage of the false Pucelle, in +1436, with a Monsieur Robert des Armoises, a gentleman of the Metz +country. The evidence is in a confused state. In the reign of Louis XIV. +lived a Pere Vignier, a savant, who is said to have been a fraudulent +antiquary. Whether this be true or not, his brother, after the death of +Pere Vignier, wrote a letter to the Duc de Grammont, which was published +in the ‘Mercure Galant’ of November, 1683. The writer says that his +brother, Pere Vignier, found, at Metz, an ancient chronicle of the town, +in manuscript, and had a copy made by a notary royal. The extract is +perfectly genuine, whatever the reputation of the discoverer may be. +This portion of the chronicle of the doyen of Saint-Thibaud de Metz +exists in two forms, of which the latter, whoever wrote it, is intended +to correct the former. + +In the earlier shape the author says that, on May 20, 1436, the Pucelle +Jeanne came to Metz, and was met by her brothers, Pierre, a knight, and +Jehan, an esquire. Pierre had, in fact, fought beside his sister when +both he and she were captured, at Compiegne, in May 1430. Jehan, as we +have already seen, was in attendance on the false Maid in August 1436. + +According to the Metz chronicle, these two brothers of the Maid, on +May 20, 1436, recognised the impostor for their sister, and the +account-books of Orleans leave no doubt that Jehan, at least, actually +did accept her as such, in August 1436, four months after they met in +May. Now this lasting recognition by one, at least, of the brothers, is +a fact very hard to explain. + +M. Anatole France offers a theory of the easiest. The brothers went to +Lorraine in May 1436, to see the pretender. ‘Did they hurry to expose +the fraud, or did they not think it credible, on the other hand, that, +with God’s permission, the Saint had risen again? Nothing could seem +impossible, after all that they had seen.... They acted in good faith. +A woman said to them, “I am Jeanne, your sister.” They believed, because +they wished to believe.’ And so forth, about the credulity of the age. + +The age was not promiscuously credulous. In a RESURRECTION of Jeanne, +after death, the age did not believe. The brothers had never seen +anything of the kind, nor had the town council of Orleans. THEY had +nothing to gain by their belief, the brothers had everything to gain. +One might say that they feigned belief, in the hope that ‘there was +money in it;’ but one cannot say that about the people of Orleans who +had to spend money. The case is simply a puzzle.* + + + *Anatole France, ‘La Fausse Pucelle,’ Revue de Famille, Feb. 15, +1891. I cite from the quotation by M. P. Lanery d’Arc in Deux Lettres +(Beauvais, 1894), a brochure which I owe to the kindness of the author. + +After displaying feats of horsemanship, in male attire, and being +accepted by many gentlemen, and receiving gifts of horses and jewels, +the impostor went to Arlon, in Luxembourg, where she was welcomed by the +lady of the duchy, Elizabeth de Gorlitz, Madame de Luxembourg. And at +Arlon she was in October 1436, as the town accounts of Orleans have +proved. Thence, says the Metz chronicle, the ‘Comte de Warnonbourg’ (?) +took her to Cologne, and gave her a cuirass. Thence she returned to +Arlon in Luxembourg, and there married the knight Robert des Hermoises, +or Armoises, ‘and they dwelt in their own house at Metz, as long as they +would.’ Thus Jeanne became ‘Madame des Hermoises,’ or ‘Ermaises,’ or, in +the town accounts of Orleans, in 1439, ‘des Armoises.’ + +So says the Metz chronicle, in one form, but, in another manuscript +version, it denounces this Pucelle as an impostor, who especially +deceived tous les plus grands. Her brothers, we read (the real Maid’s +brothers), brought her to the neighbourhood of Metz. She dwelt with +Madame de Luxembourg, and married ‘Robert des Armoize.’* The Pere +Vignier’s brother, in 1683, published the first, but not the second, of +these two accounts in the ‘Mercure Galant’ for November. + + + *Quicherat, v. pp. 321-324, cf. iv. 321. + +In or about 1439, Nider, a witch-hunting priest, in his Formicarium, +speaks of a false Jeanne at Cologne, protected by Ulrich of Wirtemberg, +(the Metz chronicle has ‘Comte de Warnonbourg’), who took the woman +to Cologne. The woman, says Nider, was a noisy lass, who came eating, +drinking, and doing conjuring feats; the Inquisition failed to catch +her, thanks to Ulrich’s protection. She married a knight, and presently +became the concubine of a priest in Metz.* This reads like a piece of +confused gossip. + + + *Quicherat, v. pp. 324-325. + +Vignier’s brother goes on to say (1683) in the ‘Mercure Galant,’ that +his learned brother found the wedding contract of Jeanne la Pucelle and +Robert des Armoises in the charter chest of the M. des Armoises of his +own day, the time of Louis XIV. The brother of Vignier had himself +met the son of this des Armoises, who corroborated the fact. But ‘the +original copy of this ancient manuscript vanished, with all the papers +of Pere Vignier, at his death.’ + +Two months later, in the spring of 1684, Vienne de Plancy wrote to the +‘Mercure Galant,’ saying that ‘the late illustrious brother’ of the Duc +de Grammont was fully persuaded, and argued very well in favour of +his opinion, that the actual Pucelle did not die at Rouen, but married +Robert des Armoises. He quoted a genuine petition of Pierre du Lys, the +brother of the real Maid, to the Duc d’Orleans, of 1443. Pierre herein +says he has warred ‘in the company of Jeanne la Pucelle, his sister, +jusqu’a son absentement, and so on till this hour, exposing his body and +goods in the King’s service.’ This, argued M. de Grammont, implied +that Jeanne was not dead; Pierre does not say, feue ma soeur, ‘my late +sister,’ and his words may even mean that he is still with her. [‘Avec +laquelle, jusques a son absentement, ET DEPUIS JUSQUES A PRESENT, il a +expose son corps.’)* + + + *The petition is in Quicherat, v. pp. 212-214. For Vienne-Plancy +see the papers from the Mercure Galant in Jeanne d’Arc n’a point ete +brulee a Rouen (Rouen, Lanctin, 1872). The tract was published in 100 +copies only. + +Though no copy of the marriage contract of Jeanne and des Armoises +exists, Quicherat prints a deed of November 7, 1436, in which Robert des +Armoises and his wife, ‘La Pucelle de France,’ acknowledge themselves to +be married, and sell a piece of land. The paper was first cited by Dom +Calmet, among the documents in his ‘Histoire de Lorraine.’ It is rather +under suspicion. + +There seems no good reason, however, to doubt the authenticity of the +fact that a woman, calling herself Jeanne Pucelle de France, did, in +1436, marry Robert des Armoises, a man of ancient and noble family. +Hence, in the town accounts of Tours and Orleans, after October 1436, up +to September 1439, the impostor appears as ‘Mme. Jehanne des Armoises.’ +In August 1436, she was probably not yet married, as the Orleans +accounts then call her ‘Jehanne la Pucelle,’ when they send their +pursuivants to her; men who, doubtless, had known the true Maid in +1429-1430. These men did not undeceive the citizens, who, at least +till September 1439, accepted the impostor. There is hardly a more +extraordinary fact in history. For the rest we know that, in 1436-1439, +the impostor was dealing with the King by letters, and that she held a +command under one of his marshals, who had known the true Maid well in +1429-1430. + +It appears possible that, emboldened by her amazing successes, the false +Pucelle sought an interview with Charles VII. The authority, to be sure, +is late. The King had a chamberlain, de Boisy, who survived till 1480, +when he met Pierre Sala, one of the gentlemen of the chamber of Charles +VIII. De Boisy, having served Charles VII., knew and told Sala the +nature of the secret that was between that king and the true Maid. That +such a secret existed is certain. Alain Chartier, the poet, may have +been present, in March 1429, when the Maid spoke words to Charles VII. +which filled him with a spiritual rapture. So Alain wrote to a foreign +prince in July 1429. M. Quicherat avers that Alain was present: I cannot +find this in his letter.* Any amount of evidence for the ‘sign’ given to +the King, by his own statement, is found throughout the two trials, +that of Rouen and that of Rehabilitation. Dunois, the famous Bastard of +Orleans, told the story to Basin, Bishop of Lisieux; and at Rouen +the French examiners of the Maid vainly tried to extort from her the +secret.** In 1480, Boisy, who had been used to sleep in the bed of +Charles VII., according to the odd custom of the time, told the secret +to Sala. The Maid, in 1429, revealed to Charles the purpose of a secret +prayer which he had made alone in his oratory, imploring light on the +question of his legitimacy.*** M. Quicherat, no bigot, thinks that ‘the +authenticity of the revelation is beyond the reach of doubt.’**** + + + *Quicherat, Apercus Nouveaux, p. 62. Proces, v. p. 133. + + **For the complete evidence, see Quicherat, Apercus, pp. 61-66. + + ***Quicherat, v. p. 280, iv. pp. 258, 259, another and ampler account, +in a MS. of 1500. Another, iv. p. 271: MS. of the period of Louis XII. + + ****Apercus, p. 60, Paris, 1850. + +Thus there was a secret between the true Maid and Charles VII. The King, +of course, could not afford to let it be known that he had secretly +doubted whether he were legitimate. Boisy alone, at some later date, was +admitted to his confidence. + +Boisy went on to tell Sala that, ten years later (whether after 1429 +or after 1431, the date of the Maid’s death, is uncertain), a pretended +Pucelle, ‘very like the first,’ was brought to the King. He was in a +garden, and bade one of his gentlemen personate him. The impostor was +not deceived, for she knew that Charles, having hurt his foot, then wore +a soft boot. She passed the gentleman, and walked straight to the +King, ‘whereat he was astonished, and knew not what to say, but, gently +saluting her, exclaimed, “Pucelle, my dear, you are right welcome back, +in the name of God, who knows the secret that is between you and me.”’ +The false Pucelle then knelt, confessed her sin, and cried for mercy. +‘For her treachery some were sorely punished, as in such a case was +fitting.’* + + + *Quicherat, v. p. 281. There is doubt as to whether Boisy’s tale +does not refer to Jeanne la Feronne, a visionary. Varlet de Vireville, +Charles VII., iii. p. 425, note 1. + +If any deserved punishment, the Maid’s brothers did, but they rather +flourished and prospered, as time went on, than otherwise. + +It appears, then, that in 1439-1441 the King exposed the false Pucelle, +or another person, Jeanne la Feronne. A great foe of the true Maid, the +diarist known as the Bourgeois de Paris, in his journal for August 1440, +tells us that just then many believed that Jeanne had not been burned at +Rouen. The gens d’armes brought to Paris ‘a woman who had been received +with great honour at Orleans’--clearly Jeanne des Armoises. The +University and Parlement had her seized and exhibited to the public at +the Palais. Her life was exposed; she confessed that she was no maid, +but a mother, and the wife of a knight (des Armoises?). After this +follows an unintelligible story of how she had gone on pilgrimage to +Rome, and fought in the Italian wars.* Apparently she now joined a +regiment at Paris, et puis s’en alla, but all is very vaguely recorded. + + + *Quicherat, v. pp. 334, 335; c.f. Lefevre-Pontalis, Les Sources +Allemands, 113-115. Fontemoing, Paris, 1903. + + +The most extraordinary circumstance remains to be told. Apparently the +brothers and cousins of the true Maid continued to entertain and accept +the impostor! We have already seen that, in 1443, Pierre du Lys, in his +petition to the Duc d’Orleans, writes as if he did not believe in the +death of his sister, but that may be a mere ambiguity of language; we +cannot repose on the passage. + +In 1476 a legal process and inquest was held as to the descendants of +the brother of the mother of Jeanne d’Arc, named Voulton or Vouthon. +Among other witnesses was Henry de Voulton, called Perinet, a carpenter, +aged fifty-two. He was grandson of the brother of the mother of Jeanne +d’Arc, his grand-maternal aunt. This witness declared that he had often +seen the two brothers du Lys, Jehan and Pierre, with their sister, La +Pucelle, come to the village of Sermaise and feast with his father. They +always accepted him, the witness, as their cousin, ‘in all places where +he has been, conversed, eaten, and drunk in their company.’ Now Perinet +is clearly speaking of his associations with Jeanne and her brothers +AFTER HE HIMSELF WAS A MAN GROWN. Born in 1424, he was only five years +old when the Maid left Domremy for ever. He cannot mean that, as a child +of five, he was always, in various places, drinking with the Maid and +her brothers. Indeed, he says, taking a distinction, that in his early +childhood--‘son jeune aage’--he visited the family of d’Arc, with his +father, at Domremy, and saw the Maid, qui pour lors estoit jeune fille.* + + + *De Bouteiller et de Braux, Nouvelles Recherches sur la Famille de +Jeanne d’Arc, Paris, 1879, pp. 8, 9. + +Moreover, the next witness, the cure of Sermaise, aged fifty-three, says +that, twenty-four years ago (in 1452), a young woman dressed as a man, +calling herself Jeanne la Pucelle, used to come to Sermaise, and that, +as he heard, she was the near kinswoman of all the Voultons, ‘and he saw +her make great and joyous cheer with them while she was at Sermaise.’* +Clearly it was about this time, in or before 1452, that Perinet himself +was conversant with Jehan and Pierre du Lys, and with their sister, +calling herself La Pucelle. + + + *Op. cit. p. 11. + +Again, Jehan le Montigueue, aged about seventy, deposed that, in 1449, +a woman calling herself Jeanne la Pucelle came to Sermaise and feasted +with the Voultons, as also did (but he does not say at the same time) +the Maid’s brother, Jehan du Lys.* Jehan du Lys could, at least, if he +did not accept her, have warned his cousins, the Voultons, against their +pretended kinswoman, the false Pucelle. But for some three years at +least she came, a welcome guest, to Sermaise, matched herself against +the cure at tennis, and told him that he might now say that he had +played against la Pucelle de France. This news gave him the greatest +pleasure. + + + *Op. cit. pp. 4,5, MM. de Bouteiller and de Graux do not observe the +remarkable nature of this evidence, as regards the BROTHERS of the Maid; +see their Preface, p. xxx. + +Jehan Guillaume, aged seventy-six, had seen both the self-styled Pucelle +and the real Maid’s brothers at the house of the Voultons. He did not +know whether she was the true Maid or not. + +It is certain, practically, that this PUCELLE, so merry at Sermaise with +the brothers and cousins of the Maid, was the Jeanne des Armoises of +1436-1439. The du Lys family could not successively adopt TWO impostors +as their sister! Again, the woman of circ. 1449-1452 is not a younger +sister of Jeanne, who in 1429 had no sister living, though one, +Catherine, whom she dearly loved, was dead. + +We have now had glimpses of the impostor from 1436 to 1440, when +she seems to have been publicly exposed (though the statement of the +Bourgeois de Paris is certainly that of a prejudiced writer), and again +we have found the impostor accepted by the paternal and maternal kin +of the Maid, about 1449-1452. In 1452 the preliminary steps towards +the Rehabilitation of the true Maid began, ending triumphantly in 1456. +Probably the families of Voulton and du Lys now, after the trial +began in 1452, found their jolly tennis-playing sister and cousin +inconvenient. She reappears, NOT at Sermaise, in 1457. In that year King +Rene (father of Margaret, wife of our Henry VI.) gives a remission to +‘Jeanne de Sermaises.’ M. Lecoy de la March, in his ‘Roi Rene’ (1875) +made this discovery, and took ‘Jeanne de Sermaises’ for our old friend, +‘Jeanne des Ermaises,’ or ‘des Armoises.’ She was accused of ‘having +LONG called herself Jeanne la Pucelle, and deceived many persons who had +seen Jeanne at the siege of Orleans.’ She has lain in prison, but is let +out, in February 1457, on a five years’ ticket of leave, so to speak, +‘provided she bear herself honestly in dress, and in other matters, as a +woman should do.’ + +Probably, though ‘at present the wife of Jean Douillet,’ this Jeanne +still wore male costume, hence the reference to bearing herself +‘honestly in dress.’ She acknowledges nothing, merely says that the +charge of imposture lui a ete impose, and that she has not been actainte +d’aucun autre vilain cas.* At this date Jeanne cruised about Anjou and +the town of Saumur. And here, at the age of forty-five, if she was +of the same age as the true Maid, we lose sight for ever of this +extraordinary woman. Of course, if she was the genuine Maid, the career +of La Pucelle de France ends most ignobly. The idea ‘was nuts’ (as the +Elizabethans said) to a good anti-clerical Frenchman, M. Lesigne, who, +in 1889, published ‘La Fin d’une Legende.’ There would be no chance of +canonising a Pucelle who was twice married and lived a life of frolic. + + + *Lecoy de la Marche, Le Roi Rene, ii. 281-283, 1875. + +A more serious and discreet scholar, M. Gaston Save, in 1893, made an +effort to prove that Jeanne was not burned at Rouen.* He supposed that +the Duchess of Bedford let Jeanne out of prison and bribed the two +priests, Massieu and Ladvenu, who accompanied the Maid to the scaffold, +to pretend that they had been with her, not with a substituted victim. +This victim went with hidden face to the scaffold, le visage embronche, +says Percival de Cagny, a retainer of Jeanne’s ‘beau duc,’ d’Alencon.** +The townspeople were kept apart by 800 English soldiers.*** The Madame +de Luxembourg who entertained the impostor at Arlon (1436) was ‘perhaps’ +the same as she who entertained the real Jeanne at Beaurevoir in 1430. +Unluckily THAT lady died in November 1430! + + + *Jehanne des Armoises, Pucelle d’Orleans, Nancy, 1893. + + **Quicherat, iv. 36. + + ***Quicherat, ii. 14, 19. + +However, the Madame de Luxembourg who entertained the impostor was aunt, +by marriage, of the Duke of Burgundy, the true Maid’s enemy, and she +had means of being absolutely well informed, so the case remains very +strange. Strange, too, it is that, in the records of payment of pension +to the true Maid’s mother, from the town of Orleans, she is ‘mere de la +Pucelle’ till 1452, when she becomes ‘mere de feue la Pucelle,’ ‘mother +of the LATE Pucelle.’ That is to say, the family and the town of Orleans +recognised the impostor till, in 1452, the Trial of Rehabilitation +began. So I have inferred, as regards the family, from the record of the +inquest of 1476, which, though it suited the argument of M. Save, was +unknown to him. + +His brochure distressed the faithful. The Abbe, Dr. Jangen, editor of +‘Le Pretre,’ wrote anxiously to M. P. Lanery d’Arc, who replied in a +tract already cited (1894). But M. Lanery d’Arc did not demolish the +sounder parts of the argument of M. Save, and he knew nothing of the +inquest of 1476, or said nothing. Then arose M. Lefevre Pontalis.* +Admitting the merits of M. Save’s other works, he noted many errors in +this tract. For example, the fire at Rouen was raked (as we saw) more +or less (admodum) clear of the dead body of the martyr. But would it +be easy, in the circumstances, to recognise a charred corpse? The two +Mesdames de Luxembourg were distinguished apart, as by Quicherat. The +Vignier documents as to Robert des Armoises were said to be impostures. +Quicherat, however, throws no doubt on the deed of sale by Jehanne and +her husband, des Armoises, in November 1436. Many errors in dates were +exposed. The difficulty about the impostor’s reception in Orleans, +was recognised, and it is, of course, THE difficulty. M. Lefevre de +Pontalis, however, urges that her brothers are not said to have been +with her, ‘and there is not a trace of their persistence in their +error after the first months of the imposture.’ But we have traces, nay +proofs, in the inquest of 1476. The inference of M. Save from the fact +that the Pucelle is never styled ‘the late Pucelle,’ in the Orleans +accounts, till 1452, is merely declared ‘inadmissible.’ The fact, on the +other hand, is highly significant. In 1452 the impostor was recognised +by the family; but in that year began the Trial of Rehabilitation, and +we hear no more of her among the du Lys and the Voultons. M. Lefevre +Pontalis merely mentions the inquest of 1476, saying that the impostor +of Sermaise (1449-1452) may perhaps have been another impostor, not +Jeanne des Armoises. The family of the Maid was not capable, surely, of +accepting TWO impostors, ‘one down, the other come on’! This is utterly +incredible. + + + *Le Moyen Age, June 1895. + +In brief, the family of Jeanne, in 1436,1449-1452, were revelling with +Jeanne des Armoises, accepting her, some as sister, some as cousin. In +1439 the Town Council of Orleans not only gave many presents of wine and +meat to the same woman, recognising her as their saviour in the siege of +1429, but also gave her 210 livres. Now, on February 7, 1430, the town +of Orleans had refused to give 100 crowns, at Jeanne’s request, to +Heliote, daughter of her Scottish painter, ‘Heuves Polnoir.’* They said +that they could not afford the money. They were not the people to give +210 livres to a self-styled Pucelle without examining her personally. +Moreover, the impostor supped, in August 1439, with Jehan Luillier, who, +in June, 1429, had supplied the true Maid with cloth, a present from +Charles d’Orleans. He was in Orleans during the siege of 1429, and gave +evidence as to the actions of the Maid at the trial in 1456.** This man +clearly did not detect or expose the impostor, she was again welcomed +at Orleans six weeks after he supped with her. These facts must not be +overlooked, and they have never been explained. So there we leave the +most surprising and baffling of historical mysteries. It is, of course, +an obvious conjecture that, in 1436, Jehan and Pierre du Lys may have +pretended to recognise the impostor, in hopes of honour and rewards such +as they had already received through their connection with the Maid. +But, if the impostor was unmasked in 1440, there was no more to be got +in that way.*** While the nature of the arts of the False Pucelle is +inscrutable, the evidence as to the heroic death of the True Maid is +copious and deeply moving. There is absolutely no room for doubt that +she won the martyr’s crown at Rouen. + + + *Quicherat, v. 155. + + **Quicherat, v. pp. 112,113,331, iii. p. 23. + +***By 1452 Pierre du Lys had un grand hotel opposite the Ile des +Boeufs, at Orleans, given to him for two lives, by Charles d’Orleans, +in 1443. He was also building a town house in Orleans, and the +chevalier Pierre was no snob, for he brought from Sermaise his +carpenter kinsman, Perinet de Voulton, to superintend the erection. +Nouvelles Recherches, pp. 19, 20. + + + + +V. JUNIUS AND LORD LYTTELTON’S GHOST + + +‘Sir,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘it is the most extraordinary thing that has +happened in my day.’ + +The most extraordinary thing that had happened in Dr. Johnson’s day was +the ‘warning’ to the noble peer generally spoken of as ‘the wicked Lord +Lyttelton.’ The Doctor went on thus: ‘I heard it with my own ears from +his uncle, Lord Westcote. I am so glad to have every evidence of the +spiritual world that I am willing to believe it.’ Dr. Adams replied, +‘You have evidence enough--good evidence, which needs no support.’ Dr. +Johnson growled out, ‘I like to have more!’ + +Thus the Doctor was willing to believe what it suited him to believe, +even though he had the tale at third or fourth hand; for Lord Westcote +was not with the wicked Lord Lyttelton at the time of his death, on +November 27, 1779. Dr. Johnson’s observations were made on June 12, +1784. + +To Lord Westcote’s narrative we shall return. + +As a study in Russian scandal, and the growth and development of +stories, this anecdote of Lord Lyttelton deserves attention. So first we +must glance at the previous history of the hero. Thomas Lord Lyttelton +was born, says Mr. Coulton (in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ No. 179, p. 111), +on January 30, 1744.* He was educated at Eton, where Dr. Barnard thought +his boyish promise even superior to that of Charles James Fox. His +sketches of scenery in Scotland reminded Mrs. Montagu of the vigour of +Salvator Rosa, combined with the grace of Claude Lorraine! At the age +of nineteen, already affianced to Miss Warburton, he went on the Grand +Tour, and excelled the ordinary model of young debauchery abroad. Mr. +James Boswell found a Circe at Siena, Lyttelton found Circes everywhere. +He returned to England in 1765; and that learned lady, Mrs. Carter, the +translator of Epictetus, ‘admired his talents and elegant manners, +as much as she detested his vices.’ In 1768 he entered the House of +Commons, and, in his maiden speech, implored the Assembly to believe +that America was more important than Mr. Wilkes (and Liberty). Unseated +for bribery in January 1769, he vanished from the public view, more +or less, for a season; at least he is rarely mentioned in memoirs, and +Coulton thinks that young Lyttelton was now engaged--in what does the +reader suppose? In writing ‘The Letters of Junius’!** + + + *The writer was not Croker, but Mr. Coulton, ‘a Kentish gentleman,’ +says Lockhart, February 7, 1851, to his daughter Charlotte. + + **If +Lyttelton went to Italy on being ejected from Parliament, as Mr. Rigg +says he did in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography,’ Coulton’s theory +will be hard to justify. + +He was clever enough; his rank was like that assumed as his own by +Junius; his eloquence (as he proved later in the House of Lords) was +vituperative enough; he shared some of Junius’s hatreds, while he +proclaimed, like Junius, that the country was going to the dogs. Just as +Junius was ending his Letters, the prodigal, Thomas Lyttelton, returned +to his father’s house; and Chatham wrote to congratulate the parent +(February 15, 1772). On May 12, 1772, Junius published his last letter +in ‘The Public Advertiser;’ and on June 26 Mr. Lyttelton married a +widow, a Mrs. Peach. He soon left his wife, and was abroad (with a +barmaid) when his father died in 1773. In January 1774 he took his seat +in the Lords. Though Fox thought him a bad man, his first speech was in +favour of securing to authors a perpetual copyright in their own works. +He repeated his arguments some months later; so authors, at least, have +reason for judging him charitably. + +Mr. Carlyle would have admired Lyttelton. His politics (at one juncture) +were ‘The Dictatorship for Lord Chatham’! How does this agree with the +sentiments of Junius? In 1767-69 Junius had exhausted on Chatham his +considerable treasury of insult. He is ‘a lunatic brandishing a crutch,’ +‘so black a villain,’ ‘an abandoned profligate,’ and he exhibits ‘THE +UPSTART INSOLENCE OF A DICTATOR!’ This goes not well with Lyttelton’s +sentiments in 1774. True, but by that date (iii. 305) Junius himself had +discovered ‘that if this country can be saved, it must be saved by Lord +Chatham’s spirit, by Lord Chatham’s abilities.’ Lyttelton and Junius +are assuredly both of them ruffianly, scandal-loving, inconsistent, and +patrician in the manner of Catiline. So far, the likeness is close. + +About America Lyttelton wavered. On the whole, he recognised the need +of fighting; and his main idea was that, as fight we must, we should +organise our forces well, and fight with our heads as well as with our +hands. He disdained the policy of the ostrich. The Americans were in +active rebellion; it could not be blinked. He praised Chatham while +he opposed him. He was ‘fighting for his own hand.’ Ministers felt the +advantage of his aid; they knew his unscrupulous versatility, and in +November 1775 bought Lyttelton with a lucrative sinecure--the post +of Chief Justice of Eyre beyond the Trent. Coulton calls the place +‘honourable;’ we take another view. Lyttelton was bought and sold, but +no one deemed Lyttelton a person of scrupulous conscience. + +The public prospects darkened, folly was heaped on folly, blunder on +blunder, defeat on defeat. On April 24, 1779, Horace Walpole says that +Lord Lyttelton ‘has again turned against the Court on obtaining the +Seals’ * November 25, 1779, saw Lyttelton go boldly into Opposition. +He reviewed the whole state of the empire. He poured out a torrent of +invective. As to his sinecure, he said, ‘Perhaps he might not keep it +long.’ ‘The noble Lords smile at what I say!’ + + + *Is this a slip, or misprint, for ‘on NOT obtaining the Seals’? + +They need not have smiled. He spoke on Thursday, November 25; on +Saturday, November 27, the place in Eyre was vacant, and Lord Lyttelton +was a dead man. + +The reader will keep in mind these dates. On Thursday, November 25, +1779, the first day of the session, Lyttelton overflows in a volcanic +speech against the Court. He announces that his place may soon be +vacant. At midnight on November 27 he is dead. + +On all this, and on the story of the ghostly ‘warning’ to Lord +Lyttelton, delivered in the night of Wednesday, November 24, Coulton +builds a political romance. In his view, Lyttelton, expelled from +Parliament, lavished his genius and exuded his spleen in the ‘Letters +of Junius.’ Taking his seat in the Lords, he fights for his own hand, is +bought and muzzled, wrenches off his muzzle, blazes into a fierce attack +on the wrongs which he is weary of witnessing, the hypocrisy which he +is tired of sharing, makes his will, sets his house in order, plays +one last practical joke by inventing the story of the ghostly warning, +surrounds himself with dissolute company, and at midnight on November 27 +deliberately fulfils his own prediction, and dies by his own hand. It +is a tale creditable to Coulton’s fancy. A patrician of genius, a wit, +a profligate, in fatigue and despair, closes his career with a fierce +harangue, a sacrilegious jest, a debauch, and a draught of poison, +leaving to Dr. Johnson a proof of ‘the spiritual world,’ and to mankind +the double mystery of Junius and of the Ghost. + +As to the identity of Junius, remembering the warning of Lord +Beaconsfield, ‘If you wish to be a bore, take up the “Letters of +Junius,”’ we shall drop that enigma; but as to the alleged suicide of +Lord Lyttelton, we think we can make that seem extremely improbable. +Let us return to the course of events, as stated by Coulton and by +contemporaries. + +The warning of death in three days, says Coulton, occurred (place not +given) on the night of November 24, 1779. He observes: ‘It is certain +that, on the morning after that very day’ (November 25), ‘Lord Lyttelton +had related, not to one person alone, but to several, and all of them +people of credit, the particulars of a strange vision which he said had +appeared to him the preceding night.’ On Thursday, the 25th, as we saw, +he spoke in the Lords. On Friday, the 26th, he went down to his house +at Epsom, Pitt Place, where his party, says Coulton, consisted of Mr. +(later Lord) Fortescue, Captain (later Admiral) Wolsley, Mrs. Flood, and +the Misses Amphlett. Now, the town had no kind of doubt concerning the +nature of Lord Lyttelton’s relations with two, if not three, of the +Misses Amphlett. His character was nearly as bad, where women were +concerned, as that of Colonel Charteris. But Walpole, writing to Mann +on November 28 (the day after Lord Lyttelton’s death), says: ‘Lord +Lyttelton is dead suddenly. SUDDENLY, in this country, is always at +first construed to mean BY A PISTOL... The story given out is, that he +looked ill, AND HAD SAID HE SHOULD NOT LIVE THREE DAYS; that, however, +he had gone to his house at Epsom... with a caravan of nymphs; and on +Saturday night had retired before supper to take rhubarb, returned, +supped heartily, went into the next room again, and died in an instant.’ + +Nothing here of a dream or ghost. We only hear of a prophecy, by +Lyttelton, of his death. + +Writing to Mason on Monday, November 29, Walpole avers that Lord +Lyttelton was ‘attended only by four virgins, whom he had picked up in +the Strand.’ Here Horace, though writing from Berkeley Square, within +two days of the fatal 27th, is wrong. Lord Lyttelton had the Misses +Amphlett, Captain Wolsley, Mr. Fortescue, and Mrs. Flood with him. +According to Walpole, he felt unwell on Saturday night (the 27th), +‘went to bed, rung his bell in ten minutes, and in one minute after the +arrival of his servant expired!’ ‘He had said on Thursday that he should +die in three days, HAD DREAMT SO, and felt that it would be so. On +Saturday he said, “If I outlive to-day, I shall go on;” but enough of +him.’ + +Walpole speaks of a DREAM, but he soon has other, if not better, +information. Writing to Mason on December 11, he says that ghost stories +from the north will now be welcome. ‘Lord Lyttelton’s vision has revived +the taste; though it seems a little odd that an APPARITION should +despair of getting access to his Lordship’s bed, in the shape of a young +woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a robin-redbreast.’ +What was an apprehension or prophecy has become a dream, and the dream +has become an apparition of a robin-redbreast and a young woman. + +If this excite suspicion, let us hasten to add that we have +undesigned evidence to Lord Lyttelton’s belief that he had beheld an +APPARITION--evidence a day earlier than the day of his death. Mrs. +Piozzi (then Mrs. Thrale), in her diary of Sunday, November 28, writes: +‘Yesterday a lady from Wales dropped in and said that she had been at +Drury Lane on Friday night. “How,” I asked, “were you entertained?” + “Very strangely indeed! Not with the play, though, but the discourse of +a Captain Ascough, who averred that a friend of his, Lord Lyttelton, has +SEEN A SPIRIT, who has warned him that he will die in three days. I have +thought of nothing else since.”’ + +Next day, November 29, Mrs. Piozzi heard of Lord Lyttelton’s death.* + + + *Notes and Queries. Series V., vol. ii. p. 508. December 26,1874. + +Here is proof absolute that the story, with apparition, if not with +robin, was current THE DAY BEFORE LORD LYTTELTON’S DECEASE. + +Of what did Lord Lyttelton die? + +‘According to one of the papers,’ says Coulton, vaguely, ‘the cause +of death was disease of the heart.’ A brief ‘convulsion’ is distinctly +mentioned, whence Coulton concludes that the disease was NOT cardiac. On +December 7, Mason writes to Walpole from York: ‘Suppose Lord Lyttelton +had recovered the breaking of his blood-vessel!’ + +Was a broken blood-vessel the cause of death? or have we here, as is +probable, a mere inference of Mason’s? + +Coulton’s account is meant to lead up to his theory of suicide. Lord +Lyttelton mentioned his apprehension of death ‘somewhat ostentatiously, +we think.’ According to Coulton, at 10 P.M. on Saturday, Lord Lyttelton, +looking at his watch, said: ‘Should I live two hours longer, I shall +jockey the ghost.’ Coulton thinks that it would have been ‘more natural’ +for him to await the fatal hour of midnight ‘in gay company’ than to +go to bed before twelve. He finishes the tale thus: Lord Lyttelton was +taking rhubarb in his bedroom; he sent his valet for a spoon, and the +man, returning, found him ‘on the point of dissolution.’ + +‘His family maintained a guarded and perhaps judicious silence on the +subject,’ yet Lord Westcote spoke of it to Dr. Johnson, and wrote an +account of it, and so did Lord Lyttelton’s widow; while Wraxall, as we +shall see, says that the Dowager Lady Lyttelton painted a picture of the +‘warning’ in 1780. + +Harping on suicide, Coulton quotes Scott’s statement in ‘Letters +on Demonology:’ ‘Of late it has been said, and PUBLISHED, that the +unfortunate nobleman had determined to take poison.’ Sir Walter gives +no authority, and Coulton admits that he knows of none. Gloomy but +commonplace reflections in the so-called ‘Letters’ of Lyttelton do not +even raise a presumption in favour of suicide, which, in these very +Letters, Lyttelton says that he cannot defend by argument.* That +Lyttelton made his will ‘a few weeks before his death,’ providing +for his fair victims, may be accounted for, as we shall see, by the +threatening state of his health, without any notion of self-destruction. +Walpole, in his three letters, only speaks of ‘a pistol’ as the common +construction of ‘sudden death;’ and that remark occurs before he has +heard any details. He rises from a mere statement of Lord Lyttelton’s, +that he is ‘to die in three days,’ to a ‘dream’ containing that +assurance, and thence to apparitions of a young woman and a +robin-redbreast. The appearance of that bird, by the way, is, in the +folk-lore of Surrey, an omen of death. Walpole was in a position to know +all current gossip, and so was Mrs. Piozzi. + + + *Coulton’s argument requires him to postulate the authenticity of +many, at least, of these Letters, which were given to the world by the +author of ‘Doctor Syntax.’ + +We now turn to a narrative nearly contemporary, that written out by Lord +Westcote on February 13, 1780. Lord Westcote examined the eldest Miss +Amphlett, Captain (later Admiral) Charles Wolsley, Mrs. Flood, Lord +Lyttelton’s valet, Faulkner, and Stuckey, the servant in whose arms, so +to speak, Lord Lyttelton died. Stuckey was questioned (note this) in +the presence of Captain Wolsley and of MR. FORTESCUE. The late Lord +Lyttelton permitted the Westcote narrative to be published in ‘Notes +and Queries’ (November 21, 1874). The story, which so much pleased Dr. +Johnson, runs thus:--On Thursday, November 25, Mrs. Flood and the three +Misses Amphlett were residing at Lord Lyttelton’s house in Hill Street, +Berkeley Square. Who IS this Mrs. Flood? Frederick Flood (1741-1824) +married LADY Julia Annesley in 1782. The wife of the more famous Flood +suits the case no better: his wife was LADY F. M. Flood; she was a +Beresford. (The ‘Dictionary of National Biography’ is responsible for +these facts.) At all events, on November 25, at breakfast, in Hill +Street, Lord Lyttelton told the young ladies and their chaperon that he +had had an extraordinary DREAM. + +He seemed to be in a room which a bird flew into; the bird changed into +a woman in white, who told him he should die in three days. + +He ‘did not much regard it, because he could in some measure account +for it; for that a few days before he had been with Mrs. Dawson, when a +robin-redbreast flew into her room.’ On the morning of Saturday he told +the same ladies that he was very well, and believed he should ‘BILK THE +GHOST.’ The dream has become an apparition! On that day--Saturday--he, +with the ladies, Fortescue, and Wolsley, went to Pitt Place; he went +to bed after eleven, ordered rolls for breakfast, and, in bed, ‘died +without a groan,’ as his servant was disengaging him from his waistcoat. +During dinner he had ‘a rising in his throat’ (a slight sickness), +‘a thing which had often happened to him before.’ His physician, Dr. +Fothergill, vaguely attributed his death to the rupture of some vessel +in his side, where he had felt a pain in summer. + +From this version we may glean that Lord Lyttelton was not himself very +certain whether his vision occurred when he was awake or asleep. He is +made to speak of a ‘dream,’ and even to account for it in a probable +way; but later he talks of ‘bilking the GHOST.’ The editor of ‘Notes +and Queries’ now tries to annihilate this contemporary document by +third-hand evidence, seventy years after date. In 1851 or 1852 the late +Dowager Lady Lyttelton, Sarah, daughter of the second Earl Spencer, +discussed the story with Mr. Fortescue, a son of the Mr. Fortescue who +was at Pitt Place, and succeeded to the family title six years later, in +1785. The elder Mr. Fortescue, in brief, is said to have averred that he +had heard nothing of the dream or prediction till ‘some days after;’ +he, therefore, was inclined to disbelieve in it. We have demonstrated, +however, that if Mr. Fortescue had heard nothing, yet the tale was +all over the town before Lord Lyttelton died. Nay, more, we have +contemporary proof that Mr. Fortescue HAD heard of the affair! Lyttelton +died at midnight on the Saturday, November 27. In her diary for the +following Tuesday (November 30), Lady Mary Coke says that she has just +heard the story of the ‘dream’ from Lady Bute, who had it from Mr. Ross, +WHO HAD IT FROM MR. FORTESCUE!* Mr. Fortescue, then, must have told the +tale as early as the Monday after the fatal Saturday night. Yet in old +age he seems to have persuaded himself that the tale came later to his +knowledge. Some irrelevant, late, and fourth-hand versions will be found +in ‘Notes and Queries,’ but they merely illustrate the badness of such +testimony. + + + *See The Letters and Journals of Lady Mary Coke, iii. 85. Note--She +speaks of ‘a dream.’ + +One trifle of contemporary evidence may be added: Mrs. Delany, on +December 9, 1779, wrote an account of the affair to her niece--here a +bird turns into a woman. + +In pursuit of evidence, it is a long way from 1780 to 1816. In November +of that year, T. J. wrote from Pitt Place, Epsom, in ‘The Gentleman’s +Magazine;’ but his letter is dated ‘January 6.’ T. J. has bought Pitt +Place, and gives ‘a copy of a document in writing, left in the house’ +(where Lyttelton died) ‘as an heirloom which may be depended on.’ +This document begins, ‘Lord Lyttelton’s Dream and Death (see Admiral +Wolsley’s account).’ + +But where IS Admiral Wolsley’s account? Is it in the archives of Sir +Charles Wolseley of Wolseley? Or is THIS (the Pitt Place document) +Admiral Wolsley’s account? The anonymous author says that he was one +of the party at Pitt Place on November 27,1779, with ‘Lord Fortescue,’ +‘Lady Flood,’ and the two Misses Amphlett. Consequently this account +is written after 1785, when Mr. Fortescue succeeded to his title. Lord +Lyttelton, not long returned from Ireland, had been suffering from +‘suffocating fits’ in the last month. And THIS, not the purpose of +suicide, was probably his reason for executing his will. ‘While in his +house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square, he DREAMT three days before his +death he saw a bird fluttering, and afterwards a woman appeared in white +apparel, and said, “Prepare to meet your death in three days.” He was +alarmed and called his servant. On the third day, while at breakfast +with the above-named persons, he said, “I have jockeyed the ghost, as +this is the third day.”’ Coulton places this incident at 10 P.M. on +Saturday, and makes his lordship say, ‘In two hours I shall jockey the +ghost.’ ‘The whole party set out for Pitt Place,’ which contradicts +Coulton’s statement that they set out on Friday, but agrees with Lord +Westcote’s. ‘They had not long arrived when he was seized with a usual +fit. Soon recovered. Dined at five. To bed at eleven.’ Then we hear how +he rebuked his servant for stirring his rhubarb ‘with a tooth-pick’ (a +plausible touch), sent him for a spoon, and was ‘in a fit’ on the man’s +return. ‘The pillow being high, his chin bore hard on his neck. Instead +of relieving him, the man ran for help: on his return found him dead.’ + +This undated and unsigned document, by a person who professes to have +been present, is not, perhaps, very accurate in dates. The phrase +‘dreamt’ is to be taken as the common-sense way of stating that +Lord Lyttelton had a vision of some sort. His lordship, who spoke of +‘jockeying the GHOST,’ may have believed that he was awake at the time, +not dreaming; but no person of self-respect, in these unpsychical days, +could admit more than a dream. Perhaps this remark also applies to +Walpole’s ‘he dreamed.’ The species of the bird is left in the vague. + +Moving further from the event, to 1828, we find a book styled +‘Past Feelings Renovated,’ a reply to Dr. Hibbert’s ‘Philosophy of +Apparitions.’ The anonymous author is ‘struck with the total inadequacy +of Dr. Hibbert’s theory.’ Among his stories he quotes Wraxall’s +‘Memoirs.’ In 1783, Wraxall dined at Pitt Place, and visited ‘the +bedroom where the casement window at which Lord Lyttelton asserted the +DOVE appeared to flutter* was pointed out to me.’ Now the Pitt Place +document puts the vision ‘in Hill Street, Berkeley Square.’ So does Lord +Westcote. Even a bird cannot be in two places at once, and the ‘Pitt +Place Anonymous’ does seem to know what he is talking about. Of course +Lord Lyttelton MAY have been at Pitt Place on November 24, and had his +dream there. He MAY have run up to Hill Street on the 25th and delivered +his speech, and MAY have returned to Pitt Place on the Friday or +Saturday.** But we have no evidence for this view; and the Pitt Place +document places the vision in Hill Street. Wraxall adds that he has +frequently seen a painting of bird, ghost, and Lord Lyttelton, which was +executed by that nobleman’s stepmother in 1780. It was done ‘after the +description given to her by the valet de chambre who attended him, to +whom his master related all the circumstances.’ + + + *It was a ROBIN in 1779. + + **Coulton says Friday; the Anonymous says Saturday, with Lord Westcote. + +Our author of 1828 next produces the narrative by Lord Lyttelton’s +widow, Mrs. Peach, who was so soon deserted. In 1828 she is ‘now alive, +and resident in the south-west part of Warwickshire.’ According to Lady +Lyttelton (who, of course, was not present), Lord Lyttelton had gone to +bed, whether in Hill Street or Pitt Place we are not told. His candle +was extinguished, when he heard ‘a noise resembling the fluttering of +a bird at his chamber window. Looking in the direction of the sound, he +saw the figure of an unhappy female, whom he had seduced and deserted, +and who, when deserted, had put a violent end to her own existence, +standing in the aperture of the window from which the fluttering sound +had proceeded. The form approached the foot of the bed: the room was +preternaturally light; the objects in the chamber were distinctly +visible. The figure pointed to a clock, and announced that Lord +Lyttelton would expire AT THAT VERY HOUR (twelve o’clock) in the third +day after the visitation.’ + +We greatly prefer, as a good old-fashioned ghost story, this version of +Lady Lyttelton’s. There is no real bird, only a fluttering sound, as in +the case of the Cock Lane Ghost, and many other examples. The room is +‘preternaturally light,’ as in Greek and Norse belief it should have +been, and as it is in the best modern ghost stories. Moreover, we have +the raison d’etre of the ghost: she had been a victim of the Chief +Justice in Eyre. The touch about the clock is in good taste. We did not +know all that before. + +But, alas! our author of 1828, after quoting the Pitt Place Anonymous, +proceeds to tell, citing no named authority, that the ghost was that of +Mrs. Amphlett, mother of the two Misses Amphlett, and of a third sister, +in no way less distinguished than these by his lordship. Now a ghost +cannot be the ghost of two different people. Moreover, Mrs. Amphlett +lived (it is said) for years after. However, Mrs. Amphlett has the +preference if she ‘died of grief at the precise time when the female +vision appeared to his lordship,’ which makes it odd that her daughters +should then have been revelling at Pitt Place under the chaperonage of +Mrs. Flood. We are also informed (on no authority) that Lord Lyttelton +‘acknowledged’ the ghost to have been that of the injured mother of the +three Misses Amphlett. + +Let not the weary reader imagine that the catena of evidence ends here! +His lordship’s own ghost did a separate stroke of business, though +only in the commonplace character of a deathbed wraith, or ‘veridical +hallucination.’ + +Lord Lyttelton had a friend, we learn from ‘Past Feelings Renovated’ +(1828), a friend named Miles Peter Andrews. ‘One night after Mr. Andrews +had left Pitt Place and gone to Dartford,’ where he owned powder-mills, +his bed-curtains were pulled open and Lord Lyttelton appeared before +him in his robe de chambre and nightcap. Mr. Andrews reproached him for +coming to Dartford Mills in such a guise, at such a time of night, +and, ‘turning to the other side of the bed, rang the bell, when Lord +Lyttelton had disappeared.’ The house and garden were searched in +vain; and about four in the afternoon a friend arrived at Dartford with +tidings of his lordship’s death. + +Here the reader with true common sense remarks that this second ghost, +Lord Lyttelton’s own, does not appear in evidence till 1828, fifty years +after date, and then in an anonymous book, on no authority. We have +permitted to the reader this opportunity of exercising his acuteness, +while laying a little trap for him. It is not in 1828 that Mr. Andrews’s +story first appears. We first find it in December 1779--that is, in the +month following the alleged event. Mr. Andrews’s experience, and the +vision of Lord Lyttelton, are both printed in ‘The Scots Magazine,’ +December 1779, p. 650. The account is headed ‘A Dream,’ and yet the +author avers that Lord Lyttelton was wide awake! This illustrates +beautifully the fact on which we insist, that ‘dream’ is +eighteenth-century English for ghost, vision, hallucination, or what you +will. + +‘Lord Lyttelton,’ says the contemporary ‘Scots Magazine,’ ‘started +up from a midnight sleep on perceiving a bird fluttering near the +bed-curtains, which vanished suddenly when a female spirit in white +raiment presented herself’ and prophesied Lord Lyttelton’s death in +three days. His death is attributed to convulsions while undressing. + +The ‘dream’ of Mr. Andrews (according to ‘The Scots Magazine’ of +December 1779)* occurred at Dartford in Kent, on the night of November +27. It represented Lord Lyttelton drawing his bed-curtains, and saying, +‘It is all over,’ or some such words. + + + *The magazine appeared at the end of December. + +This Mr. Andrews had been a drysalter. He made a large fortune, owned +the powder-mills at Dartford, sat in Parliament, wrote plays which had +some success, and was thought a good fellow in raffish society. Indeed, +the society was not always raffish. In ‘Notes and Queries’ (December 26, +1874) H. S. says that his mother, daughter of Sir George Prescott, often +met Mr. Andrews at their house, Theobalds Park, Herts. He was extremely +agreeable, and, if pressed, would tell his little anecdote of November +27, 1779. + +This proof that the Andrews tale is contemporary has led us away from +the description of the final scene, given in ‘Past Feelings Renovated,’ +by the person who brought the news to Mr. Andrews. His version includes +a trick played with the watches and clocks. All were set on half +an hour; the valet secretly made the change in Lord Lyttelton’s own +timepiece. His lordship thus went to bed, as he thought, at 11.30, +really at eleven o’clock, as in the Pitt Place document. At about +twelve o’clock, midnight, the valet rushed in among the guests, who were +discussing the odd circumstances, and said that his master was at the +point of death. Lord Lyttelton had kept looking at his watch, and at a +quarter past twelve (by his chronometer and his valet’s) he remarked, +‘This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find.’ The real hour +was then a quarter to twelve. At about half-past twelve, by HIS watch, +twelve by the real time, he asked for his physic. The valet went into +the dressing-room to prepare it (to fetch a spoon by other versions), +when he heard his master ‘breathing very hard.’ ‘I ran to him, and found +him in the agonies of death.’ + +There is something rather plausible in this narrative, corresponding, as +it does, with the Pitt Place document, in which the valet, finding his +master in a fit, leaves him and seeks assistance, instead of lowering +his head that he might breathe more easily. Like the other, this tale +makes suicide a most improbable explanation of Lord Lyttelton’s death. +The affair of the watches is dramatic, but not improbable in itself. +A correspondent of ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine’ (in 1815) only cites ‘a +London paper’ as his authority. The writer of ‘Past Feelings Renovated’ +(1828) adds that Mr. Andrews could never again be induced to sleep at +Pitt Place, but, when visiting there, always lay at the Spread Eagle, in +Epsom. + +Let us now tabulate our results. + +At Pitt Place, Epsom, or Hill Street, Berkeley Square, On November 24, +Lord Lyttelton Dreamed of, or saw, A young woman and a robin. A bird +which became a woman. A dove and a woman. Mrs. Amphlett (without a dove +or robin). Some one else unknown. + +In one variant, a clock and a preternatural light are thrown in, with +a sermon which it were superfluous to quote. In another we have the +derangement of clocks and watches. Lord Lyttelton’s stepmother +believed in the dove. Lady Lyttelton did without a dove, but admitted a +fluttering sound. + +For causes of death we have--heart disease (a newspaper), breaking of a +blood-vessel (Mason), suicide (Coulton), and ‘a suffocating fit’ (Pitt +Place document). The balance is in favour of a suffocating fit, and is +against suicide. On the whole, if we follow the Pitt Place Anonymous +(writing some time after the event, for he calls Mr. Fortescue ‘Lord +Fortescue’), we may conclude that Lord Lyttelton had been ill for some +time. The making of his will suggests a natural apprehension on his +part, rather than a purpose of suicide. There was a lively impression +of coming death on his mind, but how it was made--whether by a dream, an +hallucination, or what not--there is no good evidence to show. + +There is every reason to believe, on the Pitt Place evidence, combined +with the making of his will, that Lord Lyttelton had really, for some +time, suffered from alarming attacks of breathlessness, due to what +cause physicians may conjecture. Any one of these fits, probably, might +cause death, if the obvious precaution of freeing the head and throat +from encumbrances were neglected; and the Pitt Place document asserts +that the frightened valet DID neglect it. Again, that persons under the +strong conviction of approaching death will actually die is proved by +many examples. Even Dr. Hibbert says that ‘no reasonable doubt can be +placed on the authenticity of the narrative’ of Miss Lee’s death, ‘as it +was drawn up by the Bishop of Gloucester’ (Dr. William Nicholson) ‘from +the recital of the young lady’s father,’ Sir Charles Lee. Every one +knows the tale. In a preternatural light, in a midnight chamber, Miss +Lee saw a woman, who proclaimed herself Miss Lee’s dead mother, ‘and +that by twelve o’clock of the day she should be with her.’ So Miss +Lee died in her chair next day, on the stroke of noon, and Dr. Hibbert +rather heartlessly calls this ‘a fortunate circumstance.’ + +The Rev. Mr. Fison, in ‘Kamilaroi and Kurnai,’ gives, from his own +experience, similar tales of death following alleged ghostly warnings, +among Fijians and Australian blacks. Lord Lyttelton’s uneasiness and +apprehension are conspicuous in all versions; his dreams had long been +troubled, his health had caused him anxiety, the ‘warning’ (whatever +it may have been) clinched the matter, and he died a perfectly natural +death. + +Mr. Coulton, omitting Walpole’s statement that he ‘looked ill,’ and +never alluding to the Pitt Place description of his very alarming +symptoms, but clinging fondly to his theory of Junius, perorates thus: +‘Not Dante, or Milton, or Shakespeare himself, could have struck forth +a finer conception than Junius, in the pride of rank, wealth, and +dignities, raised to the Council table of the sovereign he had so +foully slandered--yet sick at heart and deeply stained with every +profligacy--terminating his career by deliberate self-murder, with every +accompaniment of audacious charlatanry that could conceal the crime.’ + +It is magnificent, it is worthy of Dante, or Shakespeare himself--but +the conception is Mr. Coulton’s. + +We do not think that we have provided what Dr. Johnson ‘liked,’ +‘evidence for the spiritual world.’ Nor have we any evidence explanatory +of the precise nature of Lord Lyttelton’s hallucination. The problem +of the authorship of the ‘Junius Letters’ is a malstrom into which we +decline to be drawn. + +But it is fair to observe that all the discrepancies in the story of the +‘warning’ are not more numerous, nor more at variance with each other, +than remote hearsay reports of any ordinary occurrence are apt to be. +And we think it is plain that, if Lord Lyttelton WAS Junius, Mr. Coulton +had no right to allege that Junius went and hanged himself, or, in any +other way, was guilty of self-murder. + + + + +VI. THE MYSTERY OF AMY ROBSART + + +1. HISTORICAL CONFUSIONS AS TO EVENTS BEFORE AMY’S DEATH + +Let him who would weep over the tribulations of the historical inquirer +attend to the tale of the Mystery of Amy Robsart! + +The student must dismiss from his memory all that he recollects of +Scott’s ‘Kenilworth.’ Sir Walter’s chivalrous motto was ‘No scandal +about Queen Elizabeth,’ ‘tis blazoned on his title-page. To avoid +scandal, he calmly cast his narrative at a date some fifteen years after +Amy Robsart’s death, brought Amy alive, and represented Queen Elizabeth +as ignorant of her very existence. He might, had he chosen, have proved +to his readers that, as regards Amy Robsart and her death, Elizabeth was +in a position almost as equivocal as was Mary Stuart in regard to the +murder of Darnley. Before the murder of Darnley we do not hear one word +to suggest that Mary was in love with Bothwell. For many months before +the death of Amy (Lady Robert Dudley), we hear constant reports that +Elizabeth has a love affair with Lord Robert, and that Amy is to be +divorced or murdered. When Darnley is killed, a mock investigation +acquits Bothwell, and Mary loads him with honours and rewards. When Amy +dies mysteriously, a coroner’s inquest, deep in the country, is held, +and no records of its proceedings can be found. Its verdict is unknown. +After a brief tiff, Elizabeth restores Lord Robert to favour. + +After Darnley’s murder, Mary’s ambassador in France implores her +to investigate the matter with all diligence. After Amy’s death, +Elizabeth’s ambassador in France implores her to investigate the matter +with all diligence. Neither lady listens to her loyal servant, indeed +Mary could not have pursued the inquiry, however innocent she might +have been. Elizabeth could! In three months after Darnley’s murder, +Mary married Bothwell. In two months after Amy’s death Cecil told +(apparently) the Spanish ambassador that Elizabeth had married Lord +Robert Dudley. But this point, we shall see, is dubious. + +There the parallel ceases, for, in all probability, Lord Robert was not +art and part in Amy’s death, and, whatever Elizabeth may have done in +private, she certainly did not publicly espouse Lord Robert. A Scot as +patriotic as, but less chivalrous than, Sir Walter might, however, have +given us a romance of Cumnor Place in which Mary would have been avenged +on ‘her sister and her foe.’ He abstained, but wove a tale so full of +conscious anachronisms that we must dismiss it from our minds. + +Amy Robsart was the only daughter of Sir John Robsart and his wife +Elizabeth, nee Scot, and widow of Roger Appleyard, a man of good old +Norfolk family. This Roger Appleyard, dying on June 8, 1528, left a son +and heir, John, aged less than two years. His widow, Elizabeth, had the +life interest in his four manors, and, as we saw, she married Sir John +Robsart, and by him became the mother of Amy, who had also a brother on +the paternal side, Arthur Robsart, whether legitimately born or not.* +Both these brothers play a part in the sequel of the mystery. Lord +Robert Dudley, son of John, Duke of Northumberland, and grandson of the +Dudley who, with Empson, was so unpopular under Henry VII., was about +seventeen or eighteen when he married Amy Robsart--herself perhaps +a year older--on June 4, 1550. At that time his father was Earl of +Warwick; the wedding is chronicled in the diary of the child king, +Edward VI.** + + + *Mr. Walter Rye in The Murder of Amy Robsart, Norwich and London, +1885, makes Arthur a bastard. Mr. Pettigrew, in An Inquiry into the +Particulars connected with the Death of Amy Robsart (London, 1859), +represents Arthur as legitimate. + + **Mr. Rye dates the marriage in 1550. +Rye, pp. 5, 36, cf. Edward VI.’s Diary, Clarendon Society. Mr. Froude +cites the date, June 4, 1549, from Burnet’s Collectanea, Froude, vi. +p. 422, note 2 (1898), being misled by Old Style; Edward VI. notes the +close of 1549 on March 24. + +Amy, as the daughter of a rich knight, was (at least if we regard her +brother Arthur as a bastard) a considerable heiress. Robert Dudley was a +younger son. Probably the match was a family arrangement, but Mr. Froude +says ‘it was a love match.’ His reason for this assertion seems to rest +on a misunderstanding. In 1566-67, six years after Amy’s death, Cecil +drew up a list of the merits and demerits of Dudley (by that time Earl +of Leicester) and of the Archduke Charles, as possible husbands of +Elizabeth. Among other points is noted by Cecil, ‘Likelihood to Love his +Wife.’ As to the Archduke, Cecil takes a line through his father, who +‘hath been blessed with multitude of children.’ As to Leicester, +Cecil writes ‘Nuptiae carnales a laetitia incipiunt, et in luctu +terminantur’--‘Weddings of passion begin in joy and end in grief.’ This +is not a reference, as Mr. Froude thought, to the marriage of Amy and +Dudley, it is merely a general maxim, applicable to a marriage between +Elizabeth and Leicester. The Queen, according to accounts from all +quarters, had a physical passion or caprice for Leicester. The marriage, +if it occurred, would be nuptiae carnales, and as such, in Cecil’s view, +likely to end badly, while the Queen and the Archduke (the alternative +suitor) had never seen each other and could not be ‘carnally’ +affectionate.* + + + *Froude, ut supra, note 3. + +We do not know, in short, whether Dudley and Amy were in love with each +other or not. Their marriage, Cecil says, was childless. + +Concerning the married life of Dudley and Amy very little is known. +When he was a prisoner in the Tower under Mary Tudor, Amy was allowed to +visit him. She lost her father, Sir John, in 1553. Two undated letters +of Amy’s exist: one shows that she was trusted by her husband in the +management of his affairs (1556-57) and that both he and she were +anxious to act honourably by some poor persons to whom money was due.* +The other is to a woman’s tailor, and, though merely concerned with +gowns and collars, is written in a style of courteous friendliness.** +Both letters, in orthography and sentiment, do credit to Amy’s education +and character. There is certainly nothing vague or morbid or indicative +of an unbalanced mind in these poor epistles. + + + *Pettigrew, 14, note 1. + + **Jackson, Nineteenth Century, March 1882, A Longleat MS. + +When Elizabeth came to the throne (1558) she at once made Dudley Master +of the Horse, a Privy Councillor, and a Knight of the Garter. His office +necessarily caused him to be in constant attendance on the royal person, +and the Knighthood of the Garter proves that he stood in the highest +degree of favour. + +For whatever reason, whether from distaste for Court life, or because +of the confessed jealousy with which the Queen regarded the wives of her +favourites--of all men, indeed--Amy did not come to Court. About 1558-59 +she lived mainly at the country house of the Hydes of Detchworth, not +far from Abingdon. Dudley seems to have paid several visits to the +Hydes, his connections; this is proved by entries in his household books +of sums of money for card-playing there.* It is also certain that Amy +at that date, down to the end of 1559, travelled about freely, to London +and many other places; that she had twelve horses at her service; and +that, as late as March 1560 (when resident with Dudley’s comptroller, +Forster, at Cumnor Place) she was buying a velvet hat and shoes. In +brief, though she can have seen but little of her husband, she was +obviously at liberty, lived till 1560 among honourable people, her +connections, and, in things material, wanted for nothing.** Yet Amy +cannot but have been miserable by 1560. The extraordinary favour in +which Elizabeth held her lord caused the lewdest stories to spread among +all classes, from the circle of the Court to the tattle of country folk +in Essex and Devonshire.*** + + + *Jackson, ut supra. + + **For details see Canon Jackson’s ‘Amy Robsart,’ Nineteenth Century, +vol. xi. Canon Jackson used documents in the possession of the Marquis +of Bath, at Longleat. + + ***Cal. Dom. Eliz. p. 157, August 13, 1560; also +Hatfield Calendar. + +News of this kind is certain to reach the persons concerned. + +Our chief authority for the gossip about Elizabeth and Dudley is to +be found in the despatches of the Spanish ambassadors to their master, +Philip of Spain. The fortunes of Western Europe, perhaps of the Church +herself, hung on Elizabeth’s marriage and on the succession to the +English throne. The ambassadors, whatever their other failings, were +undoubtedly loyal to Philip and to the Church, and they were not men to +be deceived by the gossip of every gobemouche. The command of money gave +them good intelligence, they were fair judges of evidence, and what they +told Philip was what they regarded as well worthy of his attention. They +certainly were not deceiving Philip. + +The evidence of the Spanish ambassadors, as men concerned to find out +the truth and to tell it, is therefore of the highest importance. They +are not writing mere amusing chroniques scandaleuses of the court to +which they are accredited, as ambassadors have often done, and what they +hear is sometimes so bad that they decline to put it on paper. They are +serious and wary men of the world. Unhappily their valuable despatches, +now in ‘the Castilian village of Simancas,’ reach English inquirers in +the most mangled and garbled condition. Major Martin Hume, editor of +the Spanish Calendar (1892), tells us in the Introduction to the first +volume of this official publication how the land lies. Not to speak of +the partial English translation (1865) of Gonzales’s partial summary of +the despatches (Madrid, 1832) we have the fruits of the labours of Mr. +Froude. He visited Simancas, consulted the original documents, and +‘had a large number of copies and extracts made.’ These extracts +and transcripts Mr. Froude deposited in the British Museum. These +transcripts, compared with the portions translated in Mr. Froude’s great +book, enable us to understand the causes of certain confusions in Amy +Robsart’s mystery. Mr. Froude practically aimed at giving the gist, as +he conceived it, of the original papers of the period, which he rendered +with freedom, and in his captivating style--foreign to the perplexed +prolixity of the actual writers. But, in this process, points of +importance might be omitted; and, in certain cases, words from letters +of other dates appear to have been inserted by Mr. Froude, to clear up +the situation. The result is not always satisfactory. + +Next, from 1886 onwards, the Spanish Government published five volumes +of the correspondence of Philip with his ambassadors at the English +Court.* These papers Major Hume was to condense and edit for our +official publication, the Spanish State Papers, in the series of the +Master of the Rolls. But Major Hume found the papers in the Spanish +official publication in a deplorably unedited state. Copyists and +compositors ‘seem to have had a free hand.’ Major Hume therefore +compared the printed Spanish texts, where he could, with Mr. Froude’s +transcripts of the same documents in the Museum, and the most important +letter in this dark affair, in our Spanish Calendar, follows incorrectly +Mr. Froude’s transcript, NOT the original document, which is not printed +in ‘Documentos Ineditos.’** Thus, Major Hume’s translation differs from +Mr. Froude’s translation, which, again, differs from Mr. Gairdner’s +translation of the original text as published by the Baron Kervyn de +Lettenhove.*** + + + *Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana. Ginesta, Madrid, +1886. + + **Spanish Calendar, vol. i. p. iv. Mr. Gairdner says, ‘Major Hume +in preparing his first volume, he informs me, took transcripts from +Simancas of all the direct English correspondence,’ but for letters +between England and Flanders used Mr. Froude’s transcripts. Gairdner, +English Historical Review, January 1898, note 1. + + ***Relations Politiquesdes Pays-Bas et de l’Anqleterre sous le Regne +de Philippe II. vol. ii. pp. 529-533. Brussels, 1883. + +The amateur of truth, being now fully apprised of the ‘hazards’ which +add variety to the links of history, turns to the Spanish Calendar for +the reports of the ambassadors. He reaches April 18, 1559, when de Feria +says: ‘Lord Robert has come so much into favour that he does whatever he +likes with affairs, and it is even said that her Majesty visits him in +his chamber day and night. People talk of this so freely that they go so +far as to say that his wife has a malady in one of her breasts and the +Queen is only waiting for her to die to marry Lord Robert.’ + +De Feria therefore suggests that Philip might come to terms with Lord +Robert. Again, on April 29, 1559, de Feria writes (according to the +Calendar): ‘Sometimes she’ (Elizabeth) ‘appears to want to marry him’ +(Archduke Ferdinand) ‘and speaks like a woman who will only accept a +great prince, and then they say she is in love with Lord Robert, and +never lets him leave her.’ De Feria has reason to believe that ‘she will +never bear children’ * + +Sp. Cal. i. pp. 57, 58, 63; Doc. Ineditos, 87, 171, 180. + +Mr. Froude combines these two passages in one quotation, putting +the second part (of April 29) first, thus: ‘They tell me that she is +enamoured of my Lord Robert Dudley, and will never let him leave her +side. HE OFFERS ME HIS SERVICES IN BEHALF OF THE ARCH DUKE, BUT I DOUBT +WHETHER IT WILL BE WELL TO USE THEM. He is in such favour that people +say she visits him in his chamber day and night. Nay, it is even +reported that his wife has a cancer on her breast, and that the Queen +waits only till she die to marry him.’* + + + *Froude, vi. p. 199. De Feria to Philip, April 28 and April 29. +MS. Simancas, cf. Documentos Ineditos, pp. 87, 171, 180, ut supra. + +The sentence printed in capitals cannot be found by me in either of de +Feria’s letters quoted by Mr. Froude, but the sense of it occurs in a +letter written at another date. Mr. Froude has placed, in his quotation, +first a sentence of the letter of April 29, then a sentence not in +either letter (as far as the Calendar and printed Spanish documents +show), then sentences from the letter of April 18. He goes on to remark +that the marriage of Amy and Dudley ‘was a love match of a doubtful +kind,’ about which we have, as has been shown, no information whatever. +Such are the pitfalls which strew the path of inquiry. + +One thing is plain, a year and a half before her death Amy was regarded +as a person who would be ‘better dead,’ and Elizabeth was said to love +Dudley, on whom she showered honours and gifts. + +De Feria, in the summer of 1559, was succeeded as ambassador by de +Quadra, bishop of Aquila. Dudley and his sister, Lady Sidney (mother of +Sir Philip Sidney), now seemed to favour Spanish projects, but (November +13) de Quadra writes: ‘I heard from a certain person who is accustomed +to give veracious news that Lord Robert has sent to poison his wife. +Certainly all the Queen has done with us and with the Swede, and will +do with the rest in the matter of her marriage, is only keeping Lord +Robert’s enemies and the country engaged with words until this wicked +deed of killing his wife is consummated.’ The enemies of Dudley included +the Duke of Norfolk, and most of the nation. There was talk of a plot to +destroy both Dudley and the Queen. ‘The Duke and the rest of them cannot +put up with Lord Robert’s being king.’* Further, and later, on January +16, 1560 (Amy being now probably at Cumnor), de Quadra writes to de +Feria that Baron Preyner, a German diplomatist, will tell him what +he knows of the poison for the wife of Milort Robert (Dudley), ‘an +important story and necessary to be known.’** Thus between November 1559 +and January 1560, the talk is that Amy shall be poisoned, and this tale +runs round the Courts of Europe. + + + *Sp. Cal. i. pp. 112-114. + + **Relations Politiques, Lettenhove, ii. p. 187. + +Mr. Froude gives, what the Calendar does not, a letter of de Quadra to +de Feria and the Bishop of Arras (January 15, 1560). ‘In Lord Robert it +is easy to recognise the king that is to be... There is not a man who +does not cry out on him and her with indignation.’* ‘She will marry none +but the favoured Robert.’** On March 7, 1560, de Quadra tells de Feria: +‘Not a man in this country but cries out that this fellow’ (Dudley) ‘is +ruining the country with his vanity.’*** ‘Is ruining the country AND THE +QUEEN,’ is in the original Spanish. + + + *Froude, vi. p. 311. + + **Relations Politiques, ii. 87, 183, 184. + + ***Sp. Cal. i. p. 133. Major Hume translates the text of Mr. Froude’s +transcript in the British Museum. It is a mere fragment; in 1883 the +whole despatch was printed by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove. + +On March 28 (Calendar), on March 27 (Froude) de Quadra wrote to +Philip--(Calendar)-- ‘I have understood Lord Robert told somebody, who +has not kept silence, that if he live another year he will be in a very +different position from now. He is laying in a good stock of arms, and +is assuming every day a more masterful part in affairs. They say that +he thinks of divorcing his wife.’* So the Calendar. Mr. Froude condenses +his Spanish author THUS:** ‘Lord Robert says that if he lives a year he +will be in another position from that which he at present holds. Every +day he presumes more and more, and it is now said that he means to +divorce his wife.’ From the evidence of the Spanish ambassadors, it is +clear that an insurance office would only have accepted Amy Robsart’s +life, however excellent her health, at a very high premium. Her +situation was much like that of Darnley in the winter of 1566-67, when +‘every one in Scotland who had the smallest judgment’ knew that ‘he +could not long continue,’ that his doom was dight. + + + *Sp. Cal. i, p. 141. + + **Froude, vi. p. 340. + +Meanwhile, through the winter, spring, and early summer of 1560, +diplomatists and politicians were more concerned about the war of +the Congregation against Mary of Guise in Scotland, with the English +alliance with the Scottish Protestant rebels, with the siege of Leith, +and with Cecil’s negotiations resulting in the treaty of Edinburgh, than +even with Elizabeth’s marriage, and her dalliance with Dudley. + +All this time, Amy was living at Cumnor Place, about three miles from +Oxford. Precisely at what date she took up her abode there is not +certain, probably about the time when de Quadra heard that Lord Robert +had sent to poison his wife, the November of 1559. Others say in March +1560. The house was rented from a Dr. Owen by Anthony Forster. This +gentleman was of an old and good family, well known since the time of +Edward I.; his wife also, Ann Williams, daughter of Reginald Williams +of Burghfield, Berks, was a lady of excellent social position. Forster +himself had estates in several counties, and obtained many grants +of land after Amy’s death. He died in 1572, leaving a very equitable +distribution of his properties; Cumnor he bought from Dr. Owen soon +after the death of Amy. In his bequests he did not forget the Master, +Fellows, and Scholars of Balliol.* There is nothing suspicious about +Forster, who was treasurer or comptroller of Leicester’s household +expenses: in writing, Leicester signs himself ‘your loving Master.’ At +Cumnor Place also lived Mrs. Owen, wife of Dr. Owen, the owner of the +house, and physician to the Queen. There was, too, a Mrs. Oddingsell, of +respectable family, one of the Hydes of Denchworth. That any or all +of these persons should be concerned in abetting or shielding a murder +seems in the highest degree improbable. Cumnor Place was in no respect +like Kirk o’ Field, as regards the character of its inhabitants. It +was, however, a lonely house, and, on the day of Amy’s death, her own +servants (apparently by her own desire) were absent. And Amy, like +Darnley, was found dead on a Sunday night, no man to this day knowing +the actual cause of death in either case. + + + *Pettigrew, pp. 19-22. + +Here it may be well to consider the version of the tragedy as printed, +twenty-four years after the event, by the deadly enemies of Lord Robert, +now Earl of Leicester. This is the version which, many years later, +aided by local tradition, was used in Ashmole’s account in his ‘History +and Antiquities of Berkshire,’ while Sir Walter employed Ashmole’s +account as the basis of his romance. We find the PRINTED copy of +the book usually known as ‘Leicester’s Commonwealth’ dated 1584, but +probably it had been earlier circulated in manuscript copies, of +which several exist.* It purports to be a letter written by a M.A. of +Cambridge to a friend in London, containing ‘some talk passed of late’ +about Leicester. Doubtless it DOES represent the talk against Leicester +that had been passing, at home and abroad, ever since 1560. Such talk, +after twenty years, could not be accurate. The point of the writer is +that Leicester is lucky in the deaths of inconvenient people. Thus, +when he was ‘in full hope to marry’ the Queen ‘he did but send his wife +aside, to the house of his servant, Forster of Cumnor, by Oxford, where +shortly after she had the chance to fall from a pair of stairs, and so +to break her neck, but yet without hurting of her hood, that stood upon +her head.’ Except for the hood, of which we know nothing, all this is +correct. In the next sentence we read: ‘But Sir Richard Verney, who, by +commandment, remained with her that day alone, with one man only, and +had sent away perforce all her servants from her, to a market two +miles off, he, I say, with his man, can tell how she died.’ The man was +privily killed in prison, where he lay for another offence, because he +‘offered to publish’ the fact; and Verney, about the same time, died +in London, after raving about devils ‘to a gentleman of worship of mine +acquaintance.’ ‘The wife also of Bald Buttler, kinsman to my Lord, gave +out the whole fact a little before her death.’ + + + *Pettigrew, pp. 9, 10. + +Verney, and the man, are never mentioned in contemporary papers: two +Mrs. Buttelars were mourners at Amy’s funeral. Verney is obscure: Canon +Jackson argues that he was of the Warwickshire Verneys; Mr. Rye holds +that he was of the Bucks and Herts Verneys, connections of the Dudleys. +But, finding a Richard Verney made sheriff of Warwick and Leicester in +1562, Mr. Rye absurdly says: ‘The former county being that in which the +murder was committed,’ he ‘was placed in the position to suppress +any unpleasant rumours.’* Amy died, of course, in Berkshire, not in +Warwickshire. A Richard Verney, not the Warwickshire Sir Richard, +according to Mr. Rye, on July 30, 1572, became Marshal of the +Marshalsea, ‘when John Appleyard, Amy’s half-brother, was turned out.’ +This Verney died before November 15, 1575. + + + *Rye, p. 55. + +Of Appleyard we shall hear plenty: Leicester had favoured him (he was +Leicester’s brother-in-law), and he turned against his patron on the +matter of Amy’s death. Probably the Richard Verney who died in 1575 +was the Verney aimed at in ‘Leicester’s Commonwealth.’ He was a kind +of retainer of Dudley, otherwise he would not have been selected by the +author of the libel. But we know nothing to prove that he was at Cumnor +on September 8, 1560. + +The most remarkable point in the libel avers that Leicester’s first +idea was to poison Amy. This had been asserted by de Quadra as early as +November 1559. The libel avers that the conspirators, ‘seeing the good +lady sad and heavy,’ asked Dr. Bayly, of Oxford, for a potion, which +they ‘would fetch from Oxford upon his prescription, meaning to have +added also somewhat of their own for her comfort.’ Bayly was a Fellow +of New College; in 1558 was one of the proctors; in 1561 was Queen’s +Professor of Physic, and was a highly reputable man.* He died in 1592. +Thus Bayly, if he chose, could have contradicted the printed libel of +1584, which avers that he refused to prescribe for Amy, ‘misdoubting +(as he after reported) lest if they poisoned her under the name of his +potion, he might after have been hanged for a cover of their sin.’ + + + *Pettigrew, p. 17, citing Wood’s Ath. Ox. i. P. 586 (Bliss). + +Nothing was more natural and innocent than that Bayly should be asked to +prescribe, if Amy was ill. Nothing could be more audacious than to print +this tale about him, while he lived to contradict it. But it seems +far from improbable that Bayly did, for the reasons given, refuse to +prescribe for Amy, seeing (as the libel says) ‘the small need which the +good lady had of physic.’ + +FOR THIS VERY REFUSAL BY BAYLY WOULD ACCOUNT FOR THE INFORMATION GIVEN +BY CECIL TO DE QUADRA ON THE DAY OF AMY’S DEATH. AND IT IS NOT EASY TO +EXPLAIN THE SOURCE OF CECIL’S INFORMATION IN ANY OTHER WAY. + +We now reach the crucial point at which historical blunders and +confusions have been most maddeningly prevalent. Mr. Pettigrew, writing +in 1859, had no knowledge of Cecil’s corroboration of the story of the +libel--Amy in no need of physic, and the intention to poison her. Mr. +Froude, however, published in his History a somewhat erroneous version +of de Quadra’s letter about Cecil’s revelations, and Mr. Rye (1885) +accused Dudley on the basis of Mr. Froude’s version.* + + + *Froude, vi. pp. 417-421. + +Mr. Froude, then, presents a letter from de Quadra of September 11, +1560, to the Duchess of Parma, governing the Netherlands from Brussels, +‘this being the nearest point from which he could receive instructions. +The despatches were then forwarded to Philip.’ He dates de Quadra’s +letter at the top, ‘London, September 1l.’ The real date is, at the foot +of the last page, ‘Windsor, September 11.’ Omitting the first portion +of the letter, except the first sentence (which says that fresh and +important events have occurred since the writer’s last letter), Mr. +Froude makes de Quadra write: ‘On the third of THIS month’ (September +1560) ‘the Queen spoke to me about her marriage with the Arch Duke. She +said she had made up her mind to marry and that the Arch Duke was to +be the man. She has just now told me drily that she does not intend to +marry, and that it cannot be.’ + +When, we ask, is ‘just now’? + +Mr. Froude goes on: ‘After my conversation with the Queen, I met the +Secretary, Cecil, whom I knew to be in disgrace. Lord Robert, I was +aware, was endeavouring to deprive him of his place.’ Briefly, Cecil +said to de Quadra that he thought of retiring, that ruin was coming on +the Queen ‘through her intimacy with Lord Robert. The Lord Robert had +made himself master of the business of the State and of the person of +the Queen, to the extreme injury of the realm, with the intention of +marrying her, and she herself was shutting herself up in the palace to +the peril of her health and life.’ Cecil begged de Quadra to remonstrate +with the Queen. After speaking of her finances, Cecil went on, in Mr. +Froude’s version: ‘Last of all he said they were thinking of destroying +Lord Robert’s wife. THEY HAD GIVEN OUT THAT SHE WAS ILL; BUT SHE WAS +NOT ILL AT ALL; SHE WAS VERY WELL, AND WAS TAKING CARE NOT TO BE +POISONED....’ [The capitals are mine.] + +This is the very state of things reported in ‘Leicester’s Commonwealth.’ +Cecil may easily have known the circumstances, if, as stated in that +libel, Bayly had been consulted, had found Amy ‘in no need of physic,’ +and had refused to prescribe. Bayly would blab, and Cecil had spies +everywhere to carry the report: the extent and precision of his secret +service are well known. Cecil added some pious remarks. God would not +permit the crime. Mr. Froude goes on: ‘The day after this conversation, +the Queen on her return from hunting told me that Lord Robert’s wife was +dead or nearly so, and begged me to say nothing about it.’ After some +political speculations, the letter, in Froude, ends, ‘Since this was +written the death of Lord Robert’s wife has been given out publicly. The +Queen said in Italian “Que si ha rotto il collo” [“that she has broken +her neck”]. It appears that she fell down a staircase.’ + +Mr. Froude, after disposing of the ideas that de Quadra lied, or that +Cecil spoke ‘in mere practice or diplomatic trickery,’ remarks: ‘Certain +it is that on September 8, at the time, or within a day of the time, +when Cecil told the Spanish ambassador that there was a plot to +kill her, Anne Dudley [Anne or Amy] was found dead at the foot of a +staircase.’ This must be true, for the Queen told de Quadra, PRIVATELY, +‘on the day after’ Cecil unbosomed himself. The fatal news, we know, +reached Windsor on September 9, we do not know at what hour. The Queen +told de Quadra probably on September 9. If the news arrived late (and +Dudley’s first letter on the subject is ‘IN THE EVENING’ of September +9), Elizabeth may have told de Quadra on the morning of September 10. + +The inferences were drawn (by myself and others) that Elizabeth had told +de Quadra, on September 3, ‘the third of THIS month’ (as Mr. Froude, +by a slip of the pen, translates ‘a tres del passado’), that she would +marry the Arch Duke; that Cecil spoke to de Quadra on the same day, and +that ‘the day after this conversation’ (September 4) the Queen told de +Quadra that Amy ‘was dead or nearly so.’ The presumption would be that +the Queen spoke of Amy’s death FOUR DAYS BEFORE IT OCCURRED, and a +very awkward position, in that case, would be the Queen’s. Guilty +foreknowledge would be attributed to her. This is like the real +situation if Dr. Ernst Bekker is right.* Dr. Bekker, knowing from the +portion of de Quadra’s letter omitted by Mr. Froude, that he reached the +Court at Windsor on September 6, 1560, supposes that he had interviews +with Elizabeth and Cecil on that day, and that Elizabeth, prematurely, +announced to him Amy’s death, next day, on September 7. But Mr. Gairdner +has proved that this scheme of dates is highly improbable. + + + *Elizabeth and Leicester, Giesener Studien auf dem Gebiet der +Geschichte, v p.48. Giesen, 1890. + +In the ‘English Historical Review,’ * Mr. Gairdner, examining the +question, used Mr. Froude’s transcripts in the British Museum, and made +some slight corrections in his translation, but omitted to note the +crucial error of the ‘third of THIS month’ for ‘the third of LAST +month.’ This was in 1886. Mr. Gairdner’s arguments as to dates were +unconvincing, in this his first article. But in 1892 the letter of de +Quadra was retranslated from Mr. Froude’s transcript, in the Spanish +Calendar (i. pp. 174-176). The translation was again erroneous, ‘THE +QUEEN HAD PROMISED ME AN ANSWER ABOUT THE SPANISH MARRIAGE BY THE THIRD +INSTANT’ (September 3), ‘but now she coolly tells me she cannot make up +her mind, and will not marry.’ This is all unlike Mr. Froude’s ‘On the +third of this month the Queen spoke to me about her marriage WITH THE +ARCH DUKE. SHE SAID THAT SHE HAD MADE UP HER MIND TO MARRY AND THAT THE +ARCH DUKE WAS TO BE THE MAN.’ There is, in fact, in Mr. Froude’s copy +of the original Spanish, not a word about the Arch Duke, nor is there in +Baron Lettenhove’s text. The remark has crept in from an earlier letter +of de Quadra, of August 4, 1560.** But neither is there anything about +‘promising an answer by the third instant,’ as in the Calendar; and +there is nothing at all about ‘the third instant,’ or (as in Mr. Froude) +‘the third of this month.’ + + + *No. 2, April 1886, pp. 235-259. + + **Spanish Calendar, i. pp. 171-174. + +The Queen’s character has thus suffered, and the whole controversy +has been embroiled. In 1883, three years before the appearance of Mr. +Gairdner’s article of 1886, nine years before the Calendar appeared, the +correct version of de Quadra’s letter of September 11, 1560, had been +published by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove in his ‘Relations Politiques des +Pays-Bas et de l’Angleterre sous le Regne de Philippe II’ (vol. ii. pp. +529, 533). In 1897, Mr. Gairdner’s attention was called to the state of +affairs by the article, already cited, of Dr. Ernst Bekker. Mr. Gairdner +then translated the Belgian printed copy of de Quadra’s letter, with +comments.* + + + *English Historical Review, January 1898, pp. 83-90. + +Matters now became clear. Mr. Froude’s transcript and translation had +omitted all the first long paragraph of the letter, which proved that de +Quadra went to Windsor, to the Court, on September 6. Next, the +passage about ‘the third of THIS month’ really runs ‘I showed her much +dissatisfaction about her marriage, in [on?] which on the third of LAST +month [August] she had told me she was already resolved and that she +assuredly meant to marry. Now she has coolly told me that she cannot +make up her mind, and that she does not intend to marry.’ (Mr. +Gairdner’s translation, 1898.) So the blot on the Queen’s scutcheon +as to her foreknowledge and too previous announcement of Amy’s death +disappears. But how did Mr. Gairdner, in 1886, using Mr. Froude’s +transcript of the original Spanish, fail to see that it contained no +Arch Duke, and no ‘third of the month’? Mr. Froude’s transcript of the +original Spanish, but not his translation thereof, was correct.* + + + *As to Verney, Appleyard, and Foster (see pages commencing:--‘Here +it may be well to consider’), Cecil, in April 1566, names Foster +and Appleyard, but not Verney, among the ‘particular friends’ whom +Leicester, if he marries the Queen, ‘will study to enhanss to welth, to +Offices, and Lands.’ Bartlett, Cumnor Place, p. 73, London 1850. + + +2. AMY’S DEATH AND WHAT FOLLOWED + + +So far the case against Dudley, or servants of Dudley, has looked very +black. There are the scandals, too dark for ambassadors to write, but +mouthed aloud among the common people, about Dudley and the Queen. There +is de Quadra’s talk of a purpose to poison Amy, in November-January, +1559-1560. There is the explicit statement of Cecil, as to the intended +poisoning (probably derived from Dr. Bayly), and as to Dudley’s +‘possession of the Queen’s person,’ the result of his own observation. +There is the coincidence of Amy’s violent death with Cecil’s words to de +Quadra (September 8 or 9, 1560). + +But here the case takes a new turn. Documents appear, letters from and +to Dudley at the time of the event, which are totally inconsistent with +guilt on his part. These documents (in the Pepys MSS. at Cambridge) are +COPIES of letters between Dudley and Thomas Blount, a gentleman of good +family, whom he addresses as ‘Cousin.’ Blount, long after, in May 1567, +was examined on the affair before the Privy Council, and Mr. Froude very +plausibly suggests that Blount produced the copies in the course of the +inquiry. But why COPIES? We can only say that the originals may also +have been shown, and the copies made for the convenience of the members +of the Council. It is really incredible that the letters were forged, +after date, to prove Dudley’s innocence. + +In the usual blundering way, Mr. Pettigrew dates one letter of Dudley’s +‘September 27.’ If that date were right, it would suggest that TWO +coroner’s inquests were held, one after Amy’s burial (on September 22), +but Mr. Gairdner says that the real date of the letter is September 12.* +So the date is given by Bartlett, in his ‘History of Cumnor Place,’ and +by Adlard (1870), following Bartlett, and Craik (1848). + + + *English Historical Review, No. 2, p. 243, note. + +The first letter, from Dudley, at Windsor ‘this 9th day of September in +the evening,’ proves that Blount, early on September 9, the day after +Amy’s death, went from Leicester, at Windsor, towards Berkshire. He had +not long gone when Bowes (a retainer of Leicester, of Forster, or of +Amy) brought to Dudley the fatal news. ‘By him I do understand that my +wife is dead and, as he saith, by a fall from a pair of stairs. Little +other understanding can I have from him.’ Throughout the correspondence +Leicester does not utter one word of sorrow for Amy, as, had the letters +been written for exhibition, he would almost certainly have done. The +fear of his own danger and disgrace alone inspires him, and he takes +every measure to secure a full, free, and minute examination. ‘Have no +respect to any living person.’ A coroner’s jury is to be called, the +body is to be examined; Appleyard and others of Amy’s kin have already +been sent for to go to Cumnor. + +From Cumnor, Blount replied on September 11. He only knew that ‘my lady +is dead, and, as it seemeth, with a fall, but yet how, or which way, I +cannot learn.’ Not even at Cumnor could Blount discover the manner of +the accident. On the night of the ninth he had lain at Abingdon, the +landlord of the inn could tell him no more than Dudley already knew. +Amy’s servants had been at ‘the fair’ at Abingdon: she herself was said +to have insisted on their going thither very early in the day; among +them Bowes went, as he told Blount, who met him on the road, as he rode +to see Dudley. He said that Amy ‘was very angry’ with any who stayed, +and with Mrs. Oddingsell, who refused to go. Pinto (probably Amy’s +maid), ‘who doth love her dearly,’ confirmed Bowes. She believed the +death to be ‘a very accident.’ She had heard Amy ‘divers times pray +to God to deliver her from desperation,’ but entirely disbelieved +in suicide, which no one would attempt, perhaps, by falling down two +flights of stairs. + +Before Blount arrived at Cumnor on September 10, the coroner’s jury +had been chosen, sensible men, but some of them hostile to Forster. By +September 12 (NOT 27) Dudley had retired from Court and was at Kew, but +had received Blount’s letter. He bade Blount tell the jury to inquire +faithfully and find an honest verdict. On the thirteenth Blount again +wrote from Cumnor, meaning to join Dudley next day: ‘I I have ALMOST +NOTHING that can make me so much [as?] to think that any man can be the +doer of it... the circumstances and the many things which I can learn +doth persuade me that only misfortune hath done it and nothing else.’ +There is another letter by Dudley from Windsor, without date. He has had +a reassuring letter from Smythe, foreman of the jury. He wishes them to +examine ‘as long as they lawfully may,’ and that a fresh jury should +try the case again. He wishes Sir Richard Blount to help. Appleyard and +Arthur Robsart have been present. He means to have no more dealings with +the jury; his only ‘dealings’ seem to have been his repeated requests +that they would be diligent and honest. ‘I am right glad they be all +strangers to me.’* + + + *Pettigrew, pp. 28-32. + +These letters are wholly inconsistent with guilt, in the faintest +degree, on the side of Dudley. But people were not satisfied. There is +a letter to Cecil, of September 17, from Lever, a minister at Coventry, +saying that the country was full of mutterings and dangerous suspicions, +and that there must be earnest searching and trying of the truth.* + + + *Burghley Papers, Haynes, 362. + +Suspicion was inevitable, but what could a jury do, more than, according +to Blount, the jury had done? Yet there is dense obscurity as to the +finding of the jury. We have seen that Appleyard, Amy’s half-brother, +was at Cumnor during the inquest. Yet, in 1567, he did not know, +or pretended not to know, what the verdict had been. ‘Leicester’s +Commonwealth’ says ‘she was found murdered (as all men said) by the +crowner’s inquest,’ as if the verdict was not published, but was a mere +matter of rumour--‘as all men said.’ Appleyard’s behaviour need not +detain us long, as he was such a shuffling knave that his statements, on +either side, were just what he found expedient in varying circumstances. +Dudley, after Amy’s death, obtained for him various profitable billets; +in 1564 he was made keeper of the Marshalsea, had a commission under the +Great Seal to seize concealed prizes at sea without legal proceedings, +had the Portership of Berwick, and the Sheriffship of Norfolk and +Suffolk, while Leicester stood guarantor of a debt of his for 400 +pounds. These facts he admitted before the Privy Council in 1567.* But +Leicester might naturally do what he could for his dead wife’s brother: +we cannot argue that the jobs done for Appleyard were hush-money, +enormous as these jobs were. Yet in this light Appleyard chose to +consider them. He seems to have thought that Leicester did not treat him +well enough, and wanted to get rid of him in Ireland or France, and he +began, about 1566-67, to blab of what he could say an’ he would. He ‘let +fall words of anger, and said that for Dudley’s sake he had covered the +murder of his sister.’ + + + *Rye, pp. 60-62. Hatfield MSS., Calendar, i. 345-352, May 1567. + +Mr. Froude has here misconceived the situation, as Mr. Gairdner shows. +Mr. Froude’s words are ‘being examined by Cecil, he admitted the +investigation at Cumnor had after all been inadequately conducted.’* +In fact, Appleyard admitted that he had SAID this, and much more, in +private talk among his associates. Before the Council he subsequently +withdrew what he admitted having said in private talk. It does not +signify what he said, or what he withdrew, but Mr. Froude unluckily +did not observe a document which proved that Appleyard finally ate his +words, and he concludes that ‘although Dudley was innocent of a direct +association with the crime, the unhappy lady was sacrificed to his +ambition. Dudley himself... used private means, notwithstanding his +affectation of sincerity, to prevent the search from being pressed +inconveniently far’--that is, ‘if Appleyard spoke the truth.’ But +Appleyard denied that he had spoken the truth, a fact overlooked by Mr. +Froude.** + + + *Froude, vi. p. 430. + + **Ibid. vi. pp 430, 431. + +The truth stood thus: in 1566-67 there was, or had been, some idea +that Leicester might, after all, marry the Queen. Appleyard told Thomas +Blount that he was being offered large sums by great persons to reopen +the Cumnor affair. Blount was examined by the Council, and gave +to Leicester a written account of what he told them. One Huggon, +Appleyard’s ‘brother,’ had informed Leicester that courtiers were +practising on Appleyard, ‘to search the manner of his sister’s death.’ +Leicester sent Blount to examine Appleyard as to who the courtiers were. +Appleyard was evasive, but at last told Blount a long tale of mysterious +attempts to seduce him into stirring up the old story. He promised to +meet Leicester, but did not: his brother, Huggon, named Norfolk, Sussex, +and others as the ‘practisers.’ Later, by Leicester’s command, Blount +brought Appleyard to him at Greenwich. What speeches passed Blount did +not know, but Leicester was very angry, and bade Appleyard begone, ‘with +great words of defiance.’ It is clear that, with or without grounds, +Appleyard was trying to blackmail Leicester. + +Before the Council (May 1567) Appleyard confessed that he had said to +people that he had often moved the Earl to let him pursue the murderers +of Amy, ‘showing certain circumstances which led him to think surely +that she was murdered.’ He had said that Leicester, on the other hand, +cited the verdict of the jury, but he himself declared that the jury, in +fact, ‘had not as yet given up their verdict.’ After these confessions +Appleyard lay in the Fleet prison, destitute, and scarce able to buy a +meal. On May 30, 1567, he wrote an abject letter to the Council. He had +been offered every opportunity of accusing those whom he suspected, and +he asked for ‘a copy of the verdict presented by the jury, whereby I +may see what the jury have found,’ after which he would take counsel’s +advice. He got a copy of the verdict (?) (would that we had the copy!) +and, naturally, as he was starving, professed himself amply satisfied by +‘proofs testified under the oaths of fifteen persons,’ that Amy’s death +was accidental. ‘I have not money left to find me two meals.’ In such a +posture, Appleyard would, of course, say anything to get himself out of +prison. Two days later he confessed that for three years he had been, in +fact, trying to blackmail Leicester on several counts, Amy’s murder and +two political charges.* + + + *See the full reports, Gairdner, English Historical Review, April +1886, 249-259, and Hatfield Calendar for the date May 1567. + +The man was a rogue, however we take him, and the sole tangible fact is +that a report of the evidence given at the inquest did exist, and that +the verdict may have been ‘Accidental Death.’ We do not know but that +an open verdict was given. Appleyard professes to have been convinced by +the evidence, not by the verdict. + +When ‘Leicester’s Apology’ appeared (1584-85) Sir Philip Sidney, +Leicester’s nephew, wrote a reply. It was easy for him to answer the +libeller’s ‘she was found murdered (as all men suppose) by the crowner’s +inquest’--by producing the actual verdict of the jury. He did not; he +merely vapoured, and challenged the libeller to the duel.* Appleyard’s +statement among his intimates, that no verdict had yet been given, seems +to point to an open verdict. + + + *Sidney’s reply is given in Adlard’s Amye Robsart and the Earl of +Leicester. London, 1870. + +The subject is alluded to by Elizabeth herself, who puts the final touch +of darkness on the mystery. Just as Archbishop Beaton, Mary’s ambassador +in Paris, vainly adjured her to pursue the inquiry into Darnley’s +murder, being urged by the talk in France, so Throgmorton, Elizabeth’s +ambassador to the French Court, was heartbroken by what he heard. +Clearly no satisfactory verdict ever reached him. He finally sent Jones, +his secretary, with a verbal message to Elizabeth. Jones boldly put the +question of the Cumnor affair. She said that ‘the matter had been tried +in the country, AND FOUND TO THE CONTRARY OF THAT WAS REPORTED.’ + +What ‘was reported’? Clearly that Leicester and retainers of his had +been the murderers of Amy. For the Queen went on, ‘Lord Robert was +in the Court, AND NONE OF HIS AT THE ATTEMPT AT HIS WIFE’S HOUSE.’ So +Verney was not there. So Jones wrote to Throgmorton on November 30, +1560.* We shall return to Throgmorton. + + + *Hardwicke Papers, i. 165. + +If Jones correctly reported Elizabeth’s words, there had been an +‘attempt at’ Cumnor Place, of which we hear nothing from any other +source. How black is the obscurity through which Blount, at Cumnor, two +days after Amy’s death, could discern--nothing! ‘A fall, yet how, or +which way, I cannot learn.’ By September 17, nine days after the death, +Lever, at Coventry, an easy day’s ride from Cumnor, knew nothing (as we +saw) of a verdict, or, at least, of a satisfactory verdict. It is true +that the Earl of Huntingdon, at Leicester, only heard of Amy’s death +on September 17, nine days after date.* Given ‘an attempt,’ Amy might +perhaps break her neck down a spiral staircase, when running away in +terror. A cord stretched across the top step would have done all that +was needed. + + + *Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 431. Huntingdon to Leicester, +Longleat MSS. I repose on Canon Jackson’s date of the manuscript letter. + +We next find confusion worse confounded, by our previous deliverer from +error, Baron Kervyn Lettenhove! What happened at Court immediately after +Amy’s death? The Baron says: ‘A fragment of a despatch of de la Quadra, +of the same period, reports Dudley to have said that his marriage had +been celebrated in presence of his brother, and of two of the Queen’s +ladies.’ For this, according to the Baron, Mr. Froude cites a letter +of the Bishop of Aquila (de Quadra) of September 11.* Mr. Froude does +nothing of the sort! He does cite ‘an abstract of de Quadra’s letters, +MS. Simancas,’ without any date at all. ‘The design of Cecil and of +those heretics to convey the kingdom to the Earl of Huntingdon is most +certain, for at last Cecil has yielded to Lord Robert, who, he says, +has married the Queen in presence of his brother and two ladies of her +bedchamber.’ So Mr. Gairdner translates from Mr. Froude’s transcript, +and he gives the date (November 20) which Mr. Froude does not give. +Major Hume translates, ‘who, THEY say, was married.’** O History! +According to Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, DUDLEY says he has married +the Queen; according to Mr. Gairdner, CECIL says so; according to Major +Hume, ‘they’ say so!*** + + + *Relations Politiques des Pays-Bas, etc., xlii., note 4. + + **Span. Cal. i. p. 178. + + ***The Spanish of this perplexing sentence is given by Froude, vi. p. +433, note 1. ‘Cecil se ha rendido a Milord Roberto el qual dice que se +hay casado con la Reyna....’ + +The point is of crucial importance to Mrs. Gallup and the believers in +the cipher wherein Bacon maintains that he is the legal son of a +wedding between Dudley and the Queen. Was there such a marriage or even +betrothal? Froude cautiously says that this was averted ‘SEEMINGLY on +Lord Robert’s authority;’ the Baron says that Lord Robert makes the +assertion; Mr. Gairdner says that Cecil is the authority, and Major +Hume declares that it is a mere on-dit--‘who, they say.’ It is +heart-breaking.* + + + *For Mr. Gairdner, English Historical Review, No. 2, p. 246. + +To deepen the darkness and distress, the official, printed, Spanish +Documentos Ineditos do not give this abstract of November 20 at all. +Major Hume translates it in full, from Mr. Froude’s transcript. + +Again, Mr. Froude inserts his undated quotation, really of November 20, +before he comes to tell of Amy Robsart’s funeral (September 22, 1560), +and the Baron, as we saw, implies that Mr. Froude dates it September 11, +the day on which the Queen publicly announced Amy’s death. + +We now have an undated letter, endorsed by Cecil ‘Sept. 1560,’ wherein +Dudley, not at Court, and in tribulation, implores Cecil’s advice and +aid. ‘I am sorry so sudden a chance should breed me so great a change.’ +He may have written from Kew, where Elizabeth had given him a house, +and where he was on September 12 (not 27). On October 13 (Froude), or +14 [‘Documentos Ineditos,’ 88, p. 310), or 15 (Spanish Calendar, i. p. +176)--for dates are strange things--de Quadra wrote a letter of which +there is only an abstract at Simancas. This abstract we quote: ‘The +contents of the letter of Bishop Quadra to his Majesty written on the +15th’ (though headed the 14th) ‘of October, and received on the 16th of +November, 1560. It relates the way in which the wife of Lord Robert +came to her death, the respect (reverencia) paid him immediately by the +members of the Council and others, and the dissimulation of the +Queen. That he had heard that they were engaged in an affair of great +importance for the confirmation of their heresies, and wished to make +the Earl of Huntingdon king, should the Queen die without children, and +that Cecil had told him that the heritage was his as a descendant of the +House of York.... That Cecil had told him that the Queen was resolved +not to marry Lord Robert, as he had learned from herself; it seemed that +the Arch Duke might be proposed.’ In mid-October, then, Elizabeth was +apparently disinclined to wed the so recently widowed Lord Robert, +though, shortly after Amy’s death, the Privy Council began to court +Dudley as future king. + +Mr. Froude writes--still before he comes to September 22--‘the Bishop +of Aquila reported that there were anxious meetings of the Council, +the courtiers paid a partial homage to Dudley.’* This appears to be +a refraction from the abstract of the letter of October 13 or 14: ‘he +relates the manner in which the wife of Lord Robert came to her death, +the respect (reverencia) paid to him immediately by members of the +Council and others.’ + + + *Froude, vi. p. 432. + +Next we come, in Mr. Froude, to Amy’s funeral (September 22), and to +Elizabeth’s resolve not to marry Leicester (October 13, 14, 15?), and to +Throgmorton’s interference in October-November. Throgmorton’s wails over +the Queen’s danger and dishonour were addressed to Cecil and the Marquis +of Northampton, from Poissy, on October 10, when he also condoled with +Dudley on the death of his wife! ‘Thanks him for his present of a nag!’ * +On the same date, October 10, Harry Killigrew, from London, wrote to +answer Throgmorton’s inquiries about Amy’s death. Certainly Throgmorton +had heard of Amy’s death before October 10: he might have heard by +September 16. What he heard comforted him not. By October 10 he should +have had news of a satisfactory verdict. But Killigrew merely said +‘she brake her neck... only by the hand of God, to my knowledge.’** On +October 17, Killigrew writes to Throgmorton ‘rumours... have been very +rife, BUT THE QUEEN SAYS SHE WILL MAKE THEM FALSE.... Leaves to his +judgment what he will not write. Has therefore sent by Jones and +Summers’ (verbally) ‘what account he wished him to make of my Lord R.’ +(Dudley). + + + *For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, pp. 347-349. + + **Ibid., 1560, p. 350. + +Then (October 28) Throgmorton tells Cecil plainly that, till he knows +what Cecil thinks, he sees no reason to advise the Queen in the matter +‘of marrying Dudley.’ Begs him ‘TO SIGNIFY PLAINLY WHAT HAS BEEN +DONE,’ and implores him, ‘in the bowels of Christ ‘... ‘to hinder that +matter.’* He writes ‘with tears and sighs,’ and--he declines to return +Cecil’s letters on the subject. ‘They be as safe in my hands as in your +own, and more safe in mine than in any messenger’s.’ + + + *For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 376. + +On October 29, Throgmorton sets forth his troubles to Chamberlain. +‘Chamberlain as a wise man can conceive how much it imports the Queen’s +honour and her realm to have the same’ (reports as to Amy’s death) +‘ceased.’ ‘He is withal brought to be weary of his life.’* + + + *For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 376. + +On November 7, Throgmorton writes to the Marquis of Northampton and to +Lord Pembroke about ‘the bruits lately risen from England... set so full +with great horror,’ and never disproved, despite Throgmorton’s prayers +for satisfaction. + +Finally Throgmorton, as we saw, had the boldness to send his secretary, +Jones, direct to Elizabeth. All the comfort he got from her was her +statement that neither Dudley nor his retainers were at the attempt at +Cumnor Place. Francis I. died in France, people had something fresh to +talk about, and the Cumnor scandal dropped out of notice. Throgmorton, +however, persevered till, in January 1561, Cecil plainly told him to +cease to meddle. Throgmorton endorsed the letter ‘A warning not to be +too busy about the matters between the Queen and Lord Robert.’* + + + *For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 498. + +It is not necessary, perhaps, to pursue further the attempts of +Dudley to marry the Queen. On January 22 he sent to de Quadra his +brother-in-law, Sir Henry, father of Sir Philip Sidney, offering to +help to restore the Church if Philip II. would back the marriage. Sidney +professed to believe, after full inquiry, that Amy died by accident. But +he admitted ‘that no one believed it;’ that ‘the preachers harped on it +in a manner prejudicial to the honour and service of the Queen, which +had caused her to move for the remedy of the disorders of this kingdom +in religion,’ and so on.* De Quadra and the preachers had no belief in +Amy’s death by accident. Nobody had, except Dudley’s relations. A year +after Amy’s death, on September 13, 1561, de Quadra wrote: ‘The Earl of +Arundel and others are drawing up copies of the testimony given in the +inquiry respecting the death of Lord Robert’s wife. Robert is now doing +his best to repair matters’ (as to a quarrel with Arundel, it seems), +‘as it appears that more is being discovered in that matter than he +wished.’** People were not so easily satisfied with the evidence as was +the imprisoned and starving Appleyard. + + + *Documentos Ineditos, 88, p. 314; Span. Cal., i. p. 179; Froude, vi. +p. 453. The translations vary: I give my own. The Spanish has misprints. + + **Span. Cal., i. p. 213; Documentos Ineditos, 88, p. 367. + +So the mystery stands. The letters of Blount and Dudley (September 9-12, +1560) entirely clear Dudley’s character, and can only be got rid of on +the wild theory that they were composed, later, to that very end. +But the precise nature of the Cumnor jury’s verdict is unknown, and +Elizabeth’s words about ‘the attempt at her house’ prove that something +concealed from us did occur. It might be a mere half-sportive attempt by +rustics to enter a house known to be, at the moment, untenanted by +the servants, and may have caused to Amy an alarm, so that, rushing +downstairs in terror, she fell and broke her neck. The coincidence of +her death with the words of Cecil would thus be purely fortuitous, and +coincidences as extraordinary have occurred. Or a partisan of Dudley’s, +finding poison difficult or impossible, may have, in his zeal, murdered +Amy, under the disguise of an accident. The theory of suicide would be +plausible, if it were conceivable that a person would commit suicide by +throwing herself downstairs. + +We can have no certainty, but, at least, we show how Elizabeth came to +be erroneously accused of reporting Amy’s death before it occurred.* + + + *For a wild Italian legend of Amy’s murder, written in 1577, see the +Hatfield Calendar, ii. 165-170. + + + + +VII. THE VOICES OF JEANNE D’ARC + + +Some of our old English historians write of Jeanne d’Arc, the Pucelle, +as ‘the Puzel.’ The author of the ‘First Part of Henry VI.,’ whether he +was Shakespeare or not, has a pun on the word: + + ‘Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,’ + +the word ‘Puzzel’ carrying an unsavoury sense. (Act I. Scene 4.) A +puzzle, in the usual meaning of the word, the Maid was to the dramatist. +I shall not enter into the dispute as to whether Shakespeare was the +author, or part author, of this perplexed drama. But certainly the role +of the Pucelle is either by two different hands, or the one author was +‘in two minds’ about the heroine. Now she appears as la ribaulde +of Glasdale’s taunt, which made her weep, as the ‘bold strumpet’ of +Talbot’s insult in the play. The author adopts or even exaggerates the +falsehoods of Anglo-Burgundian legend. The personal purity of Jeanne +was not denied by her judges. On the other hand the dramatist makes his +‘bold strumpet’ a paladin of courage and a perfect patriot, reconciling +Burgundy to the national cause by a moving speech on ‘the great pity +that was in France.’ How could a ribaulde, a leaguer-lass, a witch, +a sacrificer of blood to devils, display the valour, the absolute +self-sacrifice, the eloquent and tender love of native land attributed +to the Pucelle of the play? Are there two authors, and is Shakespeare +one of them, with his understanding of the human heart? Or is there one +puzzled author producing an impossible and contradictory character? + +The dramatist has a curious knowledge of minute points in Jeanne’s +career: he knows and mocks at the sword with five crosses which she +found, apparently by clairvoyance, at Fierbois, but his history is +distorted and dislocated almost beyond recognition. Jeanne proclaims +herself to the Dauphin as the daughter of a shepherd, and as a pure +maid. Later she disclaims both her father and her maidenhood. She avers +that she was first inspired by a vision of the Virgin (which she never +did in fact), and she is haunted by ‘fiends,’ who represent her St. +Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret. After the relief of Orleans +the Dauphin exclaims: + + ‘No longer on Saint Denis will we cry, + But Joan la Pucelle shall be France’s saint,’ + +a prophecy which may yet be accomplished. Already accomplished is +d’Alencon’s promise: + + ‘We’ll set thy statue in some holy place.’ + +To the Duke of Burgundy, the Pucelle of the play speaks as the Maid +might have spoken: + + ‘Look on thy country, look on fertile France, + And see the cities and the towns defaced + By wasting ruin of the cruel foe! + As looks the mother on her lowly babe, + When death doth close his tender dying eyes, + See, see, the pining malady of France; + Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds, + Which thou thyself hast given her woful breast! + O turn thy edged sword another way; + Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help! + One drop of blood drawn from thy country’s bosom + Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore; + Return thee, therefore, with a flood of tears, + And wash away thy country’s stained spots.’ + +Patriotism could find no better words, and how can the dramatist +represent the speaker as a ‘strumpet’ inspired by ‘fiends’? To her +fiends when they desert her, the Pucelle of the play cries: + + ‘Cannot my body, nor blood sacrifice, + Entreat you to your wonted furtherance? + Then take my soul; my body, soul, and all, + Before that England give the French the foil.’ + +She is willing to give body and soul for France, and this, in the eyes +of the dramatist, appears to be her crime. For a French girl to bear +a French heart is to stamp her as the tool of devils. It is an odd +theology, and not in the spirit of Shakespeare. Indeed the Pucelle, +while disowning her father and her maidenhood, again speaks to the +English as Jeanne might have spoken: + + ‘I never had to do with wicked spirits: + But you, that are polluted with your lusts, + Stained with the guiltless blood of innocents, + Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices, + Because you want the grace that others have, + You judge it straight a thing impossible + To compass wonders but by help of devils. + No, misconceiv’d! Joan of Arc hath been + A virgin from her tender infancy, + Chaste and immaculate in very thought; + Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus’d, + Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.’ + +The vengeance was not long delayed. ‘The French and my countrymen,’ +writes Patrick Abercromby, ‘drove the English from province to province, +and from town to town’ of France, while on England fell the Wars of the +Roses. But how can the dramatist make the dealer with fiends speak as +the Maid, in effect, did speak at her trial? He adds the most ribald of +insults; the Pucelle exclaiming: + + ‘It was Alencon that enjoyed my love!’ + +The author of the play thus speaks with two voices: in one Jeanne acts +and talks as she might have done (had she been given to oratory); in the +other she is the termagant of Anglo-Burgundian legend or myth. + +Much of this perplexity still haunts the histories of the Maid. Her +courage, purity, patriotism, and clear-sighted military and political +common-sense; the marvellous wisdom of her replies to her judges--as of +her own St. Catherine before the fifty philosophers of her legend--are +universally acknowledged. This girl of seventeen, in fact, alone of the +French folk, understood the political and military situation. To restore +the confidence of France it was necessary that the Dauphin should +penetrate the English lines to Rheims, and there be crowned. She broke +the lines, she led him to Rheims, and crowned him. England was besieging +his last hold in the north and centre, Orleans, on a military policy +of pure ‘bluff.’ The city was at no time really invested. The besieging +force, as English official documents prove, was utterly inadequate to +its task, except so far as prestige and confidence gave power. Jeanne +simply destroyed and reversed the prestige, and, after a brilliant +campaign on the Loire, opened the way to Rheims. The next step was +to take Paris, and Paris she certainly would have taken, but the long +delays of politicians enabled Beaufort to secure peace with Scotland, +under James I., and to throw into Paris the English troops collected for +a crusade against the Hussites.* The Maid, unsupported, if not actually +betrayed, failed and was wounded before Paris, and prestige returned +for a while to the English party. She won minor victories, was taken at +Compiegne (May 1430), and a year later crowned her career by martyrdom. +But she had turned the tide, and within the six years of her prophecy +Paris returned to the national cause. The English lost, in losing Paris, +‘a greater gage than Orleans.’ + + + *The Scottish immobility was secured in May-June 1429, the months of +the Maid’s Loire campaign. Exchequer Rolls, iv. ciii. 466. Bain, +Calendar, iv. 212, Foedera, x. 428,1704-1717. + +So much is universally acknowledged, but how did the Maid accomplish +her marvels? Brave as she certainly was, wise as she certainly was, +beautiful as she is said to have been, she would neither have risked her +unparalleled adventure, nor been followed, but for her strange visions +and ‘voices.’ She left her village and began her mission, as she said, +in contradiction to the strong common-sense of her normal character. She +resisted for long the advice that came to her in the apparent shape of +audible external voices and external visions of saint and angel. By a +statement of actual facts which she could not possibly have learned in +any normal way, she overcame, it is said, the resistance of the Governor +of Vaucouleurs, and obtained an escort to convey her to the King at +Chinon.* She conquered the doubts of the Dauphin by a similar display of +supernormal knowledge. She satisfied, at Poictiers, the divines of the +national party after a prolonged examination, of which the record, ‘The +Book of Poictiers,’ has disappeared. In these ways she inspired the +confidence which, in the real feebleness of the invading army, was +all that was needed to ensure the relief of Orleans, while, as Dunois +attested, she shook the confidence which was the strength of England. +About these facts the historical evidence is as good as for any other +events of the war. + + + *Refer to paragraph commencing “The ‘Journal du Siege d’Orleans’” + infra. + +The essence, then, of the marvels wrought by Jeanne d’Arc lay in what +she called her ‘Voices,’ the mysterious monitions, to her audible, and +associated with visions of the heavenly speakers. Brave, pure, wise, and +probably beautiful as she was, the King of France would not have trusted +a peasant lass, and men disheartened by frequent disaster would not have +followed her, but for her voices. + +The science or theology of the age had three possible ways of explaining +these experiences: + +1. The Maid actually was inspired by Michael, Margaret, and Catherine. +From them she learned secrets of the future, of words unspoken save +in the King’s private prayer, and of events distant in space, like the +defeat of the French and Scots at Rouvray, which she announced, on the +day of the occurrence, to Baudricourt, hundreds of leagues away, at +Vaucouleurs. + +2. The monitions came from ‘fiends.’ This was the view of the +prosecutors in general at her trial, and of the author of ‘Henry VI., +Part I.’ + +3. One of her judges, Beaupere, was a man of some courage and +consistency. He maintained, at the trial of Rouen, and at the trial of +Rehabilitation (1452-1456), that the voices were mere illusions of a +girl who fasted much. In her fasts she would construe natural sounds, as +of church bells, or perhaps of the wind among woods, into audible words, +as Red Indian seers do to this day. + +This third solution must and does neglect, or explain by chance +occurrence, or deny, the coincidences between facts not normally +knowable, and the monitions of the Voices, accepted as genuine, though +inexplicable, by M. Quicherat, the great palaeographer and historian +of Jeanne.* He by no means held a brief for the Church; Father Ayroles +continually quarrels with Quicherat, as a Freethinker. He certainly was +a free thinker in the sense that he was the first historian who did +not accept the theory of direct inspiration by saints (still less by +fiends), and yet took liberty to admit that the Maid possessed knowledge +not normally acquired. Other ‘freethinking’ sympathisers with the +heroine have shuffled, have skated adroitly past and round the facts, as +Father Ayroles amusingly demonstrates in his many passages of arms with +Michelet, Simeon Luce, Henri Martin, Fabre, and his other opponents. +M. Quicherat merely says that, if we are not to accept the marvels as +genuine, we must abandon the whole of the rest of the evidence as to +Jeanne d’Arc, and there he leaves the matter. + + + *Quicherat’s five volumes of documents, the Proces, is now +accessible, as far as records of the two trials go, in the English +version edited by Mr. Douglas Murray. + +Can we not carry the question further? Has the psychological research +of the last half-century added nothing to our means of dealing with the +problem? Negatively, at least, something is gained. Science no longer +avers, with M. Lelut in his book on the Daemon of Socrates, that every +one who has experience of hallucinations, of impressions of the senses +not produced by objective causes, is mad. It is admitted that sane and +healthy persons may have hallucinations of lights, of voices, of visual +appearances. The researches of Mr. Galton, of M. Richet, of Brierre +du Boismont, of Mr. Gurney, and an army of other psychologists, have +secured this position. + +Maniacs have hallucinations, especially of voices, but all who have +hallucinations are not maniacs. Jeanne d’Arc, so subject to ‘airy +tongues,’ was beyond all doubt a girl of extraordinary physical strength +and endurance, of the highest natural lucidity and common-sense, and +of health which neither wounds, nor fatigue, nor cruel treatment, could +seriously impair. Wounded again and again, she continued to animate the +troops by her voice, and was in arms undaunted next day. Her leap of +sixty feet from the battlements of Beaurevoir stunned but did not long +incapacitate her. Hunger, bonds, and the protracted weariness of months +of cross-examination produced an illness but left her intellect as keen, +her courage as unabated, her humour as vivacious, her memory as minutely +accurate as ever. There never was a more sane and healthy human being. +We never hear that, in the moments of her strange experiences, she was +‘entranced,’ or even dissociated from the actual occurrences of the +hour. She heard her voices, though not distinctly, in the uproar of +the brawling court which tried her at Rouen; she saw her visions in the +imminent deadly breach, when she rallied her men to victory. In this +alertness she is a contrast to a modern seeress, subject, like her, +to monitions of an hallucinatory kind, but subject during intervals of +somnambulisme. To her case, which has been carefully, humorously, and +sceptically studied, we shall return. + +Meantime let us take voices and visions on the lowest, most prevalent, +and least startling level. A large proportion of people, including the +writer, are familiar with the momentary visions beheld with shut eyes +between waking and sleeping (illusions hypnagogiques). The waking self +is alert enough to contemplate these processions of figures and +faces, these landscapes too, which (in my own case) it is incapable of +purposefully calling up. + +Thus, in a form of experience which is almost as common as ordinary +dreaming, we see that the semi-somnolent self possesses a faculty not +always given to the waking self. Compared with my own waking self, for +instance, my half-asleep self is almost a personality of genius. He can +create visions that the waking self can remember, but cannot originate, +and cannot trace to any memory of waking impressions. These apparently +trivial things thus point to the existence of almost wholly submerged +potentialities in a mind so everyday, commonplace, and, so to speak, +superficial as mine. This fact suggests that people who own such minds, +the vast majority of mankind, ought not to make themselves the measure +of the potentialities of minds of a rarer class, say that of Jeanne +d’Arc. The secret of natures like hers cannot be discovered, so long as +scientific men incapable even of ordinary ‘visualising’ (as Mr. Galton +found) make themselves the canon or measure of human nature. + +Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that some sane persons are +capable of hallucinatory impressions akin to but less transient than +illusions hypnagogiques, when, as far as they or others can perceive, +they are wide awake. Of such sane persons Goethe and Herschel were +examples. In this way we can most easily envisage, or make thinkable +by ourselves, the nature of the experiences of Jeanne d’Arc and other +seers. + +In the other state of semi-somnolence, while still alert enough to watch +and reason on the phenomena, we occasionally, though less commonly, hear +what may be called ‘inner voices.’ That is to say, we do not suppose +that any one from without is speaking to us, but we hear, as it were, a +voice within us making some remark, usually disjointed enough, and not +suggested by any traceable train of thought of which we are conscious at +the time. This experience partly enables us to understand the cases of +sane persons who, when to all appearance wide awake, occasionally hear +voices which appear to be objective and caused by actual vibrations of +the atmosphere. I am acquainted with at least four persons, all of them +healthy, and normal enough, who have had such experiences. In all four +cases, the apparent voice (though the listeners have no superstitious +belief on the subject) has communicated intelligence which proved to +be correct. But in only one instance, I think, was the information +thus communicated beyond the reach of conjecture, based perhaps on some +observation unconsciously made or so little attended to when made that +it could not be recalled by the ordinary memory. + +We are to suppose, then, that in such cases the person concerned being +to all appearance fully awake, his or her mind has presented a thought, +not as a thought, but in the shape of words that seemed to be externally +audible. One hearer, in fact, at the moment wondered that the apparent +speaker indicated by the voice and words should be shouting so loud in +an hotel. The apparent speaker was actually not in the hotel, but at +a considerable distance, well out of earshot, and, though in a nervous +crisis, was not shouting at all. We know that, between sleeping and +waking, our minds can present to us a thought in the apparent form of +articulate words, internally audible. The hearers, when fully awake, +of words that seem to be externally audible, probably do but carry the +semi-vigilant experience to a higher degree, as do the beholders of +visual hallucinations, when wide awake. In this way, at least, we can +most nearly attain to understanding their experiences. To a relatively +small proportion of people, in wakeful existence, experiences occur +with distinctness, which to a large proportion of persons occur but +indistinctly, + + ‘On the margin grey + ‘Twixt the soul’s night and day.’ + +Let us put it, then, that Jeanne d’Arc’s was an advanced case of the +mental and bodily constitution exemplified by the relatively small +proportion of people, the sane seers of visual hallucinations and +hearers of unreal voices. Her thoughts--let us say the thoughts of +the deepest region of her being--presented themselves in visual forms, +taking the shapes of favourite saints--familiar to her in works of +sacred art--attended by an hallucinatory brightness of light [‘a +photism’), and apparently uttering words of advice which was in conflict +with Jeanne’s great natural shrewdness and strong sense of duty to +her parents. ‘She MUST go into France,’ and for two or three years she +pleaded her ignorance and incompetence. She declined to go. She COULD +resist her voices. In prison at Beaurevoir, they forbade her to leap +from the tower. But her natural impatience and hopefulness prevailed, +and she leaped. ‘I would rather trust my soul to God than my body to the +English.’ This she confessed to as sinful, though not, she hoped, of +the nature of deadly sin. Her inmost and her superficial nature were in +conflict. + +It is now desirable to give, as briefly as possible, Jeanne’s own +account of the nature of her experiences, as recorded in the book of her +trial at Rouen, with other secondhand accounts, offered on oath, at +her trial of Rehabilitation, by witnesses to whom she had spoken on the +subject. She was always reticent on the theme. + +The period when Jeanne supposed herself to see her first visions was +physiologically critical. She was either between thirteen and fourteen, +or between twelve and thirteen. M. Simeon Luce, in his ‘Jeanne d’Arc +a Domremy,’ held that she was of the more advanced age, and his date +(1425) fitted in with some public events, which, in his opinion, were +probably the occasions of the experiences. Pere Ayroles prefers the +earlier period (1424) when the aforesaid public events had not yet +occurred. After examining the evidence on both sides, I am disposed to +think, or rather I am certain, that Pere Ayroles is in the right. In +either case Jeanne was at a critical age, when, as I understand, female +children are occasionally subject to illusions. Speaking then as a +non-scientific student, I submit that on the side of ordinary causes for +the visions and voices we have: + +1. The period in Jeanne’s life when they began. + +2. Her habits of fasting and prayer. + +3. Her intense patriotic enthusiasm, which may, for all that we know, +have been her mood before the voices announced to her the mission. + +Let us then examine the evidence as to the origin and nature of the +alleged phenomena. + +I shall begin with the letter of the Senechal de Berry, Perceval de +Boulainvilliers, to the Duke of Milan.* The date is June 21st, 1429, six +weeks after the relief of Orleans. After a few such tales as that the +cocks crowed when Jeanne was born, and that her flock was lucky, he +dates her first vision peractis aetatis suae duodecim annis, ‘after she +was twelve.’ Briefly, the tale is that, in a rustic race for flowers, +one of the other children cried, ‘Joanna, video te volantem juxta +terrain,’ ‘Joan, I see you flying near the ground.’ This is the one +solitary hint of ‘levitation’ (so common in hagiology and witchcraft) +which occurs in the career of the Maid. This kind of story is so +persistent that I knew it must have been told in connection with the +Irvingite movement in Scotland. And it was! There is, perhaps, just one +trace that flying was believed to be an accomplishment of Jeanne’s. When +Frere Richard came to her at Troyes, he made, she says, the sign of the +cross.** She answered, ‘Approchez hardiment, je ne m’envouleray pas.’ +Now the contemporary St. Colette was not infrequently ‘levitated’! + + + *Proces, v. 115. + + **Proces, i. 100. + +To return to the Voices. After her race, Jeanne was quasi rapta et a +sensibus alienata [‘dissociated’), then juxta eam affuit juvenis quidam, +a youth stood by her who bade her ‘go home, for her mother needed her.’ + +‘Thinking that it was her brother or a neighbour’ (apparently she only +heard the voice, and did not see the speaker), she hurried home, and +found that she had not been sent for. Next, as she was on the point of +returning to her friends, ‘a very bright cloud appeared to her, and out +of the cloud came a voice,’ bidding her take up her mission. She was +merely puzzled, but the experiences were often renewed. This letter, +being contemporary, represents current belief, based either on Jeanne’s +own statements before the clergy at Poictiers (April 1429) or on the +gossip of Domremy. It should be observed that till Jeanne told her own +tale at Rouen (1431) we hear not one word about saints or angels. She +merely spoke of ‘my voices,’ ‘my counsel,’ ‘my Master.’ If she was +more explicit at Poictiers, her confessions did not find their way into +surviving letters and journals, not even into the journal of the hostile +Bourgeois de Paris. We may glance at examples. + +The ‘Journal du Siege d’Orleans’ is in parts a late document, in +parts ‘evidently copied from a journal kept in presence of the actual +events.’* The ‘Journal,’ in February 1429, vaguely says that, ‘about +this time’ our Lord used to appear to a maid, as she was guarding her +flock, or ‘cousant et filant.’ A St. Victor MS. has courant et saillant +(running and jumping), which curiously agrees with Boulainvilliers. The +‘Journal,’ after telling of the Battle of the Herrings (February 12th, +1429), in which the Scots and French were cut up in an attack on an +English convoy, declares that Jeanne ‘knew of it by grace divine,’ +and that her vue a distance induced Baudricourt to send her to the +Dauphin.** This was attested by Baudricourt’s letters.*** + + + *Quicherat. In Proces, iv. 95. + + **Proces, iv. 125. + + ***Proces, iv. 125. + +All this may have been written as late as 1468, but a vague reference to +an apparition of our Lord rather suggests contemporary hearsay, before +Jeanne came to Orleans. Jeanne never claimed any such visions of our +Lord. The story of the clairvoyance as to the Battle of the Herrings is +also given in the ‘Chronique de la Pucelle.’* M. Quicherat thinks that +the passage is amplified from the ‘Journal du Siege.’ On the other hand, +M. Vallet (de Viriville) attributes with assurance the ‘Chronique de la +Pucelle’ to Cousinot de Montreuil, who was the Dauphin’s secretary at +Poictiers, when the Maid was examined there in April 1429.** If Cousinot +was the author, he certainly did not write his chronicle till long after +date. However, he avers that the story of clairvoyance was current in +the spring of 1429. The dates exactly harmonise; that is to say, between +the day of the battle, February 12th, and the setting forth of the Maid +from Vaucouleurs, there is just time for the bad news from Rouvray to +arrive, confirming her statement, and for a day or two of preparation. +But perhaps, after the arrival of the bad news, Baudricourt may have +sent Jeanne to the King in a kind of despair. Things could not be worse. +If she could do no good, she could do no harm. + + + *Proces, iv. 206. + + **Histoire de Charles VII., ii. 62. + +The documents, whether contemporary or written later by contemporaries, +contain none of the references to visions of St. Margaret, St. +Catherine, and St. Michael, which we find in Jeanne’s own replies at +Rouen. For this omission it is not easy to account, even if we suppose +that, except when giving evidence on oath, the Maid was extremely +reticent. That she was reticent, we shall prove from evidence of d’Aulon +and Dunois. Turning to the Maid’s own evidence in court (1431) we must +remember that she was most averse to speaking at all, that she often +asked leave to wait for advice and permission from her voices before +replying, that on one point she constantly declared that, if compelled +to speak, she would not speak the truth. This point was the King’s +secret. There is absolutely contemporary evidence, from Alain Chartier, +that, before she was accepted, she told Charles SOMETHING which filled +him with surprise, joy, and belief.* The secret was connected with +Charles’s doubts of his own legitimacy, and Jeanne at her trial was +driven to obscure the truth in a mist of allegory, as, indeed, she +confessed. Jeanne’s extreme reluctance to adopt even this loyal and +laudable evasion is the measure of her truthfulness in general. Still, +she did say some words which, as they stand, it is difficult to believe, +to explain, or to account for. From any other prisoner, so unjustly +menaced with a doom so dreadful, from Mary Stuart, for example, at +Fotheringay, we do not expect the whole truth and nothing but the truth. +The Maid is a witness of another kind, and where we cannot understand +her, we must say, like herself, passez outre! + + + *Proces, v. 131. Letter of July 1429. See supra, ‘The False +Pucelle.’ + +When she was ‘about thirteen,’ this is her own account, she had a voice +from God, to aid her in governing herself. ‘And the first time she was +in great fear. And it came, that voice, about noonday, in summer, in her +father’s garden’ (where other girls of old France hear the birds sing, +‘Marry, maidens, marry!’) ‘and Jeanne had NOT fasted on the day before.* +She heard the voice from the right side, towards the church, and seldom +heard it without seeing a bright light. The light was not in front, +but at the side whence the voice came. If she were in a wood’ (as +distinguished from the noise of the crowded and tumultuous court) ‘she +could well hear the voices coming to her.’ Asked what sign for her +soul’s health the voice gave, she said it bade her behave well, and go +to church, and used to tell her to go into France on her mission. (I do +not know why the advice about going to church is generally said to have +been given FIRST.) Jeanne kept objecting that she was a poor girl who +could not ride, or lead in war. She resisted the voice with all her +energy. She asserted that she knew the Dauphin, on their first meeting, +by aid of her voices.** She declared that the Dauphin himself ‘multas +habuit revelationes et apparitiones pulchras.’ In its literal sense, +there is no evidence for this, but rather the reverse. She may mean +‘revelations’ through herself, or may refer to some circumstance +unknown. ‘Those of my party saw and knew that voice,’ she said, but +later would only accept them as witnesses if they were allowed to come +and see her.*** + + + *The reading is NEC not ET, as in Quicherat, Proces, i. 52, compare +i. 216. + + **Proces, i. 56. + + ***Proces, i. 57. + +This is the most puzzling point in Jeanne’s confession. She had no +motive for telling an untruth, unless she hoped that these remarks would +establish the objectivity of her visions. Of course, one of her strange +experiences may have occurred in the presence of Charles and his court, +and she may have believed that they shared in it. The point is one which +French writers appear to avoid as a rule. + +She said that she heard the voice daily in prison, ‘and stood in sore +need of it.’ The voice bade her remain at St. Denis (after the repulse +from Paris in September 1429), but she was not allowed to remain. + +On the next day (the third of the trial) she told Beaupere that she was +fasting since yesterday afternoon. Beaupere, as we saw, conceived that +her experiences were mere subjective hallucinations, caused by fasting, +by the sound of church-bells, and so on. As to the noise of bells, +Coleridge writes that their music fell on his ears, ‘MOST LIKE +ARTICULATE SOUNDS OF THINGS TO COME.’ Beaupere’s sober common-sense did +not avail to help the Maid, but at the Rehabilitation (1456) he still +maintained his old opinion. ‘Yesterday she had heard the voices in the +morning, at vespers, and at the late ringing for Ave Maria, and she +heard them much more frequently than she mentioned.’ ‘Yesterday she +had been asleep when the voice aroused her. She sat up and clasped her +hands, and the voice bade her answer boldly. Other words she half heard +before she was quite awake, but failed to understand.’* + + + *Proces, i. 62. + +She denied that the voices ever contradicted themselves. On this +occasion, as not having received leave from her voices, she refused to +say anything as to her visions. + +At the next meeting she admitted having heard the voices in court, but +in court she could not distinguish the words, owing to the tumult. She +had now, however, leave to speak more fully. The voices were those of +St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Later she was asked if St. Margaret +‘spoke English.’ Apparently the querist thought that the English +Margaret, wife of Malcolm of Scotland, was intended. They were crowned +with fair crowns, as she had said at Poictiers two years before. She +now appealed to the record of her examination there, but it was not in +court, nor was it used in the trial of Rehabilitation. It has never been +recovered. A witness who had examined her at Poictiers threw no light +(twenty years later) on the saints and voices. Seven years ago (that +is, when she was twelve) she first saw the saints. On the attire of the +saints she had not leave to speak. They were preceded by St. Michael +‘with the angels of heaven.’ ‘I saw them as clearly as I see you, and +I used to weep when they departed, and would fain that they should have +taken me with them.’ + +As to the famous sword at Fierbois, she averred that she had been in the +church there, on her way to Chinon, that the voices later bade her use +a sword which was hidden under earth--she thinks behind, but possibly +in front of the altar--at Fierbois. A man unknown to her was sent from +Tours to fetch the sword, which after search was found, and she wore it. + +Asked whether she had prophesied her wound by an arrow at Orleans, and +her recovery, she said ‘Yes.’ + +This prediction is singular in that it was recorded before the event. +The record was copied into the registre of Brabant, from a letter +written on April 22nd, 1429, by a Flemish diplomatist, De Rotselaer, +then at Lyons.* De Rotselaer had the prophecy from an officer of the +court of the Dauphin. The prediction was thus noted on April 22nd; the +event, the arrow-wound in the shoulder, occurred on May 7th. On the +fifth day of the trial Jeanne announced that, before seven years were +gone, the English ‘shall lose a dearer gage than Orleans; this I know by +revelation, and am wroth that it is to be so long deferred.’ Mr. Myers +observes that ‘the prediction of a great victory over the English within +seven years was not fulfilled in any exact way.’ The words of the Maid +are ‘Angli demittent majus vadium quam fecerunt coram Aurelianis,’ and, +as prophecies go, their loss of Paris (1436) corresponds very well to +the Maid’s announcement. She went on, indeed, to say that the English +‘will have greater loss than ever they had, through a great French +victory,’ but this reads like a gloss on her original prediction. ‘She +knew it as well as that we were there.’** ‘You shall not have the exact +year, but well I wish it might be before the St. John;’ however, she had +already expressed her sorrow that this was NOT to be. Asked, on March +1st, whether her liberation was promised, she said, ‘Ask me in three +months, and I will tell you.’ In three months exactly, her stainless +soul was free. + + + *Proces, iv. 425. + + **Proces, i. 84. + +On the appearance, garb, and so on of her saints, she declined to answer +questions. + +She had once disobeyed her voices, when they forbade her to leap from +the tower of Beaurevoir. She leaped, but they forgave her, and told +her that Compiegne (where she was captured on May 23rd, 1430) would be +relieved ‘before Martinmas.’ It was relieved on October 26th, after a +siege of five months. On March 10th an effort was made to prove that +her voices had lied to her, and that she had lied about her voices. +The enemy maintained that on May 23rd, 1430, she announced a promised +victory to the people of Compiegne, vowing that St. Margaret and St. +Catherine had revealed it to her. Two hostile priests of Compiegne +were at Rouen, and may have carried this tale, which is reported by +two Burgundian chroniclers, but NOT by Monstrelet, who was with the +besieging army.* In court she said n’eust autre commandement de yssir: +she had no command from her voices to make her fatal sally. She was not +asked whether she had pretended to have received such an order. She +told the touching story of how, at Melun, in April 1430, the voices had +warned her that she would be taken prisoner before midsummer; how she +had prayed for death, or for tidings as to the day and hour. But no +tidings were given to her, and her old belief, often expressed, that +she ‘should last but one year or little more,’ was confirmed. The Duc +d’Alencon had heard her say this several times; for the prophecy at +Melun we have only her own word. + + + *I have examined the evidence in Macmillan’s Magazine for May 1894, +and, to myself, it seems inadequate. + +She was now led into the allegory intended to veil the King’s secret, +the allegory about the Angel (herself) and the Crown (the coronation at +Rheims). This allegory was fatal, but does not bear on her real belief +about her experiences. She averred, returning to genuine confessions, +that her voices often came spontaneously; if they did not, she summoned +them by a simple prayer to God. She had seen the angelic figures moving, +invisible save to her, among men. The voices HAD promised her the +release of Charles d’Orleans, but time had failed her. This was as near +a confession of failure as she ever made, till the day of her burning, +if she really made one then.* But here, as always, she had predicted +that she would do this or that if she were sans empeschement. She had no +revelation bidding her attack Paris when she did, and after the day +at Melun she submitted to the advice of the other captains. As to her +release, she was only bidden ‘to bear all cheerfully; be not vexed +with thy martyrdom, thence shalt thou come at last into the kingdom of +Paradise.’ + + + *As to her ‘abjuration’ and alleged doubts, see L’Abjuration du +Cimetiere Saint-Ouen, by Abbe Ph. H. Dunard; Poussielgue, Paris, 1901. + +To us, this is explicit enough, but the poor child explained to her +judges that by martire she understood the pains of prison, and she +referred it to her Lord, whether there were more to bear. In this +passage the original French exists, as well as the Latin translation. +The French is better. + +‘Ne te chaille de ton martire, tu t’en vendras enfin en royaulme de +Paradis.’ + +‘Non cures de martyrio tuo: tu venies finaliter in regnum paradisi.’ + +The word hinc is omitted in the bad Latin. Unluckily we have only a +fragment of the original French, as taken down in court. The Latin +version, by Courcelles, one of the prosecutors, is in places inaccurate, +in others is actually garbled to the disadvantage of the Maid. + +This passage, with some others, may perhaps be regarded as indicating +that the contents of the communications received by Jeanne were not +always intelligible to her. + +That her saints could be, and were, touched physically by her, she +admitted.* Here I am inclined to think that she had touched with her +ring (as the custom was) a RELIC of St. Catherine at Fierbois. Such +relics, brought from the monastery of Sinai, lay at Fierbois, and we +know that women loved to rub their rings on the ring of Jeanne, in +spite of her laughing remonstrances. But apart from this conjecture, +she regarded her saints as tangible by her. She had embraced both St. +Margaret and St. Catherine.** + + + *Proces, i. 185. + + **Proces, i. 186. + +For the rest, Jeanne recanted her so-called recantation, averring that +she was unaware of the contents or full significance of the document, +which certainly is not the very brief writing to which she set her mark. +Her voices recalled her to her duty, for them she went to the stake, and +if there was a moment of wavering on the day of her doom, her belief in +the objective reality of the phenomena remained firm, and she recovered +her faith in the agony of her death. + +Of EXTERNAL evidence as to her accounts of these experiences, the best +is probably that of d’Aulon, the maitre d’Hotel of the Maid, and her +companion through her career. He and she were reposing in the same room +at Orleans, her hostess being in the chamber (May 1429), and d’Aulon had +just fallen asleep, when the Maid awoke him with a cry. Her voices bade +her go against the English, but in what direction she knew not. In fact, +the French leaders had begun, without her knowledge, an attack on +St. Loup, whither she galloped and took the fort.* It is, of course, +conceivable that the din of onset, which presently became audible, +had vaguely reached the senses of the sleeping Maid. Her page confirms +d’Aulon’s testimony. + + + *Proces, iii. 212. + +D’Aulon states that when the Maid had any martial adventure in prospect, +she told him that her ‘counsel’ had given her this or that advice. He +questioned her as to the nature of this ‘counsel.’ She said ‘she had +three councillors, of whom one was always with her, a second went and +came to her, and the third was he with whom the others deliberated.’ +D’Aulon ‘was not worthy to see this counsel.’ From the moment when +he heard this, d’Aulon asked no more questions. Dunois also gave some +evidence as to the ‘counsel.’ At Loches, when Jeanne was urging the +journey to Rheims, Harcourt asked her, before the King, what the nature +(modus) of the council was; HOW it communicated with her. She replied +that when she was met with incredulity, she went apart and prayed to +God. Then she heard a voice say, Fille De, va, va, va, je serai a ton +aide, va! ‘And when she heard that voice she was right glad, and +would fain be ever in that state.’ ‘As she spoke thus, ipsa miro modo +exsultabat, levando suos oculos ad coelum.’* (She seemed wondrous glad, +raising her eyes to heaven.) Finally, that Jeanne maintained her belief +to the moment of her death, we learn from the priest, Martin Ladvenu, +who was with her to the last.** There is no sign anywhere that at +the moment of an ‘experience’ the Maid’s aspect seemed that of one +‘dissociated,’ or uncanny, or abnormal, in the eyes of those who were in +her company. + + + *Proces, iii. 12. + + **Proces, iii. 170. + +These depositions were given twenty years later (1452-56), and, of +course, allowance must be made for weakness of memory and desire to +glorify the Maid. But there is really nothing of a suspicious character +about them. In fact, the ‘growth of legend’ was very slight, and is +mainly confined to the events of the martyrdom, the White Dove, the name +of Christ blazoned in flame, and so forth.* It should also have been +mentioned that at the taking of St. Pierre de Moustier (November 1429) +Jeanne, when deserted by her forces, declared to d’Aulon that she +was ‘not alone, but surrounded by fifty thousand of her own.’ The men +therefore rallied and stormed the place. + +This is the sum of the external evidence as to the phenomena. + + + *For German fables see Lefevre-Pontalis, Les Sources Allemandes, +Paris, 1903. They are scanty, and, in some cases, are distortions of +real events. + +As to the contents of the communications to Jeanne, they were certainly +sane, judicious, and heroic. M. Quicherat (Apercus Nouveaux, p. 61) +distinguishes three classes of abnormally conveyed knowledge, all on +unimpeachable evidence. + +(1.) THOUGHT-READING, as in the case of the King’s secret; she repeated +to him the words of a prayer which he had made mentally in his oratory. + +(2.) CLAIRVOYANCE, as exhibited in the affair of the sword of Fierbois. + +(3.) PRESCIENCE, as in the prophecy of her arrow-wound at Orleans. +According to her confessor, Pasquerel, she repeated the prophecy and +indicated the spot in which she would be wounded (under the right +shoulder) on the night of May 6. But this is later evidence given in the +trial of Rehabilitation. Neither Pasquerel nor any other of the Maid’s +party was heard at the trial of 1431. + +To these we might add the view, from Vaucouleurs, a hundred leagues +away, of the defeat at Rouvray; the prophecy that she ‘would last but +a year or little more;’ the prophecy, at Melun, of her capture; the +prophecy of the relief of Compiegne; and the strange affair of the bon +conduit at the battle of Pathay.* For several of these predictions we +have only the Maid’s word, but to be plain, we can scarcely have more +unimpeachable testimony. + + + *Proces, iv. 371, 372. Here the authority is Monstrelet, a +Burgundian. + +Here the compiler leaves his task: the inferences may be drawn by +experts. The old theory of imposture, the Voltairean theory of a ‘poor +idiot,’ the vague charge of ‘hysteria,’ are untenable. The honesty and +the genius of Jeanne are no longer denied. If hysteria be named, it +is plain that we must argue that, because hysteria is accompanied by +visionary symptoms, all visions are proofs of hysteria. Michelet holds +by hallucinations which were unconsciously externalised by the mind +of Jeanne. That mind must have been a very peculiar intellect, and the +modus is precisely the difficulty. Henri Martin believes in some kind of +manifestation revealed to the individual mind by the Absolute: perhaps +this word is here equivalent to ‘the subliminal self’ of Mr. Myers. Many +Catholics, as yet unauthorised, I conceive, by the Church, accept the +theory of Jeanne herself; her saints were true saints from Paradise. +On the other hand it is manifest that visions of a bright light and +‘auditions’ of voices are common enough phenomena in madness, and in the +experiences of very uninspired sane men and women. From the sensations +of these people Jeanne’s phenomena are only differentiated by their +number, by their persistence through seven years of an almost abnormally +healthy life, by their importance, orderliness, and veracity, as well as +by their heroic character. + +Mr. Myers has justly compared the case of Jeanne with that of Socrates. +A much humbler parallel, curiously close in one respect, may be cited +from M. Janet’s article, ‘Les Actes Inconscients dans le Somnambulisme’ +[‘Revue Philosophique,’ March 1888). + +The case is that of Madame B., a peasant woman near Cherbourg. She has +her common work-a-day personality, called, for convenience, ‘Leonie.’ +There is also her hypnotic personality, ‘Leontine.’ Now Leontine (that +is, Madame B. in a somnambulistic state) was one day hysterical and +troublesome. Suddenly she exclaimed in terror that she heard A VOICE ON +THE LEFT, crying, ‘Enough, be quiet, you are a nuisance.’ She hunted in +vain for the speaker, who, of course, was inaudible to M. Janet, though +he was present. This sagacious speaker (a faculty of Madame B.’s own +nature) is ‘brought out’ by repeated passes, and when this moral and +sensible phase of her character is thus evoked, Madame B. is ‘Leonore.’ +Madame B. now sometimes assumes an expression of beatitude, smiling and +looking upwards. As Dunois said of Jeanne when she was recalling her +visions, ‘miro modo exsultabat, levando suos oculos ad coelum.’ This +ecstasy Madame B. (as Leonie) dimly remembers, averring that ‘she has +been dazzled BY A LIGHT ON THE LEFT SIDE.’ Here apparently we have the +best aspect of poor Madame B. revealing itself in a mixture of hysterics +and hypnotism, and associating itself with an audible sagacious voice +and a dazzling light on the left, both hallucinatory. + +The coincidence (not observed by M. Janet) with Jeanne’s earliest +experience is most curious. Audivit vocem a dextero latere.... claritas +est ab eodem latere in quo vox auditur, sed ibi communiter est magna +claritas. (She heard a voice from the right. There is usually a bright +light on the same side as the voice.) Like Madame B., Jeanne was at +first alarmed by these sensations. + +The parallel, so far, is perfectly complete (except that ‘Leonore’ +merely talks common sense, while Jeanne’s voices gave information +not normally acquired). But in Jeanne’s case I have found no hint of +temporary unconsciousness or ‘dissociation.’ When strung up to the most +intense mental eagerness in court, she still heard her voices, though, +because of the tumult of the assembly, she heard them indistinctly. +Thus her experiences are not associated with insanity, partial +unconsciousness, or any physical disturbance (as in some tales of second +sight), while the sagacity of the communications and their veracity +distinguish them from the hallucinations of mad people. As far as the +affair of Rouvray, the prophecy of the instant death of an insolent +soldier at Chinon (evidence of Pasquerel, her confessor), and such +things go, we have, of course, many alleged parallels in the predictions +of Mr. Peden and other seers of the Covenant. But Mr. Peden’s political +predictions are still unfulfilled, whereas concerning the ‘dear gage’ +which the English should lose in France within seven years, Jeanne may +be called successful. + +On the whole, if we explain Jeanne’s experiences as the expressions +of her higher self (as Leonore is Madame B.’s higher self), we are +compelled to ask what is the nature of that self? + +Another parallel, on a low level, to what may be called the mechanism +of Jeanne’s voices and visions is found in Professor Flournoy’s patient, +‘Helene Smith.’* Miss ‘Smith,’ a hardworking shopwoman in Geneva, had, +as a child, been dull but dreamy. At about twelve years of age she began +to see, and hear, a visionary being named Leopold, who, in life, +had been Cagliostro. His appearance was probably suggested by an +illustration in the Joseph Balsamo of Alexandre Dumas. The saints of +Jeanne, in the same way, may have been suggested by works of sacred art +in statues and church windows. To Miss Smith, Leopold played the part of +Jeanne’s saints. He appeared and warned her not to take such or such a +street when walking, not to try to lift a parcel which seemed light, but +was very heavy, and in other ways displayed knowledge not present to her +ordinary workaday self. + + + *See Flournoy, Des Indes a la Planete Mars. Alcan, Paris, 1900. + +There was no real Leopold, and Jeanne’s St. Catherine cannot be shown to +have ever been a real historical personage.* These figures, in fact, +are more or less akin to the ‘invisible playmates’ familiar to many +children.** They are not objective personalities, but part of the +mechanism of a certain class of mind. The mind may be that of a person +devoid of genius, like Miss Smith, or of a genius like Goethe, Shelley, +or Jeanne d’Arc, or Socrates with his ‘Daemon,’ and its warnings. In the +case of Jeanne d’Arc, as of Socrates, the mind communicated knowledge +not in the conscious everyday intelligence of the Athenian or of la +Pucelle. This information, in Jeanne’s case, was presented in the shape +of hallucinations of eye and ear. It was sane, wise, noble, veracious, +and concerned not with trifles, but with great affairs. We are not +encouraged to suppose that saints or angels made themselves audible and +visible. But, by the mechanism of such appearances to the senses, that +which was divine in the Maid--in all of us, if we follow St. Paul--that +‘in which we live and move and have our being,’ made itself intelligible +to her ordinary consciousness, her workaday self, and led her to the +fulfilment of a task which seemed impossible to men. + + + *See the Life and Martyrdom of St. Katherine of Alexandria. +(Roxburghe Club, 1884, Introduction by Mr. Charles Hardwick). Also the +writer’s translation of the chapel record of the ‘Miracles of Madame St. +Catherine of Fierbois,’ in the Introduction. (London, Nutt.) + + **See the writer’s preface to Miss Corbet’s Animal Land for a singular +example in our own time. + + + + +VIII. THE MYSTERY OF JAMES DE LA CLOCHE + + + +‘P’raps he was my father--though on this subjict I can’t speak suttinly, +for my ma wrapped up my buth in a mistry. I may be illygitmit, I may +have been changed at nuss.’ + +In these strange words does Mr. Thackeray’s Jeames de la Pluche +anticipate the historical mystery of James de la Cloche. HIS ‘buth’ is +‘wrapped up in a mistry,’ HIS ‘ma’ is a theme of doubtful speculation; +his father (to all appearance) was Charles II. We know not whether James +de la Cloche--rejecting the gaudy lure of three crowns--lived and died +a saintly Jesuit; or whether, on the other hand, he married beneath him, +was thrown into gaol, was sentenced to a public whipping, was pardoned +and released, and died at the age of twenty-three, full of swaggering +and impenitent impudence. Was there but one James de la Cloche, a scion +of the noblest of European royal lines? Did he, after professions of a +holy vocation, suddenly assume the most secular of characters, jilting +Poverty and Obedience for an earthly bride? Or was the person who +appears to have acted in this unworthy manner a mere impostor, who had +stolen James’s money and jewels and royal name? If so, what became of +the genuine and saintly James de la Cloche? He is never heard of any +more, whether because he assumed an ecclesiastical alias, or because +he was effectually silenced by the person who took his character, name, +money, and parentage. + +There are two factions in the dispute about de la Cloche. The former +(including the late Lord Acton and Father Boero) believe that James +adhered to his sacred vocation, while the second James was a rank +impostor. The other party holds that the frivolous and secular James +was merely the original James, who suddenly abandoned his vocation, and +burst on the world as a gay cavalier, and claimant of the rank of +Prince of Wales, or, at least, of the revenues and perquisites of that +position. + +The first act in the drama was discovered by Father Boero, who printed +the documents as to James de la Cloche in his ‘History of the Conversion +to the Catholic Church of Charles II., King of England,’ in the sixth +and seventh volumes, fifth series, of La Civilta Cattolica (Rome, 1863). +(The essays can be procured in a separate brochure.) Father Boero says +not a word about the second and secular James, calling himself ‘Giacopo +Stuardo.’ But the learned father had communicated the papers about de la +Cloche to Lord Acton, who wrote an article on the subject, ‘The Secret +History of Charles II.,’ in ‘The Home and Foreign Review,’ July 1862. +Lord Acton now added the story of the second James, or of the second +avatar of the first James, from State Papers in our Record Office. The +documents as to de la Cloche are among the MSS. of the Society of Jesus +at Rome. + +The purpose of Father Boero was not to elucidate a romance in royal +life, but to prove that Charles II. had, for many years, been sincerely +inclined to the Catholic creed, though thwarted by his often expressed +disinclination to ‘go on his travels again.’ In point of fact, the +religion of Charles II. might probably be stated in a celebrated figure +of Pascal’s. Let it be granted that reason can discover nothing as to +the existence of any ground for religion. Let it be granted that we +cannot know whether there is a God or not. Yet either there is, or there +is not. It is even betting, heads or tails, croix ou pile. This being +so, it is wiser to bet that there is a God. It is safer. If you lose, +you are just where you were, except for the pleasures which you desert. +If you win, you win everything! What you stake is finite, a little +pleasure; if you win, you win infinite bliss. + +So far Charles was prepared theoretically to go but he would not abandon +his diversions. A God there is, but ‘He’s a good fellow, and ‘twill all +be well.’ God would never punish a man, he told Burnet, for taking ‘a +little irregular pleasure.’ Further, Charles saw that, if bet he +must, the safest religion to back was that of Catholicism. Thereby he +could--it was even betting--actually ensure his salvation. But if he put +on his money publicly, if he professed Catholicism, he certainly lost +his kingdoms. Consequently he tried to be a crypto-Catholic, but he was +not permitted to practise one creed and profess another. THAT the Pope +would not stand. So it was on his death-bed that he made his desperate +plunge, and went, it must be said, bravely, on the darkling voyage. + +Not to dwell on Charles’s earlier dalliances with Rome, in November +1665, his kinsman, Ludovick Stewart, Sieur d’Aubigny, of the +Scoto-French Lennox Stewarts, was made a cardinal, and then died. +Charles had now no man whom he could implicitly trust in his efforts to +become formally, but secretly, a Catholic. And now James de la Cloche +comes on the scene. Father Boero publishes, from the Jesuit archives, a +strange paper, purporting to be written and signed by the King’s +hand, and sealed with his private seal, that diamond seal, whereof the +impression brought such joy to the soul of the disgraced Archbishop +Sharp. Father Boero attests the authenticity of seal and handwriting. In +this paper, Charles acknowledges his paternity of James Stuart, ‘who, +by our command, has hitherto lived in France and other countries under a +feigned name.’ He has come to London, and is to bear the name of ‘de +la Cloche du Bourg de Jarsey.’ De la Cloche is not to produce this +document, ‘written in his own language’ (French), till after the King’s +death. (It is important to note that James de la Cloche seems to have +spoken no language except French.) The paper is dated ‘Whitehall, +September 27, 1665,’ when, as Lord Acton observes, the Court, during the +Plague, was NOT at Whitehall.* + + + *Civ. Catt. Series V., vol. vi. 710. Home and Foreign Review, vol. +i. 156. + +Lord Acton conjectured that the name ‘de la Cloche’ was taken from +that of a Protestant minister in Jersey (circ. 1646). This is the more +probable, as Charles later invented a false history of his son, who was +to be described as the son of ‘a rich preacher, deceased.’ The surname, +de la Cloche, had really been that of a preacher in Jersey, and survives +in Jersey. + +After 1665, James de la Cloche was pursuing his studies in Holland, +being at this time a Protestant. Conceivably he had been brought up in a +French Huguenot family, like that of the de Rohan. On February 7, 1667, +Charles wrote a new document. In this he grants to de la Cloche 500 +pounds a year, while he lives in London and adheres to ‘the religion of +his father and the Anglican service book.’ But, in that very year (July +29, 1667), de la Cloche went to Hamburg, and was there received into the +Catholic Church, forfeiting his pension. + +Christina of Sweden was then residing in Hamburg. De la Cloche apprised +her of his real position--a son of the King of England--and must have +shown her in proof Charles’s two letters of 1665 and 1667. If so--and +how else could he prove his birth?--he broke faith with Charles, but, +apparently, he did not mean to use Charles’s letters as proof of his +origin when applying, as he did, for admission to the novitiate of the +Jesuits at Rome. He obtained from Christina a statement, in Latin, that +Charles had acknowledged him, privately, to her, as his son. This note +of Christina’s, de la Cloche was to show to his director at Rome. + +It does not appear that Charles had ever told Christina a word about +the matter. These pious monarchs were far from being veracious. However, +Christina’s document would save the young man much trouble, on the point +of his illegitimacy, when, on April 11, 1668, he entered St. Andrea al +Quirinale as a Jesuit novice. He came in poverty. His wardrobe was of +the scantiest. He had two shirts, a chamois leather chest protector, +three collars, and three pairs of sleeves. He described himself as +‘Jacques de la Cloche, of Jersey, British subject,’ and falsely, or +ignorantly, stated his age as twenty-four. Really he was twenty-two.* +Why he told Christina his secret, why he let her say that Charles had +told her, we do not know. It may be that the General of the Jesuits, +Oliva, did not yet know who de la Cloche really was. Meanwhile, +his religious vocation led him to forfeit 500 pounds yearly, and +expectations, and to disobey his father and king. + + + *Civ. Catt., ut supra, 712, 713, and notes. + +The good King took all very easily. On August 3, 1668, he wrote a longa +et verbosa epistola, from Whitehall, to the General of the Jesuits. His +face was now set towards the secret treaty of Dover and conversion. The +conversion of his son, therefore, seemed truly providential. Charles +had discussed it with his own mother and his wife. To Oliva he wrote +in French, explaining that his Latin was ‘poor,’ and that, if he wrote +English, an interpreter would be needed, but that no Englishman was to +‘put his nose’ into this affair. He had long prayed God to give him +a safe and secret chance of conversion, but he could not use, without +exciting suspicion, the priests then in England. On the other hand, his +son would do: the young cavalier then at Rome, named de la Cloche de +Jersey. This lad was the pledge of an early love for ‘a young lady of a +family among the most distinguished in our kingdoms.’ He was a child of +the King’s ‘earliest youth,’ that is, during his residence in Jersey, +March-June 1646, when Charles was sixteen. In a few years, the King +hoped to recognise him publicly. With him alone could Charles practise +secretly the mysteries of the Church. To such edifying ends had God +turned an offence against His laws, an amourette. De la Cloche, of +course, was as yet not a priest, and could not administer sacraments, an +idea which occurred to Charles himself. + +The Queen of Sweden, Charles added, was prudent, but, being a woman, she +probably could not keep a secret. Charles wants his son to come home, +and asks the Jesuit to put off Christina with any lie he pleases, if +she asks questions. In short, he regards the General of the Jesuits as +a person ready to tell any convenient falsehood, and lets this opinion +appear with perfect naivete! He will ask the Pope to hurry de la Cloche +into priest’s orders, or, if that is not easy, he will have the thing +done in Paris, by means of Louis XIV., or his own sister, Henrietta +(Madame). Or the Queen and Queen Mother can have it done in London, as +they ‘have bishops at their will.’ The King has no desire to interrupt +his son’s vocation as a Jesuit. In London the young man must avoid +Jesuit society, and other occasions of suspicion. He ends with a promise +of subscriptions to Jesuit objects.* + + + *Civ. Catt. Series V., vii. 269-274. + +By the same courier, the King wrote to ‘Our most honoured son, the +Prince Stuart, dwelling with the R.P. Jesuits under the name of Signor +de la Cloche.’ James may be easy about money. He must be careful of his +health, which is delicate, and not voyage at an unhealthy season. The +Queens are anxious to see him. He should avoid asceticism. He may yet +be recognised, and take precedence of his younger and less nobly born +brother, the Duke of Monmouth. The King expresses his affection for a +son of excellent character, and distinguished by the solidity of his +studies and acquirements. If toleration is gained, de la Cloche has some +chance of the English throne, supposing Charles and the Duke of York +to die without issue male. Parliament will be unable to oppose this +arrangement, unless Catholics are excluded from the succession. + +This has a crazy sound. The Crown would have been in no lack of +legitimate heirs, failing offspring male of the King and the Duke of +York. + +If de la Cloche, however, persists in his vocation, so be it. The +King may get for him a cardinal’s hat. The King assures his son of +his affection, not only as the child of his extreme youth, but for +the virtues of his character. De la Cloche must travel as a simple +gentleman.* + + + *Ut supra, 275, 278. + +On August 29, Charles again wrote to Oliva. He had heard that the Queen +of Sweden was going to Rome. De la Cloche must not meet her, she might +let out the secret: he must come home at once. If Charles is known to +be a Catholic, there will be tumults, and he will lose his life. Another +letter, undated, asks that the novice, contrary to rule, may travel +alone, with no Jesuit chaperon, and by sea, direct from Genoa. +Consulting physicians, the King has learned that sea sickness is never +fatal, rather salutary. His travelling name should be Henri de Rohan, +as if he were of that Calvinistic house, friends of the King. The story +must be circulated that de la Cloche is the son of a rich preacher, +deceased, and that he has gone to visit his mother, who is likely to +be converted. He must leave his religious costume with the Jesuits at +Genoa, and pick it up there on his return. He must not land at the port +of London, but at some other harbour, and thence drive to town.* + +Ut supra, 283-287. + +On October 14, d’Oliva, from Leghorn, wrote to Charles that ‘the French +gentleman’ was on the seas. On November 18, Charles wrote to d’Oliva +that his son was returning to Rome as his secret ambassador, and, by the +King’s orders, was to come back to London, bearing answers to questions +which he will put verbally. In France he leaves a Jesuit whom he is to +pick up as he again makes for England.* + + + *Father Florent Dumas, in a rather florid essay on ‘The Saintly Son +of Charles II,’ supposes that, after all, he had a Jesuit chaperon +during his expedition to England (Jesuit Etudes de Rel., Hist. et Lit., +Paris, 1864-1865). + +The questions to which de la Cloche is to bring answers doubtless +concerned the wish of Charles to be a Catholic secretly, and other +arrangements which he is known to have suggested on another occasion. + +After this letter of November 18, 1668, WE NEVER HEAR A WORD ABOUT JAMES +DE LA CLOCHE.* No later letters from the King to d’Oliva are found, the +name of James de la Cloche does not occur again in the Records of the +Society of Jesus. + + + *Ut supra, 418-420. + +Father Boero argues that James would return to London, under a third +name, unknown. But it would be risky for one who had appeared in England +under one name in 1665, and under another (Rohan) in 1668, to turn +up under a third in 1669. To take aliases, often three or four, was, +however, the custom of the English Jesuits, and de la Cloche may have +chosen his fourth. Thus we could not trace him, in records, unless +Charles wrote again to d’Oliva about his son. No such letter exists. In +his letter of November 18, Charles promises, in a year, a subscription +to the Jesuit building fund--this at his son’s request. I know not if +the money was ever paid. He also asks Oliva to give James 800 doppie for +expenses, to be repaid in six months. + +James did not leave the Society of Jesus, argues Father Boero, for, +had he left, he would have carried away the papers in which Charles +acknowledges him and promises a pension of 500 pounds yearly. But that +document would be useless to James, whether he remained a Jesuit or +not, for the condition of the pension (1667) was that he should be a +Protestant of the Anglican sect, and live in London. However, Charles’s +letter of 1668 was in another tune, and James certainly left THAT with +the Jesuits in Rome; at least, they possess it now. But suppose that +James fled secretly from the Jesuits, then he probably had no chance +of recovering his papers. He was not likely to run away, however, for, +Charles says, he ‘did not like London,’ or the secular life, and +he appears to have returned to Rome at the end of 1668, with every +intention of fulfilling his mission and pursuing his vocation. His +return mission to England over, he probably would finish his Jesuit +training at a college in France or Flanders, say St. Omer’s, where +Titus Oates for a while abode. No James de la Cloche is known there or +elsewhere, but he might easily adopt a new alias, and Charles would have +no need to write to Oliva about him. It may be that James was the priest +at St. Omer’s, whom, in 1670, Charles had arranged to send, but did not +send, to Clement IX.* He may also be the priest secretly brought from +abroad to Charles during the Popish Plot (1678-1681).** + + + *Mignet, Neg. rel. Succ. d’Espagne, iii. 232. + + **Welwood, Memoirs, 146. + +These are suggestions of Lord Acton, who thinks that de la Cloche may +also have been the author of two papers, in French, on religion, left +by Charles, in his own hand, at his death.* These are conjectures. If +we accept them, de la Cloche was a truly self-denying young semi-Prince, +preferring an austere life to the delights and honours which attended +his younger brother, the Duke of Monmouth. But, just when de la Cloche +should have been returning from Rome to London, at the end of 1668 or +beginning of 1669, a person calling himself James Stuart, son of Charles +II., by an amour, at Jersey, in 1646, with a ‘Lady Mary Henrietta +Stuart,’ appeared in some magnificence at Naples. This James Stuart +either was, or affected to be, James de la Cloche. Whoever he was, the +King’s carefully guarded secret was out, was public property. + + + *Home and Foreign Review, i. 165. + +Our information as to this James Stuart, or Giacopo Stuardo, son of +the King of England--the cavalier who appears exactly when the Jesuit +novice, James de la Cloche, son of the King of England, vanishes--is +derived from two sources. First there are Roman newsletters, forwarded +to England by Kent, the English agent at Rome, with his own despatches +in English. It does not appear to me that Kent had, as a rule, any +intimate purveyor of intelligence at Naples. He seems, in his own +letters to Williamson,* merely to follow and comment on the Italian +newsletters which he forwards and the gossip of ‘the Nation,’ that is, +the English in Rome. The newsletters, of course, might be under the +censorship of Rome and Naples. Such is one of our sources.** + + + *See ‘The Valet’s Master,’ for other references to Williamson. + + **State Papers, Italian, 1669, Bundle 10, Record Office. + +Lord Acton, in 1862, and other writers, have relied solely on this +first set of testimonies. But the late Mr. Maziere Brady has apparently +ignored or been unacquainted with these materials, and he cites a +printed book not quoted by Lord Acton.* This work is the third volume +of the ‘Lettere’ of Vincenzo Armanni of Gubbio, who wrote much about the +conversion of England, and had himself been in that country. The work +quoted was printed (privately?) by Giuseppe Piccini, at Macerata, in +1674, and, so far, I have been unable to see an example. The British +Museum Library has no copy, and the ‘Lettere’ are unknown to Brunet. +We have thus to take a secondhand version of Armanni’s account. He says +that his informant was one of two confessors, employed successively by +Prince James Stuart, at Naples, in January-August 1669. Now, Kent sent +to England an English translation of the Italian will of James Stuart. A +will is also given, of course in Italian, by Vincenzo Armanni; a copy of +this is in the Record Office. + + + *Maziere Brady, Anglo-Roman Papers, pp. 93-121 (Gardner Paisley, +1890). + +It appears from this will that James Stuart, for reasons of his own, +actually did enjoy the services of two successive confessors, at Naples, +in 1669. The earlier of these two was Armanni’s informant. His account +of James Stuart differs from that of Kent and the Italian newsletters, +which we repeat, alone are cited by Lord Acton (1862); while Mr. Brady +(1890), citing Armanni, knows nothing of the newsletters and Kent, and +conceives himself to be the first writer in English on the subject. + +Turning to our first source, the newsletters of Rome, and the letters of +Kent, the dates in each case prove that Kent, with variations, follows +the newsletters. The gazzetta of March 23, 1669, is the source of Kent’s +despatch of March 30. On the gazzette of April 6, 13, and 20, he makes +no comment, but his letter of June 16 varies more or less from the +newsletter of June 11. His despatch of September 7 corresponds to the +newsletter of the same date, but is much more copious. + +Taking these authorities in order of date, we find the newsletter of +Rome (March 23, 1669) averring that an unknown English gentleman has +been ‘for some months’ at Naples, that is, since January at least, +and has fallen in love with the daughter of a poor innkeeper, or host +(locandiere). He is a Catholic and has married the girl. The newly made +father-in-law has been spending freely the money given to him by the +bridegroom. Armanni, as summarised by Mr. Brady, states the matter +of the money thus: ‘The Prince was anxious to make it appear that his +intended father-in-law was not altogether a pauper, and accordingly he +gave a sum of money to Signor Francesco Corona to serve as a dowry for +Teresa. Signor Corona could not deny himself the pleasure of exhibiting +this money before his friends, and he indiscreetly boasted before his +neighbours concerning his rich son-in-law.’ + +From Armanni’s version, derived from the confessor of James Stuart, it +appears that nothing was said as to James’s royal birth till after his +arrest, when he informed the Viceroy of Naples in self-defence. + +To return to the newsletter of March 23, it represents that the Viceroy +heard of the unwonted expenditure of money by Corona, and seized the +English son-in-law on suspicion. In his possession the Viceroy found +about 200 doppie, many jewels, and some papers in which he was addressed +as Altezza (Highness). The word doppie is used by Charles (in Boero’s +Italian translation) for the 800 coins which he asks Oliva to give to +de la Cloche for travelling expenses. Were James Stuart’s 200 doppie the +remains of the 800? Lord Acton exaggerates when he writes vaguely that +Stuart possessed ‘heaps of pistoles.’ Two hundred doppie (about 150 or +160 pounds) are not ‘heaps.’ To return to the newsletter, the idea being +current that the young man was a natural son of the King of England, he +was provisionally confined in the castle of St. Elmo. On April 6, he is +reported to be shut up in the castle of Gaeta. On the 20th, we hear that +fifty scudi monthly have been assigned to the prisoner for his support. +The Viceroy has written (to England) to ask what is to be done with him. + +On June 11, it is reported that, after being removed to the Vicaria, a +prison for vulgar malefactors, the captive has been released. He is NOT +the son of the King of England. + +Kent’s letter of March 30 follows the newsletter of March 23. He adds +that the unknown Englishman ‘seems’ to have ‘vaunted to bee the King of +England’s sonne BORNE AT GERSEY,’ a fact never expressly stated about +de la Cloche. It is not clear that James Stuart vaunted his birth before +his arrest made it necessary for him to give an account of himself. Kent +also says that the unknown sent for the English consul, Mr. Browne, ‘to +assist his delivery out of the castle. But it seems he could not speake +a word of English nor give any account of the birth he pretended to.’ On +Kent’s showing, he had no documentary proofs of his royal birth. French +was de la Cloche’s language, if this unknown was he, and if Kent is +right, he had not with him the two documents and the letter of Charles +II. and the certificate of the Queen of Sweden. ‘This is all the light I +can picke out of the Nation, or others, of his extravagant story, which +whether will end in Prince or cheate I shall endeavour to inform you +hereafter.’ + +Kent’s next letter (June 16) follows, with variations, the newsletter of +June 11:--Kent to J. Williamson + +June 16, 1669. + +The Gentleman who WOULD HAVE BEENE HIS MAT’YS BASTARD at Naples, vpon +the receipt of his Ma’ties Letters to that Vice King was immediately +taken out of the Castle of Gaetta brought to Naples and Cast into the +Grand Prison called the Vicaria, where being thrust amongst the most +Vile and infamous Rascalls, the Vice King intended to have Caused him +to bee whipt about the Citty, but meanes was made by his wife’s kindred +(Who was Likewise taken with this pretended Prince) to the Vice-Queene, +who, in compassion to her and her kindred, prevailed with Don Pedro to +deliver him from that Shame [and from gaol, it seems], and soe ends the +Story of this fourb WHO SPEAKS NOE LANGUADGE BUT FFRENCH. + +The newsletter says nothing of the intended whipping, or of the +intercession of the family of the wife of the unknown. These points may +be the additions of gossips. + +In any case the unknown, with his wife, after a stay of no long time in +the Vicaria, is set at liberty. His release might be explained on the +ground that Charles disavowed and cast him off, which he might safely +do, if the man was really de la Cloche, but had none of the papers +proving his birth, the papers which are still in the Jesuit archives. +Or he may have had the papers, and they may have been taken from him and +restored to the Jesuit General. + +So far, the betting as to whether de la Cloche and the Naples pretender +were the same man or not is at evens. Each hypothesis is beset +by difficulties. It is highly improbable that the unworldly and +enthusiastic Jesuit novice threw up, at its very crisis, a mission which +might lead his king, his father, and the British Empire back into the +one Fold. De la Cloche, forfeiting his chances of an earthly crown, +was on the point of gaining a heavenly one. It seems to the last degree +unlikely that he would lose this and leave the Jesuits to whom he had +devoted himself, and the quiet life of study and religion, for the +worldly life which he disliked, and for that life on a humble capital +of a few hundred pounds, and some jewels, presents, perhaps from the two +Queens, his grandmother and stepmother. De la Cloche knew that Charles, +if the novice clung to religion, had promised to procure for him, if he +desired it, a cardinal’s hat; while if, with Charles’s approval, he +left religion, he might be a prince, perhaps a king. He had thus every +imaginable motive for behaving with decorum--in religion or out of it. +Yet, if he is the Naples pretender, he suddenly left the Jesuits without +Charles’s knowledge and approval, but by a freakish escapade, like ‘The +Start’ of Charles himself as a lad, when he ran away from Argyll and +the Covenanters. And he did this before he ever saw Teresa Corona. He +reminds one of the Huguenot pastor in London, whom an acquaintance met +on the Turf. ‘I not preacher now, I gay dog,’ explained the holy man. + +All this is, undeniably, of a high improbability. But on the other side, +de la Cloche was freakish and unsettled. He had but lately (1667) asked +for and accepted a pension to be paid while he remained an Anglican, +then he was suddenly received into the Roman Church, and started +off, probably on foot, with his tiny ‘swag’ of three shirts and three +collars, to walk to Rome and become a Jesuit. He may have deserted the +Jesuits as suddenly and recklessly as he had joined them. It is not +impossible. He may have received the 800 pounds for travelling expenses +from Oliva; not much of it was left by March 1669--only about 150 +pounds. On the theory that the man at Naples was an impostor, it is +odd that he should only have spoken French, that he was charged with no +swindles, that he made a very poor marriage in place of aiming at a rich +union; that he had, somehow, learned de la Cloche’s secret; and that, +possessing a fatal secret, invaluable to a swindler and blackmailer, he +was merely disgraced and set free. Louis XIV. would, at least, have held +him a masked captive for the rest of his life. But he was liberated, +and, after a brief excursion, returned to Naples, where he died, +maintaining that he was a prince. + +Thus, on either view, ‘prince or cheat,’ we are met by things almost +impossible. + +We now take up the Naples man’s adventure as narrated by Kent. He +writes: + +Kent to Jo: Williamson + +Rome: August 31, 1669. + +That certaine fellow or what hee was, who pretended to bee his Ma’ties +naturall sonn at Naples is dead and haueing made his will they write mee +from thence wee shall with the next Poast know the truth of his quality. + + +September 7, 1669. + +That certaine Person at Naples who in his Lyfe tyme would needes bee +his Ma’ties naturall Sonne is dead in the same confidence and Princely +humour, for haueing Left his Lady Teresa Corona, an ordinary person, 7 +months gone with Child, hee made his Testament, and hath Left his most +Xtian Ma’tie (whom he called Cousin) executor of it. + +Hee had been absent from Naples some tyme pretending to haue made a +journey into France to visit his Mother, Dona Maria Stuarta of His +Ma’tie Royall Family, which neernes and greatnes of Blood was the cause, +Saies hee, that his Ma’tie would never acknowledge him for his Sonn, +his mother Dona Maria Stuarta was, it seemes, dead before hee came into +France. In his will hee desires the present King of England Carlo 2nd to +allow His Prince Hans in Kelder eighty thousand Ducketts, which is his +Mother’s Estate, he Leaues Likewise to his Child and Mother Teresa 291 +thousand Ducketts which hee calls Legacies. Hee was buried in the Church +of St. Fran’co Di Paolo out of the Porta Capuana (for hee dyed of this +Religion). He left 400 pounds for a Lapide to have his name and quality +engrauen vpon it for hee called himself Don Jacopo Stuarto, and this is +the end of that Princely Cheate or whatever hee was. + +The newsletter of September 7 merely mentions the death and the will. +On this occasion Kent had private intelligence from a correspondent in +Naples. Copies of the will, in English and in Italian, were forwarded to +England, where both copies remain. + +‘This will,’ Lord Acton remarked, ‘is fatal to the case for the Prince.’ +If not fatal, it is a great obstacle to the cause of the Naples man. He +claims as his mother, Donna Maria Stewart, ‘of the family of the Barons +of San Marzo.’ If Marzo means ‘March,’ the Earl of March was a title +in the Lennox family. The only Mary Stewart in that family known to +Douglas’s ‘Peerage’ was younger than James de la Cloche, and died, the +wife of the Earl of Arran, in 1667, at the age of eighteen. She may have +had some outlying cousin Mary, but nothing is known of such a possible +mother of de la Cloche. Again, the testator begs Charles II. to give his +unborn child ‘the ordinary principality either of Wales or Monmouth, or +other province customary to be given to the natural sons of the Crown;’ +to the value of 100,000 scudi! + +Could de la Cloche be so ignorant as to suppose that a royal bastard +might be created Prince of Wales? He certainly knew, from Charles’s +letter, that his younger brother was already Duke of Monmouth. His +legacies are of princely munificence, but--he is to be buried at the +expense of his father-in-law. + +By way of security for his legacies, the testator ‘assigns and gives his +lands, called the Marquisate of Juvignis, worth 300,000 scudi.’ + +Mr. Brady writes: ‘Juvignis is probably a mistake for Aubigny, the +dukedom which belonged to the Dukes of Richmond and Lennox by the older +creation.’ But a dukedom is not a marquisate, nor could de la Cloche +hold Aubigny, of which the last holder was Ludovick Stewart, who died, a +cardinal, in November 1665. The lands then reverted to the French +Crown. Moreover, there are two places called Juvigny, or Juvignis, in +north-eastern France (Orne and Manche). Conceivably one or other of +these belonged to the house of Rohan, and James Stuart’s posthumous son, +one of whose names is ‘Roano,’ claimed a title from Juvigny or Juvignis, +among other absurd pretensions. ‘Henri de Rohan’ was only the travelling +name of de la Cloche in 1668, though it is conceivable that he was +brought up by the de Rohan family, friendly to Charles II. + +The whole will is incompatible with all that de la Cloche must have +known. Being in Italian it cannot have been intelligible to him, and may +conceivably be the work of an ignorant Neapolitan attorney, while de la +Cloche, as a dying man, may have signed without understanding much of +what he signed. The folly of the Corona family may thus (it is a mere +suggestion) be responsible for this absurd testament. Armanni, however, +represents the man as sane, and very devout, till his death. + +A posthumous child, a son, was born and lived a scrambling life, now +‘recognised’ abroad, now in prison and poverty, till we lose him about +1750.* + + + *A. F. Steuart, Engl. Hist. Review, July 1903, ‘The Neapolitan +Stuarts.’ Maziere Brady, ut supra. + +Among his sham titles are Dux Roani and ‘de Roano,’ clearly referring, +as Mr. Steuart notices, to de la Cloche’s travelling name of Henri de +Rohan. The Neapolitan pretender, therefore, knew the secret of that +incognito, and so of de la Cloche’s mission to England in 1668. That, +possessing this secret, he was set free, is a most unaccountable +circumstance. Charles had written to Oliva that his life hung on +absolute secrecy, yet the owner of the secret is left at liberty. + +Our first sources leave us in these perplexities. They are not +disentangled by the ‘Lettere’ of Vincenzo Armanni (1674). I have been +unable, as has been said, to see this book. In the summary by Mr. Brady +we read that (1668-1669) Prince James Stuart, with a French Knight of +the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, came to Naples for his health. +This must have been in December 1668 or January 1669; by March 1669 the +pretender had been ‘for some months’ in Naples. The Frenchman went by +way of Malta to England, recommending Prince James to a confessor at +Naples, who was a parish priest. This priest was Armanni’s informant. +He advised the Prince to lodge with Corona, and here James proposed +to Teresa. She at first held aloof, and the priest discountenanced +the affair. The Prince ceased to be devout, but later chose another +confessor. Both priests knew, in confession, the secret of his birth: +the Prince says so in his will, and leaves them great legacies. So far +Armanni’s version is corroborated. + +Mr. Brady goes on, citing Armanni: ‘At last he chose another spiritual +director, to whom he revealed not only his passion for Teresa Corona, +but also the secret of his birth, showing to him the letters written +by the Queen of Sweden and the Father General of the Jesuits.’ Was the +latter document Oliva’s note from Leghorn of October 14, 1668? That did +not contain a word about de la Cloche’s birth: he is merely styled ‘the +French gentleman.’ Again, the letter of the Queen of Sweden is now in +the Jesuit archives; how could it be in the possession of the pretender +at Naples? Was it taken from him in prison, and returned to Oliva? + +The new confessor approved of the wedding which was certainly celebrated +on February 19, 1669. Old Corona now began to show his money: his new +son-in-law was suspected of being a false coiner, and was arrested by +the Viceroy. ‘The certificates and papers attesting the parentage of +James Stuart were then produced....’ How could this be--they were in the +hands of the Jesuits at Rome. Had de la Cloche brought them to Naples, +the Corona family would have clung to them, but they are in the Gesu +at Rome to this day. The rest is much as we know it, save, what is +important, that the Prince, from prison, ‘wrote to the General of the +Jesuits, beseeching him to interpose his good offices with the Viceroy, +and to obtain permission for him to go to England via Leghorn’ (as in +1688) ‘and Marseilles.’ + +Armanni knew nothing, or says nothing, of de la Cloche’s having been in +the Jesuit novitiate. His informant, the priest, must have known that, +but under seal of confession, so he would not tell Armanni. He did tell +him that James Stuart wrote to the Jesuit general, asking his help in +procuring leave to go to England. The General knew de la Cloche’s hand, +and would not be taken in by the impostor’s. This point is in favour +of the identity of James Stuart with de la Cloche. The Viceroy had, +however, already written to London, and waited for a reply. ‘Immediately +on arrival of the answer from London, the Prince was set at liberty and +left Naples. It may be supposed he went to England. After a few months +he returned to Naples with an assignment of 50,000 scudi,’ and died of +fever. + +Nothing is said by Armanni of the imprisonment among the low scum of the +Vicaria: nothing of the intended whipping, nothing of the visit by James +Stuart to France. The 50,000 scudi have a mythical ring. Why should +James, if he had 50,000 scudi, be buried at the expense of his +father-in-law, who also has to pay 50 ducats to the notary for drawing +the will of this ‘prince or cheate’? Probably the parish priest and +ex-confessor of the prince was misinformed on some points. The Corona +family would make out the best case they could for their royal kinsman. + +Was the man of Naples ‘prince or cheate’? Was he de la Cloche, or, as +Lord Acton suggests, a servant who had robbed de la Cloche of money and +papers? + +Every hypothesis (we shall recapitulate them) which we can try as a key +fails to fit the lock. Say that de la Cloche had confided his secret to +a friend among the Jesuit novices; say that this young man either robbed +de la Cloche, or, having money and jewels of his own, fled from the +S. Andrea training college, and, when arrested, assumed the name and +pretended to the rank of de la Cloche. This is not inconceivable, but it +is odd that he had no language but French, and that, possessing secrets +of capital importance, he was released from prison, and allowed to +depart where he would, and return to Naples when he chose. + +Say that a French servant of de la Cloche robbed and perhaps even +murdered him. In that case he certainly would not have been released +from prison. The man at Naples was regarded as a gentleman, but that is +not so important in an age when the low scoundrel, Bedloe, could pass in +Spain and elsewhere for an English peer. + +But again, if the Naples man is a swindler, as already remarked, he +behaves unlike one. A swindler would have tried to entrap a woman of +property into a marriage--he might have seduced, but would not have +married, the penniless Teresa Corona, giving what money he had to her +father. When arrested, the man had not in money more than 160 pounds. +His maintenance, while in prison, was paid for by the Viceroy. No +detaining charges, from other victims, appear to have been lodged +against him. His will ordains that the document shall be destroyed by +his confessor, if the secret of his birth therein contained is divulged +before his death. The secret perhaps was only known--before his +arrest--to his confessors; it came out when he was arrested by the +Viceroy as a coiner of false money. Like de la Cloche, he was pious, +though not much turns on that. If Armanni’s information is correct, if, +when taken, the man wrote to the General of the Jesuits--who knew de la +Cloche’s handwriting--we can scarcely escape the inference that he was +de la Cloche. + +On the other hand is the monstrous will. Unworldly as de la Cloche may +have been, he can hardly have fancied that Wales was the appanage of +a bastard of the Crown; and he certainly knew that ‘the province of +Monmouth’ already gave a title to his younger brother, the duke, born +in 1649. Yet the testator claims Wales or Monmouth for his unborn child. +Again, de la Cloche may not have known who his mother was. But not only +can no Mary, or Mary Henrietta, of the Lennox family be found, except +the impossible Lady Mary who was younger than de la Cloche; but we +observe no trace of the presence of any d’Aubigny, or even of any +Stewart, male or female, at the court of the Prince of Wales in Jersey, +in 1646.* + + + *See Hoskins, Charles II. in the Channel islands (Bentley, London, +1854). + +The names of the suite are given by Dr. Hoskins from the journal (MS.) +of Chevalier, a Jersey man, and from the Osborne papers. No Stewart or +Stuart occurs, but, in a crowd of some 3,000 refugees, there MAY have +been a young lady of the name. Lady Fanshaw, who was in Jersey, is +silent. The will is absurd throughout, but whether it is all of the +dying pretender’s composition, whether it may not be a thing concocted +by an agent of the Corona family, is another question. + +It is a mere conjecture, suggested by more than one inquirer, as by Mr. +Steuart, that the words ‘Signora D. Maria Stuardo della famiglia delli +Baroni di S. Marzo,’ refer to the Lennox family, which would naturally +be spoken of as Lennox, or as d’Aubigny. About the marquisate of Juvigny +(which cannot mean the dukedom of d’Aubigny) we have said enough. In +short, the whole will is absurd, and it is all but inconceivable that +the real de la Cloche could have been so ignorant as to compose it. + +So the matter stands; one of two hypotheses must be correct--the Naples +man was de la Cloche or he was not--yet either hypothesis is almost +impossible.* + + + *I was at first inclined to suppose that the de la Cloche papers in +the Gesu--the letters of Charles II. and the note of the Queen of +Sweden--were forgeries, part of an impostor’s apparatus, seized at +Naples and sent to Oliva for inspection. But the letters--handwriting +and royal seal apart--show too much knowledge of Charles’s secret policy +to have been feigned. We are not told that the certificates of de la +Cloche’s birth were taken from James Stuart in prison, and, even if he +possessed them, as Armanni says he did, he may have stolen them, and +they may have been restored by the Viceroy of Naples, as we said, to the +Jesuits. As to whether Charles II. paid his promised subscription to +the Jesuit building fund, Father Boero says: ‘We possess a royal letter, +proving that it was abundant’ (Boero, Istoria etc., p. 56, note 1), +but he does not print the letter; and Mr. Brady speaks now of extant +documents proving the donation, and now of ‘a traditional belief that +Charles was a benefactor of the Jesuit College.’ + +It may be added that, on December 27, 1668, Charles wrote to his sister, +Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans: ‘I assure you that nobody does, nor +shall, know anything of it here’ (of his intended conversion and secret +dealings with France) ‘but my selfe, and that one person more, till +it be fitte to be publique...’ ‘That one person more’ is not elsewhere +referred to in Charles’s known letters to his sister, unless he be ‘he +that came last, and delivered me your letter of the 9th December; he has +given me a full account of what he was charged with, and I am very well +pleased with what he tells me’ (Whitehall, December 14, 1668). + +This mysterious person, the one sharer of the King’s secret, may be de +la Cloche, if he could have left England by November 18, visited Rome, +and returned to Paris by December 9. If so, de la Cloche may have +fulfilled his mission. Did he return to Italy, and appear in Naples in +January or February 1669? (See Madame, by Julia Cartwright, pp. 274, +275, London, 1894.) + + + + +IX. THE TRUTH ABOUT ‘FISHER’S GHOST’ + + + +Everybody has heard about ‘Fisher’s Ghost.’ It is one of the stock +‘yarns’ of the world, and reappears now and again in magazines, books +like ‘The Night Side of Nature,’ newspapers, and general conversation. +As usually told, the story runs thus: One Fisher, an Australian +settler of unknown date, dwelling not far from Sydney, disappeared. His +overseer, like himself an ex-convict, gave out that Fisher had returned +to England, leaving him as plenipotentiary. One evening a neighbour (one +Farley), returning from market, saw Fisher sitting on the fence of his +paddock, walked up to speak to him, and marked him leave the fence +and retreat into the field, where he was lost to sight. The neighbour +reported Fisher’s return, and, as Fisher could nowhere be found, made a +deposition before magistrates. A native tracker was taken to the fence +where the pseudo Fisher sat, discovered ‘white man’s blood’ on it, +detected ‘white man’s fat’ on the scum of a pool hard by, and, finally, +found ‘white man’s body’ buried in a brake. The overseer was tried, +condemned, and hanged after confession. + +Such is the yarn: occasionally the ghost of Fisher is said to have been +viewed several times on the fence. + +Now, if the yarn were true, it would be no proof of a ghost. The person +sitting on the fence might be mistaken for Fisher by a confusion +of identity, or might be a mere subjective hallucination of a sort +recognised even by official science as not uncommon. On the other hand, +that such an illusion should perch exactly on the rail where ‘white +man’s blood’ was later found, would be a very remarkable coincidence. +Finally, the story of the appearance might be explained as an excuse +for laying information against the overseer, already suspected on other +grounds. But while this motive might act among a Celtic population, +naturally credulous of ghosts, and honourably averse to assisting +the law (as in Glenclunie in 1749), it is not a probable motive in +an English Crown colony, as Sydney then was. Nor did the seer inform +against anybody. + +The tale is told in ‘Tegg’s Monthly Magazine’ (Sydney, March 1836); in +‘Household Words’ for 1853; in Mr. John Lang’s book, ‘Botany Bay’ (about +1840), where the yarn is much dressed up; and in Mr. Montgomery Martin’s +‘History of the British Colonies,’ vol. iv. (1835). Nowhere is a date +given, but Mr. Martin says that the events occurred while he was in the +colony. His most intimate surviving friend has often heard him tell the +tale, and discuss it with a legal official, who is said to have been +present at the trial of the overseer.* Other living witnesses have +heard the story from a gentleman who attended the trial. Mr. Martin’s +narrative given as a lowest date, the occurrences were before 1835. +Moreover, the yarn of the ghost was in circulation before that year, and +was accepted by a serious writer on a serious subject. But we have still +no date for the murder. + + + *So the friend informs me in a letter of November 1896. + +That date shall now be given. Frederick Fisher was murdered by George +Worrall, his overseer, at Campbelltown on June 16 (or 17), 1826. After +that date, as Fisher was missing, Worrall told various tales to account +for his absence. The trial of Worrall is reported in the ‘Sydney +Gazette’ of February 5, 1827. Not one word is printed about Fisher’s +ghost; but the reader will observe that there is a lacuna in the +evidence exactly where the ghost, if ghost there were, should have come +in. The search for Fisher’s body starts, it will be seen, from a spot +on Fisher’s paddock-fence, and the witness gives no reason why that spot +was inspected, or rather no account of how, or by whom, sprinkled blood +was detected on the rail. Nobody saw the murder committed. Chief-Justice +Forbes said, in summing up (on February 2, 1827), that the evidence was +purely circumstantial. We are therefore so far left wholly in the dark +as to why the police began their investigations at a rail in a fence. + +At the trial Mr. D. Cooper deposed to having been owed 80 pounds by +Fisher. After Fisher’s disappearance Cooper frequently spoke to Worrall +about this debt, which Worrall offered to pay if Cooper would give up to +him certain papers (title-deeds) of Fisher’s in his possession. Worrall +even wrote, from Banbury Curran, certifying Cooper of Fisher’s departure +from the colony, which, he said, he was authorised to announce. Cooper +replied that he would wait for his 80 pounds if Fisher were still in the +country. Worrall exhibited uneasiness, but promised to show a written +commission to act for Fisher. This document he never produced, but was +most anxious to get back Fisher’s papers and to pay the 80 pounds. This +arrangement was refused by Cooper. + +James Coddington deposed that on July 8, 1826, when Fisher had been +missing for three weeks, Worrall tried to sell him a colt, which +Coddington believed to be Fisher’s. Worrall averred that Fisher had left +the country. A few days later Worrall showed Coddington Fisher’s receipt +for the price paid to him by Worrall for the horse. ‘Witness, from +having seen Fisher write, had considerable doubt as to the genuineness +of the receipt.’ + +James Hamilton swore that in August 1826 he bluntly told Worrall that +foul play was suspected; he ‘turned pale, and endeavoured to force a +smile.’ He merely said that Fisher ‘was on salt water,’ but could not or +would not name his ship. A receipt to Worrall from Fisher was sworn to +by Lewis Solomon as a forgery. + +Samuel Hopkins, who lived under Fisher’s roof, last saw Fisher on June +17, 1826 (June 16 may be meant), in the evening. Some other people, +including one Lawrence, were in the house, they left shortly after +Fisher went out that evening, and later remarked on the strangeness +of his not returning. Nathaniel Cole gave evidence to the same effect. +Fisher, in short, strolled out on June 17 (16?), 1826, and was seen no +more in the body. + +Robert Burke, of Campbelltown, constable, deposed to having apprehended +Worrall. We may now give in full the evidence as to the search for +Fisher’s body on October 20, 1826. + +Here let us first remark that Fisher’s body was not easily found. A +reward for its discovery was offered by Government on September 27, +1826, when Fisher had been dead for three months, and this may +have stimulated all that was immortal of Fisher to perch on his own +paddock-rail, and so draw attention to the position of his body. But on +this point we have no information, and we proceed to real evidence. From +this it appears that though a reward was offered on September 27, the +local magistrates (to whom the ghost-seer went, in the yarn) did not +bid their constable make SPECIAL researches till October 20, apparently +after the seer told his tale. + +‘George Leonard, a constable at Campbelltown, stated that by order of +the bench of the magistrates he commenced a search for the body of the +deceased on the 20th of October last: witness WENT TO A PLACE WHERE SOME +BLOOD WAS SAID TO HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED, and saw traces of it on several +rails of a fence at the corner of the deceased’s paddock adjoining +the fence of Mr. Bradbury, and about fifty rods from prisoner’s house: +witness proceeded to search with an iron rod over the ground, when two +black natives came up and joined in the search till they came to a creek +where one of them saw something on the water: a man named Gilbert, a +black native, went into the water, and scumming some of the top with a +leaf, which he afterwards tasted, called out that “there was the fat of +a white man” [of which he was clearly an amateur]: they then proceeded +to another creek about forty or fifty yards farther up, STILL LED BY +THE NATIVES, when one of them struck the rod into some marshy ground +and called out that “there was something there:” a spade was immediately +found, and the place dug, when the first thing that presented itself +was the left hand of a man lying on his side, which witness, from a long +acquaintance with him, immediately declared to be the hand of Frederick +Fisher: the body was decayed a little, particularly the under-jaw: +witness immediately informed Mr. William Howe and the Rev. Mr. Reddall, +and obtained a warrant to apprehend the parties who were supposed to be +concerned in the murder; the coroner was sent for, and, the body being +taken out of the earth the next morning, several fractures were found +in the head: an inquest was held, and a verdict of wilful murder against +some person or persons unknown was returned: witness particularly +examined the fence: there appeared to have been a fire made under the +lower rail, as if to burn out the mark: the blood seemed as if it were +sprinkled over the rails.... + +‘The declaration of the prisoner’ (Worrall) ‘was put in and read: it +stated that, on the evening of the 17th of June, a man named Lawrence +got some money from the deceased, and together with four others went +to a neighbouring public-house to drink: that after some time they +returned, and the prisoner being then outside the house, and not seen by +the others, he saw two of them enter, whilst the other two, one of whom +was Lawrence, remained at the door: the prisoner then went down to the +bottom of the yard, and after a little time heard a scuffle, and saw +Lawrence and the others drag something along the yard, which they struck +several times. The prisoner then came forward, and called out to know +who it was. One of them replied, “It is a dog.” The prisoner coming +up said, “It is Fisher, and you have prevented him from crying out any +more.” They said they had murdered him in order to possess themselves +of what money he had, and bound the prisoner by a solemn pledge not to +reveal it. + +‘For the prisoner Nathaniel Boom deposed: he knew deceased, and intended +to institute a prosecution against him for forgery when he disappeared. + +‘Chief-justice summed up: observed it was a case entirely of +circumstances. The jury were first to consider if identity of body with +Fisher was satisfactorily established. If not: no case. If so: they +would then consider testimony as affecting prisoner. Impossible, though +wholly circumstantial, for evidence to be stronger. He offered no +opinion, but left case to jury. + +‘The jury returned a verdict of guilty. Sentence of death passed.’ + + ‘February 6, 1827. Sydney Gazette. + +‘George Worrall, convicted on Friday last of murder of F. Fisher, +yesterday suffered the last penalty of the law. Till about 5 o’clock on +the morning of his execution, he persisted in asserting his innocence, +when he was induced to confess to a gentleman who had sat up with +him during the night, that he alone had perpetrated the murder, but +positively affirmed it was not his intention at the time to do so.’ + +We need not follow Worrall’s attempts to explain away the crime as an +accident. He admitted that ‘he had intended to hang Lawrence and Cole.’ + +It is a curious case. WHY WAS NOBODY INTERROGATED ABOUT THE DISCOVERY, +ON THE RAIL, OF BLOOD THREE MONTHS OLD, if not four months? What was the +apparent date of the fire under the rail? How did the ghost-story get +into circulation, and reach Mr. Montgomery Martin (1835)? + +To suggest a solution of these problems, we have a precisely analogous +case in England. + +On October 25, 1828, one William Edden, a market-gardener, did not come +home at night. His wife rushed into the neighbouring village, announcing +that she had seen her husband’s ghost; that he had a hammer, or some +such instrument, in his hand; that she knew he had been hammered to +death on the road by a man whose name she gave, one Tyler. Her husband +was found on the road, between Aylesbury and Thame, killed by blows of +a blunt instrument, and the wife in vain repeatedly invited the man, +Joseph Tyler, to come and see the corpse. Probably she believed that it +would bleed in his presence, in accordance with the old superstition. +All this the poor woman stated on oath at an inquiry before the +magistrates, reported in the Buckinghamshire county paper of August 29, +1829. + +Here is her evidence, given at Aylesbury Petty Sessions, August 22, +before Lord Nugent, Sir J. D. King, R. Brown, Esq., and others: + +‘“After my husband’s corpse was brought home, I sent to Tyler, for some +reasons I had, to come and see the corpse. I sent for him five or six +times. I had some particular reason for sending for him which I never +did divulge.... I will tell my reasons if you gentlemen ask me, in the +face of Tyler, even if my life should be in danger for it. When I +was ironing a shirt, on the Saturday night my husband was murdered, +something came over me--something rushed over me--and I thought my +husband came by me. I looked up, and I thought I heard the voice of my +husband come from near my mahogany table, as I turned from my ironing. I +ran out and said, ‘Oh dear God! my husband is murdered, and his ribs are +broken.’ I told this to several of my neighbours. Mrs. Chester was the +first to whom I told it. I mentioned it also at the Saracen’s Head.” + +‘Sir J. D. King.--“Have you any objection to say why you thought your +husband had been murdered?” + +‘“No! I thought I saw my husband’s apparition and the man that had done +it, and that man was Tyler, and that was the reason I sent for him.... +When my neighbours asked me what was the matter when I ran out, I told +them that I had seen my husband’s apparition.... When I mentioned it to +Mrs. Chester, I said: ‘My husband is murdered, and his ribs are broken; +I have seen him by the mahogany table.’ I did not tell her who did +it.... I was always frightened, since my husband had been stopped on the +road.” (The deceased Edden had once before been waylaid, but was then +too powerful for his assailants.) “In consequence of what I saw, I +went in search of my husband, until I was taken so ill I could go no +further.” + +‘Lord Nugent.--“What made you think your husband’s ribs were broken?” + +‘“He held up his hand like this” (holds up her arm), “and I saw a +hammer, or something like a hammer, and it came into my mind that his +ribs were broken.” + +‘Sewell stated that the murder was accomplished by means of a hammer. +The examination was continued on August 31 and September 13; and finally +both prisoners were discharged for want of sufficient evidence. Sewell +declared that he had only been a looker-on, and his accusations against +Tyler were so full of prevarications that they were not held sufficient +to incriminate him. The inquiry was again resumed on February 11, 1830, +and Sewell, Tyler, and a man named Gardner were committed for trial. + +‘The trial (see “Buckingham Gazette,” March 13, 1830) took place before +Mr. Baron Vaughan and a grand jury at the Buckingham Lent Assizes, March +5, 1830; BUT IN THE REPORT OF MRS. EDDEN’S EVIDENCE NO MENTION IS MADE +OF THE VISION. + +‘Sewell and Tyler were found guilty, and were executed, protesting their +innocence, on March 8, 1830. + +‘Miss Browne, writing to us [Mr. Gurney] from Farnham Castle, in January +1884, gives an account of the vision which substantially accords with +that here recorded, adding:--‘“The wife persisted in her account of +the vision; consequently the accused was taken up, and, with some +circumstantial evidence in addition to the woman’s story, committed for +trial by two magistrates--my father, Colonel Robert Browne, and the Rev. +Charles Ackfield.” + +‘“The murderer was convicted at the assizes, and hanged at Aylesbury.” + +‘“It may be added that Colonel Browne was remarkably free from +superstition, and was a thorough disbeliever in ‘ghost stories.’”’ * + + + *From Phantasms of the Living, Gurney and Myers, vol. ii. p. 586. + +Now, in the report of the trial at assizes in 1830 there is not one +word about the ‘ghost,’ though he is conspicuous in the hearing at petty +sessions. The parallel to Fisher’s case is thus complete. And the reason +for omitting the ghost in a trial is obvious. The murderers of Sergeant +Davies of Guise’s, slain in the autumn of 1749 in Glenclunie, were +acquitted by an Edinburgh jury in 1753 in face of overpowering evidence +of their guilt, partly because two Highland witnesses deposed to having +seen the ghost of the sergeant, partly because the jury were Jacobites. +The prisoners’ counsel, as one of them told Sir Walter Scott, knew that +their clients were guilty. A witness had seen them in the act. But the +advocate (Lockhart, a Jacobite) made such fun out of the ghost that an +Edinburgh jury, disbelieving in the spectre, and not loving the House +of Hanover, very logically disregarded also the crushing evidence for a +crime which was actually described in court by an eye-witness. + +Thus, to secure a view of the original form of the yarn of Fisher’s +Ghost, what we need is what we are not likely to get--namely, a copy of +the depositions made before the bench of magistrates at Campbelltown in +October 1826. + +For my own part, I think it highly probable that the story of Fisher’s +Ghost was told before the magistrates, as in the Buckinghamshire case, +and was suppressed in the trial at Sydney. + +Worrall’s condemnation is said to have excited popular discontent, +as condemnations on purely circumstantial evidence usually do. That +dissatisfaction would be increased if a ghost were publicly implicated +in the matter, just as in the case of Davies’s murder in 1749. We see +how discreetly the wraith or ghost was kept out of the Buckinghamshire +case at the trial, and we see why, in Worrall’s affair, no questions +were asked as to the discovery of sprinkled blood, not proved by +analysis to be human, on the rail where Fisher’s ghost was said to +perch. + +I had concluded my inquiry here, when I received a letter in which Mr. +Rusden kindly referred me to his ‘History of Australia’ (vol. ii. pp. +44, 45). Mr. Rusden there gives a summary of the story, in agreement +with that taken from the Sydney newspaper. He has ‘corrected current +rumours by comparison with the words of a trustworthy informant, a +medical man, who lived long in the neighbourhood, and attended Farley +[the man who saw Fisher’s ghost] on his death-bed. He often conversed +with Farley on the subject of the vision which scared him.... These +facts are compiled from the notes of Chief-Justice Forbes, who presided +at the trial, with the exception of the references to the apparition, +which, although it led to the discovery of Fisher’s body, could not be +alluded to in a court of justice, or be adduced as evidence.’* There is +no justice for ghosts. + + + *Thanks to the kindness of the Countess of Jersey, and the obliging +researches of the Chief Justice of New South Wales, I have received +a transcript of the judge’s notes. They are correctly analysed by Mr. +Rusden. + +An Australian correspondent adds another example. Long after Fisher’s +case, this gentleman was himself present at a trial in Maitland, New +South Wales. A servant-girl had dreamed that a missing man told her who +had killed him, and where his body was concealed. She, being terrified, +wanted to leave the house, but her mistress made her impart the story +to the chief constable, a man known to my informant, who also knew, and +names, the judge who tried the case. The constable excavated at the spot +pointed out in the dream, unearthed the body, and arrested the criminal, +who was found guilty, confessed, and was hanged. Not a word was allowed +to be said in court about the dream. All the chief constable was +permitted to say was, that ‘from information received’ he went to +Hayes’s farm, and so forth. + +Here, then, are two parallels to Fisher’s ghost, and very hard on +psychical science it is that ghostly evidence should be deliberately +burked through the prejudices of lawyers. Mr. Suttar, in his ‘Australian +Stories Retold’ (Bathurst, 1887), remarks that the ghost is not a +late mythical accretion in Fisher’s story. ‘I have the authority of a +gentleman who was intimately connected with the gentleman who had the +charge of the police when the murder was done, that Farley’s story did +suggest the search for the body in the creek.’ But Mr. Suttar thinks +that Farley invented the tale as an excuse for laying information. That +might apply, as has been said, to Highland witnesses in 1753, but hardly +to an Englishman in Australia. Besides, if Farley knew the facts, and +had the ghost to cover the guilt of peaching, WHY DID HE NOT PEACH? +He only pointed to a fence, and, but for the ingenious black Sherlock +Holmes, the body would never have been found. What Farley did was not +what a man would do who, knowing the facts of the crime, and lured by +a reward of 20 pounds, wished to play the informer under cover of a +ghost-story. + +The case for the ghost, then, stands thus, in my opinion. Despite the +silence preserved at the trial, Farley’s ghost-story was really told +before the discovery of Fisher’s body, and led to the finding of the +body. Despite Mr. Suttar’s theory (of information laid under shelter +of a ghost-story), Farley really had experienced an hallucination. Mr. +Rusden, who knew his doctor, speaks of his fright, and, according to +the version of 1836, he was terrified into an illness. Now, the +hallucination indicated the exact spot where Fisher was stricken down, +and left traces of his blood, which no evidence shows to have been +previously noticed. Was it, then, a fortuitous coincidence that Farley +should be casually hallucinated exactly at the one spot--the rail in the +fence--where Fisher had been knocked on the head? That is the question, +and the state of the odds may be reckoned by the mathematician. + +As to the Australian servant-girl’s dream about the place where another +murdered body lay, and the dreams which led to the discovery of the Red +Barn and Assynt murders, and (May 1903) to the finding of the corpse +of a drowned girl at Shanklin, all these may be mere guesses by the +sleeping self, which is very clever at discovering lost objects. + + + + +X. THE MYSTERY OF LORD BATEMAN + + +Ever and again, in the literary and antiquarian papers, there flickers +up debate as to the Mystery of Lord Bateman. This problem in no way +concerns the existing baronial house of Bateman, which, in Burke, +records no predecessor before a knight and lord mayor of 1717. Our +Bateman comes of lordlier and more ancient lineage. The question really +concerns ‘The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Illustrated by George +Cruikshank, London: Charles Tilt, Fleet Street. And Mustapha Syried, +Constantinople. MDCCCXXXIX.’ + +The tiny little volume in green cloth, with a design of Lord Bateman’s +marriage ceremony, stamped in gold, opens with a ‘Warning to the Public, +concerning the Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman.’ The Warning is signed +George Cruikshank, who, however, adds in a postscript: ‘The above is not +my writing.’ The ballad follows, and then comes a set of notes, mainly +critical. The author of the Warning remarks: ‘In some collection of old +English Ballads there is an ancient ditty, which, I am told, bears some +remote and distant resemblance to the following Epic Poem.’ + +Again, the text of the ballad, here styled ‘The Famous History of Lord +Bateman,’ with illustrations by Thackeray, ‘plain’ (the original designs +were coloured), occurs in the Thirteenth Volume of the Biographical +Edition of Thackeray’s works. (pp. lvi-lxi). + +The problems debated are: ‘Who wrote the Loving Ballad of Lord +Bateman, and who wrote the Notes?’ The disputants have not shown much +acquaintance with ballad lore in general. + +First let us consider Mr. Thackeray’s text of the ballad. It is closely +affiliated to the text of ‘The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman,’ whereof +the earliest edition with Cruikshank’s illustrations was published in +1839.* The edition here used is that of David Bryce and Son, Glasgow (no +date). + + + *There are undated cheap broadside copies, not illustrated, in the +British Museum. + +Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, in his ‘Life of Cruikshank,’ tells us that the +artist sang this ‘old English ballad’ at a dinner where Dickens and +Thackeray were present. Mr. Thackeray remarked: ‘I should like to print +that ballad with illustrations,’ but Cruikshank ‘warned him off,’ as he +intended to do the thing himself. Dickens furnished the learned notes. +This account of what occurred was given by Mr. Walter Hamilton, but Mr. +Sala furnished another version. The ‘authorship of the ballad,’ Mr. Sala +justly observed, ‘is involved in mystery.’ Cruikshank picked it up from +the recitation of a minstrel outside a pot-house. In Mr. Sala’s opinion, +Mr. Thackeray ‘revised and settled the words, and made them fit for +publication.’ Nor did he confine himself to the mere critical work; +he added, in Mr. Sala’s opinion, that admired passage about ‘The young +bride’s mother, who never before was heard to speak so free,’ also +contributing ‘The Proud Young Porter,’ Jeames. Now, in fact, both the +interpellation of the bride’s mamma, and the person and characteristics +of the proud young porter, are of unknown antiquity, and are not due +to Mr. Thackeray--a scholar too conscientious to ‘decorate’ an ancient +text. Bishop Percy did such things, and Scott is not beyond suspicion; +but Mr. Thackeray, like Joseph Ritson, preferred the authentic voice of +tradition. Thus, in the text of the Biographical Edition, he does not +imitate the Cockney twang, phonetically rendered in the version of +Cruikshank. The second verse, for example, runs thus: + +Cruikshank: + + He sail-ed east, he sail-ed vest, + Until he came to famed Tur-key, + Vere he vos taken and put to prisin, + Until his life was quite wea-ry. + +Thackeray: + + He sailed East, and he sailed West, + Until he came to proud Turkey, + Where he was taken and put to prison, + Until his life was almost weary. + +There are discrepancies in the arrangement of the verses, and a most +important various reading. + +Cruikshank: + + Now sevin long years is gone and past, + And fourteen days vell known to me; + She packed up all her gay clouthing, + And swore Lord Bateman she would go see. + +To this verse, in Cruikshank’s book, a note (not by Cruikshank) is +added: + + ‘“Now sevin long years is gone and past, + And fourteen days well known to me.”’ + +In this may be recognised, though in a minor degree, the same gifted +hand that portrayed the Mussulman, the pirate, the father, and the +bigot, in two words (“This Turk”). + +‘“The time is gone, the historian knows it, and that is enough for the +reader. This is the dignity of history very strikingly exemplified.”’ + +That note to Cruikshank’s text is, like all the delightful notes, if +style is evidence, not by Dickens, but by Thackeray. Yet, in his own +text, with an exemplary fidelity, he reads: ‘And fourteen days well +known to THEE.’ To whom? We are left in ignorance; and conjecture, +though tempting, is unsafe. The reading of Cruikshank, ‘vell known to +ME’--that is, to the poet--is confirmed by the hitherto unprinted +‘Lord Bedmin.’ This version, collected by Miss Wyatt Edgell in 1899, as +recited by a blind old woman in a workhouse, who had learned it in +her youth, now lies before the present writer. He owes this invaluable +document to the kindness of Miss Wyatt Edgell and Lady Rosalind +Northcote. Invaluable it is, because it proves that Lord Bateman (or +Bedmin) is really a volkslied, a popular and current version of the +ancient ballad. ‘Famed Turkey’ becomes ‘Torquay’ in this text, probably +by a misapprehension on the part of the collector or reciter. The speech +of the bride’s mother is here omitted, though it occurs in older texts; +but, on the whole, the blind old woman’s memory has proved itself +excellent. In one place she gives Thackeray’s reading in preference to +that of Cruikshank, thus: + +Cruikshank: + + Ven he vent down on his bended knee. + +Thackeray: + + Down on his bended knees fell he. + +Old Woman: + + Down on his bended knee fell he. + +We have now ascertained the following facts: Cruikshank and Thackeray +used a text with merely verbal differences, which was popular among +the least educated classes early in last century. Again, Thackeray +contributed the notes and critical apparatus to Cruikshank’s version. +For this the internal evidence of style is overpowering: no other man +wrote in the manner and with the peculiar humour of Mr. Titmarsh. In the +humble opinion of the present writer these Notes ought to be appended to +Mr. Thackeray’s version of ‘Lord Bateman.’ Finally, Mr. Sala was wrong +in supposing that Mr. Thackeray took liberties with the text received +from oral tradition. + +What was the origin of that text? Professor Child, in the second part of +his ‘English and Scottish Popular Ballads’ * lays before us the learning +about Lord Bateman, Lord Bedmin, Young Bicham, Young Brechin, Young +Bekie, Young Beichan and Susie Pie (the heroine, Sophia, in Thackeray), +Lord Beichan, Young Bondwell, and Markgraf Backenweil; for by all +these names is Lord Bateman known. The student must carefully note that +‘Thackeray’s List of Broadsides,’ cited, is NOT by Mr. W. M. Thackeray. + + + *Pt. ii. p. 454 et seq., and in various other places. + +As the reader may not remember the incidents in the Thackeray, +Cruikshank, and Old Woman version (which represents an ancient ballad, +now not so much popularised as vulgarised), a summary may be given. +Lord Bateman went wandering: ‘his character, at this time, and his +expedition, would seem to have borne a striking resemblance to those of +Lord Byron.... SOME foreign country he wished to see, and that was the +extent of his desire; any foreign country would answer his purpose--all +foreign countries were alike to him.’--(Note, apud Cruikshank.) Arriving +in Turkey (or Torquay) he was taken and fastened to a tree by his +captor. He was furtively released by the daughter of ‘This Turk.’ ‘The +poet has here, by that bold license which only genius can venture upon, +surmounted the extreme difficulty of introducing any particular Turk, by +assuming a foregone conclusion in the reader’s mind; and adverting, in +a casual, careless way, to a Turk hitherto unknown as to an old +acquaintance.... “THIS Turk he had” is a master-stroke, a truly +Shakespearian touch’--(Note.) The lady, in her father’s cellar +[‘Castle,’ Old Woman’s text), consoles the captive with ‘the very best +wine,’ secretly stored, for his private enjoyment, by the cruel and +hypocritical Mussulman. She confesses the state of her heart, +and inquires as to Lord Bateman’s real property, which is ‘half +Northumberland.’ To what period in the complicated mediaeval history of +the earldom of Northumberland the affair belongs is uncertain. + +The pair vow to be celibate for seven years, and Lord Bateman escapes. +At the end of the period, Sophia sets out for Northumberland, urged, +perhaps, by some telepathic admonition. For, on arriving at Lord +Bateman’s palace (Alnwick Castle?), she summons the proud porter, +announces herself, and finds that her lover has just celebrated a +marriage with another lady. In spite of the remonstrances of the bride’s +mamma, Lord Bateman restores that young lady to her family, observing + + She is neither the better nor the worse for me. + +So Thackeray and Old Woman. Cruikshank prudishly reads, + + O you’ll see what I’ll do for you and she. + +‘Lord Bateman then prepared another marriage, having plenty of +superfluous wealth to bestow upon the Church.’--(Note.) All the rest was +bliss. + +The reader may ask: How did Sophia know anything about the obscure +Christian captive? WHY did she leave home exactly in time for his +marriage? How came Lord Bateman to be so fickle? The Annotator replies: +‘His lordship had doubtless been impelled by despair of ever recovering +his lost Sophia, and a natural anxiety not to die without leaving an +heir to his estate.’ Finally how was the difficulty of Sophia’s religion +overcome? + +To all these questions the Cockney version gives no replies, but the +older forms of the ballad offer sufficient though varying answers, as we +shall see. + +Meanwhile one thing is plain from this analysis of the pot-house version +of an old ballad, namely, that the story is constructed out of fragments +from the great universal store of popular romance. The central ideas are +two: first, the situation of a young man in the hands of a cruel captor +(often a god, a giant, a witch, a fiend), but here--a Turk. The youth +is loved and released (commonly through magic spells) by the daughter +of the gaoler, god, giant, witch, Turk, or what not. In Greece, Jason is +the Lord Bateman, Medea is the Sophia, of the tale, which was known +to Homer and Hesiod, and was fully narrated by Pindar. THE OTHER YOUNG +PERSON, the second bride, however, comes in differently, in the Greek. +In far-off Samoa, a god is the captor.* The gaoler is a magician in Red +Indian versions.** + + + *Turner’s ‘Samoa,’ p. 102. + + **For a list, though an imperfect one, of the Captor’s Daughter story, +see the Author’s Custom and Myth, pp. 86-102. + +As a rule, in these tales, from Finland to Japan, from Samoa to +Madagascar, Greece and India, the girl accompanies her lover in his +flight, delaying the pursuer by her magic. In ‘Lord Bateman’ another +formula, almost as widely diffused, is preferred. + +The old true love comes back just after her lover’s wedding. He returns +to her. Now, as a rule, in popular tales, the lover’s fickleness is +explained by a spell or by a breach of a taboo. The old true love has +great difficulty in getting access to him, and in waking him from a +sleep, drugged or magical. + + The bloody shirt I wrang for thee, + The Hill o’ Glass I clamb for thee, + And wilt thou no waken and speak to me? + +He wakens at last, and all is well. In a Romaic ballad the deserted +girl, meeting her love on his wedding-day, merely reminds him of old +kindness. He answers-- + + Now he that will may scatter nuts, + And he may wed that will, + But she that was my old true love + Shall be my true love still. + +This incident, the strange, often magically caused oblivion of the +lover, whose love returns to him, like Sophia, at, or after, his +marriage, is found in popular tales of Scotland, Norway, Iceland, +Germany, Italy, Greece, and the Gaelic Western Islands. It does not +occur in ‘Lord Bateman,’ where Mr. Thackeray suggests probable reasons +for Lord Bateman’s fickleness. But the world-wide incidents are found in +older versions of ‘Lord Bateman,’ from which they have been expelled by +the English genius for the commonplace. + +Thus, if we ask, how did Sophia at first know of Bateman’s existence? +The lovely and delicate daughter of the Turk, doubtless, was unaware +that, in the crowded dungeons of her sire, one captive of wealth, +noble birth, and personal fascination, was languishing. The Annotator +explains: ‘She hears from an aged and garrulous attendant, her only +female adviser (for her mother died while she was yet an infant), of the +sorrows and sufferings of the Christian captive.’ In ancient versions +of the ballad another explanation occurs. She overhears a song which +he sings about his unlucky condition. This account is in Young Bekie +(Scottish: mark the name, Bekie), where France is the scene and the +king’s daughter is the lady. The same formula of the song sung by the +prisoner is usual. Not uncommon, too, is a TOKEN carried by Sophia when +she pursues her lost adorer, to insure her recognition. It is half of +her broken ring. Once more, why does Sophia leave home to find Bateman +in the very nick of time? Thackeray’s version does not tell us; but +Scottish versions do. ‘She longed fu’ sair her love to see.’ Elsewhere +a supernatural being, ‘The Billy Blin,’ or a fairy, clad in green, +gives her warning. The fickleness of the hero is caused, sometimes, by +constraint, another noble ‘has his marriage,’ as his feudal superior, +and makes him marry, but only in form. + + There is a marriage in yonder hall, + Has lasted thirty days and three, + The bridegroom winna bed the bride, + For the sake o’ one that’s owre the sea. + +In this Scottish version, by the way, occurs-- + + Up spoke the young bride’s mother, + Who never was heard to speak so free, + +wrongly attributed to Mr. Thackeray’s own pen. + +The incident of the magical oblivion which comes over the bridegroom +occurs in Scandinavian versions of ‘Lord Bateman’ from manuscripts of +the sixteenth century.* Finally, the religious difficulty in several +Scottish versions is got over by the conversion and baptism of Sophia, +who had professed the creed of Islam. That all these problems in ‘Lord +Bateman’ are left unsolved is, then, the result of decay. The modern +vulgar English version of the pot-house minstrel (known as ‘The Tripe +Skewer,’ according to the author of the Introduction to Cruikshank’s +version) has forgotten, has been heedless of, and has dropped the +ancient universal elements of folk-tale and folk-song. + + + *Child, ii. 459-461. + +These graces, it is true, are not too conspicuous even in the oldest and +best versions of ‘Lord Bateman.’ Choosing at random, however, we find a +Scots version open thus: + + In the lands where Lord Beichan was born, + Among the stately steps o’ stane, + He wore the goud at his left shoulder, + But to the Holy Land he’s gane. + +That is not in the tone of the ditty sung by the Tripe Skewer. Again, in +his prison, + + He made na his moan to a stock, + He made na it to a stone, + But it was to the Queen of Heaven + That he made his moan. + +The lines are from a version of the North of Scotland, and, on the face +of it, are older than the extirpation of the Catholic faith in the loyal +North. The reference to Holy Land preserves a touch of the crusading +age. In short, poor as they may be, the Scottish versions are those of +a people not yet wholly vulgarised, not yet lost to romance. The singers +have ‘half remembered and half forgot’ the legend of Gilbert Becket +(Bekie, Beichan), the father of St. Thomas of Canterbury. Gilbert, in +the legend, went to Holy Land, was cast into a Saracen’s prison, and +won his daughter’s heart. He escaped, but the lady followed him, like +Sophia, and, like Sophia, found and wedded him; Gilbert’s servant, +Richard, playing the part of the proud young porter. Yet, as Professor +Child justly observes, the ballad ‘is not derived from the legend,’ +though the legend as to Gilbert Becket exists in a manuscript of about +1300. The Bateman motive is older than Gilbert Becket, and has been +attached to later versions of the adventures of that hero. Gilbert +Becket about 1300 was credited with a floating, popular tale of the +Bateman sort, and out of his legend, thus altered, the existing ballads +drew their ‘Bekie’ and ‘Beichan,’ from the name of Becket. + +The process is: First, the popular tale of the return of the old true +love; that tale is found in Greece, Scandinavia, Denmark, Iceland, +Faroe, Spain, Germany, and so forth. Next, about 1300 Gilbert Becket is +made the hero of the tale. Next, our surviving ballads retain a trace or +two of the Becket form, but they are not derived from the Becket form. +The fancy of the folk first evolved the situations in the story, then +lent them to written literature (Becket’s legend, 1300), and thirdly, +received the story back from written legend with a slight, comparatively +modern colouring. + +In the dispute as to the origin of our ballads one school, as Mr. T. F. +Henderson and Professor Courthope, regard them as debris of old literary +romances, ill-remembered work of professional minstrels.* That there are +ballads of this kind in England, such as the Arthurian ballads, I do +not deny. But in my opinion many ballads and popular tales are in origin +older than the mediaeval romances, as a rule. As a rule the romances +are based on earlier popular data, just as the ‘Odyssey’ is an artistic +whole made up out of popular tales. The folk may receive back a literary +form of its own ballad or story, but more frequently the popular ballad +comes down in oral tradition side by side with its educated child, the +literary romance on the same theme. + +Cf. The Queen’s Marie. + +Mr. Henderson has answered that the people is unpoetical. The degraded +populace of the slums may be unpoetical, like the minstrel named ‘Tripe +Skewer,’ and may deprave the ballads of its undegraded ancestry into +such modern English forms as ‘Lord Bateman.’ But I think of the people +which, in Barbour’s day, had its choirs of peasant girls chanting rural +snatches on Bruce’s victories, or, in still earlier France, of Roland’s +overthrow. If THEIR songs are attributed to professional minstrels, I +turn to the Greece of 1830, to the Finland of to-day, to the outermost +Hebrides of to-day, to the Arapahoes of Northern America, to the +Australian blacks, among all of whom the people are their own poets and +make their own dirges, lullabies, chants of victory, and laments for +defeat. THESE peoples are not unpoetical. In fact, when I say that the +people has been its own poet I do not mean the people which goes to +music halls and reads halfpenny newspapers. To the true folk we owe the +legend of Lord Bateman in its ancient germs; and to the folk’s degraded +modern estate, crowded as men are in noisome streets and crushed by +labour, we owe the Cockney depravation, the Lord Bateman of Cruikshank +and Thackeray. Even that, I presume, being old, is now forgotten, except +by the ancient blind woman in the workhouse. To the workhouse has come +the native popular culture--the last lingering shadow of old romance. +That is the moral of the ballad of Lord Bateman. + +In an article by Mr. Kitton, in Literature (June 24, 1899, p. 699), this +learned Dickensite says: ‘The authorship of this version’ (Cruikshank’s) +‘of an ancient ballad and of the accompanying notes has given rise to +much controversy, and whether Dickens or Thackeray was responsible for +them is still a matter of conjecture, although what little evidence +there is seems to favour Thackeray.’ + +For the ballad neither Thackeray nor Dickens is responsible. The Old +Woman’s text settles that question: the ballad is a degraded Volkslied. +As to the notes, internal evidence for once is explicit. The notes are +Thackeray’s. Any one who doubts has only to compare Thackeray’s notes to +his prize poem on ‘Timbuctoo.’ + +The banter, in the notes, is academic banter, that of a university man, +who is mocking the notes of learned editors. This humour is not +the humour of Dickens, who, however, may very well have written the +Introduction to Cruikshank’s version. That morceau is in quite a +different taste and style. I ought, in fairness, to add the following +note from Mr. J. B. Keene, which may be thought to overthrow belief in +Thackeray’s authorship of the notes:-- + +Dear Sir,--Your paper in the ‘Cornhill’ for this month on the Mystery of +Lord Bateman interested me greatly, but I must beg to differ from you as +to the authorship of the Notes, and for this reason. + +I have before me a copy of the first edition of the ‘Loving Ballad’ +which was bought by my father soon after it was issued. At that +time--somewhere about 1840--there was a frequent visitor at our house, +named Burnett, who had married a sister of Charles Dickens, and who gave +us the story of its production. + +He said, as you state, that Cruikshank had got the words from a +pot-house singer, but the locality he named was Whitechapel,* where he +was looking out for characters. He added that Cruikshank sung or hummed +the tune to him, and he gave it the musical notation which follows the +preface. He also said that Charles Dickens wrote the notes. His personal +connection with the work and his relation to Dickens are, I think, fair +evidence on the question. + +I am, dear Sir, Yours truly, + J. B. KEENE. + +Kingsmead House, 1 Hartham Road, Camden Road, N., Feb. 13,1900. + +Mr. Keene’s evidence may, perhaps, settle the question. But, if Dickens +wrote the Introduction, that might be confused in Mr. Burnett’s memory +with the Notes, from internal evidence the work of Thackeray. If not, +then in the Notes we find a new aspect of the inexhaustible humour +of Dickens. It is certain, at all events, that neither Dickens nor +Thackeray was the author of the ‘Loving Ballad.’ + +P.S.--The preface to the ballad says Battle Bridge. + + + + +XI. THE QUEEN’S MARIE + + + Little did my mother think + That day she cradled me + What land I was to travel in, + Or what death I should die. + +Writing to Mrs. Dunlop on January 25, 1790, Burns quoted these lines, +‘in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude simplicity, +speaks feelingly to the heart.’ Mr. Carlyle is said, when young, to have +written them on a pane of glass in a window, with a diamond, adding, +characteristically, ‘Oh foolish Thee!’ In 1802, in the first edition of +‘The Border Minstrelsy,’ Scott cited only three stanzas from the same +ballad, not including Burns’s verse, but giving + + Yestreen the Queen had four Maries, + The night she’ll hae but three, + There was Marie Seaton, and Marie Beaton, + And Marie Carmichael and me. + +In later editions Sir Walter offered a made-up copy of the ballad, most +of it from a version collected by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. + +It now appeared that Mary Hamilton was the heroine, that she was one of +Queen Marie’s four Maries, and that she was hanged for murdering a +child whom she bore to Darnley. Thus the character of Mary Hamilton +was ‘totally lost,’ and Darnley certainly ‘had not sufficient for two.’ +Darnley, to be sure, told his father that ‘I never offended the Queen, +my wife, in meddling with any woman in thought, let be in deed,’ and, +whether Darnley spoke truth or not, there was, among the Queen’s Maries, +no Mary Hamilton to meddle with, just as there was no Mary Carmichael. + +The Maries were attendant on the Queen as children ever since she left +Scotland for France. They were Mary Livingstone (mentioned as ‘Lady +Livinston’ in one version of the ballad),* who married ‘John Sempill, +called the Dancer,’ who, says Laing, ‘acquired the lands of Beltree, in +Renfrewshire.’** + + + *Child, vol. iii. p. 389. + + **Laing’s Knox, ii. 415, note 3. + +When Queen Mary was a captive in England she was at odds with the +Sempill pair about some jewels of hers in their custody. He was not +a satisfactory character, he died before November 1581. Mary Fleming, +early in 1587, married the famous William Maitland of Lethington, ‘being +no more fit for her than I to be a page,’ says Kirkcaldy of Grange. Her +life was wretched enough, through the stormy career and sad death of her +lord. Mary Beaton, with whom Randolph, the English ambassador, used to +flirt, married, in 1566, Ogilvy of Boyne, the first love of Lady Jane +Gordon, the bride of Bothwell. Mary Seaton remained a maiden and busked +the Queen’s hair during her English captivity. We last hear of her +from James Maitland of Lethington, in 1613, living at Rheims, very old, +‘decrepid,’ and poor. There is no room in the Four for Mary Hamilton, +and no mention of her appears in the records of the Court. + +How, then, did Mary Hamilton find her way into the old ballad about +Darnley and the Queen? + +To explain this puzzle, some modern writers have denied that the +ballad of ‘The Queen’s Marie’ is really old; they attribute it to the +eighteenth century. The antiquary who launched this opinion was Scott’s +not very loyal friend, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. According to him, +a certain Miss Hambledon (no Christian name is given), being Maid of +Honour to the Empress Catherine of Russia, had three children by an +amour, and murdered all three. Peter the Great caused her to be, not +hanged, but decapitated. Sharpe took his facts from ‘a German almanac,’ +and says: ‘The Russian tragedy must be the original.’ The late Professor +Child, from more authentic documents, dates Miss Hambledon’s or +Hamilton’s execution on March 14, 1719. At that time, or nearly then, +Charles Wogan was in Russia on a mission from the Chevalier de St. +George (James III.), and through him the news might reach Scotland. +Mr. Courthope, in his ‘History of English Poetry,’ followed Sharpe and +Professor Child, and says: ‘It is very remarkable that one of the very +latest of the Scottish popular ballads should be one of the very best.’ + +The occurrence would not only be remarkable, but, as far as possibility +goes in literature, would be impossible, for several reasons. One is +that neither literary men nor mere garreteers and makers of street +ballads appear, about 1719-1730, to have been capable of recapturing the +simplicity and charm of the old ballad style, at its best, or anything +near its best. There is no mistaking the literary touch in such ballads +as Allan Ramsay handled, or in the imitation named ‘Hardyknute’ in +Allan’s ‘Tea Table Miscellany,’ 1724. ‘It was the first poem I ever +learned, the last I shall ever forget,’ said Scott, and, misled by +boyish affection, he deemed it ‘just old enough,’ ‘a noble imitation.’* +But the imitation can deceive nobody, and while literary imitators, +as far as their efforts have reached us, were impotent to deceive, the +popular Muse, of 1714-1730, was not attempting deception. Ballads of +the eighteenth century were sarcastic, as in those on Sheriffmuir and +in Skirving’s amusing ballad on Preston Pans, or were mere doggerel, or +were brief songs to old tunes. They survive in print, whether in flying +broadsides or in books, but, popular as is ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ in all +its many variants (Child gives no less than eighteen), we do not know +a single printed example before Scott’s made-up copy in the ‘Border +Minstrelsy.’ The latest ballad really in the old popular manner known +to me is that of ‘Rob Roy,’ namely, of Robin Oig and James More, sons +of Rob Roy, and about their abduction of an heiress in 1752. This is +a genuine popular poem, but in style and tone and versification it is +wholly unlike ‘The Queen’s Marie.’ I scarcely hope that any one can +produce, after 1680, a single popular piece which could be mistaken for +a ballad of or near Queen Mary’s time. + + + *Lockhart, i. 114, x. 138. + +The known person least unlike Mr. Courthope’s late ‘maker’ was +‘Mussel-mou’d Charlie Leslie,’ ‘an old Aberdeenshire minstrel, the very +last, probably, of the race,’ says Scott. Charlie died in 1782. He sang, +and sold PRINTED ballads. ‘Why cannot you sing other songs than those +rebellious ones?’ asked a Hanoverian Provost of Aberdeen. ‘Oh ay, +but--THEY WINNA BUY THEM!’ said Charlie. ‘Where do you buy them?’ ‘Why, +faur I get them cheapest.’ He carried his ballads in ‘a large harden +bag, hung over his shoulder.’ Charlie had tholed prison for Prince +Charles, and had seen Provost Morison drink the Prince’s health in wine +and proclaim him Regent at the Cross of Aberdeen. If Charlie (who lived +to be a hundred and two) composed the song, ‘Mussel-mou’d Charlie’ +[‘this sang Charlie made hissel’), then this maker could never have +produced ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ nor could any maker like him. His ballads +were printed, as any successful ballad of 1719 would probably have been, +in broadsides.* Against Mr. Child and Mr. Courthope, then, we argue +that, after 1600, a marked decadence of the old ballad style set +in--that the old style (as far as is known) died soon after Bothwell +Brig (1679), in the execrable ballads of both sides, such as +‘Philiphaugh,’ and that it soon was not only dead as a form in practical +use, but was entirely superseded by new kinds of popular poetry, of +which many examples survive, and are familiar to every student. How, or +why, then, should a poet, aiming at popularity, about 1719-1730, compose +‘The Queen’s Marie’ in an obsolete manner? The old ballads were still +sung, indeed; but we ask for proof that new ballads were still composed +in the ancient fashion. + + + *See, for example, Mr. Macquoid’s Jacobite Songs and Ballads, pp. +424, 510, with a picture of Charlie. + +Secondly, WHY, and how tempted, would a popular poet of 1719 transfer +a modern tragedy of Russia to the year 1563, or thereabouts? His public +would naturally desire a ballad gazette of the mournful new tale, +concerning a lass of Scottish extraction, betrayed, tortured, beheaded, +at the far-off court of a Muscovite tyrant. The facts ‘palpitated with +actuality,’ and, since Homer’s day, ‘men desire’ (as Homer says) ‘the +new songs’ on the new events. What was gained by going back to Queen +Mary? Would a popular ‘Musselmou’d Charlie’ even know, by 1719, the +names of the Queen’s Maries? Mr. Courthope admits that ‘he may have +been helped by some ballad,’ one of those spoken of, as we shall see, +by Knox. If that ballad told the existing Marian story, what did the +‘maker’ add? If it did NOT, what did he borrow? No more than the names +could he borrow, and no more than the name ‘Hamilton’ from the Russian +tragedy could he add. One other thing he might be said to add, the +verses in which Mary asks ‘the jolly sailors’ not to + + ‘Let on to my father and mother + But that I’m coming hame.’ + +This passage, according to Mr. Courthope, ‘was suggested partly by the +fact of a Scotswoman being executed in Russia.’ C. K. Sharpe also says: +‘If Marie Hamilton was executed in Scotland, it is not likely’ (why +not?) ‘that her relations resided beyond seas.’ They MAY have been in +France, like many another Hamilton! Mr. Child says: ‘The appeal to the +sailors shows that Mary Hamilton dies in a foreign land--not that of +her ancestors.’ Yet the ballad makes her die in or near the Canongate! +Moreover, the family of the Mary Hamilton of 1719 had been settled in +Russia for generations, and were reckoned of the Russian noblesse. The +verses, therefore, on either theory, are probably out of place, and are +perhaps an interpolation suggested to some reciter (they only occur in +some of the many versions) by a passage in ‘The Twa Brithers.’* + + + *Child, i. 439. + +We now reach the most important argument for the antiquity of ‘The +Queen’s Marie.’ Mr. Courthope has theoretically introduced as existing +in, or after, 1719, ‘makers’ who could imitate to deception the old +ballad style. Now Maidment remarks that ‘this ballad was popular in +Galloway, Selkirkshire, Lanarkshire, and Aberdeen, AND THE VERY STRIKING +DISCREPANCIES GO FAR TO REMOVE EVERY SUSPICION OF FABRICATION.’ Chambers +uses (1829) against Sharpe the same argument of ‘universal diffusion +in Scotland.’ Neither Mr. Child nor Mr. Courthope draws the obvious +inferences from the extraordinary discrepancies in the eighteen +variants. Such essential discrepancies surely speak of a long period of +oral recitation by men or women accustomed to interpolate, alter, and +add, in the true old ballad manner. Did such rhapsodists exist after +1719? Old Charlie, for one, did not sing or sell the old ballads. Again, +if the ballad (as it probably would be in 1719) was PRINTED, or even +if it was not, could the variations have been evolved between 1719 and +1802? + +These variations are numerous, striking, and fundamental. In many +variants even the name of the heroine does not tally with that of the +Russian maid of honour. That most important and telling coincidence +wholly disappears. In a version of Motherwell’s, from Dumbartonshire, +the heroine is Mary Myle. In a version known to Scott [‘Minstrelsy,’ +1810, iii. 89, note), the name is Mary Miles. Mr. Child also finds Mary +Mild, Mary Moil, and Lady Maisry. This Maisry is daughter of the Duke +of York! Now, the Duke of York whom alone the Scottish people knew was +James Stuart, later James II. Once more the heroine is daughter of the +Duke of Argyll, therefore a Campbell. Or she is without patronymic, and +is daughter of a lord or knight of the North, or South, or East, and +one of her sisters is a barber’s wife, and her father lives in +England!--(Motherwell.) She, at least, might invoke ‘Ye mariners, +mariners, mariners!’ (as in Scott’s first fragment) not to carry her +story. Now we ask whether, after the ringing tragedy of Miss Hamilton in +Russia, in the year of grace 1719, contemporaries who heard the woeful +tale could, between 1719 and 1820, call the heroine--(1) Hamilton; (2) +Mild, Moil, Myle, Miles; (3) make her a daughter of the Duke of York, or +of the Duke of Argyll, or of lords and of knights from all quarters of +the compass, and sister-in-law to an English barber, also one of the +Queen’s ‘serving-maids.’ We at least cannot accept those numerous and +glittering contradictions as corruptions which could be made soon after +the Russian events, when the true old ballad style was dead. + +We now produce more startling variations. The lover is not only ‘the +King,’ ‘the Prince,’ Darnley, ‘the highest Stuart o’ a’,’ but he is also +that old offender, ‘Sweet Willie,’ or he is Warrenston (Warriston?). +Mary is certainly not hanged (the Russian woman was beheaded) away from +her home; she dies in Edinburgh, near the Tolbooth, the Netherbow, the +Canongate, and-- + + O what will my three brothers say + When they COME HAME frae sea, + When they see three locks o’ my yellow hair + Hinging under a gallows tree? + +It is impossible here to give all the variations. Mary pulls, or does +not pull, or her lover pulls, the leaf of the Abbey, or ‘savin,’ or +other tree; the Queen is ‘auld,’ or not ‘auld;’ she kicks in Mary’s door +and bursts the bolts, or does nothing so athletic and inconsistent with +her advanced age. The heroine does, or does not, appeal vainly to her +father. Her dress is of all varieties. She does, or does not, go to the +Tolbooth and other places. She is, or is not, allured to Edinburgh, +‘a wedding for to see.’ Her infanticide is variously described, or its +details are omitted, and the dead body of the child is found in various +places, or not found at all. Though drowned in the sea, it is between +the bolster and the wall, or under the blankets! She expects, or +does not expect, to be avenged by her kin. The king is now angry, now +clement--inviting Mary to dinner! Mary is hanged, or (Buchan’s MS.) +is not hanged, but is ransomed by Warrenston, probably Johnston of +Warriston! These are a few specimens of variations in point of fact: in +language the variations are practically countless. How could they arise, +if the ballad is later than 1719? + +We now condescend to appeal to statistics. We have examined the number +of variants published by Mr. Child in his first six volumes, on ballads +which have, or may have, an historical basis. Of course, the older +and more popular the ballads, the more variants do we expect to +discover--time and taste producing frequent changes. Well, of +‘Otterburn’ Mr. Child has five versions; of the ‘Hunting of the Cheviot’ +he has two, with minor modifications indicated by letters from the +‘lower case.’ Of ‘Gude Wallace’ he has eight. Of ‘Johnnie Armstrong’ he +has three. Of ‘Kinmont Willie’ he has one. Of ‘The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray’ +he has two. Of ‘Johnnie Cock’ he has thirteen. Of ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ +he has eighteen. And of ‘The Queen’s Marie’ (counting Burns’s solitary +verse and other brief fragments) Mr. Child has eighteen versions or +variants + +Thus a ballad made, ex hypothesi Sharpiana, in or after 1719, has been +as much altered in oral tradition as the most popular and perhaps the +oldest historical ballad of all, ‘Sir Patrick Spens,’ and much more than +any other of the confessedly ancient semi-historical popular poems. +The historical event which may have suggested ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ +is ‘plausibly,’ says Mr. Child, fixed in 1281: it is the marriage of +Margaret of Scotland to Eric, King of Norway. Others suggest so late a +date as the wooing of Anne of Denmark by James VI. Nothing is known. +No wonder, then, that in time an orally preserved ballad grows rich +in variants. But that a ballad of 1719 should, in eighty modern +non-balladising years, become as rich in extant variants, and far more +discrepant in their details, as ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ is a circumstance +for which we invite explanation. + +Will men say, ‘The later the ballad, the more it is altered in oral +tradition’? If so, let them, by all means, produce examples! We should, +on this theory, have about a dozen ‘Battles of Philiphaugh,’ and at +least fifteen ‘Bothwell Brigs,’ a poem, by the way, much in the old +manner, prosaically applied, and so recent that, in art at least, it was +produced after the death of the Duke of Monmouth, slain, it avers, by +the machinations of Claverhouse! Of course we are not asking for exact +proportions, since many variants of ballads may be lost, but merely for +proof that, the later a ballad is, the more variants of it occur. But +this contention is probably impossible, and the numerous variations +in ‘The Queen’s Marie’ are really a proof of long existence in oral +tradition, and contradict the theory espoused by Mr. Child, who later +saw the difficulty involved in his hypothesis. + +This argument, though statistical, is, we think, conclusive, and the +other considerations which we have produced in favour of the antiquity +of ‘The Queen’s Marie’ add their cumulative weight. + +We have been, in brief, invited to suppose that, about 1719, a Scot +wrote a ballad on an event in contemporary Russian Court life; that +(contrary to use and wont) he threw the story back a century and a half; +that he was a master of an old style, in the practice of his age utterly +obsolete and not successfully imitated; that his poem became universally +popular, and underwent, in eighty years, even more vicissitudes than +most other ballads encounter in three or five centuries. Meanwhile it is +certain that there had been real ancient ballads, contemporary with the +Marian events--ballads on the very Maries two or three of whom appear +in the so-called poem of 1719; while exactly the same sort of scandal +as the ballad records had actually occurred at Queen Mary’s Court in +a lower social rank. The theory of Mr. Child is opposed to our whole +knowledge of ballad literature, of its age, decadence (about 1620-1700), +and decease (in the old kind) as a popular art. + +To agree with Mr. Child, we must not only accept one great ballad-poet, +born at least fifty years too late; we must not only admit that such a +poet would throw back his facts for a century and a half; but we must +also conceive that the balladising humour, with its ancient methods, was +even more vivacious in Scotland for many years after 1719 than, as far +as we know, it had ever been before. Yet there is no other trace known +to us of the existence of the old balladising humour and of the old art +in all that period. We have no such ballad about the English captain +shot by the writer’s pretty wife, none about the bewitched son of Lord +Torphichen, none about the Old Chevalier, or Lochiel, or Prince Charlie: +we have merely Shenstone’s ‘Jemmy Dawson’ and the Glasgow bellman’s +rhymed history of Prince Charles. In fact, ‘Jemmy Dawson’ is a fair +instantia contradictoria as far as a ballad by a man of letters is to +the point. Such a ballad that age could indeed produce: it is not very +like ‘The Queen’s Marie’! No, we cannot take refuge in ‘Townley’s Ghost’ +and his address to the Butcher Cumberland:-- + + Imbrued in bliss, imbathed in case, + Though now thou seem’st to lie, + My injured form shall gall thy peace, + And make thee wish to die! + +THAT is a ballad of the eighteenth century, and it is not in the manner +of ‘The Queen’s Marie.’ + +These considerations, now so obvious to a student of the art of old +popular poetry, if he thinks of the matter, could not occur to Charles +Kirkpatrick Sharpe. He was a great collector of ballads, but not versed +in, or interested in, their ‘aesthetic’--in the history and evolution of +ballad-making. Mr. Child, on the other hand, was the Grimm or Kohler of +popular English and Scottish poetry. Our objections to his theory could +scarcely have been collected in such numbers, without the aid of his +own assortment of eighteen versions or fragments, with more lectiones +variae. But he has not allowed for the possible, the constantly +occurring, chance of coincidence between fancy and fact; nor, perhaps, +has he reflected on the changed condition of ballad poetry in the +eighteenth century, on the popular love of a new song about a new +event, and on the entire lack of evidence (as far as I am aware) for the +existence of ballad-poets in the old manner during the reign of George +I. The ballad-reading public of 1719 would have revelled in a fresh +ballad of a Scottish lass, recently betrayed, tortured, and slain far +away by a Russian tyrant. A fresh ballad on Queen Mary’s Court, done +in the early obsolete manner, would, on the other hand, have had +comparatively little charm for the ballad-buying lieges in 1719. The +ballad-poet had thus in 1719 no temptation to be ‘archaistic,’ like +Mr. Rossetti, and to sing of old times. He had, on the contrary, every +inducement to indite a ‘rare new ballad’ on the last tragic scandal, +with its poignant details, as of Peter kissing the dead girl’s head. + +The hypothesis of Mr. Child could only be DEMONSTRATED incorrect by +proving that there was no Russian scandal at all, or by producing a +printed or manuscript copy of ‘The Queen’s Marie’ older than 1719. We +can do neither of these things; we can only give the reader his choice +of two improbabilities--(a) that an historical event, in 1718-19, +chanced to coincide with the topic of an old ballad; (b) that, contrary +to all we know of the evolution of ballads and the state of taste, a new +popular poem on a fresh theme was composed in a style long disused,* was +offered most successfully to the public of 1719, and in not much more +than half a century was more subjected to alterations and interpolations +than ballads which for two or three hundred years had run the gauntlet +of oral tradition. + + + *A learned Scots antiquary writes to me: ‘The real ballad manner +hardly came down to 1600. It was killed by the Francis Roos version +of the Psalms, after which the Scottish folk of the Lowlands cast +everything into that mould.’ I think, however, that ‘Bothwell Brig’ is a +true survival of the ancient style, and there are other examples, as in +the case of the ballad on Lady Warriston’s husband murder. + +As for our own explanation of the resemblance between the affair of Miss +Hamilton, in 1719, and the ballad story of Mary Hamilton (alias Mild, +Myle, Moil, Campbell, Miles, or Stuart, or anonymous, or Lady Maisry), +we simply, with Scott, regard it as ‘a very curious coincidence.’ On the +other theory, on Mr. Child’s, it is also a curious coincidence that a +waiting-woman of Mary Stuart WAS hanged (not beheaded) for child-murder, +and that there WERE written, simultaneously, ballads on the +Queen’s Maries. Much odder coincidences than either have often, and +indisputably, occurred, and it is not for want of instances, but for +lack of space, that we do not give examples. + +Turning, now, to a genuine historic scandal of Queen Mary’s reign, we +find that it might have given rise to the many varying forms of the +ballad of ‘The Queen’s Marie.’ There is, practically, no such ballad; +that is, among the many variants, we cannot say which comes nearest to +the ‘original’ lay of the frail maid and her doom. All the variants are +full of historical impossibilities, due to the lapses of memory and the +wandering fancy of reciters, altering and interpolating, through more +than two centuries, an original of which nothing can now be known. The +fancy, if not of the first ballad poet who dealt with a real tragic +event, at least of his successors in many corners of Scotland, raised +the actors and sufferers in a sad story, elevating a French waiting-maid +to the rank of a Queen’s Marie, and her lover, a French apothecary, to +the place of a queen’s consort, or, at lowest, of a Scottish laird. + +At the time of the General Assembly which met on Christmas Day 1563, a +French waiting-maid of Mary Stuart, ‘ane Frenche woman that servit in +the Queenis chalmer,’ fell into sin ‘with the Queenis awin hipoticary.’ +The father and mother slew the child, and were ‘dampned to be hangit +upoun the publict streit of Edinburgh.’ No official report exists: ‘the +records of the Court of Justiciary at this time are defective,’ says +Maidment, and he conjectures that the accused may have been hanged +without trial, ‘redhand.’ Now the Queen’s apothecary must have left +traces in the royal account-books. No writer on the subject has +mentioned them. I myself have had the Records of Privy Council and the +MS. Treasurer’s Accounts examined, with their statement of the expenses +of the royal household. The Rev. John Anderson was kind enough to +undertake this task, though with less leisure than he could have +desired. There is, unluckily, a gap of some months in 1563. In June +1560, Mr. Anderson finds mention of a ‘medicinar,’ ‘apoticarre,’ +‘apotigar,’ but no name is given, and the Queen was then in France. One +Nicholas Wardlaw of the royal household was engaged, in 1562, to a Miss +Seton of Parbroath, but it needed a special royal messenger to bring the +swain to the altar. ‘Ane appotigar’ of 1562 is mentioned, but not named, +and we hear of Robert Henderson, chirurgeon, who supplied powders +and odours to embalm Huntley. There is no trace of the hanging of any +‘appotigar,’ or of any one of the Queen’s women, ‘the maidans,’ spoken +of collectively. So far, the search for the apothecary has been a +failure. More can be learned from Randolph’s letter to Cecil (December +31, 1563), here copied from the MS. in the Public Record Office. The +austerity of Mary’s Court, under Mr. Knox, is amusingly revealed:--‘For +newes yt maye please your honour to knowe that the Lord Treasurer of +Scotlande for gettinge of a woman with chylde muste vpon Sondaye nexte +do open penance before the whole congregation and mr knox mayke the +sermonde. Thys my Lord of murraye wylled me to wryte vnto you for a +note of our greate severitie in punyshynge of offenders. THE FRENCHE +POTTICARIE AND THE WOMAN HE GOTTE WITH CHYLDE WERE BOTHE HANGED THYS +PRESENT FRIDAYE. Thys hathe made myche sorrowe in our Courte. Maynie +evle fortunes we have had by our Frenche fowlkes, and yet I feare we +love them over well.’ + +After recording the condemnation of the waiting-woman and her lover, +Knox tells a false story about ‘shame hastening the marriage’ of Mary +Livingstone. Dr. Robertson, in his ‘Inventories of Queen Mary,’ refutes +this slander, which he deems as baseless as the fables against Knox’s +own continence. Knox adds: ‘What bruit the Maries and the rest of the +danseris of the Courte had, the ballads of that age did witness, quhilk +we for modesteis sake omit.’ Unlucky omission, unfortunate ‘modestei’! +From Randolph’s Letters it is known that Knox, at this date, was +thundering against ‘danseris.’ Here, then, is a tale of the Queen’s +French waiting-woman hanged for murder, and here is proof that there +actually were ballads about the Queen’s Maries. These ladies, as we +know from Keith, were, from the first, in the Queen’s childhood, Mary +Livingstone, Mary Seatoun, Mary Beatoun, and Mary Fleming. + +We have, then, a child-murder, by a woman of the Queen, we have ballads +about her Maries, and, as Scott says, ‘the tale has suffered great +alterations, as handed down by tradition, the French waiting-woman +being changed into Mary Hamilton, and the Queen’s apothecary into Henry +Darnley,’ who, as Mr. Child shows, was not even in Scotland in 1563. +But gross perversion of contemporary facts does not prove a ballad to be +late or apocryphal. Mr. Child even says that accuracy in a ballad would +be very ‘suspicious.’ Thus, for example, we know, from contemporary +evidence, that the murder of the Bonny Earl Murray, in 1592, by Huntley, +was at once made the topic of ballads. Of these, Aytoun and Mr. Child +print two widely different in details: in the first, Huntley has married +Murray’s sister; in the second, Murray is the lover of the Queen of +James VI. Both statements are picturesque; but the former is certainly, +and the latter is probably, untrue. Again, ‘King James and Brown,’ in +the Percy MS., is accepted as a genuine contemporary ballad of the youth +of gentle King Jamie. James is herein made to say to his nobles,-- + + ‘My grandfather you have slaine, + And my own mother you hanged on a tree.’ + +Even if we read ‘father’ (against the manuscript) this is absurd. James +V. was not ‘slaine,’ neither Darnley nor Mary was ‘hanged on a tree.’ +Ballads are always inaccurate; they do not report events, so much +as throw into verse the popular impression of events, the magnified, +distorted, dramatic rumours. That a ballad-writer should promote a +Queen’s tirewoman into a Queen’s Marie, and substitute Darnley (where +HE is the lover, which is not always) for the Queen’s apothecary, is +a license quite in keeping with precedent. Mr. Child, obviously, would +admit this. In producing a Marie who never existed, the ‘maker’ shows +the same delicacy as Voltaire, when he brings into ‘Candide’ a Pope who +never was born. + +Finally, a fragment of a variant of the ballad among the Abbotsford +MSS.* does mention an apothecary as the lover of the heroine, and, so +far, is true to historical fact, whether the author was well informed, +or merely, in the multitude of variations, deviated by chance into +truth. + +There can, on the whole, be no reasonable doubt that the ballad is on an +event in Scotland of 1563, not of 1719, in Russia, and Mr. Child came to +hold that this opinion was, at least, the more probable.** + + + *Child, vol. iv. p. 509. + + **Ibid., vol. v. pp. 298, 299. + + + + +XII. THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON IMBROGLIO* + + +The hypothesis that the works of Shakespeare were written by Bacon +has now been before the world for more than forty years. It has been +supported in hundreds of books and pamphlets, but, as a rule, it has +been totally neglected by scholars. Perhaps their indifference may seem +wise, for such an opinion may appear to need no confutation. ‘There are +foolisher fellows than the Baconians,’ says a sage--‘those who argue +against them.’ On the other hand, ignorance has often cherished beliefs +which science has been obliged reluctantly to admit. The existence of +meteorites, and the phenomena of hypnotism, were familiar to the ancient +world, and to modern peasants, while philosophy disdained to investigate +them. In fact, it is never really prudent to overlook a widely spread +opinion. If we gain nothing else by examining its grounds, at least we +learn something about the psychology of its advocates. In this case +we can estimate the learning, the logic, and the general intellect of +people who form themselves into Baconian Societies, to prove that the +poems and plays of Shakespeare were written by Bacon. Thus a light is +thrown on the nature and origin of popular delusions. + + + *(1) ‘Bacon and Shakespeare,’ by William Henry Smith (1857); +(2) ‘The Authorship of Shakespeare,’ by Nathaniel Holmes (1875); (3) +‘The Great Cryptogram,’ by Ignatius Donnelly (1888); (4) ‘The Promus of +Formularies and Elegancies of Francis Bacon,’ by Mrs. Henry Pott (1883); +(5) ‘William Shakespeare,’ by Georg Brandes (1898); (6) ‘Shakespeare,’ +by Sidney Lee (in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1897); (7) +‘Shakespeare Dethroned’ (in Pearson’s Magazine, December 1897); (8) ‘The +Hidden Lives of Shakespeare and Bacon,’ by W. G. Thorpe, F.S.A. (1897). +(9) ‘The Mystery of William Shakespeare,’ by Judge Webb (1902). + +The Baconian creed, of course, is scouted equally by special students +of Bacon, special students of Shakespeare, and by almost all persons +who devote themselves to sound literature. It is equally rejected by +Mr. Spedding, the chief authority on Bacon; by Mr. H. H. Furness, the +learned and witty American editor of the ‘Variorum Shakespeare;’ by Dr. +Brandes, the Danish biographer and critic; by Mr. Swinburne, with his +rare knowledge of Elizabethan and, indeed, of all literature; and by Mr. +Sidney Lee, Shakespeare’s latest biographer. Therefore, the first point +which strikes us in the Baconian hypothesis is that its devotees are +nobly careless of authority. We do not dream of converting them, but it +may be amusing to examine the kind of logic and the sort of erudition +which go to support an hypothesis not freely welcomed even in Germany. + +The mother of the Baconian theory (though others had touched a guess at +it) was undeniably Miss Delia Bacon, born at Tallmadge, Ohio, in 1811. +Miss Bacon used to lecture on Roman history, illustrating her theme by +recitations from Macaulay’s ‘Lays.’ ‘Her very heart was lacerated,’ says +Mr. Donnelly, ‘and her womanly pride wounded, by a creature in the shape +of a man--a Reverend (!) Alexander MacWhorter.’ This Celtic divine was +twenty-five, Miss Bacon was thirty-five; there arose a misunderstanding; +but Miss Bacon had developed her Baconian theory before she knew Mr. +MacWhorter. ‘She became a monomaniac on the subject,’ writes Mr. Wyman, +and ‘after the publication and non-success of her book she lost her +reason WHOLLY AND ENTIRELY.’ But great wits jump, and, just as Mr. +Darwin and Mr. Wallace simultaneously evolved the idea of Natural +Selection, so, unconscious of Miss Delia, Mr. William Henry Smith +developed the Baconian verity. + +From the days of Mr. William Henry Smith, in 1856, the great Baconian +argument has been that Shakespeare could not conceivably have had the +vast learning, classical, scientific, legal, medical, and so forth, of +the author of the plays. Bacon, on the other hand, and nobody else, had +this learning, and had, though he concealed them, the poetic powers of +the unknown author. Therefore, prima facie, Bacon wrote the works of +Shakespeare. Mr. Smith, as we said, had been partly anticipated, here, +by the unlucky Miss Delia Bacon, to whose vast and wandering book Mr. +Hawthorne wrote a preface. Mr. Hawthorne accused Mr. Smith of plagiarism +from Miss Delia Bacon; Mr. Smith replied that, when he wrote his first +essay (1856), he had never even heard the lady’s name. Mr. Hawthorne +expressed his regret, and withdrew his imputation. Mr. Smith is the +second founder of Baconomania. + +Like his followers, down to Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, and Mr. Bucke, and +General Butler, and Mr. Atkinson, who writes in ‘The Spiritualist,’ and +Mrs. Gallup, and Judge Webb, Mr. Smith rested, first, on Shakespeare’s +lack of education, and on the wide learning of the author of the poems +and plays. Now, Ben Jonson, who knew both Shakespeare and Bacon, averred +that the former had ‘small Latin and less Greek,’ doubtless with truth. +It was necessary, therefore, to prove that the author of the plays had +plenty of Latin and Greek. Here Mr. John Churton Collins suggests that +Ben meant no more than that Shakespeare was not, in the strict sense, +a scholar. Yet he might read Latin, Mr. Collins thinks, with ease and +pleasure, and might pick out the sense of Greek books by the aid of +Latin translations. To this view we return later. + +Meanwhile we shall compare the assertions of the laborious Mr. Holmes, +the American author of ‘The Authorship of Shakespeare’ (third edition, +1875), and of the ingenious Mr. Donnelly, the American author of ‘The +Great Cryptogram.’ Both, alas! derive in part from the ignorance +of Pope. Pope had said: ‘Shakespeare follows the Greek authors, and +particularly Dares Phrygius.’ Mr. Smith cites this nonsense; so do Mr. +Donnelly and Mr. Holmes. Now the so-called Dares Phrygius is not a +Greek author. No Greek version of his early mediaeval romance, ‘De Bello +Trojano,’ exists. The matter of the book found its way into Chaucer, +Boccaccio, Lydgate, Guido de Colonna, and other authors accessible +to one who had no Greek at all, while no Greek version of Dares was +accessible to anybody.* Some recent authors, English and American, have +gone on, with the credulity of ‘the less than half educated,’ taking +a Greek Dares for granted, on the authority of Pope, whose Greek was +‘small.’ They have clearly never looked at a copy of Dares, never known +that the story attributed to Dares was familiar, in English and French, +to everybody. Mr. Holmes quotes Pope, Mr. Donnelly quotes Mr. Holmes, +for this Greek Dares Phrygius. Probably Shakespeare had Latin enough to +read the pseudo-Dares, but probably he did not take the trouble. + + + *See Brandes, William Shakespeare, ii. 198-202. + +This example alone proves that men who are not scholars venture to +pronounce on Shakespeare’s scholarship, and that men who take absurd +statements at second hand dare to constitute themselves judges of a +question of evidence and of erudition. + +The worthy Mr. Donnelly then quotes Mr. Holmes for Shakespeare’s +knowledge of the Greek drama. Turning to Mr. Holmes (who takes his +motto, if you please, from Parmenides), we find that the author of +‘Richard II.’ borrowed from a Greek play by Euripides, called ‘Hellene,’ +as did the author of the sonnets. There is, we need not say, no Greek +play of the name of ‘Hellene.’ As Mr. Holmes may conceivably mean the +‘Helena’ of Euripides, we compare Sonnet cxxi. with ‘Helena,’ line 270. +The parallel, the imitation of Euripides, appears to be-- + + By their dark thoughts my deeds must not be shown, + +with-- + + Prooton men ouk ons adikoz eimi duskleez, + +which means, ‘I have lost my reputation though I have done no harm.’ +Shakespeare, then, could not complain of calumny without borrowing +from ‘Hellene,’ a name which only exists in the fancy of Mr. Nathaniel +Holmes. This critic assigns ‘Richard II.,’ act ii., scene 1, to +‘Hellene’ 512-514. We can find no resemblance whatever between the three +Greek lines cited, from the ‘Helena,’ and the scene in Shakespeare. Mr. +Holmes appears to have reposed on Malone, and Malone may have remarked +on fugitive resemblances, such as inevitably occur by coincidence of +thought. Thus the similarity of the situations of Hamlet and of Orestes +in the ‘Eumenides’ is given by similarity of legend, Danish and Greek. +Authors of genius, Greek or English, must come across analogous ideas in +treating analogous topics. It does not follow that the poet of ‘Hamlet’ +was able to read AEschylus, least of all that he could read him in +Greek. + +Anglicised version of the author’s original Greek text. + +The ‘Comedy of Errors’ is based on the ‘Menaechmi’ of Plautus. It does +not follow that the author of the ‘Comedy of Errors’ could read the +‘Menaechmi’ or the ‘Amphitryon,’ though Shakespeare had probably Latin +enough for the purpose. The ‘Comedy of Errors’ was acted in December +1594. A translation of the Latin play bears date 1595, but this may be +an example of the common practice of post-dating a book by a month or +two, and Shakespeare may have seen the English translation in the work +itself, in proof, or in manuscript. In those days MSS. often circulated +long before they were published, like Shakespeare’s own ‘sugared +sonnets.’ However, it is highly probable that Shakespeare was equal to +reading the Latin of Plautus. + + +In ‘Twelfth Night’ occurs-- + +Like the Egyptian thief, at point of death, kill what I love. + +Mr. Donnelly writes: ‘This is an allusion to a story from Heliodorus’s +“AEthiopica.” I do not know of any English translation of it in the time +of Shakespeare.’ The allusion is, we conceive, to Herodotus, ii. 121, +the story of Rhampsinitus, translated by ‘B. R.’ and published in 1584. +In ‘Macbeth’ we find-- + + All our yesterdays have LIGHTED fools + The way to dusty death. Out, out, BRIEF CANDLE. + +This is ‘traced,’ says Mr. Donnelly, ‘to Catullus.’ He quotes:-- + + Soles occidere et redire possunt; + Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, + Nox est perpetuo una dormienda. + +Where is the parallel? It is got by translating Catullus thus:-- + + The LIGHTS of heaven go out and return; + When once our BRIEF CANDLE goes out, + One night is to be perpetually slept. + +But soles are not ‘lights,’ and brevis lux is not ‘brief candle.’ If +they were, the passages have no resemblance. ‘To be, or not to be,’ is +‘taken almost verbatim from Plato.’ Mr. Donnelly says that Mr. Follett +says that the Messrs. Langhorne say so. But, where is the passage in +Plato? + +Such are the proofs by which men ignorant of the classics prove that the +author of the poems attributed to Shakespeare was a classical scholar. +In fact, he probably had a ‘practicable’ knowledge of Latin, such as a +person of his ability might pick up at school, and increase by casual +study: points to which we return. For the rest, classical lore had +filtered into contemporary literature and translations, such as North’s +Plutarch. + +As to modern languages, Mr. Donnelly decides that Shakespeare knew +Danish, because he must have read Saxo Grammaticus ‘in the original +tongue’--which, of course, is NOT Danish! Saxo was done out of the +Latin into French. Thus Shakespeare is not exactly proved to have been +a Danish scholar. There is no difficulty in supposing that ‘a clayver +man,’ living among wits, could pick up French and Italian sufficient for +his uses. But extremely stupid people are naturally amazed by even +such commonplace acquirements. When the step is made from cleverness +to genius, then the dull disbelieve, or cry out of a miracle. Now, as +‘miracles do not happen,’ a man of Shakespeare’s education could not +have written the plays attributed to him by his critics, companions, +friends, and acquaintances. Shakespeare, ex hypothesi, was a rude +unlettered fellow. Such a man, the Baconians assume, would naturally be +chosen by Bacon as his mask, and put forward as the author of Bacon’s +pieces. Bacon would select a notorious ignoramus as a plausible author +of pieces which, by the theory, are rich in knowledge of the classics, +and nobody would be surprised. Nobody would say: ‘Shakespeare is as +ignorant as a butcher’s boy, and cannot possibly be the person who +translated Hamlet’s soliloquy out of Plato, “Hamlet” at large out of the +Danish; who imitated the “Hellene” of Euripides, and borrowed “Troilus +and Cressida” from the Greek of Dares Phrygius’--which happens not to +exist. Ignorance can go no further than in these arguments. Such are the +logic and learning of American amateurs, who sometimes do not even know +the names of the books they talk about, or the languages in which they +are written. Such learning and such logic are passed off by ‘the less +than half educated’ on the absolutely untaught, who decline to listen to +scholars. + +We cannot of course furnish a complete summary of all that the Baconians +have said in their myriad pages. All those pages, almost, really flow +from the little volume of Mr. Smith. We are obliged to take the points +which the Baconians regard as their strong cards. We have dealt with the +point of classical scholarship, and shown that the American partisans of +Bacon are not scholars, and have no locus standi. We shall take next +in order the contention that Bacon was a poet; that his works contain +parallel passages to Shakespeare, which can only be the result of +common authorship; that Bacon’s notes, called ‘Promus,’ are notes +for Shakespeare’s plays; that, in style, Bacon and Shakespeare are +identical. Then we shall glance at Bacon’s motives for writing plays by +stealth, and blushing to find it fame. We shall expose the frank folly +of averring that he chose as his mask a man who (some assert) could not +even write; and we shall conclude by citing, once more, the irrefragable +personal testimony to the genius and character of Shakespeare. + +To render the Baconian theory plausible it is necessary to show +that Bacon had not only the learning needed for ‘the authorship of +Shakespeare,’ but that he gives some proof of Shakespeare’s poetic +qualities; that he had reasons for writing plays, and reasons for +concealing his pen, and for omitting to make any claim to his own +literary triumphs after Shakespeare was dead. Now, as to scholarship, +the knowledge shown in the plays is not that of a scholar, does not +exceed that of a man of genius equipped with what, to Ben Jonson, seemed +‘small Latin and less Greek,’ and with abundance of translations, and +books like ‘Euphues,’ packed with classical lore, to help him. With +the futile attempts to prove scholarship we have dealt. The legal and +medical lore is in no way beyond the ‘general information’ which +genius inevitably amasses from reading, conversation, reflection, and +experience. + +A writer of to-day, Mr. Kipling, is fond of showing how easily a man of +his rare ability picks up the terminology of many recondite trades and +professions. Again, evidence taken on oath proves that Jeanne d’Arc, +a girl of seventeen, developed great military skill, especially in +artillery and tactics, that she displayed political clairvoyance, and +that she held her own, and more, among the subtlest and most hostile +theologians. On the ordinary hypothesis, that Shakespeare was a man of +genius, there is, then, nothing impossible in his knowledge, while +his wildly daring anachronisms could have presented no temptation to +a well-regulated scientific intellect like that of Bacon. The Baconian +hypothesis rests on the incredulity with which dulness regards genius. +We see the phenomenon every day when stupid people talk about people of +ordinary cleverness, and ‘wonder with a foolish face of praise.’ As Dr. +Brandes remarks, when the Archbishop of Canterbury praises Henry V. and +his universal accomplishments, he says: + + Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it, + Since his addiction was to courses vain, + His companies unletter’d, rude, and shallow, + His hours fill’d up with riots, banquets, sports + AND NEVER NOTED IN HIM ANY STUDY, + Any retirement, any sequestration, + From open haunts and popularity. + +Yet, as the Archbishop remarks (with doubtful orthodoxy), ‘miracles are +ceased.’ + +Shakespeare in these lines describes, as only he could describe it, the +world’s wonder which he himself was. Or, if Bacon wrote the lines, then +Bacon, unlike his advocates, was prepared to recognise the possible +existence of such a thing as genius. Incredulity on this head could only +arise in an age and in peoples where mediocrity is almost universal. It +is a democratic form of disbelief. + +For the hypothesis, as we said, it is necessary to show that Bacon +possessed poetic genius. The proof cannot possibly be found in his prose +works. In the prose of Mr. Ruskin there are abundant examples of what +many respectable minds regard as poetic qualities. But, if the question +arose, ‘Was Mr. Ruskin the author of Tennyson’s poems?’ the answer could +be settled, for once, by internal evidence. We have only to look at Mr. +Ruskin’s published verses. These prove that a great writer of ‘poetical +prose’ may be at the opposite pole from a poet. In the same way, we ask, +what are Bacon’s acknowledged compositions in verse? Mr. Holmes is their +admirer. In 1599 Bacon wrote in a letter, ‘Though I profess not to be +a poet, I prepared a sonnet,’ to Queen Elizabeth. He PREPARED a sonnet! +‘Prepared’ is good. He also translated some of the Psalms into verse, a +field in which success is not to be won. Mr. Holmes notes, in Psalm xc., +a Shakespearean parallel. ‘We spend our years as a tale that is told.’ +Bacon renders: + + As a tale told, which sometimes men attend, + And sometimes not, our life steals to an end. + +In ‘King John,’ iii. 4, we read:-- + + Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale + Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. + +Now, if we must detect a connection, Bacon might have read ‘King John’ +in the Folio, for he versified the Psalms in 1625. But it is unnecessary +to suppose a reminiscence. Again, in Psalm civ. Bacon has-- + + The greater navies look like walking woods. + +They looked like nothing of the sort; but Bacon may have remembered +Birnam Wood, either from Boece or Holinshed, or from the play itself. +One thing is certain: Shakespeare did not write Bacon’s Psalms or +compare navies to ‘walking woods’! Mr. Holmes adds: ‘Many of the sonnets +[of Shakespeare] show the strongest internal evidence that they were +addressed [by Bacon] to the Queen, as no doubt they were.’ That is, +Bacon wrote sonnets to Queen Elizabeth, and permitted them to pass from +hand to hand, among Shakespeare’s ‘private friends,’ as Shakespeare’s +(1598). That was an odd way of paying court to Queen Elizabeth. Chalmers +had already conjectured that Shakespeare (not Bacon) in the sonnets +was addressing the Virgin Queen, whom he recommended to marry and leave +offspring--rather late in life. Shakespeare’s apparent allusions to his +profession-- + + I have gone here and there, + And made myself a motley to the view, + +and + + The public means which public manners breeds, + +refer, no doubt, to Bacon’s versatile POLITICAL behaviour. It has +hitherto been supposed that sonnet lvii. was addressed to Shakespeare’s +friend, a man, not to any woman. But Mr. Holmes shows that the Queen is +intended. Is it not obvious? + + I, MY SOVEREIGN, watch the clock for you. + +Bacon clearly had an assignation with Her Majesty--so here is ‘scandal +about Queen Elizabeth.’ Mr. Holmes pleasingly remarks that Twickenham is +‘within sight of Her Majesty’s Palace of White Hall.’ She gave Bacon the +reversion of Twickenham Park, doubtless that, from the windows of White +Hall, she might watch her swain. And Bacon wrote a masque for the Queen; +he skilfully varied his style in this piece from that which he used +under the name of Shakespeare. With a number of other gentlemen, some +named, some unnamed, Bacon once, at an uncertain date, interested +himself in a masque at Gray’s Inn, while he and his friends ‘partly +devised dumb shows and additional speeches,’ in 1588. + +Nothing follows as to Bacon’s power of composing Shakespeare’s plays. A +fragmentary masque, which may or may not be by Bacon, is put forward as +the germ of what Bacon wrote about Elizabeth in the ‘Midsummer Night’s +Dream.’ An Indian WANDERER from the West Indies, near the fountain of +the AMAZON, is brought to Elizabeth to be cured of blindness. Now +the fairy, in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ says, capitalised by Mr. +Holmes: + + I DO WANDER EVERYWHERE. + +Here then are two wanderers--and there is a river in Monmouth and a +river in Macedon. Puck, also, is ‘that merry WANDERER of the night.’ +Then ‘A BOUNCING AMAZON’ is mentioned in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ +and ‘the fountain of the great river of the Amazons’ is alluded to in +the fragment of the masque. Cupid too occurs in the play, and in the +masque the wanderer is BLIND; now Cupid is blind, sometimes, but hardly +when ‘a certain aim he took.’ The Indian, in the masque, presents +Elizabeth with ‘his gift AND PROPERTY TO BE EVER YOUNG,’ and the herb, +in the play, has a ‘VIRTUOUS PROPERTY.’ + +For such exquisite reasons as these the masque and the ‘Midsummer +Night’s Dream’ are by one hand, and the masque is by Bacon. For some +unknown cause the play is full of poetry, which is entirely absent +from the masque. Mr. Holmes was a Judge; sat on the bench of American +Themis--and these are his notions of proof and evidence. The parallel +passages which he selects are on a level with the other parallels +between Bacon and Shakespeare. One thing is certain: the writer of the +masque shows no signs of being a poet, and a poet Bacon explicitly ‘did +not profess to be.’ One piece of verse attributed to Bacon, a loose +paraphrase of a Greek epigram, has won its way into ‘The Golden +Treasury.’ Apart from that solitary composition, the verses which Bacon +‘prepared’ were within the powers of almost any educated Elizabethan. +They are on a level with the rhymes of Mr. Ruskin. It was only when he +wrote as Shakespeare that Bacon wrote as a poet. + +We have spoken somewhat harshly of Mr. Holmes as a classical scholar, +and as a judge of what, in literary matters, makes evidence. We hasten +to add that he could be convinced of error. He had regarded a sentence +of Bacon’s as a veiled confession that Bacon wrote ‘Richard II.,’ +‘which, though it grew from me, went after about in others’ names.’ +Mr. Spedding averred that Mr. Holmes’s opinion rested on a grammatical +misinterpretation, and Mr. Holmes accepted the correction. But ‘nothing +less than a miracle’ could shake Mr. Holmes’s belief in the common +authorship of the masque (possibly Bacon’s) and the ‘Midsummer Night’s +Dream’--so he told Mr. Spedding. To ourselves nothing short of a +miracle, or the visitation of God in the shape of idiocy, could bring +the conviction that the person who wrote the masque could have written +the play. The reader may compare the whole passage in Mr. Holmes’s work +(pp. 228-238). We have already set forth some of those bases of his +belief which only a miracle could shake. The weak wind that scarcely +bids the aspen shiver might blow them all away. + +Vast space is allotted by Baconians to ‘parallel passages’ in Bacon +and Shakespeare. We have given a few in the case of the masque and the +‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ The others are of equal weight. They are on a +level with ‘Punch’s’ proofs that Alexander Smith was a plagiarist. Thus +Smith: + + No CHARACTER that servant WOMAN asked; + +Pope writes: + + Most WOMEN have no CHARACTER at all. + +It is tedious to copy out the puerilities of such parallelisms. Thus +Bacon: + + If we simply looked to the fabric of the world; + +Shakespeare: + + And, like the baseless fabric of a vision. + +Bacon: + + The intellectual light in the top and consummation of thy +workmanship; + +Shakespeare: + + Like eyasses that cry out on the top of the question. + +Myriads of pages of such matter would carry no proof. Probably the +hugest collection of such ‘parallels’ is that preserved by Mrs. Pott +in Bacon’s ‘Promus,’ a book of 628 pages. Mrs. Pott’s ‘sole object’ in +publishing ‘was to confirm the growing belief in Bacon’s authorship +of the plays.’ Having acquired the opinion, she laboured to strengthen +herself and others in the faith. The so-called ‘Promus’ is a manuscript +set of notes, quotations, formulae, and proverbs. As Mr. Spedding says, +there are ‘forms of compliment, application, excuse, repartee, etc.’ +‘The collection is from books which were then in every scholar’s +hands.’ ‘The proverbs may all, or nearly all, be found in the common +collections.’ Mrs. Pott remarks that in ‘Promus’ are ‘several hundreds +of notes of which no trace has been discovered in the acknowledged +writings of Bacon, or of any other contemporary writer but Shakespeare.’ +She adds that the theory of ‘close intercourse’ between the two men is +‘contrary to all evidence.’ She then infers that ‘Bacon alone wrote all +the plays and sonnets which are attributed to Shakespeare.’ So Bacon +entrusted his plays, and the dread secret of his authorship, to a +boorish cabotin with whom he had no ‘close intercourse’! This is lady’s +logic, a contradiction in terms. The theory that Bacon wrote the plays +and sonnets inevitably implies the closest intercourse between him and +Shakespeare. They must have been in constant connection. But, as Mrs. +Pott truly says, this is ‘contrary to all evidence.’ + +Perhaps the best way to deal with Mrs. Pott is to cite the author of +her preface, Dr. Abbott. He is not convinced, but he is much struck by a +very exquisite argument of the lady’s. Bacon in ‘Promus’ is writing down +‘Formularies and Elegancies,’ modes of salutation. He begins with ‘Good +morrow!’ This original remark, Mrs. Pott reckons, ‘occurs in the plays +nearly a hundred times. In the list of upwards of six thousand words +in Appendix E, “Good morrow” has been noted thirty-one times.... “Good +morrow” may have become familiar merely by means of “Romeo and Juliet.”’ +Dr. Abbott is so struck by this valuable statement that he writes: +‘There remains the question, Why did Bacon think it worth while to write +down in a notebook the phrase “Good morrow” if it was at that time in +common use?’ + +Bacon wrote down ‘Good morrow’ just because it WAS in common use. All +the formulae were in common use; probably ‘Golden sleepe’ was a regular +wish, like ‘Good rest.’ Bacon is making a list of commonplaces about +beginning the day, about getting out of bed, about sleep. Some are in +English, some in various other languages. He is not, as in Mrs. Pott’s +ingenious theory, making notes of novelties to be introduced through his +plays. He is cataloguing the commonplace. It is Mrs. Pott’s astonishing +contention, as we have seen, that Bacon probably introduced the phrase +‘Good morrow!’ Mr. Bucke, following her in a magazine article, says: +‘These forms of salutation were not in use in England before Bacon’s +time, and it was his entry of them in the “Promus” and use of them +in the plays that makes them current coin day by day with us in the +nineteenth century.’ This is ignorant nonsense. ‘Good morrow’ and ‘Good +night’ were as familiar before Bacon or Shakespeare wrote as ‘Good +morning’ and ‘Good night’ are to-day. This we can demonstrate. The very +first Elizabethan handbook of phrases which we consult shows that ‘Good +morrow’ was the stock phrase in regular use in 1583. The book is ‘The +French Littelton, A most Easie, Perfect, and Absolute way to learne the +Frenche Tongue. Set forth by Claudius Holyband. Imprinted at London by +Thomas Vautrollier, dwelling in the blacke-Friers. 1583.’ (There is an +edition of 1566.) + +On page 10 we read:-- + + ‘Of Scholars and Schoole. + +‘God give you good morrow, Sir! Good morrow gossip: good morrow my she +gossip: God give you a good morrow and a good year.’ + +Thus the familiar salutation was not introduced by Bacon; it was, on the +other hand, the very first formula which a writer of an English-French +phrase-book translated into French ten years before Bacon made his +notes. Presently he comes to ‘Good evening, good night, good rest,’ and +so on. + +This fact annihilates Mrs. Pott’s contention that Bacon introduced +‘Good morrow’ through the plays falsely attributed to Shakespeare. There +follows, in ‘Promus,’ a string of proverbs, salutations, and quotations, +about sleep and waking. Among these occur ‘Golden Sleepe’ (No. 1207) and +(No. 1215) ‘Uprouse. You are up.’ Now Friar Laurence says to Romeo:-- + + But where unbruised youth with unstuffed brain + Doth couch his limbs, there GOLDEN SLEEP doth reign: + Therefore thy earliness doth me assure, + Thou art UP-ROUSED by some distemperature. + +Dr. Abbott writes: ‘Mrs. Pott’s belief is that the play is indebted for +these expressions to the “Promus;” mine is that the “Promus” is borrowed +from the play.’ And why should either owe anything to the other? The +phrase ‘Uprouse’ or ‘Uprose’ is familiar in Chaucer, from one of his +best-known lines. ‘Golden’ is a natural poetic adjective of excellence, +from Homer to Tennyson. Yet in Dr. Abbott’s opinion ‘TWO of these +entries constitute a coincidence amounting almost to a demonstration’ +that either Shakespeare or Bacon borrowed from the other. And this +because each writer, one in making notes of commonplaces on sleep, the +other in a speech about sleep, uses the regular expression ‘Uprouse,’ +and the poetical commonplace ‘Golden sleep’ for ‘Good rest.’ There was +no originality in the matter. + +We have chosen Dr. Abbott’s selected examples of Mrs. Pott’s triumphs. +Here is another of her parallels. Bacon gives the formula, ‘I pray God +your early rising does you no hurt.’ Shakespeare writes:-- + + Go, you cot-quean, go, + Get you to bed; faith, you’ll be sick to-morrow + For this night’s watching. + +Here Bacon notes a morning salutation, ‘I hope you are none the worse +for early rising,’ while Shakespeare tells somebody not to sit up late. +Therefore, and for similar reasons, Bacon is Shakespeare. + +We are not surprised to find Mr. Bucke adopting Mrs. Pott’s theory of +the novelty of ‘Good morrow.’ He writes in the Christmas number of +an illustrated sixpenny magazine, and his article, a really masterly +compendium of the whole Baconian delirium, addresses its natural public. +But we are amazed to find Dr. Abbott looking not too unkindly on such +imbecilities, and marching at least in the direction of Coventry with +such a regiment. He is ‘on one point a convert’ to Mrs. Pott, and that +point is the business of ‘Good morrow,’ ‘Uprouse,’ and ‘Golden sleepe.’ +It need hardly be added that the intrepid Mr. Donnelly is also a firm +adherent of Mrs. Pott. + +‘Some idea,’ he says, ‘may be formed of the marvellous industry of this +remarkable lady when I state that to prove that we are indebted to Bacon +for having enriched the English language, through the plays, with these +beautiful courtesies of speech, ‘Good morrow,’ ‘Good day,’ etc., she +carefully examined SIX THOUSAND WORKS ANTERIOR TO OR CONTEMPORARY WITH +BACON.’ + +Dr. Abbott thought it judicious to ‘hedge’ about these six thousand +works, and await ‘the all-knowing dictionary’ of Dr. Murray and +the Clarendon Press. We have deemed it simpler to go to the first +Elizabethan phrase-book on our shelves, and that tiny volume, in its +very first phrase, shatters the mare’s-nest of Mrs. Pott, Mr. Donnelly, +and Mr. Bucke. + +But why, being a great poet, should Bacon conceal the fact, and choose +as a mask a man whom, on the hypothesis of his ignorance, every one that +knew him must have detected as an impostor? Now, one great author did +choose to conceal his identity, though he never shifted the burden of +the ‘Waverley Novels’ on to Terry the actor. Bacon may, conceivably, +have had Scott’s pleasure in secrecy, but Bacon selected a mask much +more impossible (on the theory) than Terry would have been for Scott. +Again, Sir Walter Scott took pains to make his identity certain, by an +arrangement with Constable, and by preserving his manuscripts, and he +finally confessed. Bacon never confessed, and no documentary traces of +his authorship survive. Scott, writing anonymously, quoted his own poems +in the novels, an obvious ‘blind.’ Bacon, less crafty, never (as far as +we are aware) mentions Shakespeare. + +It is arguable, of course, that to write plays might seem dangerous to +Bacon’s professional and social position. The reasons which might make a +lawyer keep his dramatic works a secret could not apply to ‘Lucrece.’ +A lawyer, of good birth, if he wrote plays at all, would certainly not +vamp up old stock pieces. That was the work of a ‘Johannes Factotum,’ of +a ‘Shakescene,’ as Greene says, of a man who occupied the same position +in his theatrical company as Nicholas Nickleby did in that of Mr. +Crummles. Nicholas had to bring in the vulgar pony, the Phenomenon, +the buckets, and so forth. So, in early years, the author of the plays +(Bacon, by the theory) had to work over old pieces. All this is the +work of the hack of a playing company; it is not work to which a man +in Bacon’s position could stoop. Why should he? What had he to gain by +patching and vamping? Certainly not money, if the wealth of Shakespeare +is a dark mystery to the Baconian theorists. We are asked to believe +that Bacon, for the sake of some five or six pounds, toiled at +refashioning old plays, and handed the fair manuscripts to Shakespeare, +who passed them off, among the actors who knew him intimately, as his +own. THEY detected no incongruity between the player who was their +Johannes Factotum and the plays which he gave in to the manager. They +seemed to be just the kind of work which Shakespeare would be likely +to write. BE LIKELY TO WRITE, but ‘the father of the rest,’ Mr. Smith, +believed that Shakespeare COULD NOT WRITE AT ALL. + +We live in the Ages of Faith, of faith in fudge. Mr. Smith was certain, +and Mr. Bucke is inclined to suspect, that when Bacon wanted a mask he +chose, as a plausible author of the plays, a man who could not write. +Mr. Smith was certain, and Mr. Bucke must deem it possible, that +Shakespeare’s enemy, Greene, that his friends, Jonson, Burbage, Heming, +and the other actors, and that his critics and admirers, Francis Meres +and others, accepted, as author of the pieces which they played in or +applauded, a man who could write no more than his name. Such was the +tool whom Bacon found eligible, and so easily gulled was the literary +world of Eliza and our James. And Bacon took all this trouble for +what reason? To gain five or six pounds, or as much of that sum as +Shakespeare would let him keep. Had Bacon been possessed by the ambition +to write plays he would always have written original dramas, he would +not have assumed the part of Nicholas Nickleby. + +There is no human nature in this nonsense. An ambitious lawyer passes +his nights in retouching stock pieces, from which he can reap neither +fame nor profit. He gives his work to a second-rate illiterate actor, +who adopts it as his own. Bacon is so enamoured of this method that he +publishes ‘Venus and Adonis’ and ‘Lucrece’ under the name of his actor +friend. Finally, he commits to the actor’s care all his sonnets to the +Queen, to Gloriana, and for years these manuscript poems are handed +about by Shakespeare, as his own, among the actors, hack scribblers, and +gay young nobles of his acquaintance. They ‘chaff’ Shakespeare about his +affection for his ‘sovereign;’ great Gloriana’s praises are stained with +sack in taverns, and perfumed with the Indian weed. And Bacon, careful +toiler after Court favour, ‘thinks it all wery capital,’ in the words +of Mr. Weller pere. Moreover, nobody who hears Shakespeare talk and sees +him smile has any doubt that he is the author of the plays and amorous +fancies of Bacon. + +It is needless to dwell on the pother made about the missing manuscripts +of Shakespeare. ‘The original manuscripts, of course, Bacon would take +care to destroy,’ says Mr. Holmes, ‘if determined that the secret should +die with him.’ If he was so determined, for what earthly reason did he +pass his valuable time in vamping up old plays and writing new ones? +‘There was no money in it,’ and there was no reason. But, if he was not +determined that the secret should die with him, why did not he, like +Scott, preserve the manuscripts? The manuscripts are where Marlowe’s and +where Moliere’s are, by virtue of a like neglect. Where are the MSS. +of any of the great Elizabethans? We really cannot waste time over Mr. +Donnelly’s theory of a Great Cryptogram, inserted by Bacon, as proof of +his claim, in the multitudinous errors of the Folio. Mr. Bucke, too, +has his Anagram, the deathless discovery of Dr. Platt, of Lakewood, New +Jersey. By manipulating the scraps of Latin in ‘Love’s Labour’s +Lost,’ he extracts ‘Hi Ludi tuiti sibi Fr. Bacono nati’: ‘These plays, +entrusted to themselves, proceeded from Fr. Bacon.’ It is magnificent, +but it is not Latin. Had Bacon sent in such Latin at school, he would +never have survived to write the ‘Novum Organon’ and his sonnets to +Queen Elizabeth. In that stern age they would have ‘killed him--with +wopping.’ That Bacon should be a vamper and a playwright for no +appreciable profit, that, having produced his deathless works, he +should make no sign, has, in fact, staggered even the great credulity of +Baconians. He MUST, they think, have made a sign in cipher. Out of the +mass of the plays, anagrams and cryptograms can be fashioned a plaisir, +and the world has heard too much of Mrs. Gallup, while the hunt for +hints in contemporary frontispieces led to mistaking the porcupine of +Sidney’s crest for ‘a hanged hog’ (Bacon). + +The theory of the Baconian authorship of Shakespeare’s plays and poems +has its most notable and recent British advocate in His Honour Judge +Webb, sometime Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, Regius Professor of +Laws, and Public Orator in the University of Dublin. Judge Webb, as +a scholar and a man used to weighing evidence, puts the case at its +strongest. His work, ‘The Mystery of William Shakespeare’ (1902), rests +much on the old argument about the supposed ignorance of Shakespeare, +and the supposed learning of the author of the plays. Judge Webb, like +his predecessors, does not take into account the wide diffusion of a +kind of classical and pseudo-scientific knowledge among all Elizabethan +writers, and bases theories on manifest misconceptions of Shakespearean +and other texts. His book, however, has affected the opinions of +some readers who do not verify his references and examine the mass of +Elizabethan literature for themselves. + +Judge Webb, in his ‘Proem,’ refers to Mr. Holmes and Mr. Donnelly as +‘distinguished writers,’ who ‘have received but scant consideration from +the accredited organs of opinion on this side of the Atlantic.’ Their +theories have not been more favourably considered by Shakespearean +scholars on the other side of the Atlantic, and how much consideration +they deserve we have tried to show. The Irish Judge opens his case by +noting an essential distinction between ‘Shakspere,’ the actor, and +‘Shakespeare,’ the playwright. The name, referring to the man who was +both actor and author, is spelled both ‘Shakspeare’ and ‘Shakespeare’ +in the ‘Returne from Parnassus’ (1602).* The ‘school of critics’ which +divides the substance of Shakespeare on the strength of the spelling of +a proper name, in the casual times of great Elizabeth, need not detain +the inquirer. + + + *The Returne from Parnassus, pp. 56,57,138. Oxford, 1886. + +As to Shakespeare’s education, Judge Webb admits that ‘there was a +grammar school in the place.’ As its registers of pupils have not +survived, we cannot prove that Shakespeare went to the school. Mr. +Collins shows that the Headmaster was a Fellow of Corpus Christi +College, Oxford, and describes the nature of the education, mainly in +Latin, as, according to the standard of the period, it ought to have +been.* There is no doubt that if Shakespeare attended the school (the +age of entry was eight), minded his book, and had ‘a good sprag memory,’ +he might have learned Latin. Mr. Collins commends the Latin of two +Stratford contemporaries and friends of Shakespeare, Sturley and Quiney, +who probably were educated at the Grammar School. Judge Webb disparages +their lore, and, on the evidence of the epistles, says that Sturley +and Quiney ‘were not men of education.’ If Judge Webb had compared +the original letters of distinguished Elizabethan officials and +diplomatists--say, Sir William Drury, the Commandant of Berwick--he +would have found that Sturley and Quiney were at least on the ordinary +level of education in the upper classes. But the whole method of the +Baconians rests on neglecting such comparisons. + + + *Fortnightly Review, April 1903. + +In a letter of Sturley’s, eximiae is spelled eximie, without the +digraph, a thing then most usual, and no disproof of Sturley’s +Latinity.* The Shakspearean hypothesis is that Shakespeare was rather +a cleverer man than Quiney and Sturley, and, consequently, that, if he +went to school, he probably learned more by a great deal than they did. +There was no reason why he should not acquire Latin enough to astonish +modern reviewers, who have often none at all. + + + *Webb, p. 14. Phillipps’s Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, i. p. +150, ii. p. 57. + +Judge Webb then discusses the learning of Shakespeare, and easily +shows that he was full of mythological lore. So was all Elizabethan +literature. Every English scribbler then knew what most men have +forgotten now. Nobody was forced to go to the original authorities--say, +Plato, Herodotus, and Plutarch--for what was accessible in translations, +or had long before been copiously decanted into English prose and +poetry. Shakespeare could get Rhodope, not from Pliny, but from B. R.’s +lively translation (1584) of the first two books of Herodotus. ‘Even +Launcelot Gobbo talks of Scylla and Charybdis,’ says Judge Webb. Who did +not? Had the Gobbos not known about Scylla and Charybdis, Shakespeare +would not have lent them the knowledge. + +The mythological legends were ‘in the air,’ familiar to all the +Elizabethan world. These allusions are certainly no proof ‘of trained +scholarship or scientific education.’ In five years of contact with the +stage, with wits, with writers for the stage, with older plays, with +patrons of the stage, with Templars, and so on, a man of talent +could easily pick up the ‘general information’--now caviare to the +general--which a genius like Shakespeare inevitably absorbed. + +We naturally come to Greene’s allusion to ‘Shakescene’ (1592), +concerning which a schoolboy said, in an examination, ‘We are tired to +death with hearing about it.’ Greene conspicuously insults ‘Shakescene’ +both as a writer and an actor. Judge Webb says: ‘As Mr. Phillipps justly +observes, it’ (one of Greene’s allusions) ‘merely conveys that Shakspere +was one who acted in the plays of which Greene and his three friends +were the authors (ii. 269).’ + +It is necessary to verify the Judge’s reference. Mr. Phillipps writes: +‘Taking Greene’s words in their contextual and natural sense, he first +alludes to Shakespeare as an actor, one “beautified with our feathers,” + that is, one who acts in their plays; THEN TO THE POET as a writer just +commencing to try his hand at blank verse, and, finally, to him as not +only engaged in both those capacities, but in any other in which he +might be useful to the company.’ Mr. Phillipps adds that Greene’s +quotation of the line ‘TYGER’S HEART WRAPT IN A PLAYER’S HIDE’ ‘is a +decisive proof of Shakespeare’s authorship of the line.’* + + + *Webb, p. 57. Phillipps, ii. p. 269. + +Judge Webb has manifestly succeeded in not appreciating Mr. Phillipps’s +plain English. He says, with obvious truth, that Greene attacks +Shakespeare both as actor and poet, but Judge Webb puts the matter thus: +‘The language of Greene... as Mr. Phillipps justly observes, merely +conveys that Shakspere was one who acted in the plays of which Greene +and his three friends were authors.’ + +The language of Greene IN ONE PART OF HIS TIRADE, ‘an upstart crow +beautified in our feathers,’ probably refers to Shakespeare as an actor +only, but Greene goes on to insult him as a writer. Judge Webb will +not recognise him as a writer, and omits that part of Mr. Phillipps’s +opinion. + +There followed Chettle’s well-known apology (1592), as editor of +Greene’s sally, to Shakespeare. Chettle speaks of his excellence ‘in +the quality he professes,’ and of his ‘facetious grace in writing, that +approves his art,’ this on the authority of ‘the report of divers of +worship.’ + +This proves, of course, that Shakespeare was a writer as well as an +actor, and Judge Webb can only murmur that ‘we are “left to guess” who +divers of worship’ were, and ‘what motive’ they had for praising his +‘facetious grace in writing.’ The obvious motive was approval of the +work, for work there WAS, and, as to who the ‘divers’ were, nobody +knows. + +The evidence that, IN THE OPINION OF GREENE, CHETTLE, AND ‘DIVERS OF +WORSHIP,’ Shakespeare was a writer as well as an actor is absolutely +irrefragable. Had Shakespeare been the ignorant lout of the Baconian +theorists, these men would not have credited him, for example, with his +first signed and printed piece, ‘Venus and Adonis.’ It appeared early +in 1593, and Greene and Chettle wrote in 1592. ‘Divers of worship,’ +according to the custom of the time, may have seen ‘Venus and Adonis’ in +manuscript. It was printed by Richard Field, a Stratford-on-Avon man, +as was natural, a Stratford-on-Avon man being the author.* It was +dedicated, in stately but not servile courtesy, to the Earl of +Southampton, by ‘William Shakespeare.’ + + + *Phillipps, i. p. 101. + +Judge Webb asks: ‘Was it a pseudonym, or was it the real name of the +author of the poem?’ Well, Shakespeare signs ‘Shakspere’ in two deeds, +in which the draftsman throughout calls him ‘Shakespeare:’ obviously +taking no difference.* People were not particular, Shakespeare let them +spell his name as best pleased them. + + + *Phillipps, ii. pp. 34, 36. + +Judge Webb argues that Southampton ‘took no notice’ of the dedication. +How can he know? Ben Jonson dedicated to Lady Wroth and many others. +Does Judge Webb know what ‘notice’ they took? He says that on various +occasions ‘Southampton did not recognise the existence of the Player.’ +How can he know? I have dedicated books to dozens of people. Probably +they ‘took notice,’ but no record thereof exists. The use of arguments +of this kind demonstrates the feebleness of the case. + +That Southampton, however, DID ‘take notice’ may be safely inferred +from the fact that Shakespeare, in 1594, dedicated to him ‘The Rape +of Lucrece.’ Had the Earl been an ungrateful patron, had he taken no +notice, Shakespeare had Latin enough to act on the motto Invenies alium +si te hic fastidit Alexin. He speaks of ‘the warrant I have of your +honourable disposition,’ which makes the poem ‘assured of acceptance.’ +This could never have been written had the dedication of ‘Venus and +Adonis’ been disdained. ‘The client never acknowledged his obligation +to the patron,’ says Judge Webb. The dedication of ‘Lucrece’ is +acknowledgment enough. The Judge ought to think so, for he speaks, with +needless vigour, of ‘the protestations, warm and gushing as a geyser, +of “The Rape.”’ There is nothing ‘warm,’ and nothing ‘gushing,’ in the +dedication of ‘Lucrece’ (granting the style of the age), but, if it were +as the Judge says, here, indeed, would be the client’s ‘acknowledgment,’ +which, the Judge says, was never made.* To argue against such logic +seems needless, and even cruel, but judicial contentions appear to +deserve a reply. + +Webb, p. 67. + +We now come to the evidence of the Rev. Francis Meres, in ‘Palladis +Tamia’ (1598). Meres makes ‘Shakespeare among the English’ the rival, in +comedy and tragedy, of Plautus and Seneca ‘among the Latines.’ He names +twelve plays, of which ‘Love’s Labour’s Won’ is unknown. ‘The soul of +Ovid’ lives in his ‘Venus and Adonis,’ his ‘Lucrece,’ and his ‘sugred +sonnets among his private friends.’ Meres also mentions Sidney, Spenser, +Daniel, Drayton, and so forth, a long string of English poetic +names, ending with ‘Samuel Page, sometime Fellow of C.C.C. in Oxford, +Churchyard, Bretton.’* + + + *Phillipps, ii. pp. 149,150. + +Undeniably Meres, in 1598, recognises Shakespeare as both playwright +and poet. So Judge Webb can only reply: ‘But who this mellifluous and +honey-tongued Shakespeare was he does not say, AND HE DOES NOT PRETEND +TO KNOW.’* He does not ‘pretend to know’ ‘who’ any of the poets +was--except Samuel Page, and he was a Fellow of Corpus. He speaks of +Shakespeare just as he does of Marlowe, Kid, Chapman, and the others +whom he mentions. He ‘does not pretend to know who’ they were. Every +reader knew who they all were. If I write of Mr. Swinburne or Mr. +Pinero, of Mr. Browning or of Mr. Henry Jones, I do not say ‘who they +were,’ I do not ‘pretend to know.’ There was no Shakespeare in the +literary world of London but the one Shakespeare, ‘Burbage’s deserving +man.’ + + + *Webb, p. 71. + +The next difficulty is that Shakespeare’s company, by request of the +Essex conspirators (who paid 2 pounds), acted ‘Richard II.’ just before +their foolish attempt (February 7, 1601). ‘If Coke,’ says the Judge, +‘had the faintest idea that the player’ (Shakespeare) ‘was the author +of “Richard II.,” he would not have hesitated a moment to lay him by the +heels.’ Why, the fact of Shakespeare’s authorship had been announced, +in print, by Meres, in 1598. Coke knew, if he cared to know. Judge Webb +goes on: ‘And that the Player’ (Shakespeare) ‘was not regarded as the +author by the Queen is proved by the fact that, with his company, +he performed before the Court at Richmond, on the evening before the +execution of the Earl.’* + + + *Webb, pp. 72, 73. + +Nothing of the kind is proved. The guilt, if any, lay, not in writing +the drama--by 1601 ‘olde and outworne’--but in acting it, on the eve of +an intended revolution. This error Elizabeth overlooked, and with it the +innocent authorship of the piece, ‘now olde and outworne.’* It is not +even certain, in Mr. Phillipps’s opinion, that the ‘olde and outworne’ +play was that of Shakespeare. It is perfectly certain that, as Elizabeth +overlooked the fault of the players, she would not attack the author of +a play written years before Essex’s plot, with no political intentions. + + + *Phillipps, ii. pp. 359-362. + +We now come to evidence of which Judge Webb says very little, that of +the two plays acted at St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1600-1601, +known as ‘The Returne from Parnassus.’ These pieces prove that +Shakespeare the poet was identified with Shakespeare the player. They +also prove that Shakespeare’s scholarship and art were held very +cheaply by the University wits, who, as always, were disdainful of +non-University men. His popularity is undisputed, but his admirer in the +piece, Gullio, is a vapouring ignoramus, who pretends to have been +at the University of Padua, but knows no more Latin than many modern +critics. Gullio rants thus: ‘Pardon, faire lady, though sicke-thoughted +Gullio makes amaine unto thee, and LIKE A BOULD-FACED SUTOR ‘GINS TO +WOO THEE.’ This, of course, is from ‘Venus and Adonis.’ Ingenioso says, +aside: ‘We shall have nothinge but pure Shakespeare and shreds of +poetry that he hath gathered at the theaters.’ Gullio next mouths a +reminiscence of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ and Ingenioso whispers, ‘Marke, +Romeo and Juliet, O monstrous theft;’ however, aloud, he says ‘Sweete +Mr. Shakspeare!’--the spelling varies. Gullio continues to praise sweete +Mr. Shakspeare above Spenser and Chaucer. ‘Let mee heare Mr. Shakspear’s +veyne.’ Judge Webb does not cite these passages, which identify +Shakspeare (or Shakespeare) with the poet of ‘Venus and Adonis’ and +‘Romeo and Juliet.’ + +In the second ‘Returne,’ Burbage and Kemp, the noted morrice dancer and +clown of Shakespeare’s company, are introduced. ‘Few of the University +men pen plays well,’ says Kemp; ‘they smack too much of that writer +Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Proserpina +and Jupiter. Why here’s our fellow Shakespeare’ (fellow is used in the +sense of companion), ‘puts them all downe, ay, and Ben Jonson too. O +that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the +Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that +made him bewray his credit.’ At Burbage’s request, one of the University +men then recites two lines of ‘Richard III.,’ by the poet of his +company. + +Ben, according to Judge Webb, ‘bewrayed his credit’ in ‘The Poetaster,’ +1601-1602, where Pantalabus ‘was meant for Shakspere.’* If so, +Pantalabus is described as one who ‘pens high, lofty, and in a new +stalking strain,’ and if Shakespeare is the Poet Ape of Jonson’s +epigram, why then Jonson regards him as a writer, not merely as an +actor. No amount of evil that angry Ben could utter about the plays, +while Shakespeare lived, and, perhaps, was for a time at odds with him, +can obliterate the praises which the same Ben wrote in his milder mood. +The charge against Poet Ape is a charge of plagiarism, such as unpopular +authors usually make against those who are popular. Judge Webb has to +suppose that Jonson, when he storms, raves against some ‘works’ at that +time somehow associated with Shakespeare; and that, when he praises, he +praises the divine masterpieces of Bacon. But we know what plays really +were attributed to Shakespeare, then as now, while no other ‘works’ of +a contemptible character, attributed to Shakespeare, are to be heard of +anywhere. Judge Webb does not pretend to know what the things were to +which the angry Jonson referred.** If he really aimed his stupid epigram +at Shakespeare, he obviously alluded to the works which were then, and +now are, recognised as Shakespeare’s; but in his wrath he denounced +them. ‘Potter is jealous of potter, poet of poet’--it is an old saying +of the Greek. There was perhaps some bitterness between Jonson and +Shakespeare about 1601; Ben made an angry epigram, perhaps against +Shakespeare, and thought it good enough to appear in his collected +epigrams in 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s death. By that time the +application to Shakespeare, if to him the epigram applied, might, +in Ben’s opinion perhaps, be forgotten by readers. In any case, Ben, +according to Drummond of Hawthornden, was one who preferred his jest to +his friend. + + + *Webb, pp. 114-116. + + **Webb, pp. 116-119. + +Judge Webb’s hypothesis is that Ben, in Shakespeare’s lifetime, +especially in 1600-1601, spoke evil of his works, though he allowed that +they might endure to ‘after-times’-- + + Aftertimes + May judge it to be his, as well as ours. + +But these works (wholly unknown) were not (on the Judge’s theory) the +works which, after Shakespeare’s death, Ben praised, as his, in verse; +and, more critically, praised in prose: the works, that is, which the +world has always regarded as Shakespeare’s. THESE were Bacon’s, and Ben +knew it on Judge Webb’s theory. Here Judge Webb has, of course, to deal +with Ben’s explicit declarations, in the First Folio, that the works +which he praises are by Shakespeare. The portrait, says Ben, + + Was for gentle Shakespeare cut. + +Judge Webb then assures us, to escape this quandary, that ‘in the +Sonnets “the gentle Shakespeare himself informs us that Shakespeare was +not his real name, but the “noted weed” in which he “kept invention.”’ * +The author of the Sonnets does nothing of the kind. Judge Webb +has merely misconstrued his text. The passage which he so quaintly +misinterprets occurs in Sonnet lxxvi.: + + Why is my verse so barren of new pride? + So far from variation or quick change? + Why, with the time, do I not glance aside + To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? + WHY WRITE I STILL ALL ONE, EVER THE SAME, + AND KEEP INVENTION IN A NOTED WEED, + THAT EVERY WORD DOES ALMOST TELL MY NAME, + SHOWING THEIR BIRTH AND WHENCE THEY DO PROCEED? + Oh, know, sweet love, I always write of you, + And you and love are still my argument; + So all my best is dressing old words new, + Spending again what is already spent: + For as the sun is daily new and old, + So is my love still telling what is told. + + + *Webb, pp. 125,156,235,264. Judge Webb is fond of his discovery. + +The lines capitalised are thus explained by the Judge: ‘Here the author +certainly intimates that Shakespeare is not his real name, and that he +was fearful lest his real name should be discovered.’ The author says +nothing about Shakespeare not being his real name, nor about his fear +lest his real name should be discovered. He even ‘quibbles on his own +Christian name,’ WILL, as Mr. Phillipps and everyone else have noted. +What he means is: ‘Why am I so monotonous that every word almost tells +my name?’ ‘To keep invention in a noted weed’ means, of course, to +present his genius always in the same well-known attire. There is +nothing about disguise of a name, or of anything else, in the sonnet.* + + + *Webb, pp. 64,156. + +But Judge Webb assures us that Shakespeare himself informs us in the +sonnets that ‘Shakespeare was not his real name, but the noted weed in +which he kept invention.’ As this is most undeniably not the case, it +cannot aid his effort to make out that, in the Folio, by the name of +Shakespeare, Ben Jonson means another person. + +In the Folio verses, ‘To the Memory of my Beloved, Mr. William +Shakespeare, and What he has Left Us,’ Judge Webb finds many mysterious +problems. + + Soul of the Age, + The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage, + My Shakespeare, rise! + +By a pun, Ben speaks of Shakespeare as + + shaking a lance + As brandish’t at the eyes of Ignorance. + +The pun does not fit the name of--Bacon! The apostrophe to ‘sweet Swan +of Avon’ hardly applies to Bacon either; he was not a Swan of Avon. It +were a sight, says Ben, to see the Swan ‘in our waters yet appear,’ +and Judge Webb actually argues that Shakespeare was dead, and could not +appear, so somebody else must be meant! ‘No poet that ever lived would +be mad enough to talk of a swan as YET appearing, and resuming its +flights, upon the river some seven or eight years after it was dead.’* +The Judge is like the Scottish gentleman who when Lamb, invited to meet +Burns’s sons, said he wished it were their father, solemnly replied that +this could not be, for Burns was dead. Wordsworth, in a sonnet, like +Glengarry at Sheriffmuir, sighed for ‘one hour of Dundee!’ The poet, and +the chief, must have been mad, in Judge Webb’s opinion, for Dundee had +fallen long ago, in the arms of victory. A theory which not only rests +on such arguments as Judge Webb’s, but takes it for granted that Bacon +might be addressed as ‘sweet Swan of Avon,’ is conspicuously impossible. + + + *Webb, p. 134. + +Another of the Judge’s arguments reposes on a misconception which +has been exposed again and again. In his Memorial verses Ben gives +to Shakespeare the palm for POETRY: to Bacon for ELOQUENCE, in the +‘Discoveries.’ Both may stand the comparison with ‘insolent Greece +or haughty Rome.’ Shakespeare is not mentioned with Bacon in the +‘Scriptorum Catalogus’ of the ‘Discoveries’: but no more is any dramatic +author or any poet, as a poet. Hooker, Essex, Egerton, Sandys, Sir +Nicholas Bacon are chosen, not Spenser, Marlowe, or Shakespeare. All +this does not go far to prove that when Ben praised ‘the wonder of our +stage,’ ‘sweet Swan of Avon,’ he meant Bacon, not Shakespeare. + +When Judge Webb argued that in matters of science [‘falsely so called’) +Bacon and Shakespeare were identical, Professor Tyrrell, of Trinity +College, Dublin, was shaken, and said so, in ‘The Pilot.’ Professor +Dowden then proved, in ‘The National Review,’ that both Shakespeare and +Bacon used the widely spread pseudo-scientific ideas of their time (as +is conspicuously the case), and Mr. Tyrrell confessed that he was sorry +he had spoken. ‘When I read Professor Dowden’s article, I would gladly +have recalled my own, but it was too late.’ Mr. Tyrrell adds, with +an honourable naivete, ‘I AM NOT VERSED IN THE LITERATURE OF THE +SHAKESPEAREAN ERA, and I assumed that the Baconians who put forward +the parallelisms had satisfied themselves that the coincidences were +peculiar to the writings of the philosopher and the poet. Professor +Dowden has proved that this is not so....’ Professor Dowden has indeed +proved, in copious and minute detail, what was already obvious to +every student who knew even such ordinary Elizabethan books as Lyly’s +‘Euphues’ and Phil Holland’s ‘Pliny,’ and the speculations of such +earlier writers as Paracelsus. Bacon and Shakespeare, like other +Elizabethans, accepted the popular science of their period, and +decorated their pages with queer ideas about beasts, and stones, and +plants; which were mere folklore. A sensible friend of my own was +staggered, if not converted, by the parallelisms adduced in Judge Webb’s +chapter ‘Of Bacon as a Man of Science.’ I told him that the parallelisms +were Elizabethan commonplaces, and were not peculiar to Bacon and +Shakespeare. Professor Dowden, out of the fulness of his reading, +corroborated this obiter dictum, and his article (in ‘The National +Review,’ vol. xxxix., 1902) absolutely disposes of the Judge’s argument. + +Mr. Tyrrell went on: ‘The evidence of Ben Jonson alone seems decisive of +the question; the other’ (the Judge, for one) ‘persuades himself (how, I +cannot understand) that it may be explained away.’* + + + *Pilot, August 30, 1902, p. 220. + +We have seen how Judge Webb ‘explains away’ the evidence of Ben. But +while people ‘not versed in the literature of the Shakespearean +era’ assume that the Baconians have examined it, to discover whether +Shakespearo-Baconian parallelisms are peculiar to these two writers or +not, these people may fall into the error confessed by Mr. Tyrrell. + +Some excuse is needed for arguing on the Baconian doctrine. ‘There is +much doubt and misgiving on the subject among serious men,’ says Judge +Webb, and if a humble author can, by luck, allay the doubts of a single +serious man, he should not regret his labour. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Valet’s Tragedy and Other Stories, by +Andrew Lang + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VALET’S TRAGEDY *** + +***** This file should be named 2073-0.txt or 2073-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/2073/ + +Produced by Les Bowler and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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