The Trumped-Up Trial of the Popish Patsies

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n The trial of Robert Green, Henry Berry and LaurencenHill at the bar of the Court of the King’s Bench for the wilful murder of SirnEdmund Berry Godfrey began on February 10^th 1679. It was not a trialnin the sense that we understand that word today. The presiding judge, LordnChief Justice Sir William Scroggs, is remembered now for his partiality,nbrutality and fierce animosity toward Roman Catholics. In his History of thenCriminal Law, Sir James Stephen writes that neither judges nor counsel atnthis time had

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n“ … any conception of the true nature of judicial evidence.”

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nHearsay was freely admitted, as was uncorroborated testimony. Suchncross-examination that took place was usually carried out by the judge himself;nthe accused were denied counsel and although they were allowed to callnwitnesses, the law did not permit them to be sworn. Neither were they presentednwith the evidence that would be used against them until it was presented inncourt, so that they entered the courtroom entirely unprepared. A trained barristernwould have struggled to make a suitable defence; Green could neither read nornwrite, Berry and Hill were ordinary labourers, so all three were immediately atna great disadvantage. Added to this, the court was crowded with a hostilenpublic audience.

Broadsheet – The Murder of Sir Godfrey

nTitus Oates was the first witness, who told how he had swornndepositions before Godfrey and how the magistrate had told him in conversationnthat “… he went in fear of his life by the Popish party,” a storyncorroborated by Mr Robinson, friend and former schoolfellow of Sir Edmund.nMiles Prance was called next and repeated the story given in his confession.nNext up was ‘Captain’ Bedloe, who re-presented his story about seeing Godfrey’snbody in Somerset House, in the presence of other men, which amounted to littlenmore than hearsay.

The Murder of Sir Godfrey

nThe prisoners did not address the court directly, but callednwitnesses in their defence. Mrs Broadstreet, Hill’s landlady, testified that henwas always at home by eight o’clock in the evening and could not have gone outnwithout her knowledge, and a body could not have been kept in the small roomnwithout her knowing about it. Miss Tilden also spoke for Hill, backing up thenevidence given by the landlady. Judge Scroggs elicited that both these ladiesnwere Roman Catholics and, indeed, Mrs Broadstreet’s brother was a priest.nRobert Green’s landlord and his wife both gave evidence that he was at homenwhen the alleged murder took place. In Berry’s defence, a corporal and two mennof the Guards swore that they had been on duty when the body was supposedlynremoved and none had seen a sedan chair on that night and all had remained atntheir posts throughout.

The Murder of Sir Godfrey

nAt the end of the trial, Justice Scroggs charged thenjury in a biased attack on the accused, declaring that Bedloe’s testimonyncorroborated that of Miles Prance, that the night had been dark so a sedannchair might have slipped by unnoticed by the guards, that ‘devilish’ priestsnhad been behind the crime and that the alibis provided for Green and Hill wereninsecure. He attacked priests in a fierce outburst, and Catholics in general,nand he dismissed the jury to consider the evidence. After a short while, theynreturned with a Guilty verdict, Justice Scroggs heartily concurred with theirndecision, and ‘… the whole assembly gave a great shout of applause.’

The Murder of Sir Godfrey

nOnnthe following day, all three men were sentenced to death, Green and Hill werenhanged at Tyburn on February 21^st 1679 and Berry was hanged one weeknlater. All three protested their innocence to their last breath.

nThere havenbeen numerous conjectures about who really killed Godfrey and why. Some say itnwas Titus Oates himself, as a means of stirring up an anti-Catholic frenzy whennit seemed that his Popish Plot was in danger of foundering. Others stillnbelieve that Green, Berry and Hill really were guilty. Bizarrely, some othersnsubscribe to the theory that Godfrey felt so far out of his depth that hencommitted suicide, although quite how he managed to break his own neck with anhandkerchief, stab himself through his body and then throw himself headfirstninto a bramble thicket is something of a barrier to taking this seriously.

Sir John Pollock – The Popish Plot – 1903

nSirnJohn Pollock put another idea forward in his seminal The Popish Plotn(1903), in which he posits that Godfrey saw the name of Edward Colman innOates’s deposition and contacted his friend to warn him of the coming storm.nThat Godfrey and Colman conversed urgently and in private soon after is anmatter of fact, and that Colman then destroyed some of his private papers isnalso true.

nPollock speculated that Colman told Godfrey a secret and whennknowledge of this got out, Godfrey was assassinated; Pollock thought that thisnsecret was that the meeting of the Jesuit conspirators had not taken place atnthe White Horse Tavern on The Strand but in the private rooms of the Duke ofnYork at St James’s Palace. This would have been embarrassing to say the least,nas the Duke was the King’s brother and next in line to the throne (heneventually became King James II), and it wouldn’t do if word got out that henhad been involved in a plot to kill the King and restore a Catholic supremacy.

nThe only problem with Pollock’s theory is that James had met Jesuits atnSt James’s Palace, on April 24^th 1678, but it had been on officialnbusiness and was on record, so this was very much an ‘open’ secret. However,nthis is not to say that Colman didn’t tell Godfrey a different secret, a secretnsecret, about which we know nothing, and it was for this that Godfrey wasneliminated.

The Murder of Sir Godfrey

nBut unless some forgotten records come to light in the future, wenwill never know why, for certain, that Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was murdered.nHe was not the last to die during the Popish Plot, as we shall see.

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nPostscript
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With a grim, gallows humour, Londoners popularly referred for a while to Primrose Hill as Greenberry Hill, in memory of the hanged men Green, Berry and Hill. In the intervening years, this piece of Whig, anti-Catholic waggery grew like Topsy, and some writers, unfamiliar with the details, imagine that Greenberry Hill was the original name of the place and it was changed to Primrose Hill at a later time. The ‘coincidence’ is appealing but entirely specious. This situation wasn’t helped when Charles Hoy Fort, that famous collector of the odd and interesting, included this in his Wild Talents (1932),

n“In the New York Herald, Nov. 26, 1911, there is an account of the hanging of three men, for the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, on Greenberry Hill, London. The names of the murderers were Green, Berry, and Hill. It does seem that this was only a matter of chance. Still, it may have been no coincidence, but a savage pun mixed with murder.”

nThe story was popularised in modern days at the beginning of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 film Magnolia, where it is reported as fact. Since tinternet woo merchants got their hands on the story, it has been confidently asserted by folks who should know better but need to get out more that this bunkum has some sort supernatural significance. It doesn’t. It is not a coincidence. It is a joke. And if you believe it to be otherwise, so are you.

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nAnd for any of you keeping score, this is my 300th consecutive post. Thank you for continuing to read.