RUINS OF OLD CAMPDEN HOUSE, WITH THE BANQUETING HALL ON THE LEFT.RUINS OF OLD CAMPDEN HOUSE, WITH THE BANQUETING HALL ON THE LEFT.
The village of Campden, in Gloucestershire, some five-and-twenty minutes from the cathedral town and county seat, gave its name tothe Viscountess Campden, the lady of the manor. Her steward and agent, a certain William Harrison, a man of seventy years, started from Campden on the 16th of August, 1660, to walk over to the neighbouring village of Charringworth, where he wished to collect rents due to his mistress. As he had not returned according to his wont between 8 and 9 p.m., Mrs. Harrison, his wife, despatched a servant named John Perry along the road to meet him and bring him safely home. Neither Perry nor his master returned that night. Next morning Edward Harrison, the son, proceeded to Charringworth to inquire for his father, and on his way met Perry, the servant, coming from that village. Perry told Edward Harrison that Mr. Harrison had not been heard of, and the two together visited another village, Ebrington, and there got some news. A villager stated that the elder Harrison had paid him a passing call the night before, but had made no stay.
They next went to Paxford, a mile thence, where further news met them. They heard that a poor woman had picked up, in the high road between Ebrington and Campden, a hat, a hat-band, and a comb, and seeking her out, they found her “leasing” or gleaning in a field, whereupon she delivered up the articles, and they were at once identified as Mr. Harrison’s. The woman was forthwith desired to point out the spot where she had picked them up, and she showed it them on the road “near unto a great furze brake.” As the hat-band was bloody and the comb all hacked and cut, it was reasonably concluded that their owner had been murdered.
Mr. Harrison’s disappearance so greatly alarmed his wife that she conceived he had met with foul play at the hand of John Perry, the servant whom she had sent to convoy him home. At her instance, therefore, Perry was seized and carried before a justice, who straightway bade him explain why he had stayed absent the whole of the night he had been sent to look for his master. Perry’s story was that he had not gone “a land’s length” towards Charringworth when it came on so dark he was afraid to go forward, and he returned to the Harrisons’ house, meaning to take out his young master’s horse. But he did no more than make another false start, and then, without informing his mistress that he was still on the premises, he lay down to rest in the hen-roost, where he continued for an hour or more, “but slept not.” About midnight he turned out again, and the moon having now risen he really started for Charringworth. Once more he was stopped; thistime by a great mist, in which he lost his way, and finally he took refuge under a hedge, where he slept till daybreak. At last he reached Charringworth, and learning that his master had been there the previous day, followed his movements as he went from house to house receiving monies for rent. There were, however, no signs of the missing man in the village now.
Most of Perry’s statements were verified by other witnesses; but the case was black against him, and he was detained by the law until something definite came out concerning Mr. Harrison. A week passed, during which Perry was lodged “sometimes in an inn in Campden, sometimes in the common prison,” and all the time he was devising different stories to account for his master’s disappearance. One was that a tinker had killed him; another that the servant of a neighbouring squire had robbed and murdered him; and thirdly, that he had been killed in Campden, where his body was hidden in a bean-rick, which was searched, but no body found. On further examination, being pressed to confess, he again insisted that Mr. Harrison had been murdered, “but not by him.” Then the justice said if he knew of the murder he must know also the perpetrators, and this John Perry presently allowed by putting the whole blame on his own mother and brother.
He charged these near relatives with having constantly “lain at him” ever since he was in Mr. Harrison’s service, urging him to help them with money, reminding him how poor they were, and how easy it was for him to relieve them; he need do no more than give them notice when his master went to receive his rents, and they could then waylay him and rob him. Perry went on to say that he met his brother Richard on the very morning that Mr. Harrison went to Charringworth, and that the brother, hearing of the rent collection, was resolved to have the money; that when he (John Perry) started by his mistress’s order to bring Mr. Harrison safely home, he again met his brother Richard, who was lying in wait at a gateway leading from Campden Churchyard into the “Conygree,” certain private grounds and gardens of Lady Campden’s place. By-and-bye, having entered this “Conygree,” which was possible only to those who had the key, he found that his master was being attacked; he was “on the ground, his brother upon him, and his mother standing by.” He begged hard that they would not hurt his master, who was crying, “Ah, rogues, you will kill me!” but his brother Richardreplied: “Peace, peace! you are a fool,” and so strangled him, “which having done, he took a bag of money out of his (Mr. Harrison’s) pocket, and threw it into his mother’s lap,” and then he and his mother consulted what to do with the body.
VIEWS OF CAMPDEN AS IT IS NOW. 1. Buildings just inside the “Conygree,” where Harrison was said to have been strangled. 2. The “Great Sink” or Mill Pond into which Harrison’s body was said to have been thrown. 3. Entrance to the “Conygree” (right of the steps).VIEWS OF CAMPDEN AS IT IS NOW.1. Buildings just inside the “Conygree,” where Harrison was said to have been strangled.2. The “Great Sink” or Mill Pond into which Harrison’s body was said to have been thrown.3. Entrance to the “Conygree” (right of the steps).
It was decided that they should drop it into the Great Sink, behind certain mills near the garden, and this they did. John Perry told all this most circumstantially, making it agree with his own movements and the various facts that had come to light, describing how he had gone into the hen-roost but could not sleep; how he had taken with him the hat, band, and comb (and cut the latter with his knife), how he had cast them down upon the highway where theywere found, giving as his reason that he hoped it might be believed that his master had been robbed and murdered.
The justices, on this confession, sent to search the Sink at the mill, but without success; “the fish pools likewise in Campden were drawn and searched, but nothing could be there found,” so that “some were of opinion the body might be hid in the ruins of Campden House, burnt in the late wars, and not unfit for such concealment, where was likewise search made, but all in vain.” No time was lost, however, in securing the other Perrys—Joan, the mother, and Richard, both of whom were informed of the accusation brought against them, which “they denied with many imprecations.” John, nevertheless, persisted that he had spoken nothing but truth. Suspicion was strengthened against Richard Perry by his being seen to drop a ball of “inkle,” which he declared was his wife’s “hair lace,” but which John, when it was shown to him, said he knew to his sorrow, for it was the string his brother had strangled Mr. Harrison with. Other significant evidence was quoted, as that Richard’s nose “fell a-bleeding” when he met his children, being on his way to be admonished by the minister in church. Again, it was remembered that a year before there had been a robbery at Mr. Harrison’s, when £140 was stolen from the house at noonday; and John Perry was now asked if he knew aught of the matter. His answer was that his brother Richard was the thief, that he, John Perry, had given him notice that the money was in a room that could be reached by a ladder to the window, and that Richard had stolen it while the master was in church with his whole family “at lecture.”
The three Perrys, Joan, John, and Richard, were arraigned at the next assizes on two separate counts: house-breaking and robbery (of £140), and again robbery and the murder of William Harrison. The judge would not allow the second charge to be proceeded with, as no body had been found, but they acknowledged, indeed, pleaded guilty to it, begging for the king’s pardon under the recent Act of Oblivion. The charge of murder was again advanced at the next assize before another judge, and allowed; it ended in a verdict of guilty, mainly on the strength of John’s confession, although by this time John had gone out of his mind. This was enough to satisfy those who administered the law; and the three, Joan, John, and Richard Perry, were all sentenced to be hanged. The execution was carried out without delay on Broadway Hill, in sight of Campden, where John was also hung in chains.
The strangest part of this affair has yet to be told. William Harrison was not dead; he had been much misused, but had not been murdered, and three years later he reappeared in the flesh. His was a marvellous tale, and its veracity was questioned at the time, but we cannot discredit it entirely.
The account he gave of himself is found in a letter he addressed to Sir Thomas Overbury, whose narrative has been followed throughout.
On the day in question, Thursday, the 16th of August, 1660, he went to Charringworth to collect Lady Campden’s rents, but as harvest was in progress the tenants did not come home from the fields till late, and he was kept at Charringworth till nightfall. He received no more than £23, although he had expected a very considerable sum. With this in his pocket he took his road home, and reached at length the Ebrington Furzes, where the tract passed through a narrow passage. Here he was suddenly faced by a man mounted on horseback, and fearing to be ridden down he struck the horse over the nose, whereupon the horseman drew his sword and attacked him, Harrison making what defence he could with his cane. Then came another behind him, who caught him by the collar and dragged him towards the hedge, and after him a third. They did not rob him of his money, but two of them lifted him into the saddle behind the third, and forcing his arms around the rider’s middle, fastened the wrists together “with something that had a spring lock to it as I conceived by hearing it give a snap as they put it on.” After this they threw a cloak over him, and carried him away, riding some distance till they halted at a stone pit, into which they tumbled him, having now taken all his money. An hour later they bade him come out of the pit, and when he asked what they would do with him they struck him, then mounted him again in the same manner; but before riding away they filled his pockets with a great quantity of money, which incommoded him much in riding, so that by next afternoon, when they again drew rein, he was sorely bruised.
They had come now to a lone house upon a heath, where he was carried upstairs, and they stayed the night. The woman of the house was told that he was much hurt, and was being carried to a surgeon; they laid him on cushions on the floor, and gave him some broth and strong waters. Next day, Saturday, they rode on as before and they lay that night at a place where there were two or three houses, where again he slept on cushions. The next day, Sunday,they reached Deal, and halted by the seaside. One of them kept guard over the prisoner while the two others entered into conference with a man who was awaiting them. This man, whose name he afterwards heard was Renshaw, was afraid that Harrison would die before he could be got on board, but he was put into a boat and carried to a ship, where his wounds were dressed, and in a week’s time “he was indifferently recovered.” Now the master of the ship came one day to say that they were chased by Turkish pirates, and when all offered to fight in defence of the ship he would not suffer it, but handed them over prisoners to the Turks. They were lodged in a dark hole, and remained there in wretched plight, not knowing how long it was before they landed, nor where they were put on shore, except that it was a great house or prison. Presently they were called up and viewed by persons who came to buy them, and Harrison, having said that he had some skill in physic, was taken by an aged physician who lived near Smyrna, and who had at one time resided in England, at Crowland, in Lincolnshire. Harrison was set to keep the still-room, and was fairly well treated, except on one occasion, when his master, being displeased, felled him to the ground, and would have stabbed him with his stiletto.
After nearly two years’ captivity Harrison’s master fell sick and died, but before the end he liberated his captive, and bade him shift for himself. Harrison made his way to a seaport about a day’s journey distant, where he met two men belonging to a Hamburg ship, and now about to sail for Portugal. He implored them to give him passage, but they replied that they did not dare, nor would they yield for all his importunity. At last a third man from the same ship consented to take him on board provided he would lie down above the keel, and remain hidden till they got to sea. They carried him safely to Lisbon, where they put him on shore, penniless and friendless, as he thought, but he happened fortunately on three Englishmen, one of whom took compassion on him, provided him with lodging and diet, and at last procured him a passage home.
Harrison’s story was published in 1676, together with the original narrative of Sir Thomas Overbury, and certain critical remarks were appended. It was said that many people doubted whether Harrison had ever been out of England. Nevertheless, it was certain that he had absented himself from his home and friends for a couple of years, and unless he was carried forcibly away there is no plausible
“FELLED HIM TO THE GROUND AND WOULD HAVE STABBED HIM” (p. 166).“FELLED HIM TO THE GROUND AND WOULD HAVE STABBED HIM” (p.166).
explanation of his disappearance. It seemed on the face of it highly improbable that a man who bore a good character, who was in comfortable circumstances, the esteemed servant of an honourable family for nearly fifty years, would have run away without the least warning, and apparently for no sort of reason. He was already seventy years of age, and he left behind him a very considerable sum of Lady Campden’s money. That he was seized and sequestrated can hardly be doubted, but how or by whom, except so far as he himself describes, was never satisfactorily known. It was thought that his eldest son, hoping to succeed him in the stewardship to Lady Campden, might have compassed his father’s removal. This view was supported by the fact that when he did become steward he betrayed his trust. Yet again, to suppose that the elder Harrison would allow the Perrys to suffer death for a crime of which he knew they must be innocent was to accuse him of the deepest turpitude.
The conclusion generally arrived at was that the facts actually did happen very much as they were related, yet the whole story is involved in mystery. The only solution, so far as Perry is concerned, is that he was mad, as the second judge indeed declared. But we cannot account for Harrison’s conduct on any similar supposition. If his own story is rejected as too wild and improbable for credence, some other explanation must be found of his disappearance. Unless he was out of the country, or at least beyond all knowledge of events at Campden, it is difficult to understand what motive would have weighed with him when he heard that three persons were to be hanged as his murderers. The only possible conclusion, therefore, is that he was carried away, and kept away by force.
The Saffron Hill Murder: Narrow Escape of Pellizioni: Two Men in Newgate for the Same Offence—The Murder of Constable Cock—The Edlingham Burglary: Arrest, Trial, and Conviction of Brannagan and Murphy: Severity of Judge Manisty: A new Trial: Brannagan and Murphy Pardoned and Compensated: Survivors of the Police Prosecutors put on their Trial, but Acquitted—Lord Cochrane’s Case: His Tardy Rehabilitation.
The Saffron Hill Murder: Narrow Escape of Pellizioni: Two Men in Newgate for the Same Offence—The Murder of Constable Cock—The Edlingham Burglary: Arrest, Trial, and Conviction of Brannagan and Murphy: Severity of Judge Manisty: A new Trial: Brannagan and Murphy Pardoned and Compensated: Survivors of the Police Prosecutors put on their Trial, but Acquitted—Lord Cochrane’s Case: His Tardy Rehabilitation.
NOhuman institution is perfect, and the police are fallible like the rest. They have in truth made mistakes, all of them regrettable, many glaring, many tending to bring discredit upon a generally useful and deserving body. If they would freely confess their error they might, in most cases, be forgiven when they go wrong; but there have been occasions when only the pressure of facts which there was no disputing has elicited from them a reluctant admission that they have been on the wrong track. One or two instances of their persistence in error will now be adduced.
In the Pellizioni case, 1863-4, there might have been a terrible failure of justice, as terrible as any hitherto recorded in criminal annals. This was a murder in a public-house at Saffron Hill, Clerkenwell. The district then, as now, was much frequented by immigrant Italians, mostly of a low class, and they were often at variance with their English neighbours. A fierce quarrel arose in this tavern, and was followed by a deadly fight, in which a man named Harrington was killed, and another, Rebbeck, was mortally wounded. The police were speedily summoned, and, on arrival, they found an Italian, Pellizioni by name, lying across Harrington’s body, in which life was not yet extinct. Pellizioni was at once seized as the almost obvious perpetrator of the foul deed. Hestoutly proclaimed his innocence, declaring that he had only come in to quell the disturbance, that the murdered man and Rebbeck were already on the ground, and that in the scuffle he had been thrown on the top of them. But the facts were seemingly against him, and he was duly committed for trial.
“FOUND AN ITALIAN ... LYING ACROSS HARRINGTON’S BODY” (p. 169).“FOUND AN ITALIAN ... LYING ACROSS HARRINGTON’S BODY” (p.169).
The case was tried before Mr. Baron Martin, and although the evidence was extremely conflicting, the learned judge said that he thought it quite conclusive against the prisoner. He summed up strongly for a conviction, and the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, whereon Pellizioni was sentenced to be hanged. This result wasnot accepted as satisfactory by many thoughtful people, and the matter was taken up by the Press, notably by theDaily Telegraph. Some of the condemned convict’s compatriots became deeply interested in him. It was known that in the locality of Saffron Hill he bore the repute of a singularly quiet and inoffensive man. Ultimately, a priest, who laboured among these poor Italians, saved Justice from official murder by bringing one of his flock to confess that he and not Pellizioni had struck the fatal blows. This was one Gregorio Mogni, but he protested that he had acted only in self-defence.
Mogni was forthwith arrested, tried, and convicted of the crime, with the strange result that now two men lay in Newgate, both condemned, independently not jointly, of one and the same crime. If Mogni had struck the blows, clearly Pellizioni could not have done so. Moreover, a new fact was elicited at Mogni’s trial, and this was the production—for the first time—of the weapon used. It was a knife, and this knife had been found some distance from the scene of the crime, where it could not have been thrown by Pellizioni. And again, it was known and sworn to as Mogni’s knife, which, after stabbing the men, he had handed to a friend to take away.
The gravamen of the charge against the police was that they had found the knife before Pellizioni was tried. It was at once recognised all through Saffron Hill that it was Mogni’s knife, and with so much current gossip it was hardly credible that the police were not also informed of this fact. Yet, fearing to damage their case (a surely permissible inference), they kept back the knife at the first trial. It was afterwards said to have been in court, but it certainly was not produced, while it is equally certain that its identification would have quite altered the issue, and that Pellizioni would not have been condemned. The defence, in his case, went the length of declaring that to this questionable proceeding the police added false swearing. No doubt they stuck manfully to their chief and to each other, but they hardly displayed the open and impartial mind that should characterise all officers of justice. In any case, it was not their fault that an innocent man was not hanged.
The strange circumstances which led to the righting of this judicial wrong must give the Habron case a pre-eminence amongothers of the kind. The mistake arose from the ungovernable temper of the accused, who threatened to shoot a certain police officer, under the impression that he had been injured by him.
In July, 1875, two brothers, William and John Habron, were taken before the magistrates of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, near Manchester, charged with drunkenness. Grave doubts, were, however, expressed in court as to the identity of William Habron. The chief witness, constable Cock, was very positive; he knew the man, he said, because he had so often threatened reprisals if interfered with. But the magistrates gave William the benefit of the doubt, and discharged him. As he left the court he passed Cock and said, “I’ll do for you yet. I shall shoot you before the night is out.”
COCK, THE MURDERED CONSTABLE. (From a Photograph.)COCK, THE MURDERED CONSTABLE.(From a Photograph.)
Others heard the threat, but thought little of it, among them Superintendent Bent, of the Manchester police. That same night Bent was roused out with the news that Cock had been shot. He ran round to West Point, where the unfortunate officer lay dying, and although unable to obtain from him any distinct indication of the murderer, he concluded at once that John Habron must be the man. He knew where the brothers lodged, and taking with him a force of police, he surrounded the house. “If it is anyone,” said the master of the house and employer of the accused, “it is William—he has such an abominable temper.” All three brothers—William, John, and Frank Habron—were arrested in their beds and taken to the police-station. In the morning a strict examination of the ground where Cock had been shot revealed a number of footmarks.The Habrons’ boots were brought to the spot and found to fit these marks exactly.
The evidence told chiefly against William Habron, who was identified as the man who had bought some cartridges in a shop in Manchester. Both William and John brought witnesses to prove analibi, but this failed under cross-examination. Again, they sought to prove that they had gone home to bed at nine o’clock on the night of the murder, while other witnesses swore to seeing them drinking at eleven p.m. in a public-house which Cock must have passed soon after that hour on his way to West Point, the spot where he was found murdered. The fact of William Habron’s animus against the constable was elicited from several witnesses, but what told most against the prisoners was the contradictory character of the defence. William Habron alone was convicted, and sentenced to penal servitude.
Years afterwards the notorious Charles Peace, when lying under sentence of death in Leeds prison, made full confession to the writer of these pages that it was he who had killed constable Cock on the night in question. The case was taken up at once, and after thorough investigation of the facts, as stated by Peace, Habron received a full pardon and an indemnity of £800.
Almost at the very time that William Habron was receiving tardy justice a new and still more grievous error was being perpetrated in the North of England. The Edlingham burglary case will always be remembered as a grave failure of justice, and not alone because the circumstantial evidence did not appear sufficient, but because the police, in their anxiety to secure conviction, went too far. As the survivors of the Northumberland police force concerned in this case were afterwards put upon their trial for conspiracy and acquitted, they cannot be actually charged with manufacturing false evidence, but it is pretty clear that facts were distorted, and even suppressed, to support the police view.
The vicarage at Edlingham, a small village near Alnwick, was broken into on the 7th of February, 1879. The only occupants of the house were Mr. Buckle, the vicar, his wife, an invalid, his daughterand four female servants. The daughter gave the alarm about one a.m., and roused her father, a still sturdy old gentleman although seventy-seven years of age, who slipped on a dressing-gown, and seizing a sword he had by him, rushed downstairs, candle in hand, to do battle for his possessions. He found two men rifling the drawing-room, and thrust at them; one rushed past him and made his escape, the other fired at the vicar and wounded him. The same shot (it was a scatter gun) also wounded Miss Buckle. This second burglar then jumped out of the drawing-room window on to the soft mould of a garden bed.
The alarm was given, the police and a doctor were summoned. The latter attended to the wounds, which were serious, and the police, under the orders of Superintendent Harkes, an energetic officer, immediately took the necessary steps to discover the culprits. Officers were despatched to visit the domiciles of all the poachers and other bad characters in Alnwick, while a watch was set upon the roads into the town so that any suspicious persons arriving might be stopped and searched. Then Mr. Harkes drove over to Edlingham to view the premises. He found the window in the drawing-room through which the burglars had entered still open, and the room, all in confusion, ransacked and rifled. One of the servants gave him a chisel which she had found in an adjoining room, another handed over a piece of newspaper picked up just outside the dining-room door. The police-officer soon saw from the marks made that the chisel had been used to prise open the doors, and so soon as daylight came he found outside in the garden the print of feet and the impress of hands and knees upon the mould.
Meanwhile, the officers in Alnwick had ascertained that two men, both of them known poachers, had been absent from home during the night. Their names were Michael Brannagan and Peter Murphy; both were stopped on the outskirts of the town about seven o’clock on the morning of the 8th. There was nothing more against them at the moment than their absence during the night, and after having searched them the police let them go home. Brannagan was quickly followed, and arrested as he was taking off his dirty clogs. Murphy, who lodged with his sister, had time to change his wet clothes and boots before the officers appeared to take him. A girl to whom he was engaged, fearing
MR. BUCKLE SURPRISING THE BURGLARS.MR. BUCKLE SURPRISING THE BURGLARS.
something was wrong, quickly examined the pockets of his coat, and, finding some blood and fur, tore these pockets out, and hid the coat. When the police returned and asked for the clothes he had been wearing, she gave them a jacket belonging to Peter’s brother-in-law, an old man named Redpath.
At the police-station, the prisoners were stripped and examined. There was no sign of a sword wound on either of them, nor any hole or rent that might have been made by a sword-thrust through their clothes. That same day the prisoners were taken to Edlingham, and everything was arranged as during the burglary. But Mr. Buckle could not identify either of them, nor could Miss Buckle. The case against the prisoners was certainly not strong at this stage. Moreover, there was this strong presumption in their favour—that people engaged in such an outrage as burglary and wounding with intent would not have returned openly to their homes within a few hours of the commission of the crime. When brought before the magistrates for preliminary inquiry, the prisoners found fresh evidence adduced against them. The police, in the person of Mr. Harkes, had traced foot-marks going through the grounds of the vicarage, and out on to the Alnwick road. Plaster casts were produced of these footmarks, also the boots and clogs of the prisoners, and all were found to correspond. The chisel found in the vicarage had been traced to Murphy. His brother-in-law, old Redpath, had been induced to identify it as his property. This admission had been obtained from Redpath by a clever ruse, as the police called it, although they had really set a trap for him, and he had owned to the chisel although it was not his at all. Another damning fact had been elicited in the discovery of a scrap of newspaper in the lining of Murphy’s coat (which, as we know, was not Murphy’s, but Redpath’s), which fragment fitted exactly into the newspaper picked up in the vicarage. This scrap of paper was unearthed from the coat on the 16th of February, by an altogether independent and unimpeachable witness, Dr. Wilson, the medical gentleman who attended the Buckles. It may be observed that the coat itself had been in the possession of the police for just nine days; so had the original newspaper.
The evidence was deemed sufficient, and both prisoners were fully committed for trial at the Newcastle spring assizes of 1879. It is now known that certain facts, damaging to the prosecution, hadbeen brought to the notice of the police. They had positive information that other persons had been abroad from Alnwick that night; they had received a statement, made with much force by one who had good reason to know, that the wrong men had been arrested; while there were witnesses who had met the prisoners soon after the burglary on the other side of Alnwick. On the other hand, fresh evidence against them was forthcoming at the trial. This was the discovery of a piece of fustian cloth with a button attached, which had been picked up by a zealous police-officer under the drawing-room window, a month after the burglary. Here again was damaging evidence, for this scrap of cloth was found to fit exactly into a gap in Brannagan’s trousers. It was said afterwards, at the trial of the police, that they had purposely cut out the piece; and it was proved in evidence that a tailor of Alnwick, to whom the trousers and piece were submitted, expressed his doubts that the accident could have happened in jumping out of the window. The tear would have been more irregular, the fitting-in less exact. Moreover, the piece of cloth was perfectly fresh and clean when found, whereas, if it had lain out for nearly a month in the mud and snow, it must have become dark and dirty, and hard at the edges, as corduroy goes when exposed to the weather. As, however, the judge would not allow the cloth and button to be put in evidence, they played no important part in the case until the subsequent prosecution of the police, except possibly in prejudicing the minds of the jury against Brannagan and Murphy.
The prisoners were ably defended by Mr. Milvain, afterwards a Q.C. His case was that Mr. Buckle (who had corrected his first denial, and, later, had identified the men) was mistaken in the confusion and excitement of the burglarious attack; and that the police had actually conspired to prove the case with manufactured evidence, so as to avoid the reproach of another undetected crime. In support of this grave charge he argued that even if the footprints had not been made deliberately with the boots and clogs in their possession, there had been a great crowd of curious folk all around the house after the crime, any of whom might have made the marks. But a still stronger disproof was that there were no distinct footmarks under the drawing-room window, only vague and blurred impressions; a statement borne out long afterwards, when itwas found that the real burglars had taken the precaution to cover their feet with sacking. Again, the evidence of the newspaper was altogether repudiated on the grounds that it had not been sooner detected, and had been put with malicious intention where it was found. Lastly, several witnesses swore that they had never seen in the possession of old Redpath any chisel such as that produced; while as to the gun, it was denied that either prisoner had ever possessed any firearms. Their poaching was for rabbits, and they always used a clever terrier.
EDLINGHAM RECTORY. Photo: Cassell & Co., Limited.EDLINGHAM RECTORY.Photo: Cassell & Co., Limited.
The judge (Manisty) summed up strongly against the prisoners, but the jury did not so easily agree upon their verdict. They deliberated for three hours, and at last delivered a verdict of guilty, whereupon the judge commended them, and proceeded to pass the heaviest sentence in his power, short of death. He sought in vain, he said, “for any redeeming circumstance” that would justify him in reducing the sentence. Had Mr. or Miss Buckle succumbed to their wounds, he must have condemned the prisoners to death. It is clear, then, that Judge Manisty was only saved by mereaccident from making as grievous a mistake as any into which a judge ever fell.
Brannagan and Murphy were removed from court protesting their innocence. They went into penal servitude with the same disclaimer.
Seven years dragged themselves along, and there seemed no near prospect of release, “life” convicts being detained as a rule for at least twenty years. But now, by some unseen working of Providence, a light was about to be let in on the case. It came to the knowledge of a young solicitor in Alnwick that a certain George Edgell had been “out” on the night of the Edlingham burglary, and that when he came in, a little before the general alarm, his wife had begged their fellow-lodgers to say nothing about his absence. Mr. Percy, Vicar of St. Paul’s, Alnwick, through whose unstinting exertions justice at last was done, knew Edgell and questioned him, openly taxing him with complicity in the now nearly forgotten crime. Edgell at first stoutly denied the imputation, but seemed greatly agitated and upset. Added to this, it was stated authoritatively that Harkes, the police superintendent, who was now dead, admitted that he had been wrong, but that it was too late to rectify the mistake.
There was some strong counter influence at work, and Mr. Percy found presently that another man, named Charles Richardson, was constantly hanging about Edgell. The reason came out when at last Edgell made full confession of the burglary, and it was seen that this Richardson was his accomplice. They had been out on a poaching expedition, but had had little success. Then Richardson proposed to try the vicarage, and they forced their way in. Richardson used a chisel which he had picked up in an outhouse to prise open the windows and doors. All through he had been the leader and moving spirit. He it was who had first thought of the burglary, who had carried off the only bit of spoil worth having, Miss Buckle’s gold watch, and this, by a curious Nemesis, afforded one of the strongest proofs of his guilt. A seal or trinket had been attached to the chain, and years afterwards, the jeweller to whom he had sold it came forward as a witness against him. The watch itself he had been unable to dispose of, he said, and he threw it into the Tyne. Richardson was a burly ruffian of great stature, and possessed of enormous strength; a quarrelsome desperado,who had already been tried for the murder of a policeman but acquitted for want of sufficient legal proof.
The matter was now taken up by Mr. Milvain, Q.C., who, it will be remembered, defended Brannagan and Murphy, and who had become Recorder of Durham. At his earnest request, backed by strong local representations, the Home Secretary at length ordered a Commission of Inquiry, admitting that the circumstances of the case were “most singular and unprecedented.” A solicitor of Newcastle was appointed to investigate the whole matter, and the fresh facts, with Edgell’s confession, were set before him. On his report the conviction was quashed. It was now seen that the evidence which had condemned those innocent men to a life sentence was flimsy, and much of it open to doubt. All the weak points have been already set forth, and it is enough to state that Brannagan and Murphy were forthwith released, and returned in triumph to Northumberland. The Treasury adjudged them the sum of £800 each, as some slight compensation for their seven years spent in durance vile, and the money was safely invested for them by trustees. Brannagan at once obtained employment as a wheelwright, the handicraft he had acquired in prison, and Murphy, who was a prison-taught baker, adopted that trade, and married the girl Agnes Simm, who had befriended him in regard to the coat on the morning after the burglary.
The real offenders were in due course put upon their trial at Newcastle, before Mr. Baron Pollock, were found guilty, and sentenced each to five years’ penal servitude. A petition, with upwards of three thousand signatures, was presented to the Home Secretary, praying for a mitigation of sentence on the ground that Edgell’s voluntary confession had righted a grievous wrong. The reply was in the negative, and this decision can no doubt be justified. But it is impossible to leave this question of sentence without commenting upon the extraordinary difference in the views of two of her Majesty’s judges in dealing with precisely the same offence. There is no more glaring instance on record of the inequality in the sentences that may be passed than that of Mr. Justice Manisty inflicting “life” where Mr. Baron Pollock thought five years sufficient.
Another trial was inevitable before this unfortunate affair came to an end. The conduct of the police had been so strongly
CONVICTS AT WORK. 1. Mat-making. 2. Boot-making. 3. Serving Dinner. 4. Basket-weaving. 5. Carpentry in Cell. Photos: W. H. Grove, Brompton Road, S.W.CONVICTS AT WORK.1. Mat-making.2. Boot-making.3. Serving Dinner.4. Basket-weaving.5. Carpentry in Cell.Photos: W. H. Grove, Brompton Road, S.W.
impugned that nothing less than a judicial investigation would satisfy the public mind. A Scotland Yard detective, the well-known and highly intelligent Inspector Butcher, had been sent down to Northumberland to verify, if possible, strong suspicions, and hunt up all the facts. He worked upon the problem for a couple of months, and a criminal prosecution was ordered on his report. Harkes was now dead, but four of his constables, Harrison, Sprott, Gair, and Chambers, were charged with deliberately plotting the conviction of two innocent men. They were accused of making false plaster casts of footprints; of entrapping Redpath into a mistaken recognition of the chisel; of tearing a piece of the newspaper found in the vicarage and feloniously placing it in the lining of what they believed to be Murphy’s coat; and lastly, of tearing or cutting out from Brannagan’s trousers a piece of cloth, which they placed in the vicarage garden, to show that Brannagan had been there and had jumped through the window. The real burglars, Edgell and Richardson, were brought in their convict garb to give evidence against the policemen by detailing their proceedings on the night of the crime. Edgell’s story was received with respect, coming as it did from a man who was suffering imprisonment on his own confession. It was credibly believed that Richardson had picked up the chisel, and all the probabilities corroborated their statement that they had covered up their feet with sacking. The defence was that the confession was all a lie, and that the men who made it were worthless characters. In summing up, Mr. Justice Denman showed that the evidence of deliberate conspiracy was wanting, and that the police might be believed to have been honestly endeavouring to do their duty in securing a conviction.
EX-SUPERINTENDENT BUTCHER, THE OFFICER WHO INVESTIGATED THE EDLINGHAM CASE.EX-SUPERINTENDENT BUTCHER, THE OFFICER WHO INVESTIGATED THE EDLINGHAM CASE.
The verdict was “Not guilty,” and was generally approved, more perhaps on negative grounds of want of proof than from any positive evidence of innocence. But the result was no doubtinfluenced by the fact that the principal person in the plot, if plot there was, had passed beyond the reach of human justice. The chief mover in the prosecution was Superintendent Harkes, and the rest only acted at his instigation.
The prosecution and conviction of Lord Cochrane in 1814 may well be classed under this head, for it was distinctly an error ofla haute police, of the Government, which as the head of all police, authorises the detection of all wrong-doing, and sets the criminal law in motion against all supposed offenders. It has now, been generally accepted that the trial and prosecution of Lord Cochrane (afterwards Earl of Dundonald) was a gross case of judicial error. He was charged with having conspired to cause a rise in the public funds by disseminating false news. There were, no doubt, suspicious circumstances connecting him with the frauds of which he was wrongfully convicted, but he had a good answer to all. His conviction and severe sentence, after a trial that showed the bitter animosity of the judge (Ellenborough) against a political foe, caused a strong revulsion of feeling in the public mind, and it was generally believed that he had not had fair play. The law, indeed, fell upon him heavily. He was found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine of £500, to stand in the pillory, and to be imprisoned for twelve months. These penalties involved the forfeiture of his naval rank, and he had risen by many deeds of conspicuous gallantry to be one of the foremost officers in the British Navy. His name was erased from the list of Knights of the Bath, and he was socially disgraced. How he lived to be rehabilitated and restored to his rank and dignities is the best proof of his wrongful conviction.
The story told by Lord Cochrane himself in his affidavits will best describe what happened. Having just put a new ship in commission,H.M.S. Tonnant, he was preparing her for sea with a convoy. He was an inventive genius, and had recently patented certain lamps for the use of the ships sailing with him. He had gone into the city one morning, the 21st of February, 1814, to supervise their manufacture, when a servant followed him with a note. It had been brought to his house by a military officer inuniform, whose name was not known, nor could it be deciphered, so illegible was the scrawl. Lord Cochrane was expecting news from the Peninsula, where a brother of his lay desperately wounded, and he sent back word to his house that he would come to see the officer at the earliest possible moment. When he returned he found a person he barely knew, who gave the name of Raudon de Berenger, and told a strange tale.
He was a prisoner for debt, he said, within the rules of the King’s Bench, and he had come to Lord Cochrane to implore him to release him from his difficulties and carry him to America in his ship. His request was refused—it could not be granted, indeed, according to naval rules; and de Berenger was dismissed. But before he left he urged piteously that to return to the King’s Bench prison in full uniform would attract suspicion. It was not stated how he had left it, but he no doubt implied that he had escaped and changed into uniform somewhere. Why he did not go back to the same place to resume his plain clothes did not appear. Lord Cochrane only knew that in answer to his urgent entreaty he lent him some clothes. The room was at that moment littered with clothes, which were to be sent on board theTonnant, and he unsuspiciously gave de Berenger a “civilian’s hat and coat.” This was a capital part of the charge against Lord Cochrane.
De Berenger had altogether lied about himself. He had not come from within the rules of the King’s Bench but from Dover, where he had been seen the previous night at the Ship hotel. He was then in uniform, and pretended to be an aide-de-camp to Lord Cathcart, the bearer of important despatches. He made no secret of the transcendent news he brought. Bonaparte had been killed by the Cossacks, Louis XVIII proclaimed, and the allied armies were on the point of occupying Paris. To give greater publicity to the intelligence, he sent it by letter to the port-admiral at Deal, to be forwarded to the Government in London by means of the semaphore telegraph. The effect of this startling news was to send up stocks ten per cent., and many speculators who sold on the rise realised enormous sums.
De Berenger, still in uniform, followed in a post-chaise, but on reaching London he dismissed it, took a hackney coach, and drove straight to Lord Cochrane’s. He had some slight acquaintance with his lordship, and had already petitioned him for a passage