She appeared more gay and brisk than ever on the day of her execution. When the irons were removed from her on her starting for Tyburn, she pinned the picture of her husband Carelton to her sleeve, and carried it with her to the gallows. She discovered herself to a gentleman in the crowd as a Roman Catholic, and having conversed with him for some time in French, on parting said, Mon ami, le bon Dieu vous benisse. At the gallows she harangued the crowd at some length, and died as she had lived, a reckless although undoubtedly gifted and intelligent woman.
Prominent among the criminal names of this epoch is that of the informer, Titus Oates, no less on account of the infamy of his conduct than from the severe retribution which overtook him in the reign of James II. The arraignment of Green, Berry, and Laurence Hill for the trial of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, who were brought for the purpose “from Newgate to the King’s Bench Bar,” is a well-known judicial episode of the year 1678. Oates was the principal witness against them; but he was followed by Praunce, an approver, and others. After much evidence for and against, and much equivocation, the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs summed up the evidence strongly for conviction. When the jury soon returned a verdict of guilty, the Lord Chief Justice commended them, and said if it were the last word he had to speak he would have pronounced them guilty. Sentence was then given, and within a fortnight they were executed. These victims of the so-called Popish Plot were, however, amply and ruthlessly avenged. Macaulay tells the story. Oates had been arrested before Charles II.’s death for defamatory words, and cast in damages of £100,000. He was then, after the accession of James II., tried on two indictments of perjury, and it was proved beyond doubt that he had by false testimony deliberately murdered several guiltless persons. “His offence, though in a moral light murder of the most aggravated kind, was in the eye of the law merely a misdemeanour.” But the tribunal which convicted made its punishment
Oates in the pillory.
proportionate to the real offence. Brutal Judge Jeffries was its mouthpiece, and he sentenced him to be unfrocked and pilloried in Palace yard, to be led round Westminster Hall, with an inscription declaring his infamy over his head; to be pilloried in front of the Royal Exchange, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and after an interval of two days to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. He was to be imprisoned for life, and every year to be brought from his dungeon and exposed in different parts of the capital. When on the pillory he was mercilessly pelted, and nearly torn to pieces. His first flogging was executed rigorously in the presence of a vast crowd, and Oates, a man of strong frame, long stood the lash without a murmur. “But at last his stubborn fortitude gave way. His bellowings were frightful to hear. He swooned several times; but the scourge still continued to descend. When he was unbound it seemed he had borne as much as the human frame could bear without dissolution. … After an interval of forty-eight hours Oates was again brought out from his dungeon. He seemed unable to stand, and it was necessary to drag him to Tyburn on a sledge.” He was again flogged, although insensible, and a person present counted the stripes as seventeen hundred. “The doors of the prison closed upon him. During many months he remained ironed in the darkest hole in Newgate.” A contemporary account written by one of his own side declares he received “upwards of two thousand lashes—such a thing was never inflicted by any Jew, Turk, or heathen but Jeffries. … Had they hanged him they had been more merciful; had they flayed him alive it is a question whether it would have been so much torture.”[83]
Dangerfield, another informer of the Oates type, but of lesser guilt, was also convicted and sentenced to be similarly flogged from Aldgate to Newgate, and from Newgate to Tyburn. “When he heard his doom he went into agonies of despair, gave himself up for dead, and chose a text for his funeral. His forebodings were just. He was not indeed scourged quite so severely as Oates had been; but he had not Oates’s iron strength of body and mind.” On his way back to prison he was assaulted by Mr. Francis, a Tory gentleman of Gray’s Inn, who struck him across the face with a cane and injured his eye. “Dangerfield was carried dying into Newgate. This dastardly outrage roused the indignation of the bystanders. They seized Francis, and were with difficulty restrained from tearing him in pieces. The appearance of Dangerfield’s body, which had been frightfully lacerated by the whip, inclined many to believe that his death was chiefly if not wholly caused by the stripes which he had received.” The Government laid all the blame on Francis, who was tried and executed for murder.
Religion and politics still continued to supply their quota of inmates. The law was still cruelly harsh to Roman Catholics, Quakers, and all Nonconformists.
The Fifth Monarchy men in 1661, when discomfited and captured, were lodged in Newgate, to the number of twenty or more. Venner, the ringleader, was amongst them. The State Trials give the trial of one John James, who was arraigned at the King’s Bench for high treason. He was found guilty of compassing the death of the king, and suffered the cruel sentence then in force for the crime. James has left some details of the usage he received in Newgate, especially in the matter of extortion. Fees to a large amount were exacted of him, although a poor and needy wretch, “originally a small coal-man.” In the press-yard he paid 16s. to the keeper Hicks for the use of his chamber, although he only remained there three or four days. The hangman also came to demand money, that “he might be favourable to him at his death,” demanding twenty pounds, then falling to ten, at last threatening, unless he got five, “to torture him exceedingly. To which James said he must leave himself to his mercy, for he had nothing to give him.” Yet at the execution, the report says the sheriff and the hangman were so civil to him as to suffer him to be dead before he was cut down. After that he was dismembered; some of them were burnt, the head and quarters brought back to Newgate in a basket, and exposed upon the gates of the city. Venner and several others suffered in the same way.
Many Quakers were kept in Newgate, imprisoned during the king’s pleasure for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Thus John Crook, Isaac Grey, and John Bolton were so confined, and incurred a præmunire or forfeiture of their estates. But the must notable of the Quakers were Penn and Mead. In its way this is a most remarkable trial, on account of the overbearing conduct of the Bench towards the prisoners. In 1670 these two, the first described as gentleman, the second as linen-draper, were indicted at the Old Bailey for having caused a tumultuous assembly in Gracechurch Street. The people collected, it was charged, to hear Penn preach. The demeanour of the prisoners in the court was so bold, that it drew down on them the anger of the recorder, who called Penn troublesome, saucy, and so forth. The jury were clearly in their favour, and brought in a verdict of not guilty, but the court tried to menace them. The Lord Mayor, Sir Samuel Stirling, was especially furious with Penn, crying, “Stop his mouth; gaoler, bring fetters and stake him to the ground.” At last the jury, having refused to reconsider their verdict, were locked up; while Penn and Mead were remanded to Newgate. Next day the jury came up, and adhered to their verdict. Whereupon the recorder fined them forty marks apiece for not following his “good and wholesome advice,” adding, “God keep my life out of your hands.”[84] The prisoners demanded their liberty, “being freed by the jury,” but were detained for their fines imposed by the judge for alleged contempt of court. Penn protested violently, but the recorder cried, “Take him away!” and the prisoners were once more haled to Newgate. Edward Bushell, one of the above-mentioned jurors, who was committed to Newgate in default of payment of fine, subsequently sued out a Habeas Corpus, and was brought before Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, who decided in his favour, whereon he and the other jurymen were discharged from gaol.
There were Roman Catholics too in Newgate, convicted of participation in the Popish plot. Samuel Smith the ordinary publishes in 1679 an account of the behaviour of fourteen of them, “late Popish malefactors, whilst in Newgate.” Among them were Whitehead, provincial, and Fenwick, procurator, of the Jesuits in England, and William Harcourt, pretended