 CHAPTER 1 OF HISTORICAL MISTERIES Don't let your poor little Lizzie be blamed, Thackery. John has heard of the case of Elizabeth Canning, writes Mr. John Padgett, until recently I agreed with him. But five or six years ago the case of Elizabeth Canning repeated itself in a marvelous way, and then but few persons of my acquaintance had ever heard of that mysterious girl. The recent case, so strange a parallel to that of 1753, was this. In Cheshire lived a young woman whose business in life was that of a deli governess. One Sunday her family went to church in the morning, but she set off to skate by herself on a lonely pond. She was never seen of or heard of again, till, in the dusk of the following Thursday, her hat was found outside of the door of her father's farmyard. Her friend discovered her further off in a most miserable condition, weak, emaciated, and with her skull fractured. Her explanation was that a man had seized her on the ice, or as she had left it, had dragged her across the fields and had shut her up in a house, from which she escaped, crawled to her father's home, and when she found herself unable to go further, tossed her hat towards the farmed door. Neither such a man as she described, nor the house in which she had been imprisoned were ever found. The girl's character was excellent. Nothing pointed to her condition being the result d'une orgie à chevelet. But the neighbors, of course, made insinuations, and a lady of my acquaintance who visited the girl's mother, found herself almost alone in placing a charitable construction on the adventure. My theory was that the girl had fractured her skull by a fall on the ice, had crawled to and lain in an unvisited outhouse of the farm, and on that Thursday night was wandering out in a distraught state, not wandering in. Her story would be the result of her cerebral condition, concussion of the brain. It was while people were discussing this affair, a second edition of Elizabeth Cannings, that one found out how forgotten was Elizabeth. On January 1st, 1753, Elizabeth was in her eighteenth year. She was the daughter of a carpenter in Aldermanbury. Her mother, who had four younger children, was a widow, very poor and of the best character. Elizabeth was short of stature, ruddy of complexion, and, owing to an accident in childhood, the falling of a garret ceiling on her head, was subject to fits of unconsciousness on any alarm. On learning this, the mind flies to Hysteria, with its accompaniment of diabolical falseness, for an explanation of her adventure. But Hysteria does not serve the turn. The girl had been four years in service with a Mr. Wintelberry, a publican. He gave her the highest character for honesty and reserve. She did not attend to the customers at the bar. She kept to herself. She had no young man, and she only left Wintelberries for a better place, at a Mr. Lyons, a near neighbor of her mother. And a carpenter corroborated, as did all the neighbors, on the points of modesty and honesty. On New Year's Day, 1753, Elizabeth wore her holiday best, a purple masquerade stuffed gown, a white handkerchief and apron, a black quilted petticoat, a green undercoat, black shoes, blue stockings, a white shaving hat with green ribbons, and a very ruddy color. She had her wages or Christmas box in her pocket, a golden half-ginny in a little box, with three shillings and a few coppers, including a farthing. The pence she gave to three of her little brothers and sisters. One boy, however, had huffed her, and got no penny. But she relented, and, when she went out, bought for him a mince pie. Her visit of New Year's Day was to her maternal aunt, Mrs. Collie, living at Salt Peter Bank, Dock Street, behind the London Dock. She meant to return in time to buy, with her mother, a cloak. But the Collie's had a cold early dinner, and kept her till about nine p.m. for a hot supper. Already at nine p.m., Mr. Lyon had sent to Mrs. Cannings to make inquiries. The girl was not want to stay out so late on a holiday. About nine p.m., in fact, the two Collies were escorting Elizabeth as far as Houndstitch. The rest is mystery. On Elizabeth's non-arrival, Mrs. Canning sent her lad a little after ten to the Collie's, who were in bed. The night was passed an anxious search to no avail. By six in the morning inquiries were vainly renewed. Weeks went by. Mrs. Canning, aided by the neighbors, advertised in the papers, mentioning a report of shrieks heard from a coach in Bishopsgate Street in the small morning hours of January 2. The mother, a churchwoman, had prayers put up at several churches, and at Mr. Wesley's Chapel. She also consulted a cheap wise man, whose aspect alarmed her, but whose wisdom took the form of advising her to go on advertising. It was later rumored that he said the girl was in the hands of an old black woman, and would return. But Mrs. Canning admitted nothing of all this. Skeptics, with their usual acuteness, maintained that the disappearance was meant to stimulate charity, and that the girl knew where the daughter was, or on the other hand, the daughter had fled to give birth to a child in secret, or for another reason incident to the young and gay. As one of the counsel employed, euphemistically put the case. The medical evidence did not confirm these suggestions. Details are needless, but these theories were certainly improbable. The character of La Poussée was not more stainless than Elizabeth's. About 10.15 p.m. on January 29, on the eve of the martyrdom of King Charles, as the poor women dated it, Mrs. Canning was on her knees praying, so said her apprentice, that she might behold, even if it were but an apparition of her daughter. Such was her daily prayer. It was, as in Wordsworth's, affliction of Margaret. I look for ghosts, but none will force their way to me. Tis Fosley said that ever there was intercourse between the living and the dead. At that moment there was a sound at the door. The apprentice opened it, and was aghast. The mother's prayer seemed to be answered. For there, bleeding, bowed double, livid, ragged, with a cloth about her head, and clad in a dirty dressing jacket and a filthy, draggled petticoat was Elizabeth Canning. She had neglected her little brother that huffed her on New Year's Day, but she had been thinking of him, and now she gave her mother for him all that she had, the farthing. You see that I am on Elizabeth's side. That farthing touch, and another, with the piety, honesty, loyalty, and even the superstition of her people, have made me her as was Mr. Henry Fielding, the well-known magistrate. Some friends were sent for, Mrs. Myers, Miss Polly Lyon, daughter of her master, and others, while busybodies flocked in, among them one Robert Scarrett, a toiler who had no personal knowledge of Elizabeth. A little wine was mulled. The girl could not swallow it, emaciated as she was. Her condition need not be described in detail, but she was very near her death, as the medical evidence and that of a midwife who consoled Mrs. Canning on one point proves beyond possibility of cavill. The girl told her story, but what did she tell? Mr. Austin Dobson, in the Dictionary of National Biography, says that her tale gradually took shape under the questions of sympathizing neighbors, and certainly on some points she gave affirmative answers to leading questions asked by Robert Scarrett. The difficulty is that the neighbor's accounts of what Elizabeth said in her woeful condition were given when the girl was tried for perjury in April, May, 1754. We must therefore make allowance for friendly bias and mythopoic memory. On January 31st, 1753, Elizabeth made her statement before Alderman Chitty, and the chief count against her is that what she told Chitty did not tally with what the neighbors, in May, 1754, swore that she told them when she came home on January 29th, 1753. This point is overlooked by Mr. Paget in his essay on the subject. On the other hand, by 1754, the town was divided into two factions, believers and disbelievers in Elizabeth, and Chitty was then a disbeliever. Chitty took but a few notes on January 31st, 1753. I did not make it so distinct as I could wish, not thinking it could be the subject of so much inquiry, he admitted in 1754. Moreover, the notes which he then produced were not the notes which he made at the time, but what I took since from that paper I took then, January 31st, 1753, of hers and other persons that were brought before me. This is not intelligible, and it is not satisfactory. If Elizabeth handed in a paper, Chitty should have produced it in 1754. If he took notes of the evidence, why did he not produce the original notes? These notes made when and from what source is Veg, bear that Elizabeth's tale was this. At a dead wall by Bedlam in Moorfields, about 10 p.m. on January 1st, 1753, two men stripped her of gown, apron and hat, robbed her of thirteen shillings and six pence, struck her, stunned her, and pushed her along Bishop's Gate Street. She lost consciousness, one of her fits, and recovered herself near Enfield Wash. Here she was taken to a house, later said to be Mother Welles's, where several persons were. Chitty, unluckily, does not say what sort of persons, and on that point all turns. She was asked to do as they did. A woman forced her upstairs into a room and cut the lace of her stays, told her they were bread and water in the room, and that her throat would be cut if she came out. The door was locked on her. There was no lock, the door was merely bolted. She lived on fragments of a quarter loaf and water in a pitcher with the mince pie bought for her naughty little brother. She escaped about four in the afternoon of January 29th. In the room were an old stool or two, an old picture over the chimney, two windows, an old table, and so on. She forced her pain in a window and got out on a small shed of boards or penthouse, and so slid to the ground. She did not say, the alderman added, that there was any hay in the room. Of bread there were four or five or five or six pieces. She never mentioned the name of Wells. Someone else did that at a venture. She said she could tell nothing of the woman's name. The alderman issued a warrant against this Mrs. Wells, apparently on newspaper suggestion. The chief points against Elizabeth were that when Wells's place was examined, there was no penthouse to aid in escape and no old picture. But under a wretched kind of bed supporting the thing was a picture on wood of a crown. Madam Wells had at one time used this loyal emblem as a sign, she keeping a very ill-famed house of call. But in December 1745 when certain Highland and Lowland gentlemen were accompanying Bonnie Prince Charlie towards the Metropolis, Mrs. Wells removed into a room the picture of the crown as being apt to cause political emotions. This sign may have been the old picture. As to hay, there was hay in the room later searched, but penthouse there was none. That is the worst point in the alderman's notes of whatever value these enigmatic documents may be held. One Nash, Butler to the Goldsmith's Company, was present at the examination before Chitty on January 31st, 1753. He averred in May 1754 what Chitty did not, that Elizabeth spoke of the place of her imprisonment as a little square darkish room with a few old pictures. Here the one old picture of the notes is better evidence if the notes are evidence than Nash's memory. But I find that he was harping on a few old pictures as early as March 1753. Elizabeth said she hurt her ear in getting out of the window, and in fact it was freshly cut and bleeding when she arrived at home. All of this, Nash is so far the better evidence as the next day, February 1st, 1753, when a most tumultuous popular investigation of the supposed House of Captivity was made, he says that he and others, finding the dungeon not to be square, small and darkish, but a long, narrow slit of a loft, half full of hay, expressed disbelief. Yet it was proved that he went on suggesting to Lyon, Elizabeth's master, that people should give money to Elizabeth and wished him success. The proof was a letter of his dated February 10th, 1753. Also, Nash and two like-minded friends, hearing Elizabeth perjure herself as they thought at the trial of Mrs. Wells, whom Elizabeth never mentioned to Chitty, did not give evidence against her on the most absurdly flimsy excuses. One man was so horrified that in place of denouncing the perjury he fled incontinent, another went to a dinner and nashed a Goldsmith's hall to his duties as butler. Such was then the vigor of their skepticism. On the other hand, at the trial in 1754, the neighbors reported Elizabeth's tale as told on the night when she came home, more dead than alive. Mrs. Myers had known Elizabeth for eleven years, a very sober, honest girl as any in England. Mrs. Myers found her livid, her fingers stood crooked. Mrs. Canning, Mrs. Woodward, and Polly Lyon were then present, and Mrs. Myers knelt beside Elizabeth to hear her story. It was, as Chitty gave it, till the point where she was carried into a house. The several persons there, she said, were an elderly woman and two young ones. Her stays were cut by the old woman. She was then thrust upstairs into a room, wherein was hay, a pitcher of water, and bread in pieces. Bread may have been brought in, water too, while she slept, a point never mentioned in the trials. She heard the name of Mother Wills or Wells mentioned. Now, Scarrett, in 1754, said that he, being present on January 29th, 1753, and hearing of the house, offered to bet a guinea to a farthing that it was Mother Wells's. But Mrs. Myers believed that Elizabeth had mentioned hearing that name earlier, and Mrs. Myers must have heard Scarrett, if he suggested it, before Elizabeth named it. The point is uncertain. Mrs. Woodward was in Mrs. Canning's room a quarter of an hour after Elizabeth's arrival. The girl said she was almost starved to death in a house on the Hertfordshire Road, which she knew by seeing the Hertford coach, with which she was familiar, go by. The woman who cut her stays was a tall black swarthy woman. Scarrett said that was not Mrs. Wells, which was fair on Scarrett's part. Elizabeth described the two young women as being one fair, the other dark, so Scarrett swore. Wintelbury, her old master, and several others corroborated. If these accounts by Mrs. Myers, Mrs. Woodward, Scarrett, Wintelbury, and others are trustworthy, then Elizabeth Canning's narrative is true, for she found the two girls, the tall swarthy woman, the hay, and the broken water pitcher, and almost everything else that she had mentioned on January 29th at Mother Wells's house when it was visited on February 1st. But we must remember that most accounts of what Elizabeth said on January 29th and on January 31st are 15 months after date and are biased on both sides. To Mother Wells's the girl was taken on February 1st, in what a company? The coach or cab was crammed full, some friends walked, several curious citizens rode, and when Elizabeth arrived at the house, Nash, the butler, and other busybodies had made a dissent on it. The officer with the warrant was already there. Lyon, Aldridge, and Hague were with Nash in a cab, and were met by others riding hard who had seized the people found at Mrs. Wells's. There was a rabble of persons on foot and on horse about the door. On entering the doorway the parlor was to your left, the house staircase in front of you, on your right the kitchen. At the further end thereof was a door, and when that was opened a flight of stairs led to a long slit of a loft which Nash later declared did not answer to Elizabeth's description, especially as there was hay, and before chitty Elizabeth had mentioned none. There was a filthy kind of bed on which now slept a laborer and his wife, Fortune and Judith Nates. Nash kept talking about the hay, and one Adamson rode to meet Elizabeth and came back saying that she said there was hay. By Adamson's account he only asked her what kind of place was it, and she said a wild kind of place with hay in it, as in the neighbor's version of her first narrative. Mrs. Myers who was in the coach corroborated Adamson. The point of the skeptics was that till Adamson rode back to her on her way to Wells's house she had never mentioned hay. They argued that Adamson had asked her was there hay in the room, and that she taking the hint had said yes. By May 1754 Adamson and Mrs. Myers who was in the cab with Elizabeth would believe that Adamson had asked what kind of place is it, and that Elizabeth then spoke without suggestion of the hay. The point would be crucial, but nobody in 1754 appears to have remembered that on February 21st, three weeks after the event at the trial of Mother Wells, Adamson had given exactly the same evidence as in May 1754. I returned to meet her and asked her about the room. She described to the room with some hay in it, an odd sort of an empty room. Arriving at Mother Wells' Elizabeth, very faint, was born in and sat on a dresser in the kitchen. Why did she not at once say, my room was up the stairs beyond the door at the further end of the room? I know not unless she was dazed as well she might be. Next she, with a mob of the curious, was carried into the parlor, where were all the inmates of the house. She paid no attention to Mrs. Wells, but at once picked out a tall old woman huddled over the fire smoking a pipe. She did this by the skeptical Nash's evidence, instantly and without hesitation. The old woman rose. She was tall and swarthy, egyptian, and according to all witnesses inconceivably hideous. Her underlip was the size of a small child's arm, and she was marked with some disease. Pray look at this face, she said, I think God never made such another. She was named Mary Squires. She added that on January 1st she was in Dorset, at Abbotsbury, set her son George, who was present. In 1754, 36 people testified to Mary Squires' presence in Dorset, or to meeting her on her way to London, while 27, at Enfield alone, swore as positively that they had seen her and her daughter at or near Mrs. Wells's, and had conversed with her between December 18th, 1752, and the middle of January. Some of the Enfield witnesses were of a more prosperous and educated class than the witnesses for the gypsy. Many on both sides had been eager to swear. Indeed, many had made affidavits as early as March 1753. This business of the cross-swearing is absolutely inexplicable. On both sides, the same entire certainty was exhibited as a rule, yet the woman was unmistakable, as she justly remarked. The gypsy, at all events, had her alibi ready at once. Her denial was as prompt and unhesitating as Elizabeth's accusation. But if guilty, she had enjoyed plenty of time since the girl's escape to think out her line of defense. If guilty, it was wiser to allege an alibi than to decamp what Elizabeth made off, for she could not hope to escape pursuit. George Squires, her son, was so prompt with his at Abbotsbury on January 1st, could not tell in May 1754 where he had passed the Christmas Day before that New Year's Day, and Christmas is a notable day. Elizabeth also recognized in Lucy Squires, the gypsy's daughter, and in Virtue Hall, the two girls, dark and fair, who were present when her stays were cut. After the recognition Elizabeth was carried through the house, and according to Nash, in the loft up the stairs from the kitchen, she said in answer to his question, This is the room, for here is the hay I lay upon, but I think there is more of it. She also identified the pitcher with the broken mouth, which she certainly mentioned to Chitty, as that which held her allowance of water. A chest or nest of drawers she declared that she did not remember, an attempt was made to suggest that one of her party brought the pitcher in with him to confirm her account. This attempt failed, but that she had mentioned the pitcher was admitted. Mrs. Myers in May 1754 quoted Elizabeth's words, as to their being more hay, exactly in the terms of Nash. Mrs. Myers was present in the loft, and added that Elizabeth took her foot and put the hay away, and showed the gentlemen two holes, and said they were in the room when she was in it before. On February 7, Elizabeth swore to her narrative, formally made out by her solicitor, before the author of Tom Jones and Mr. Fielding, by threats of prosecution if she kept on shuffling, induced Virtue Hall to corroborate after she had vexed his kind heart by endless prevarications. But as Virtue Hall was later got at by the other side and recanted, we leave her evidence on one side. On February 21st through 26th, Mary Squires was tried at the Old Bailey, and condemned to death, Virtue Hall corroborating Elizabeth. Mrs. Wells was branded on the hand. Three dorset witnesses to the gypsy's alibi were not credited, and Fortune and Judith Natus did not appear in court, though subpoenaed. In 1754 they accounted for this by their fear of the mob. The three skeptics, Nash, Hague, and Aldridge, held their peace. The Lord Mayor, Sir Crispin Gascoin, who was on the bench at the trial of Squires and Wells, was dissatisfied. He secured many affidavits which seemed unimpeachable for the gypsy's alibi, and so did the other side for her presence at Enfield. He also got at Virtue Hall, or rather a skeptical Dr. Hill got at her, and handed her over to Gascoin. She, as we saw, recanted. George Squires, the gypsy's son, with an attorney, worked up the evidence for the gypsy's alibi. She received a free pardon, and on April 29th, 1754, there began the trial of Elizabeth Canning for willful and corrupt perjury. Mr. Davy, opening for the crown, charitably suggested that Elizabeth had absconded to preserve her character, and had told a romantic story to raise money. And, having by this time subdued all remains of Virtue, she preferred the offer of money, though she must wade through innocent blood, that of the gypsy, to attain it. These hypotheses are absurd. Her character certainly needed no saving. Mr. Davy then remarked on the gross improbabilities of the story of Elizabeth. They are glaring, but as Fielding said, so are the improbabilities of the facts. Somebody had stripped and starved and imprisoned the girl. That is absolutely certain. She was brought within an inch of her life. She did not suffer all these things to excite compassion. That is out of the question. Had she plunged into gaiety on New Year's night, the consequences would be other than instant starvation. They might have been guilty splendor. She had been most abominably misused, and it was to the last degree improbable that any mortal should so misuse an honest quiet lass. But the grossly improbable had certainly occurred. It was next to impossible that in 1856 a respectable-looking man should offer to take a little boy for a drive, and that six weeks later the naked body of the boy, who had been starved to death, should be found in a ditch near Acton. But the facts occurred. To Squires and Wells, a rosy girl might prove more valuable than a little boy to anybody. That Elizabeth could live for a month on a loaf did not surprise Mrs. Canning. When things were very hard with her, said Mrs. Canning, the child had lived on half a roll a day. This is the other touch, which, with the story of the farthing, helps to make me a partisan of Elizabeth. Mr. Davies said that on January 31st before Chitty, Elizabeth did not pretend to certainty about Mrs. Wells. She never did at any time. She neither knew, nor affected to know, anything about Mrs. Wells. She had only seen a tall, swarthy woman, a dark girl and a fair girl, whom she recognized in the gypsy, her daughter, and Virtue Hall. Mr. Davies preferred Nash's evidence to that of all the neighbors, and even to Chitty's notes, when Nash and Chitty varied. Mr. Davies said that Nash withdrew his assistance after the visit to the house. It was proved, we saw, by his letter of February 10th, that he did not withdraw his assistance, which, like that of Mr. Tracy Tubman, took the form of hoping that other people would subscribe money. Certain varieties of statement, as to the time when Elizabeth finished the water, proved fatal, and the penthouse of Chitty's notes was played for all that it was worth. It was alleged, as matter of fact, that Adamson brought the broken pitcher into the house, this, by Mr. Wells, later Solicitor General. Now, for three months before February 1st, Adamson had not seen Elizabeth Canning, nor had he heard her description of the room. He was riding, and could not carry a gallon pitcher in his coat pocket. He could not carry it in John Gilpin's fashion, and whatever else was denied it was admitted that from the first Elizabeth mentioned the pitcher. The statement of Mr. Wells, that Adamson brought in the pitcher, was one that no barrister should have made. The natus pair were now brought in to say that they slept in the loft during the time that Elizabeth said that she was there, as a reason for not giving evidence at the Gypsies trial they alleged fear of the mob, as we saw. The witnesses for the Gypsies alibi were called. Mrs. Hopkins, of South Parrot, Dorsett, was not very confident that she had seen the Gypsy at her inn on December 29th, 1752. She, if Mary Squires she was, told Mrs. Hopkins that they sold hardware. In fact, they sold software, smuggled nankine and other stuffs. Alice Farnham recognized the Gypsies whom she had seen after New Christmas, New Style. They said that they would come see me after the old Christmas holidays, which is unlikely. Lucy Squires, the daughter, was clean, well-dressed, and Testa, Mr. Davy, she was pretty. She was not called. George Squires was next examined. He had been well tutored as to what he did after December 29th, but could not tell where he was on Christmas Day four days earlier. His memory only existed from the hour when he arrived at Mrs. Hopkins Inn, at South Parrot, December 29th, 1752. His own counsel must have been amazed. But in cross-examination Mr. Morton showed that for all time up to December 29th, 1752, George's memory was an utter blank. On January 1st George Dined, he said at Abbotsbury, with one Clark, a sweetheart of his sister. They had two boiled fowls. But Clark said they had only a part of a fowl between them. There was such a discrepancy of evidence here as to time on the part of one of the gypsy's witnesses that Mr. Davy told him he was drunk. Yet he persisted that he kissed Lucy Squires at an hour when Lucy, to suit the case, could not have been present. There was documentary evidence, a letter of Lucy to Clark, from Basingstoke. It was dated January 18th, 1753, but the figure after 175 was torn off the postmark. That was the only injury to the letter. Had there not been a battalion of as hard-swearers to the presence of the gypsies at Enfield in December, January 1752, 1753, as there was to their absence from Enfield and to their presence in Dorset, the gypsy party would approve to their case. As matters stand, we must remember that the Dorset evidence had been organized by a solicitor, that the root was one which the Squires' party habitually used, that by the confession of Mr. Davy, the prosecuting counsel, the Squires' family stood in with the smuggling interest, compact and unscrupulous. They were gypsies dealing in smuggled goods, said Mr. Davy. Again, while George Squires had been taught his lesson like a parrot, the prosecution dared not call his sister, pretty Lucy, as a witness. They said that George was stupid, but that Lucy was much more dull. The more stupid was George, the less unlikely was he to kidnap Elizabeth Canning as a prize of war after robbing her, but she did not swear to him. As to the presence of the gypsies at Mrs. Wells' at Enfield, as earliest January 19th Mrs. Howard swore. Her husband lived on his own property, and her house, with a well, which she allowed the villagers to use, was opposite Mrs. Wells'. Mrs. Howard had seen the gypsy girl at the well, and had been curtsied to by her, at a distance of three or four yards. She had heard earlier from her servants of the arrival of the gypsies, and had looked wishfully or earnestly at them. She was not so positive as to Mary Squires, whom she had seen at a greater distance. William Headland swore to seeing Mary Squires on January 9th. He fixed the date by a market day. Also, on the 12th, he saw her and Mrs. Wells' house. He picked up a bloodstained piece of thin lead under the window from which Elizabeth escaped, and took it to his mother, who corroborated. Samuel Story, who knew Mary Squires from of old, saw her on December 22nd in Whiteweb's Lane, so called from the old house noted as a meeting place of the gunpowder plot conspirators. Story was a retired clockmaker. Mr. Smith, attendant of the Duke of Portland, saw Mary Squires in his cowhouse on December 15th, 1752. She wanted leave to camp there, as she had done in other years. The gypsies then lost a pony. Several witnesses swore to this, and one swore to conversations with Mary Squires about the pony. She gave her name, and said that it was on the clog by which the beast was tethered. Loomworth Dane swore to Mary Squires, whom he had observed so closely as to note a great hole in the heel of her stocking. The date was Old Christmas Day, 1752. Dane was landlord of the Bell at Enfield, and a maker of horse collars. Sarah Starr, whose house was next to Mrs. Wells's, saw Mary Squires in her own house on January 18th or 19th. Mary wanted to buy pork, and hung about for three-quarters of an hour, offering to tell fortunes. Mrs. Starr got rid of her by a present of some pigs' flesh. She fixed to the date by a document which she had given to Miles, a solicitor. It was not in court. James Pratt swore to talk with Mary Squires before Christmas as to her lost pony. She had then a man with her. He was asked to look round the court to see if the man was present, whereon George Squires ducked his head, and was rebuked by the prosecuting council. Mr. Davy, who said, it does not look well. It was hardly the demeanor of conscious innocence. But Pratt would not swear to him. Mary Squires told Pratt that she would consult a cunning man about the lost pony, and Mr. Nairies foolishly asked why a cunning woman should consult a cunning man. One black fellow will often tell you he can and does something magical, whilst all the time he is perfectly aware that he cannot, and yet firmly believes that some other man can really do it. So, Wright measures Spencer and Gillan in their excellent book on the native tribes of Central Australia, and so it was with the Gypsy, who, though a wise woman, believed in a wise man. This witness, Pratt, said with great emphasis, upon my oath, that is the woman. I am positive in my conscience, and I am sure that it was no other woman. This is the woman I saw at that blessed time. Moreover, she gave him her name as the name on the clog of the lost pony. The affair of the pony was just what would impress a man like Pratt, and on the Gypsy's own version, they had no pony with them in their march from Dorset. All this occurred before Pratt left his house, which was on December 22, three days before New Christmas. He then left Enfield for Chess Hunt, and his evidence carries conviction. In some other cases, witnesses were very stupid. One could not tell on what month Christmas fell. One witness, an old woman, made an error, confusing January 16 with January 23, a document on which she relied gave the later date. If witnesses on either side were a year out in their reckoning, the discrepancies would be accountable. But Pratt, for example, could not forget when he left Enfield for Chess Hunt, and Farmer Smith and Mrs. Howard could be under no such confusion of memory. It may be prejudice, but I rather prefer the Enfield evidence in some ways, as did Mr. Padgett. In others, the Dorset evidence seems better. Elizabeth had sworn to having asked a man to point out the way to London after she escaped into the lane beside Mrs. Wells' house. A man, Thomas Bennett, swore that on January 29, 1753, a miserable poor wretch about half-past four near the Ten Mile Stone in a lane. She asked her way to London. She said she was affrighted by the Tanner's dog. The Tanner's house was about two hundred yards nearer London, and the prosecution made much of this, as if a dog, with plenty of leisure and a feud against tramps, could not move two hundred yards or much more if he were taking a walk abroad to combat the object of his dislike. Bennett knew that the dog was the Tanner's. Probably he saw the dog when he met the Wayfarer, and it does not follow that the Wayfarer herself called it the Tanner's dog. Bennett fixed the date with precision. Four days later, hearing of the trouble at Mrs. Wells', Bennett said, I will be hanged if I did not meet the young woman near this place and told her the way to London. Mr. Davy could only combat Bennett by laying stress on the Wayfarer's talking of the Tanner's dog. But the dog, at the moment of the meeting, was probably well in view. Bennett knew him, and Bennett was not asked, did the woman call the dog the Tanner's dog, or do you say this of your own knowledge? Moreover, the tannery was well in view, and the hound may have conspicuously started from that base of operations. Mr. Davy's reply was a quibble. His closing speech merely took up the old line. Elizabeth was absent to conceal a misfortune. Her cunning mother was her accomplice. There was no proof of Elizabeth's unchastity. Nay, she had an excellent character. But there is a time, gentlemen, when people begin to be wicked. If engaged for the other side, Mr. Davy would have placed his Nemo repente fuite terpissimis. No person of unblemished character wades straight into innocent blood, to use his own phrase. The recorder summed up against Elizabeth. He steadily assumed that Nash was always right, and the neighbors always wrong, as to the girl's original story. He said nothing of Bennett, the tanner's dog had done for Bennett. He said that if the enfield witnesses were right, the dorset witnesses were willfully perjured. He did not add that if dorset witnesses were right, the enfield testifiers were perjured. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty of perjury, but not willful and corrupt. This was an acquittal, but the recorder refusing the verdict, they did what they were desired to do, and sentence was passed. Two jurors made affidavit that they never intended a conviction. The whole point had turned in the minds of the jury on a discrepancy as to when Elizabeth finished the water in the broken pitcher. On Wednesday, January 27th, or on Friday, January 29th, both accounts could not be true. Here, then, was perjury, thought the jury, but not willful and corrupt, not purposeful. But the jury had learned that the court was impatient. They had already brought Elizabeth in guilty of perjury, by which they meant guilty of a casual discrepancy, not unnatural in a person hovering between life and death. They thought that they could not go back on their guilty, and so they went all the way to corrupt in willful perjury, murdered by false oath, and consistently added an earnest recommendation to mercy. By a majority of one out of seventeen judges, Elizabeth was banished for seven years to New England. She was accused in the press of being an enthusiast, but the Reverend William Rainer, who attended her in prison, publicly proclaimed her a good churchwoman and a good girl, June 7th, 1754. Elizabeth, June 24th, stuck to her guns in a manifesto. She had not once knowingly deviated from the truth. Mr. Davy had promised the jury that when Elizabeth was once condemned, all would come out, the whole secret. But though the most careful attempts were made to discover her whereabouts from January 1st to January 29th, 1753, nothing was ever found out, a fact most easily explained by the hypothesis that she was where she said she was at Mother Wells's. As to Elizabeth's later fortunes, accounts differ, but she certainly married in Connecticut a Mr. Treat, a respectable yeoman, said to have been opulent. She died in Connecticut in June 1773, leaving a family. In my opinion, Elizabeth Canning was a victim of the common sense of the 18th century. She told a very strange tale, and common sense holds that what is strange cannot be true. Yet something strange had undeniably occurred. It was very strange of Elizabeth, on the night of January 1st, retired to become a mother, of which there was no appearance, while of an amor even gossip could not furnish a hint. It was very strange if, having thus retired, she was robbed, starved, stripped, and brought to death's door, bleeding and broken down. It was very strange that no vestige of evidence as to her real place of concealment could ever be discovered. It was amazingly strange that a girl, previously and afterwards of golden character, should in a moment aim by perjury at innocent blood. But the 18th century, as represented by Mr. Davy, Mr. Wills, the barrister who fabled in court and the recorder, found none of these things one half so strange as Elizabeth Canning's story. Mr. Henry Fielding, who had some knowledge of human nature, was of the same opinion as the present candid inquirer. In this case, writes the author of Tom Jones, one of the most simple girls I ever saw, if she be a wicked one, hath been too hard for me. I am firmly persuaded that Elizabeth Canning is a poor, honest, simple, innocent girl. Moi aussi, but I would not have condemned the gypsy. In this case, the most perplexing thing of all is to be found in the conflicting unpublished affidavits sworn in March 1753, when memories as to the whereabouts of the gypsies were fresh. They form a great mass of papers in the state paper's domestic at the record office. I owe to Mr. Courtney Canning my knowledge of the two unpublished letters of Fielding to the Duke of New Castle, which follow. My Lord Duke, I received an order from my Lord Chancellor immediately after the breaking up of the council to lay before your Grace all the affidavits I had taken since the gypsy trial, which related to that affair. I then told the messenger that I had taken none, as indeed the fact is the affidavits of which I gave my Lord Chancellor an abstract, having been all sworn before justices of the peace in the neighborhood of Enfield, and remain, I believe, in the possession of an attorney in the city. However, in consequence of the commands with which your Grace was pleased to honor me yesterday, I sent my clerk immediately to the attorney to acquaint him with the commands, which I doubt not he will instantly obey. This I did from my great duty to your Grace, for I have long had no concern in this affair, nor have I seen any of the parties lately, unless once when I was desired to send for the girl, Canning, to my house, that a great number of noblemen and gentlemen might see her and ask her what questions they pleased. I am, with the highest duty, my Lord, your Grace's most obedient and most humble servant, Henry Fielding, Ealing, April 14th, 1753, his Grace the Duke of New Castle, endorsed Ealing, April 14th, 1753, Mr. Fielding, R. 16th. My Lord Duke, I am extremely concerned to see by a letter which I have just received from Mr. Jones by command of your Grace, that the persons concerned for the prosecution have not yet attended your Grace with the affidavits in Canning's affair. I do assure you, upon my honor, that I sent to them the moment I first received your Grace's commands, and having after three messages prevailed with them to come to me, I desired them to fetch the affidavits that I might send them to your Grace, being not able to wait on you in person. This they said they could not do, but would go to Mr. Hume Campbell, their counsel, and prevail with him to attend your Grace with all their affidavits, many of which I found were sworn after the day mentioned in the Order of Counsel. I told them I apprehended the letter could not be admitted, but insisted in the strongest terms on their laying the others immediately before your Grace, and they at last promised me they would, nor have I ever seen them since. I have now again ordered my clerk to go to them to inform them of the last commands I have received, but as I have no compulsory power over them I cannot answer for their behavior, which indeed I have long disliked, and have therefore long ago declined giving them any advice, nor would I, unless in obedience to your Grace, have anything to say to a set of the most obstinate fools I ever saw, and who seem to me rather to act from a spleen against my Lord Mayor, than from any motive of protecting innocents, though that was certainly their motive at first. In truth, if I am not deceived, I suspect that they desire that the gypsy should be pardoned, and then to convince the world that she was guilty in order to cast the greater reflection on him who was principally instrumental in obtaining such pardon. I conclude with assuring your Grace that I have acted in this affair as I shall on all occasions with the most dutiful regard to your commands, and that if my life had been at stake, as many know, I could have done no more. I am with the highest respect, my Lord Duke, your Grace's most obedient and most humble servant, Henry Fielding, Ealing, April 27th, 1753, His Grace, the Duke of Newcastle, endorsed, Ealing, April 27th, 1753, Mr. Fielding. End of chapter one, recording by Colleen McMahon. Chapter two of historical mysteries. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Jane Bennett. Historical mysteries by Andrew Lang. Chapter two. Many a man, says to Quincy, can trace his ruin to a murder, of which perhaps he thought little enough at the time. This remark applies with peculiar force to Philip II of Spain, to his secretary Antonio Perez, to the steward of Perez, to his page, and to a number of professional ruffians. All of these, from the king to his own scullion, were concerned in the slaying of one day Escovedo, secretary of Philip's famous natural brother, Don John of Austria. All of them, in different degrees, had better reason to regret a deed, which at the moment seemed a commonplace political incident. The puzzle in the case of Escovedo does not concern the manner if he's taking off, or the identity of his murderers. These things are perfectly well known. The names of the guilty, from the king to the bravo, are ascertained. The mystery clouds the motives for the deed. Why was Escovedo done to death? Did the king have him assassinated for purely political reasons? Really inadequate, but magnified by the suspicious royal fancy? Or were the secretary of Philip the second and the monarch of Spain rivals in the affections of a one-eyed widow of rank? And did the secretary pares, induce Philip to give orders for Escovedo's death, because Escovedo threatened to reveal to the king their guilty intrigue? So William Sterling Maxwell and Monsieur Mignier accepted, with shades of difference, this explanation. Mr Froud, on the other hand, held that Philip acted for political reasons, and with the full approval of his very ill-informed conscience. There was no lady as a motive in the case, in Mr Froud's opinion. A third solution is possible. Philip perhaps wished to murder Escovedo for political reasons, and without reference to the tender passion, but Philip was slow and irresolute. While pares, who dreaded Escovedo's interference with his love affair, urged his royal master on to the crime which he was shirking. We may never know the exact truth, but at least we can study a state of morals and manners at Madrid, compared with which the blundering tragedies of Holyrood in Queen Mary's time seemed mere child's play. The lambs of Bothwell are lambs playful and gentle when said beside the instruments of Philip II. The murdered man, Escovedo, and the first murderer, as Shakespeare says, Antonio Perez, had both been trained in the service of Uri Gomes, Philip's famous minister. Gomes had a wife, Anya de Mendoza, who, being born in 1546, was age 32, not 38, as Menesie says, in 1578, when Escovedo was killed. But 1546 may be a misprint for 1540. She was blind in one eye in 1578, but probably both her eyes were brilliant in 1567, when she really seems to have been Philip's mistress, or was generally believed so to be. Eleven years later, at the date of the murder, there is no obvious reason to suppose that Philip was constant to her charms. Her husband, created Prince Deboli, had died in 1573, or, as Mr Froud says, in 1567. The princess was now a widow, and really, if she chose to distinguish her husband's old secretary, at this date the king's secretary, Antonio Perez, there seems no reason to suppose that Philip would have troubled himself about the matter. That he still loved Anya with a constancy far from royal, that she loved Perez, that Perez and she feared that Escovedo would denounce them to the king, is Menesie's theory of the efficient cause of Escovedo's murder. Yet Menesie holds, and rightly, that Philip had made up his mind, as far as he ever did make up his mind, to kill Escovedo long before that diplomatist, became an inconvenient spy on the supposed lovers. To raise matters to the tragic height of the feeder of Euripides, Perez was said to be the natural son of his late employer, Gamers, the husband of his alleged mistress. Probably Perez was nothing of the sort. He was the bastard of a man of his own name, and his alleged mistress, the widow of Gamers, may even have circulated the other story to prove that her relations with Perez, though intimate, were innocent. They are a pretty set of people. As for Escovedo, he and Perez had been friends from their youth upwards. While Perez passed from the service of Gamers to that of Philip, in 1572 Escovedo was appointed secretary to the nobly adventurous Don John of Austria. The court believed that he was intended to play the part of spy on Don John, but he fell under the charm of that gallant heart, and readily accepted, if he did not inspire, the most daring projects of the victor of La Panto, the sword of Christendom. This was very inconvenient for the Latin footed Philip, who never took time by the forelock, but always brooded over schemes and let opportunity pass. Don John on the other hand was all for forcing the game, and when he was sent to temporize and conciliate in the low countries, and withdraw the Spanish army of occupation, his idea was to send the Spanish forces out of the Netherlands by sea. When once they were on blue water, he would make a descent on England, rescue the captive Mary Stuart, marry her, he was incapable of fear, restore the Catholic religion, and wear the English crown. A good plot, approved of by the Pope, but a plot which did not suit the genius of Philip. He placed his leaden foot upon the scheme, and on various other gallant projects, conceived in the best manner of Alexandre Dumas. Now Escobedo, to whom Don John was devotedly attached, was the soul of all these chivalrous designs, and for that reason, Philip regarded him as a highly dangerous person. Escobedo was at Madrid, when Don John first went to the low countries, 1576. He kept urging Philip to accept Don John's fiery proposals, though Antonio Perez entreated him to be cautious. At this date, 1576, Perez was really the friend of Escobedo. But Escobedo would not be advised. He wrote an impatient memorial to the king, denouncing his stitchless policy, descocidal, his delitory shambling idealist proceedings. So, at least Sir William Sterling Maxwell asserts in his Don John of Austria, the word used by Escobedo was descocidal, unstitched. But Mr Froud says that Philip used the expression later, in reference to another letter of Escobedo's, which he also called a bloody letter, January 1578. Here, Mr Froud can hardly be right, for Philip's letter containing that vulgar expression is of July 1577. In any case, in 1576, Philip was induced by the intercession of Perez to overlook the fault, and Escobedo, whose presence Don John demanded, was actually sent to him in December 1576. From this date, both Don John and Escobedo wrote familiarly to their friend Perez, while Perez lured them on and showed their letters to the king. Just as Charles the First commissioned the Duke of Hamilton, to spy on the Covenanted Nobles and pretend to sympathize with them and talk in their godly style, so Philip gave Perez's orders to entrap Don John and Escobedo. Perez said, I want no theology but my own to justify me. And Philip wrote in reply, my theology takes the same view of the matter as your own. At this time 1577, Perez, though a gambler and a profligate, who took presence from all hands, must have meant nothing worse on Mignot's theory than to serve Philip as he loved to be served, and keep him well informed of Don John's designs. Escobedo was not yet, according to Mignot, an obstacle to the amulets of Perez and the king's mistress, the Princess de Bully. Sir William Sterling Maxwell, on the other hand, holds that the object of Perez already was to ruin Don John. For what reason Sir William owns that he cannot discover? Indeed, Perez had no such object, unless Don John confided to him projects treasonous or dangerous to the government of his own master, the king. Now did Don John or Escobedo entrust Perez with designs not merely chivalrous and impracticable, but actually traitorous? Certainly, Don John did nothing of the kind. Escobedo left him and went without being called for to Spain, arriving in July 1577. During his absence, Don John defeated the Dutch Protestants in the Battle of Jean Bloor on January 31, 1578. He then wrote a letter full of chivalrous loyalty to Escobedo and Perez at Madrid. He would make Philip master indeed at the Low Countries. He asked Escobedo and Perez to inspire the king with resolution. To do that was impossible, but Philip could never have desired to murder Escobedo merely because he asked help for Don John. Yet no sooner did Escobedo announce his return to Spain in July 1577 than Philip in a letter to Perez said, we must hasten to dispatch him before he kills us. There seems to be no doubt that the letter in which this phrase occurs is authentic, though we have it only in a copy. But is the phrase correctly translated? The words Prieza a despacchale antes que nos maté certainly may be rendered. We must be quick and dispatch him, Escobedo, before he kills us. But Mr Froud, much more lenient to Philip than to Mary Stuart, proposes to render the phrase, we must dispatch Escobedo quickly, i.e. send him about his business, before he worries us to death. Mr Froud thus denies that in 1577 Philip already meant to kill Escobedo. It's unlucky for Mr Froud's theory and for Philip's character if the king used the phrase twice. In March 1578 he wrote to Perez about Escobedo, act quickly antes que nos maté, before he kills us. So Perez averred, at least, but is his date correct? This time Perez did act and Escobedo was butchered. If Perez tells truth, in 1577 Philip meant what he said, dispatch him before he kills us. Why did Philip thus dread Escobedo? We have merely the published statements of Perez in his account of the affair. After giving the general causes of Philip's distrust of Don John and the ideas which are deeply suspicious monarch may very well have entertained, considering the adventurous character of his brother, Perez adds a special charge against Escobedo. He vows, says Perez, that after conquering England he and Don John would attack Spain. Escobedo asked for the captaincy of a castle on a rock commanding the harbour of Santander. He was alcalde of that town. He and Don John would use these fortresses as Aramets and Fouquet in the novel of Dumar, meant to use Bell Eel against their sovereign. As a matter of fact, Escobedo had asked for the command of Mogro, the fortress commanding Santander in the spring of 1577. And Perez told Philip that the place should be strengthened for the protection of the harbour, but not entrusted to Escobedo. Don John's loyalty could never have contemplated the use of the place as a keep to be held in an attack on his king. But if Perez had in 1577 no grudge against Escobedo as being perilous to his alleged Amour with the Princess de Bolle, then the murderous plan of Philip must have sprung from the intense suspiciousness of his own nature, not from the promptings of Perez. Escobedo reached Spain in July 1577. He wasn't killed till March 31st 1578, though attempts on his life were made some weeks earlier. Bessia Migné argues that till the early spring of 1578, Philip held his hand because Perez lulled his fears, that Escobedo then began to threaten to disclose the love affair of Perez to his royal rival, and that Perez in his own private interest now changed his tune, and in place of mollifying Philip urged him to the crime. But Philip was so dilatory that he could not even commit a murder with decent promptitude. Escobedo was not dangerous even to his mind while he was apart from Don John. But as weeks passed Don John kept insisting by letter on the return of Escobedo, and for that reason possibly Philip screwed his courage to the literally sticking point and Escobedo was stuck. Major Martin Hume, however, argues that by this time circumstances had changed and Philip had now no motive for murder. The impression of Migné and of Sir William Sterling Maxwell, the biographer of Don John, is quite different. They hold that the Princess Deboli in 1578 was Philip's mistress, that she deceived him with Perez, that Escobedo threatened to tell all, and that Perez therefore hurried on his murder. Had this been the state of affairs would Escobedo have constantly accepted the invitations of Perez to dinner? The men would necessarily have been on the worst of terms if Escobedo was threatening Perez, but Escobedo in fact kept on dining with Perez. Again the policy of Perez would have been to send Escobedo where he wanted to go, to Flanders, well out of the way back to Don John. It seems probable enough, though not certain, that in 1567 the Princess and Philip were lovers, but it is most unlikely and it is not proved that Philip was still devoted to the lady in 1578. Some of the Princess's family, the Mendozas, now wanted to kill Perez as a dishonour to their blood. At the trial of Perez later, much evidence was given to show that he loved the Princess, or was suspected of doing so, but it is not shown that this was a matter about which Philip had any reason to concern himself. Thus it is not inconceivable that Escobedo disliked the relations between Perez and the Princess, but nothing tends to show that he could have made himself dangerous by revealing them to the King. Moreover, if he spoke his mind to Perez on the matter, the two would not have remained, as apparently they did, on terms of the most friendly intercourse. A squire of Perez described a scene in which Escobedo threatened to denounce the Princess, but how did the squire become a witness of the scene in which the Princess defied Escobedo in terms of singular coarseness? At all events, when Philip consulted the Marquis of Los Velez on the proprietary of killing Escobedo, rather than sending him back to Don John, the reasons which convinced the Marquis were mere political suspicions. It was at that time a question of conscience whether a King might have a subject assassinated if the royal motives, though sufficient, were not such as could be revealed with safety in a court of justice. On these principles, Queen Mary had a right to take Darnley off for excellent political causes which could not safely be made public for international reasons. Mary, however, unlike Philip, did not consult her confessor who believed her to be innocent of her husband's death. The confessor of Philip told him that the King had a perfect right to dispatch Escobedo, and Philip gave his orders to Perez. He repeated, says Perez, in 1578 his words used in 1577, Make haste before he kills us. As to this point of conscience, the right of a King to commit murder on a subject for reasons of state, Protestant opinion seems to have been lenient. When the Rothfans were killed at Perth on August the 5th 1600, in an affair the most mysterious of all mysteries, the Reverend Robert Bruce, a stern Presbyterian, refused to believe that James the Six had not planned their slaughter. But Your Majesty might have secret reasons, said Bruce to the King, who naturally and truly maintained his own innocence. This looks as if Mr Bruce, like the confessor of Philip, held that a King had a right to murder a subject for secret reasons of state. The inquisition vigorously repudiated the doctrine, when maintained by a Spanish preacher, but Knox approved of King Henry's, Darnley's, murder of Richel. My sympathies on this point are with the inquisition. Perez, having been commissioned to organize the crime, handed on the job to Martinez, his steward. Martinez asked a ruffian-linked page, Henriques, if I knew anybody in my country, here, who would stick a knife into a person. Henriques said, I will speak about it to a militia of my acquaintance, as in fact I did, and the militia undertook the business. But later, hearing that a man of importance was to be knifed, Henriques told Perez that a militia was not noble enough, the job must be entrusted to persons of more consideration. Henriques, in 1585, confessed for a good reason. Perez had absurdly mismanaged the business, all sorts of people were employed, and after the murder they fled, and began to die punctually in an alarming manner. Naturally, Henriques thought that Perez was acting like the muirs of Ochendrain, who dispatched a series of witnesses and accomplices in their murder of Kennedy. As they always needed a new accomplice to kill the previous accomplice, then another to slay the slayer, and so on, the muirs, if unchecked, would have depopulated Scotland. Henriques surmised that his turn to die would soon come. So he confessed and was corroborated by Diego Martinez. Thus the facts came out, and this ought to be a lesson to murderers. As the militia hung fire, Perez determined to poison Escobedo, but he did not in the least know how to set about it. Science was hardly in her infancy. If you wanted to poison a man in Scotland, you had to rely on a vulgar witch, or send a man to France at great expense to buy the stuff, and the messenger was detected and tortured. The court of Spain was not more scientific. Martinez sent Henriques to Mercier to gather certain poisonous herbs, and these were distilled by a venal apothecary. The poison was then tried on a barn doorfowl, which was not one penny the worse, but Martinez somehow procured a certain water that was good to be given as a drink. Perez asked Escobedo to dinner. Henriques waited at table, and in each cup of wine that Escobedo drank, he rather homeopathically put a nut shell full of the water. Escobedo was no more poisoned than the cock of the earlier experiment. It was acetone that the beverage produced no effect whatever. A few days later, Escobedo again dined with the hospitable Perez. On this occasion, they gave him some white powder and a dish of cream, and also gave him the poisoned water in his wine, thinking at a pity to waste that beverage. This time, Escobedo was unwell, and again when Henriques induced a scullion in the royal kitchen to put more of the powder in a basin of broth in Escobedo's own house. For this, the poor kitchen maid who cooked the broth was hanged in the public square of Madrid, Sincalpa. Pius Philip was demoralizing his subjects at a terrible rate, but you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. Philip slew that girl of his kitchen as surely as if he had taken a gun and shot her, but probably the royal confessor said that all was as it should be. In spite of the resources of Spanish science, Escobedo persisted in living, and Perez determined that he must be shot or stabbed. Henriques went off to his own country to find a friend who was an assassin, and to get a stiletto with a very fine blade, much better than a pistol to kill a man with. Henriques, keeping a good thing in the family, enlisted his brother and Martinez from Aragon brought two proper kind of men, Juan de Nera and Insausti, who with the king's scullion undertook the job. Perez went to Alcala for holy week, just as the good regent Murray left Edinburgh on the morning of Donley's murder after sermon. Havar Halibai was the motto of both gentlemen. The underlings dog discovered her in the evening of Easter Monday. Henriques did not come across him, but Insausti did his business with one thrust in a workman-like way. The scullion hurried to Alcala and told the news to Perez, who was highly delighted. We leave this good and faithful servant and turn to Don John. When he, far away, heard the news, he was under no delusions about love affairs as the cause of the crime. He wrote to his wretched brother, the king, in grief greater than I can describe. The king, he said, had lost the best of servants, a man without the aims and craft which are now in vogue. I may with just reason consider myself to have been the cause of his death. The blow was really dealt at Don John. He expressed the most touching anxiety for the wife and children of Escavedo, who died poor because, unlike Perez, he had clean hands. He besought Philip by the love of our Lord to use every possible diligence to know whence the blow came and to punish it with the rigor which it deserves. He himself will pay the most pressing debts of the debt. From Beaumont, April the 20th, 1578. Probably the royal Catef was astonished by this letter. On September 20, Don John wrote his last letter to his brother, desiring more than life some decision on your Majesty's part. Give me orders for the conduct of affairs. Philip scrawled in the margin. I will not answer. But Don John had ended his letter. Our lives are at stake, and all we ask is to lose them with honour. These are like the last words of the last letter of the great Montrose, Sir Charles II. With the more alacrity and vigor, I go to search my death. Like Montrose, Don John carried with him fidelity and honour to the grave. He died after a cruel illness on October the 1st. Brantome says that he was poisoned by order of the king at the instigation of Perez. The side of his breast was yellow and black as if burned and crumbled at the touch. These things were always said when a great personage died in his bed. They're probably untrue, but a king who could conscientiously murder his brother's friend could, as conscientiously and for the same reasons, murder his brother. The Princess de Boly rewarded and sheltered one of the murderers of Escovedo. They were all gratified with chains of gold, silver cups, abundance of gold and their coups, and commissions in the army. All were sent out of the country and some began to die strangely, which as we saw frightened Enrique into his confession. 1585. At once Perez was suspected. He paid a visit of condolence to young Escovedo. He spoke of the love affair of Escovedo as in Flanders. An injured husband must be the guilty man. But suspicion darkened. Perez complained to the king that he was dogged, watched, cross-examined by the alcalder and his son. The Escovedo family had a friend in Vasquez, another royal secretary. Knowing nothing of the king's guilt and jealous of Perez, he kept assuring the king that Perez was guilty, that there was an amour detected by Escovedo, that Escovedo perished for a woman's sake, that Philip must investigate the case and end the scandal. The woman, of course, was the princess de Bole. Philip cared nothing for her, now at least. Mr. Fraud says that Don Gaspar Moreau, in his work on the princess, has disproved conclusively the imagined liaison between the princess and Philip II. On the other hand, Philip was darkly concerned in litigations about property against the princess. These affairs Vasquez conducted, while Perez naturally was on the side of the widow of his benefactor. On these points, more than a hundred letters of Vasquez exist. Meanwhile, he left and the Escovedo family left. No stone unturned to prove that Perez murdered Escovedo because Escovedo thwarted his mure with the princess. Philip had promised again and again to stand by Perez. But the affair was coming to light, and if it must come out, it suited Philip that Vasquez should track Perez on the wrong trail, the trail of the amour, not follow the right scent which led straight to the throne and the wretch who sat on it, but neither courts could be quite pleasant to the king. Perez offered to stand his trial, knowing that evidence against him could not be found. His accomplices were far away. He would be acquitted, as Bothwell was acquitted of Darnley's death. Philip could not face the situation. He bade Perez consult the president of the council. De Pazos, a bishop, and tell him all, while De Pazos should molify young Escovedo. The bishop, a casuest, actually assured young Escovedo that Perez and the princess are as innocent as myself. The bishop did not agree with the inquisition. He could say that Perez was innocent because he only obeyed the king's murderous orders. Young Escovedo retreated, Vasquez persevered, and the princess Debole, writing to the king, called Vasquez a maurish dog. Philip had both Perez and the princess arrested, for Vasquez was not to be put down. His business, in connection with the litigations, was to pursue the princess, and Philip could not tell Vasquez that he was on the wrong trail. The lady was sent to her estates. This satisfied Vasquez, and Perez and he were bound over to keep the peace. But suspicion hung about Perez, and Philip preferred that it should be so. The secretary was accused of speculation. He had taken bribes on all hands, and he was sentenced to heavy fines and imprisonment. January 1585. Now, Henriques confessed, and a kind of secret inquiry, of which the record survived, dragged its slow course along. Perez was under arrest, in a house near a church. He dropped out of a window and rushed into the church. The civil power burst open the gates, violated sanctuary, and found our friend crouching, all draped with festoons of cobwebs, in the timber work under the roof. The church censured the magistrates, but they had got Perez, and Philip defied the ecclesiastical courts. Perez, a prisoner, tried to escape by the aid of one of Escobedo's murderers, who were staunch but failed, while his wife was ill-treated to make him give up all the compromising letters of the king. He did give up two sealed trunks full of papers, but his ally and steward, Martinez, had first, it is said, selected and secreted the royal notes which proved the guilt of Philip. Apparently the king thought himself safe now, and actually did not take the trouble to see whether his compromising letters were in the sealed trunks, or not. At least, if he did know that they were absent, and that Perez could produce proof of his guilt, it's hard to see why, with endless doubts and hesitations, he allowed the secret process for murder against Perez to drag on after a long interruption into 1590. Vasquez examined and re-examined Perez, but there was still only one witness against him, the scoundrel Henriques. One was not enough. A new step was taken. The royal confessor assured Perez that he would be safe, if he told the whole truth and declared openly that he had acted by the royal orders. Perez refused. Philip commanded again, January 4, 1590. Perez must now reveal the king's motive for decreeing the murder. If Philip was setting a trap for Perez, that trap only caught him if he couldn't produce the king's compromising letters, which in fact he still possessed. Mr. Froud asserts that Philip had heard from his confessor, and he, from the wife of Perez, that the letters were still secreted and could be produced. If so, Perez would be safe, and the king's character would be lost. What was Philip's aim and motive? Would he declare the letters to be forgeries? No other mortal of that day wrote such an unmistakable hand as he is. It was the worst in the world. He must have had some loophole, or he would never have pressed Perez to bear witness to his own crime. A loophole he had, and Perez knew it. For otherwise he would have obeyed orders, told the whole story, and been set free. He did not. Mr. Froud supposes that he didn't think the royal authority would satisfy the judges. But they could not condemn Perez, a mere accessory to Philip, without condemning the king. And how could the judges do that? Perez, I think, would have taken his chance of the judge's severity as against their king. Rather than disobey the king's command to confess all, and so have to face torture. He did face the torture, which proves, perhaps, that he knew Philip could somehow escape from the damning evidence of his own letters. Philip's loophole, Major Martin Hume thinks, was this. If Perez revealed the king's reasons for ordering the murder, they would appear as obsolete at the date of the deed. Pedro alone would be culpable, in any case. He faced torture. Like most people in his circumstances, he miscalculated his own power of bearing agony. He had not the endurance of the younger Ochendrein murderer, of Mitchell, a choice covenanting assassin, of the gallant Jacobite Neville Payne, tortured nearly to death by the minions of the Duchess Serpa, William of Orange. All of these bore the torment and kept their secrets. But eight turns of the rope opened the mouth of Perez, whose obstinacy had merely put him to great inconvenience. Yet he didn't produce Philip's letters in corroboration. He said that they had been taken for him. However, next day Diego Martinez, who had hitherto denied all, saw that the game was up and admitted the truth of all that Henriques had confessed in 1585. About a month after the torture, Perez escaped. His wife was allowed to visit him in prison. She had been the best, the bravest, the most devoted of women. If she had reason for jealousy of the princess, which is by no means certain, she had forgiven all. She had moved heaven and earth to save her husband. In the Dominican Church at High Mass, she had thrown herself upon the king's confessor, demanding before that awful presence on the altar that the priest should refuse to absolve the king unless he said Perez free. Admitted to her husband's prison, she played the trick that saved Lord Ogilvy from the dungeon of the Covenanters, that saved Argyle, Nithsdale, and James Moore McGregor. Perez walked out of jail in the dress of his wife. We may suppose that the guards were bribed. There is always collusion in these cases. One of the murderers had horses round the corner and Perez, who cannot have been badly injured by the rack, rode 30 leagues and crossed the frontier of Aragon. We have not to follow his later adventures. The refusal of the Aragonese to give him up to Castile, their rescue of him from the Inquisition, cost them their constitution, and about 70 of them were burned as heretics, but Perez got clear away. He visited France, where Henry IV befriended him. He visited England, where Bacon was his host. In 1594, he published his Relaciones and told the world the story of Philip's conscience. That story must not be relied on, of course, and the autograph letters of Philip as to the murderer Vascovedo are lost. But the copies of them at the Hague are regarded as authentic and the convincing passages are underlined in red ink, posing it possible that Philip, after all, secured the whole of the autograph correspondence and that Perez only succeeded in preserving the copies now at the Hague. We should understand why Perez would not confess the king's crime. He had only copies of his proofs to show and copies were valueless as evidence, but it is certain that Perez really had the letters. Bloody Perez, as Bacon's mother called him, died at Paris in November 1611, outliving the wretched master whom he had served so faithfully. Queen Elizabeth tried to induce Amias Paulet to murder Mary Stuart. Paulet, as a man of honour, refused. He knew too that Elizabeth would abandon him to the vengeance of the Scots. Perez ought to have known that Philip would desert him. His folly was rewarded by prison, torture and confiscation, which were not more than the man deserved who betrayed and murdered the servant of Don John of Austria. Note, this essay was written when I was unaware that Major Martin Hume had treated the problem in transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1894 pages 71 to 107, and in Espanola's E Inglésis, 1903. The latter worked out as represents Major Hume's final views. He has found among the additional manuscripts of the British Museum, 28269, a quantity of the contemporary letters of Perez, which supplement the copies at the Hague of other letters destroyed after the death of Perez. From these manuscripts, and other original sources unknown to Mr. Fraud and to Monsieur Mignier, see the second edition of his Antonio Perez, Paris, 1846. Major Hume's theory is that for political reasons Philip gave orders that Escavado should be assassinated. This was in late October or early November 1577. The order was not then carried out. The reason of the delay I do not clearly understand. The months passed and Escavado's death ceased, in altered circumstances, to be politically desirable. But he became a serious nuisance to Perez and his mistress, the princess de Bolley. Philip had never countermanded the murder, but Perez, according to Major Hume, falsely alleges that the king was still bent on the murder, and that other statesmen were consulted and approved of it shortly before the actual deed. Perez gives this impression by a crafty manipulation of dates in his narrative. When he had Escavado slain, he was fighting for his own hand. But Philip, who had never countermanded the murder, was indifferent till in 1582 when he was with Alvaro in Portugal. The king now learned that Perez had behaved abominably, had poisoned his mind against his brother Don Juan, had communicated state secrets to the princess de Bolley, and had killed Escavado, not in obedience to the royal order, but using that order as the shield of his private vengeance. Hence Philip severities to Perez. Hence his final commands that Perez should disclose the royal motives for the destruction of Escavado. They would be found to have become obsolete at the date when the crime was committed, and on Perez would fall the blame. Such is Major Hume's theory, if I correctly apprehended. The hypothesis leaves the moral character of Philip as black as ever. He ordered an assassination which he never even countermanded. His confessor might applaud him, but he knew that the doctors of the Inquisition, like the common sentiment of mankind, rejected the theory that the kings had the right to condemn and execute by the dagger, men who had been put to no public trial. End of chapter two.