Damn His Blood

by Peter Moore

  Clifton believed that Clewes was teetering on the brink of a confession. If Peel could offer the farmer a royal pardon – therefore allowing him to turn King’s witness – then the balance would be tipped and the facts, which had been concealed for so long, would be exposed for the first time. It was a reasoned conclusion, but Clifton was advancing blindly into a mire of legal quicksand. Lawyers understood that when a case developed at speed it was liable to be ruined by inexperienced or unskilled hands. Robert Clifton was primarily a clergyman, and his duties as a magistrate – like Pyndar before him – ran to little more than adjudicating on instances of petty crime or delinquent behaviour. He was now embroiling himself in a complex and uncertain case. With only threadbare legal knowledge, he had grasped the reins from William Smith at a vital juncture, and rather than conferring with his peers in Worcester had opted to communicate directly with Peel in London.

  On Sunday morning Clewes attended divine service in the prison chapel. He then sent for Clifton again. When the clergyman arrived, Clewes told him that if Clifton promised to obtain a royal pardon, ‘he would disclose all the circumstances of both murders, as far as he knew them’.

  Clifton’s letter to Peel lay half-finished on his desk at home. He had still not spoken to William Smith, but here was Clewes, prepared to confess. Clifton informed the farmer he would do his utmost to secure a pardon from Peel if he revealed all he knew about the murders. He then cautioned him, reminding Clewes that if he was guilty of striking the fatal blow, there was nothing that could be done to save him. Clewes paused for a second then replied that he understood. During the next few hours the magistrate sat in silent horror as Clewes, in his words, ‘presented a narrative unparalleled in the annals of crime’.

  At around two o’clock that afternoon Clifton hurried along the frozen Foregate Street to his rectory. His involvement in the case had spanned no more than a week – from the opening day of the inquest – but within the space of a few hours he had learnt more about what had happened in Oddingley than any other investigating official before him. The result of the inquest and several men’s lives rested on his actions over the next few hours, and his first thought was his letter to Peel. With the inquest due to resume on Tuesday morning, it was crucial for the home secretary to be informed as swiftly as possible. The London mail left Worcester Post Office at half past four in the afternoon, and Clifton was determined to catch it.

  ‘I write with unsteady nerves and with great haste for the post,’ Clifton resumed his letter. ‘My persuasion is, that enough had not, nor will, come out before the jury to convict anyone & it was under this persuasion that I ventured to make the promise of applying for his majesty’s pardon, without which I could not get the slightest information from Clewes.’ He signed off breathlessly, that he most ‘respectfully and anxiously, awaited Peel’s response’.

  A biting easterly wind swept up the Thames, over the port and Old London Bridge – a structure that would be demolished the following year – towards Whitehall. Like much of the country, London was frozen to the bone and buried in snow. The rigging, masts and timbers of craft moored in the waters outside the Houses of Parliament were iced white. Growing sheets of ice slid over the black waters, leaving the Morning Herald to remark that the view between Westminster and Vauxhall Bridges now formed ‘as characteristic and complete a winter scene7 as could well be imagined … it could be only superseded by the Thames being completely (and it is now very nearly) frozen over’.

  At the Home Office, a short distance from the river, Robert Peel received Clifton’s letter on Monday 1 February. Reports of the Oddingley affair were now a daily fixture in the national newspapers, and the coroner himself had sent the home secretary the latest issue of the Worcester Herald, which was replete with transcripts of everything that had been said at the Talbot. To Peel, Clewes’ guilt seemed assured, so he was confused to learn that a confession had suddenly been made and a royal pardon was required. More perplexing for the home secretary was the fact that the letter had come from Reverend Clifton – a man he had never heard of before. Until now all Peel’s information had stemmed from William Smith. Clifton, then, was an unknown quantity, who appeared to be acting arbitrarily, outside the realms of Smith’s inquiry.

  Peel decided it was unwise to discard all the evidence at a stroke and to offer a royal pardon before the facts had been established. His reply was assured and forthright. He told Clifton that the promise of clemency had been ‘most indiscreet’. He pointed out that the inquest was still ongoing and that subsequent discoveries ‘may prove that Clewes had a greater share in the murder of Heming than any other person now living’.

  Peel’s decision was relayed to his clerk, Mr Phillips, who was left to acquaint Clifton with the crushing news. ‘Mr Peel directs me to say, he cannot offer the promise which had been held to Clewes. He thinks it precipitate under the peculiar circumstances of this case and cannot be party to such a procedure,’ Phillips wrote. The letter closed with a word of advice. ‘Mr Peel desires me to add that he thinks it would be improper to hold out any promises of any kind to Clewes as an inducement to him to give any information.’

  The speed of communication meant there was no chance of Clifton knowing Peel’s decision until the following day. This left the clergyman dangerously out of step with instructions from Whitehall. In these disjointed hours, Clifton made several errors. He revealed to some peers that Clewes had confessed, letting slip some details of the narrative. More seriously, he signed a warrant for the arrest of George Banks, who ‘in a matter of notoriety’ was double-handcuffed by two constables at his home in Hanbury and swept off to Worcester in a chaise. When Banks was told he was being charged in connection with Richard Heming’s murder, he remained silent. Only when he realised he was being taken to gaol did he speak: ‘If you do that, then I don’t care afterwards8 what becomes of me.’

  Peel’s letter to Reverend Clifton arrived at Worcester Post Office at 9.08 a.m. on Tuesday 2 February. Within an hour it had been sorted and delivered to St Nicholas’ Rectory. By half past ten Clifton had read the contents and was rushing towards the gaol.

  It was another frozen day. The three red-brick chimneys that rose high over the Talbot’s steep roof smoked steadily in the feeble light as William Smith reconvened the inquest in the inn below. There was already a feeling that the coroner had generated enough momentum to bring the case before the assize court. The news that George Banks had joined Thomas Clewes in the cells of the county gaol had also seeped out, generating further excitement. Each new witness was now called by the coroner with the atmosphere loaded with expectation.

  Fifty-six-year-old Joseph Taylor, son of the farrier James Taylor who had been imprisoned on suspicion of involvement in 1808, was called to testify at around ten o’clock. Taylor had followed his father into the trade and taken over the business after his death. He refuted the suggestion that his father had played any part in either murder. He told the coroner that John Rowe, who had supplied Pyndar with his account of the farmers’ plot, had been ‘put up’ to do so by a bitter man named ‘Lawyer Milner’, who had plotted against James Taylor ‘out of spite’.

  Taylor was questioned for almost an hour, giving meandering answers, resorting to speculation and making stark denials. He concluded his evidence with a plain declaration to the court: ‘I have never heard of any secret meetings in Oddingley about the tythes and no oath has been administered to me to keep secret what I know about the affair.’

  Susannah Taylor, Joseph’s wife, was next, and was also questioned for some time. She was asked to list the instruments James Taylor would have carried with him on a working day. ‘A fleam, a blood stick and a piece of cord to bleed cattle’, she remembered. A blood stick was a foot-long truncheon made from hard wood used for striking the fleam into the horse’s vein.

  Meanwhile, Clifton had arrived at the gaol. It was less than an hour since he had received the home secretary’s letter, but he had instantly absorbed Peel’s message and
realised the gravity of his mistakes, which now threatened the whole legal process. He should not have held out to Clewes any inducement to confess, least of all a royal pardon. He should not have shared any details of the confession with anyone else, as each could now bring it forward as evidence in their own right. And he should not have ordered George Banks’ arrest. Clifton had set in motion a series of interconnected events that were now beyond his control. His only hope was to return to the gaol and retract everything he had previously promised. In Clewes’ cell, Clifton told him, ‘I have utterly failed in my endeavour to obtain any promise or hope of mercy from the Government.’ He explained that ‘he felt himself duty bound … not to make use of his knowledge to your hurt’ and that he would ‘rather be committed to prison for contempt of the coroner, than disclose what had passed between us’. Clifton promised that his transcript of the confession and the letters between him and Peel would be destroyed immediately. Most importantly, he reassured the prisoner that nobody but the two of them was ‘cognizant of its many particulars’.9

  But Clewes’ reaction was not to recoil into silence or introspection, but to state his determination to produce his evidence before the inquest. Three days had passed since he had first confided in Clifton, two since he had revealed all that he knew. The intervening hours had brought about a deep change inside Clewes. Before, he had seemed a mournful, distracted and self-contained man who relied on drink to get by; now his defences appeared to have dropped. Perhaps Clewes craved the cathartic release of unlocking years of caged memories? Perhaps he felt there was no going back? In any case, his resolve was gone, deliquesced in the shivering gloom of the gaol. Clifton warned Clewes afresh that he could not offer a royal pardon. Clewes repeated that he understood. The governor was then called and apprised of the situation. He wrote a note to Smith, which arrived at the Talbot as Susannah Taylor was concluding her evidence. It stated that ‘Clewes had expressed himself desirous10 of making some communication to the jury’. Smith adjourned the session until the afternoon, informed those present that he was required at the prison and left.

  Within half an hour Smith was seated in the magistrates’ office at the gaol. He was joined by the magistrates Lords Deerhurst and Coventry, the governor Mr Lavender and Reverend Clifton. A handcuffed Clewes stood before them all. Smith told Clewes it was his duty to warn him that any statement he made ‘would be produced against him on his trial at the assizes’. Smith added that neither he nor anyone else would hold out any hope for him if his confession or disclosure, of ‘whatsoever nature it might be’, implicated him in ‘the crime of which he stood charged’.

  Clewes hesitated a moment. He then told Smith that he was anxious to reveal all that he knew of the murder of Richard Heming. Before he began his testimony, he added earnestly, ‘I did not do it.’

  The following is a transcript of Clewes’ evidence.

  That on the morrow morning after the Rev. Mr Parker was shot, I recollect it took place on Bromsgrove fair day but cannot state exactly the year, in the morning about 7 o’clock George Banks came down to me and said we have got Heming at our house who shot the parson and do not know what to do with him. Will you let him come down here? I said – ‘I won’t have him here nor have nothing to do with him.’ Banks went off at that. Banks said he is lurking down in the meadows. Then I went up to Oddingley about 11 o’clock in the day to Mr Jones’s (who is since dead) Mr Nash lives in the farmhouse now. As I went up by the road side, I suppose Captain Evans could keep sight of me all the way. Captain Evans called to me. He was in his garden by the road side, and he followed me out of the garden into the field and said he wanted to speak with me. And Captain Evans said I have had Heming at our house this morning, and something must be done by him. He is lurking down towards your house now. I ordered him to get in your buildings by day-time, if possible, or at the edge of night that you or your family might not see him. The Captain said ‘something must be done by him. I shall come down to your house at night, and bring somebody with me and we must give the poor devil some money or do something with him to send him off. Will you get up and come to the barn? It won’t detain you a minute.’ I refused coming and said I did not like to come. He [Captain Evans] said it can make no odds to you. You need not be afraid to come at 11 o’clock. Captain said just come out. It will make no difference to you at all, for if you don’t come I am afraid of your dogs.

  I went out at the back door and went down to the barn door at eleven o’clock, and there was the Captain Evans and James Taylor and I thought it to be George Banks, I believed it to be him. The Captain, Taylor and George Banks went into the barn and I with them. As soon as the Captain came into the barn, he called ‘halloo, Heming where be’st?’ Heming says ‘yes sir’ but not very loud. The Captain and Taylor then stept on the mow, which was not higher than my knee. Captain then pulled a lantern out of his pocket or under his coat. I saw him on the threshing floor with George Banks. Captain said ‘Get up Heming I have got something for thee.’ Heming was at the time covered up with straw. He was rising up on end as if he had been lying on his back and as he rose up Taylor up with a blood stick and hit him two or three blows on the head. I said this is bad work. If I had known you should not have had me here. The Captain said he’s got enough. Taylor and the Captain come down off the mow directly and Taylor said what’s to be done with him now? Captain said damn his body, we must not take him out of doors. Somebody will see us may happen. It is not very dark. Taylor went out of doors and brought a spade from somewhere, it was no spade of mine. We’ll soon put him safe says the Captain to Taylor. Taylor then searched round the bay of the barn and found a place where dogs and rats had scratched holes. Taylor threw out a spade full or two of soil and cleaned it from the side of the wall. Taylor then said to the Captain this will do for him. Captain Evans stood by and lighted him. Banks and I were present on the floor of the barn. Captain and Taylor then got up on the mow and pulled Richard Heming down to the front of the mow and Captain said to Taylor catch hold of him, and dragged him across the floor and into the hole made in the opposite bay which Taylor had dug for him and Taylor soon covered it up. I can’t tell how he was put in. I never stepped off the floor into the bay. I thought I should have died where I was. The Captain said to Taylor, well done boy, I’ll give you another glass or two of brandy. Captain said to me, ‘I’ll give you anything. Damn your body, don’t you never split.’ They were all four present – we all parted at that and went off. He darkened his lantern. The Captain, Taylor and Banks went towards Oddingley and I went to bed. The whole was not half an hour about. Heming’s clothes were all on. Heming did not say anything. There was no blood, not a spot on the floor. Nothing more was done that night.

  On the morrow [26 June] I was at Pershore Fair. George Banks came to me in the afternoon at the Plough at Pershore about four or five o’clock and called me up an entry towards the privy, and said here’s some money for you that Heming was to have. Mr John Barnett was with Banks, and Banks and Barnett each of them gave me some money which I did not count till I got home, both saying to me when they gave it, ‘be sure you don’t split.’ There was no more said about it that night. It was in two parcels, it was between £26 and £27 in all. I put it all in one pocket. This was to have taken Heming off as Banks and Barnett informed me.

  I was at Captain Evans’ a few days afterward. The Captain Evans sent for me, by my son John, a boy then about 7 years old. When I got there I found the Captain alone. He said to me, if you will but keep your peace you shall never want for £5. There’s £5 for you any time if you will but keep your peace. But I never received any money from him afterwards.

  On the same day Catherine Banks came to me while in the parlour in the Captain’s house, and went down on her knees and begged and prayed of me, not to say anything as she feared the Captain Evans had been doing a bad job and she was afraid if I spoke some of them would come to be hanged. I promised not to say anything.

  Captain Evans had a sale some years af
terward and he said to me at the sale if you want anything at the sale I shall make you a present of a trifle. I purchased a mare at the sale for £22 or there abouts. In the evening of the sale Mr Handy the auctioneer asked me to settle for the mare and the Captain Evans said to Mr Handy there is a settlement between Clewes and me and he can settle with me for the mare. But I was never asked for the money.

  In about nine or ten days, more or less, after Heming was knocked on the head the Captain Evans asked me to put some soil in the barn, where Heming was buried at Netherwood Farm. I hauled a good many loads to the barn doors to rise it as I might draw it into the barn better and some was put into both the bays and another barn as well, many loads to each of the doors. After it was done the Captain asked me if it was done. I told him it was, and the Captain said he was very glad of it. Mr John Barnett some time after that, and before I left Netherwood Farm, lent me £100, part of which is owing to him at this time. I gave a bond or note of hand for it and he might have been paid out of my effects when I assigned them over to Mr Waterson, if he had seen after it. The money was lent to me after the murder of Heming. But I borrowed some before that.

  Some time after the parson was shot, Taylor was put to gaol from what a man by the name of Rowe said, about the murder of Mr Parker. Captain Evans and John Barnett were had up, and examined but George Banks never was. Captain Evans asked me to bind myself with an oath which he would administer, he being a magistrate.

  The magistrates’ office was silent as Clewes spoke. For around an hour his narrative progressed with eerie confidence, transporting those present away from their bleak surroundings to Oddingley on 25 June 1806, from Netherwood to Church Farm and then back to the old brick barn where the murder had been committed. Each of Clewes’ words was selected carefully. He delivered the ‘horrible detail with perfect firmness12 and in an unfaltering tone throughout’, it was later declared. For William Smith and the other officials crammed into the magistrates’ room it was a staggering account – unequalled in length, depth and colour by anything they had heard before.