The Jacobite Murders

by G. M. Best

  ‘Then the mystery certainly thickens,’ responded Fielding. ‘Why on earth would Lord Kearsley choose to break into his own family home on two successive nights? And why would he wish to kill his father’s housekeeper? And who has now murdered him?’

  ‘I assume it was the same person who struck John unconscious and locked him in a cupboard,’ interrupted Jones.

  ‘And could that be the man without a thumb who threatened Miss Grey?’ added Lady Overbury. ‘The man who has been killed has no such deformity.’

  ‘I see no point in speculation at this stage, your ladyship,’ commented Nash. He looked at her half-dressed condition and determined to introduce some order into the proceedings. ‘This must all have come as a terrible shock and I think that you should return upstairs to your maid and try and get some rest in bed while I see to the removal of Lord Kearsley’s body. Rest assured. They say that every cloud has a silver lining. In this case the status of the victim will ensure that our magistrates take the matter very seriously and more so than when I reported Miss Grey’s murder.’

  ‘I can assure you that rest is out of the question given what has happened, but I will retire to my bedroom so that the body can be removed and I can dress appropriately. I would then like to discuss with you in more detail what might have happened here.’

  He bowed politely. ‘As you wish, madam.’

  Lady Overbury returned to her room and Sarah Darr began assisting her to dress but in a very clumsy fashion because of her agitated state. She looked like a frightened rabbit caught in the glare of a poacher’s lantern. Her increasingly exasperated mistress finally ordered her out of the room, saying she would be better served by her tending to the injured Burnett. Lady Overbury completed her own toilet, surprised at how shaky she felt. The second death weighed heavily on her, even though she had never met Lord Kearsley. What could she possibly say to Sir Robert? It was bad enough that his long-serving housekeeper had been murdered, but his son’s death would be a devastating blow!

  It seemed an eternity, but it must only have been a couple of hours later that Tom Jones knocked on her door to say that, if she still wished to see them, Nash and Fielding were awaiting her in the drawing room below. Lady Overbury told him to tell them that she would be down almost immediately. When she entered the room, the two men rose courteously to greet her. ‘Well, gentlemen, have you any light to shed on this matter?’ she asked.

  Henry Fielding was the first to reply, but he did so with a look of embarrassment written across his face. ‘I regret to inform you, Lady Overbury, that Mr Nash has talked to Tom Jones and he is not content with his story about what happened here earlier this morning.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I find the idea of two intruders in one evening a little far fetched! It would make more sense to me if either John Burnett or Tom Jones had killed Lord Kearsley.’

  Lady Overbury’s mind struggled to come to terms with the implications of his comment. ‘I do not understand, sir,’ she said.

  ‘I am sorry if I upset you by what I say, but I wish to offer you an alternative version of events, Lady Overbury. The angle of the bullet that killed Lord Kearsley indicates it is likely that he was shot by someone who was standing above him on the staircase. I would suggest that Mr Burnett heard the noise of an intruder and, coming down the stairs, fired at him. When he saw that the dead man was no petty criminal but a finely dressed gentleman, he panicked. Rather than face a murder charge, he persuaded his friend, Mr Jones, to provide him with an alibi. It was therefore not a second intruder but Mr Jones who hit Mr Burnett and then locked him up in the kitchen cupboard. Mr Jones then ran upstairs to arouse the house as if he had been in his bedroom when the killing took place.’

  Lady Overbury was sufficiently astute to recognize that Nash’s account could be true, but her emotions told her it was false. ‘I grant you that what you say is possible,’ she replied, ‘but I refuse to believe that they would deceive me in this way.’

  ‘I am not implying that they plotted a murder, your ladyship. I am merely suggesting that Mr Burnett may have shot Lord Kearsley by accident and understandably feared the consequences of his action. Hence the contrived tale designed to make us believe that another intruder was responsible.’

  ‘I am sure that John Burnett is not always straightforward in his dealings with others,’ intervened Fielding, ‘but I can assure you that Tom Jones is as honest a lad as you could possibly wish to meet. I would not have entrusted Lady Overbury to his or Burnett’s care had I not been entirely certain of Jones’s integrity as well as his courage. I knew that he would more than make up for any shortcomings on Burnett’s part. I assure you that from my perspective he will be telling us the truth and so I believe that there was someone else in this house. Moreover, I think that there may be a way I can prove it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I suggest we engage in a search for the murder weapon. There has been no time to dispose of it. If we cannot find a gun we can assume an outside murderer took it with him.’

  Beau Nash immediately saw the sense in Fielding’s suggestion. ‘I will instigate a search with Lady Overbury’s permission.’

  ‘I grant you permission, but I think you are wasting precious time while the real murderer is escaping. Tell me what you both know about Lord Kearsley. I think that might prove a more fruitful line of enquiry.’

  ‘Lord Kearsley has been building up a bad reputation for himself in recent months by mixing with some notoriously immoral men,’ replied Nash, ‘and he is therefore regarded as the black sheep of his family. It is possible that Sir Robert may not be distraught at the news of his son’s murder because Lord Kearsley was ruining the family’s reputation by openly supporting the restoration of the House of Stuart to the English crown. Had the young man not disappeared a couple of weeks ago, he would almost certainly have been arrested for treason.’

  ‘The poor lad must have had his head entirely turned to be so rash!’ sighed Lady Overbury. ‘It is almost sixty years since this country deposed King James II for his shameful Catholic beliefs. I am aware that there are some in Scotland who have risen to support the House of Stuart and that the rebels have seized control of Edinburgh, but Lord Kearsley should have known there is no demand in England to replace our Protestant King George with either the son or grandson of that long removed monarch.’

  ‘Bravely said, your ladyship, but I regret to say that it is not as straightforward as that,’ replied Henry Fielding. ‘When the father of our current king was invited to become our monarch there were Englishmen who were prepared to take up arms for the House of Stuart and call themselves Jacobite after the Latin word for James that once was inscribed on our coinage. Surely you have not forgotten the Rebellion of 1715?’

  ‘No, I have not, though I was but a young girl when it happened. But the rebellion occurred at a time when we were offering the crown to a German prince who did not even speak English. Even in that situation most people rejected the Pretender’s claim to the throne. Thirty years have passed since then and the House of Hanover is now accepted in this country.’

  ‘Would it were that simple!’ continued Fielding. ‘There are more than you think who still raise a secret glass to the so-called “king over the water” and there are enough of them to breed a dangerous hope among this country’s enemies that there will be another Jacobite rising. As you know, that Old Pretender has a son to whom the Highlanders in Scotland have now sworn allegiance. They have named him Bonnie Prince Charlie. We ignore this Young Pretender at our peril. When he left Italy and arrived last spring in Paris, he managed to obtain from King Louis XV a promise of between twelve and twenty thousand French soldiers to help put either himself or his father on the English throne.’

  ‘I have heard of the French king’s perfidy but I do not understand why he has chosen to support the Young Pretender.’

  ‘I can assure you that it is not for any love of the House of Stuart,’ commented Fielding. ‘It is purely because the French
want to see this nation embroiled in a civil war. For the past thirty years our Hanoverian monarchy has been entangling this country in the affairs of Europe and, as you will be aware, this has led us to support the Austrian empress in her war against the French. King Louis XV sees support for the Young Pretender as a way of getting back at us – a useful diversion that will prevent us continuing to be a nuisance to him.’

  ‘But any action the French take will serve only to unite us,’ retorted Lady Overbury.

  Beau Nash could not help but admire her loyal words, but he felt it essential that she should understand the reality of the political situation. With a grim face he continued, ‘When news first came of the French army gathering at Dunkirk, our government passed a loyal address to King George II, but there would still have been a civil war had the French army landed here. That is why the government breathed a sigh of relief when a storm wreaked havoc on the fleet that had assembled to carry the French soldiers across the Channel. So many ships were lost that King Louis XV had to abandon his plan.’

  Lady Overbury’s face went white with shock at this startling information. Fielding gently took her hand in his. ‘And the danger is not over yet,’ he said softly. ‘No one expected the Young Pretender to land in Scotland this summer. Nor did we think that the Highlanders would rally to the cause of a man who literally arrived with only a few men at his side.’

  ‘But surely the fact that he has only a Scottish rabble behind him means that any danger to England is over,’ responded Lady Overbury, her natural optimism asserting itself.

  ‘No, I am afraid not,’ replied Fielding immediately. ‘In some respects he has now proved a greater danger because he has come without the French. Many in England might join him who might not have done had he come with an army of foreigners.’

  ‘Yes,’ added Beau Nash. ‘By all accounts this traitorous prince possesses the attributes that easily win over hearts. He is tall and handsome in appearance and courteous and good-humoured in manner. Much therefore now depends on how quickly we can crush the Highlanders who have rallied to his cause. It is a huge blow that Edinburgh has fallen to them already.’

  ‘And what has all this to do with Lord Kearsley?’

  ‘The Young Pretender is keen to know on which Englishmen he can rely if he invades England from Scotland. We believe that Lord Kearsley may have been drawing up a list of those who would join the Prince. The authorities will therefore be glad to hear that they need not concern themselves anymore about his treasonable activities. I am tempted to see it as a good omen that he was killed on this particular day.’ Lady Overbury and Henry Fielding looked puzzled. ‘Have you forgotten that today is the fifth of November, the day we recall the death of that other traitor, Guy Fawkes?’

  ‘I’m not sure I would remind anyone of that connection,’ said Fielding. ‘It might also encourage them to recall that the gunpowder plotters held meetings in Bath. We do not want anyone to view Lord Kearsley’s presence here as evidence that the city once again acts as host to treason.’

  Lady Overbury expressed her confusion. ‘Why should that connection be made when the two events are so far apart in time?’

  ‘Because of what happened here in Bath at the time of the first Jacobite Rebellion in 1715.’

  ‘Aye, and I thought I had erased the memory of it!’ muttered Nash.

  The puzzled Lady Overbury looked at both men and saw that they were obviously deeply worried. ‘I do not understand,’ she said. ‘Please explain.’

  Nash and Fielding exchanged glances and Nash spoke first. ‘At the time of the last rebellion information came into the hands of the government that the Jacobites were intending to use either Bristol or Bath as a potential rendezvous for the rebels in the southwest after the Old Pretender had landed with a French army in Plymouth. Troops were sent to ensure that this did not happen. Some were placed under the command of the Earl of Berkeley, who was Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, and he used them to seize control of Bristol. Other troops were placed under the command of Major General George Wade, a distinguished soldier who had served under the Duke of Marlborough in the wars against France. It was Wade’s deputy, a man called Colonel Pocock, who uncovered a Jacobite arms cache here in Bath. It contained enough swords and guns to equip at least two hundred men, plus a mortar, three cannon and moulds to create more. Two hundred horses were also seized. This was sufficient for Pocock to declare that Bath was the main Jacobite centre in the west.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘As you know, the Jacobite rebellion ended in fiasco. The Old Pretender abandoned landing in Plymouth and instead went to Scotland. The Highlanders there rallied to his cause – just as they are rallying to the young prince this year - but they were soundly defeated. Unfortunately Bath’s attempts to distance itself from Jacobitism were undermined when a second Jacobite arms cache was discovered at Badminton in 1718.’

  ‘Why should that be linked to Bath?’

  ‘Because Badminton was the home of the Duke of Beaufort and he was a well-known figure in Bath,’ interjected Fielding.

  ‘It was very fortunate for this city that my friend Ralph Allen managed to persuade Major General Wade to come and live here and become our MP,’ continued Beau Nash. ‘Wade’s presence put an end to rumours that might otherwise have ruined the ability of this city to attract visitors.’

  A lesser woman might have been overwhelmed by the information being thrown at her, but Lady Overbury’s response was to want to know more. ‘How was Mr Allen able to persuade a big military figure like Wade to come to Bath? I thought that he was just the man responsible for discovering the architectural talents of John Wood and promoting the use of Bath stone as a building material?’

  ‘Back then Ralph Allen was a deputy postmaster in Bath,’ responded Nash. ‘The service operated from the disused church of St Michael near the Westgate. He used his position to betray the Jacobite correspondence and in particular the role that had been played by Sir William Wyndham, the chief Jacobite in the west, and by his friend, Lord Lansdowne, whose seat is at Longleat. Both these lords were arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Wade rewarded Allen by making him the country’s Postmaster General. The wealth that he derived from this role enabled him to purchase the limestone quarries at Combe Down and to start the rebuilding of Bath.’

  ‘In short,’ interposed Fielding, ‘this city’s prosperity has rested on Mr Allen and General Wade establishing that Bath no longer has any link to Jacobitism. The idea that Lord Kearsley may have been working under cover in the city could easily undo their work overnight.’

  ‘I now see, gentlemen, why you are concerned.’

  ‘If we are to prevent harmful gossip, we have to find out as quickly as possible why Lord Kearsley came secretly to Bath and stole into his father’s house like a thief.’

  ‘And why he killed Miss Grey,’ added Lady Overbury.

  ‘If he did,’ said Beau Nash.

  ‘But a button from his coat was found in her hand!’

  ‘It could have been planted there to mislead us. The man with a missing thumb may be behind the deaths of both victims.’

  Whilst Lady Overbury was coming to terms with this latest concept Tom Jones burst into the room, looking distinctly frightened. ‘I think the murderer may be locked in one of the rooms upstairs,’ he exclaimed. ‘I decided to return and have a short sleep in my room and, as I started going up the spiral staircase, I realized that there was someone ahead of me. I shouted and the person turned and ran up the stairs. I followed as quickly as I could and the person darted through the door of one of the rooms on the second floor.’

  ‘But that is impossible! All those doors are locked and no one here has a key.’

  ‘I am afraid that is not the case, Lady Overbury. When I tried to follow I heard a key turn on the other side of the door and the intruder thus blocked me entering.’

  ‘My apologies, your ladyship,’ said Beau Nash, ‘I was obviously wrong in thinking it
unlikely that there should be two intruders.’

  ‘We must apprehend him,’ interposed Fielding. ‘You and I may be old but, with Tom’s help, I am sure we three can break down a door and catch our man.’

  ‘I’m not sure it was a man, sir. The figure was cloaked. It could have been a woman.’

  ‘Man or woman, it does not signify. We just need to ensure that this murderer is caught!’

  They bade Lady Overbury stay downstairs, saying there was no way they could guarantee her safety against someone armed with a pistol. However, yet again she refused to comply with their wishes. She was insistent that they permit her to be present at the arrest of the mysterious intruder and the men reluctantly agreed. Jones led the way upstairs, followed by Nash and Fielding, and she brought up the rear. On their arrival on the landing outside the room Beau Nash took charge. ‘Come out!’ he commanded. There was no response. ‘Damn it, come out before we have to break this door down. You cannot escape!’ Again, there was no response. Nash beckoned to Jones and the two men charged at the door. Lady Overbury heard the wood splinter. Fielding replaced Nash and joined Jones in another charge. This time the lock shattered and the door swung back into the room. The three men entered followed closely by Lady Overbury, though it took her all her courage to do so. The room was full of covered furniture and storage boxes but there was no sign of any intruder.

  ‘I assure you, sirs, that I saw a person enter this room,’ said Jones.

  ‘Then we must search it and search it well. Unless the intruder can fly he or she cannot have escaped except by some secret passage.’

  After half an hour they gave up. They could find nothing. ‘I must leave and inform Mr Allen of what has happened,’ said Beau Nash. ‘I am expected at his house this afternoon because he is holding a big celebration at Prior Park to mark the fact it is Guy Fawkes Day.’

  ‘Yes, I also have an invitation,’ said Fielding.