He glared at Adams and Monument, and they had the good grace to look away. No. They had admired Thistlewood and did not wish to betray him.
But to his chagrin, Thistlewood now opened his mouth and declared, "My genius is so great just now, I don’t think there is any man alive has so great a genius as mine at the moment. If it is the will of the Author of the World that I should perish in the cause of freedom, His will, and not mine, be done! It would be quite a triumph to me!"
Alistair shook his head. "We are not martyring you for something you didn’t do! I demand that Edwards be brought forward to give an account of himself!"
Lord Eldon shook his head. "If this is your only defence for your client, then God help him."
Alistair pointed to Thistlewood now, who was hugging his own shoulders and bobbing back and forth in the dock. "Surely you can see the man is not well. Genius was another word for insanity in former times. Please, it’s evident that Thistlewood is not fit to stand trial and —"
"If he is fit to organise a rebellion, he can most certainly stand trial."
"But he didn’t originate it. Edwards did!" Alistair countered.
Eldon scowled. "He seems sane enough to me."
"Aye, sane," Alistair mocked. "This is the man who in 1817 wrote to Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, demanding payment of £180, the cost of the three tickets that he purchased for a trip to America to leave this country and its political woes behind. When Sidmouth failed to respond to the letter, Thistlewood challenged him to a duel.
"Sidmouth ordered Thistlewood’s arrest and he was charged with threatening a breach of the peace. Thistlewood was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment in Horsham Jail. Thistlewood wrote several letters to the Home Office complaining about the conditions in prison.
"One of his complaints was that three men had to share one bed and a cell measuring only seven feet by nine feet. The extreme poverty he was subjected to, and the appalling conditions at Horsham, must have addled his wits for him to behave so. He is harmless. It was Edwards who organised the weapons and grenades.
"I maintain that Thistlewood was taken in bed far away from Cato Street. So the burden of proof rests with you that he was involved.
"Therefore, you must produce Edwards. And if either Adams or Monument changes their testimony, when they have made no mention of Thistlewood before, then it will be proven that you want to be rid of these men by foul means, not fair. Thus you will be calling the entire British legal system into question and disrepute."
Eldon exploded then. "You go too far sir! I can have you arrested for contempt of court, sedition even!"
His ire would have made many a lesser man back down, but not Alistair Grant.
Viola held her breath as her husband returned coolly, "I want Edwards. He is the only witness to what you are claiming. Surely you cannot want to hang these men on the mere hearsay testimony of a single individual who isn’t even here! Who does not even dare face us to state what he claims to be true."
Eldon had the grace to look perturbed at this.
"Why will Edward not show his face? It is because he is afraid. And he knows, as with Castle, that once it is proven that he was an agent provocateur, these men will have to go free. He fears for his life, and possibly rightly so. But if he were any sort of decent Christian, he ought to fear for his soul."
Viola heaved a sigh of relief as she looked around at the jury and saw many of them swayed by Alistair’s passion and conviction.
The more Edwards stayed away, the more likely it was that there had been one vast conspiracy against the Spenceans, and the men would be released. Now they just had to wait, and pray.
But the next day, as Alistair had predicted, Adams and Monument changed their testimony, and also now asserted that Thistlewood had murdered the police constable Richard Smithers.
George Ruthven, the leader of the constables, came to testify to the same so-called facts. They also asserted that Thistlewood, John Brunt, Robert Adams and John Harrison escaped out of a window, but that they had evidence that all of them had clearly been there.
Alistair stared steadily at each and every one of these three new witnesses in a manner designed to be intimidating. "And how did you know the men by name? Or know to look for them?" he asked Ruthven.
"We were told—"
"Told by whom?"
He tried to avoid the trap of mentioning Edwards, only to land in another. "And I knew them personally, as did several of my colleagues."
"Really?" Alistair gave a smile reminiscent of a wolf, his eyes glittering. "And just how did you know them?"
"I, er, I have had call to come across them—"
Alistair gave a harsh laugh. "Oh really, is that what they call it? No, I would say it was attending meetings, pretending to be Spenceans. Pretending to be their friends. And all the while waiting to stab them in the back."
Gifford the prosecutor began to protest, but Alistair shouted above him, "And did you know Edwards was working for the Home Office? Oh come, don’t be coy. You reported on all the meetings! The magistrates have detailed accounts of all of the ones you attended.
"You’ve been a regular, fully paid up member of the Society of Spencean Philanthropists and attended their meetings faithfully at least once a week for the past two years or so, haven’t you, Mr. Ruthven. I have notes from your colleagues here who have just testified and helped assist with the arrests. You pretended to befriend these men. Got to know them, their lives, their families even. And all along you were just waiting like a spider in a web."
Alistair could see the jury members, to a man, looked shocked.
Viola shuddered. Could not the same be true of any of her own friends, including George? Pretending to be friends... And who amongst the Rakehells...
She dragged her terrified thoughts back to the testimony at hand and watched her husband doing his best to get at the truth. Her breath caught in her throat. She had never loved Alistair more than she did at that moment. And that was what was so astounding about their marriage: just when she thought she couldn’t love him more, he proved her wrong.
"Who gave out the descriptions of the men who had supposedly fled the loft?" Alistair asked as she stared at him, open-mouthed with desire. "I shall tell you. George Edwards. Lord Eldon, I respectfully request that you either produce this witness, or declare this trial at an end."
"I shall do as I like in my own courtroom," he rasped, his eyes glittering like a snake’s about to strike.
"Evidently." Alistair said with an ironic bow.
Eldon glared. "Next witness."
Alistair remained calm. "Very well. I call James Ings."
"But Mr. Ings is not on trial yet."
"No, my Lord, but he can serve as witness here for Mr. Thistlewood, who as the supposed leader of this alleged rebellion, is on trial for his life, and is setting the tone for the other trials to follow, including Mr. Ings’ own."
Gifford said, "I shall be happy to hear what he has to say," and gave a sickly smile which did not fool anyone in the court. He was sweating profusely even though the courtroom was not very warm.
Well, they had every reason to be nervous. Alistair roused was as tenacious as a terrier with a bone.
Viola repressed a small smile and sensual shiver at her recollection of just how single-minded he could be. And all the wonderful tricks he could do, especially with his bone. She suppressed the lewd thought as he began to examine Ings, and listened carefully to his testimony.
Gifford had every reason to regret agreeing to hear Ings. In fact, as he spoke further, the Attorney-General looked as though he were about to have apoplexy.
Eldon and Gifford gasped as Ings stood up in the dock and asserted in an unwavering voice, "George Edwards put the idea about Grosvenor Square into Thistlewood’s head in the first place. He, like Castle before him, was an agent provocateur who had helped organise the conspiracy down to the last detail."
Eldon tried to silence him, but Ali
stair shook his head. "You cannot gag the witness now that you have permitted him to speak."
"This is not relevant to—"
"It is very relevant! Again, it shows that Edwards was the guilty party, not Thistlewood!"
"He will say anything to avoid being executed!"
Alistair let out a harsh laugh. "Wouldn’t most people? But in this case it’s the truth. Will you not give him a fair trial and produce Edwards so these men do not have to be hung?"
A ripple of outrage ran around the courtroom, and Eldon could see that too much damage had been done to the Crown's case, and he had to back down.
"Continue, Mr. Ings, but make it brief," he commanded imperiously.
"Aye, I shall. The Attorney-General Gifford trying to prosecute us for these crimes knows Edwards personally. He knew all the plans for two months before I was acquainted with it.
"When I was before Lord Sidmouth, a gentleman said Lord Sidmouth knew all about this for two months. I consider myself murdered if Edwards is not brought forward. I am willing to die on the scaffold with him.
"I conspired to put Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth out of this world, but I did not intend to commit High Treason. I did not expect to save my own life, but I was determined to die a martyr in my country’s cause. Produce Edwards. He had been the author of this all."
Ings had maintained his dignity throughout, even as the jeers, catcalls and threats had increased in volume and the distressed exclamations of decent people had reached a crescendo. The accusation against Gifford hung heavy in the air.That he too could be so corrupt was unthinkable.
Eldon banged the gavel for a recess, and at last the court emptied.
Viola hugged Alistair to her in relief. "Oh, thank God. I pray this will be over soon."
Alistair stroked her cheek and then put her away from him, realising not everyone knew she was a woman, though most people sitting close enough to her had guessed.
Philip offered his hand. "Damned fine job."
Alistair shook his head grimly. "Don’t congratulate me yet. They have far more money and power, and corrupt reasons to use it. They’ll have more damning testimony made up out of whole cloth. We need to be prepared for the worst."
"You're winning, darling," Viola said with her most encouraging smile.
"Aye, the hearts and minds of the people, but I fear Eldon and Gifford are made of stone and will do anything to win."
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Gifford did indeed prove he was willing to do anything to win the trial. The corrupt Attorney-General produced twenty-five witnesses, none of them Edwards, who all swore to a man that Thistlewood had started the Cato Street conspiracy himself with no instigation from anyone else, and that he had murdered Smithers in cold blood.
Alistair was hamstrung as Eldon interfered with any serious attempt at cross-examination of the false witnesses being paraded out, and could only advise each liar to look to his own soul for having perjured himself in order to send an innocent man to his death.
He and Viola bunched their fists in impotent fury as Thistlewood was found guilty on the fourth day, and given the inevitable capital sentence.
Philip was so distressed, he looked as though he were going to weep. When Viola went outside at the end of the sentencing, sure she was going to be ill, she saw Philip remonstrating with a tall dark man swathed in a cloak. For a moment she was certain it was George.
But the man vanished into the crowd, and when she asked her colleague who he had been speaking to, Philip asserted that it was one of the clerks from the chambers, and refused to say more.
The next man to be tried the following day was Brunt. He had been singled out by Gifford in his opening speech, and was portrayed as the second leader, when of course everyone knew that Edwards had been the insitgator all along.
So try as Alistair might, without Edwards, the second trial rapidly went the way of the first.
John Brunt’s story was all too typical of these supposed revolutionaries, Viola realised to her chagrin. He was born in about 1790 and worked as a shoemaker. At first he was earning nearly fifty shillings a week.
However, during the post-war depression, his income had fallen dramatically, and his wife and child had had to exist on only ten shillings a week. Brunt and his family were forced to move to a squalid area of London called Fox Court.
Here Brunt met Richard Tidd, another shoemaker struggling to survive on a low wage. The two men shared an interest in politics, and by 1816 were both members of the Society of Spencean Philanthropists, along with Thistlewood, Watson, Ings, Preston and Hopper.
He had been in the group when the government had employed the spy John Castle to join the Spenceans and report on their activities. He repeated that story now, even when Eldon tried to suppress his testimony.
Viola listened sadly as Brunt said, "I had, by my industry, been able to earn about three or four pounds a week, and while this was the case, I never meddled with politics.
"But when I found my income reduced to ten shillings a week, I began to look around. And what did I find? Why, men in power, who met to deliberate how they might starve and plunder the country. I looked on the Manchester transactions as most dreadful. I joined the conspiracy for the public good. I will die as the descendant of an ancient Briton."
He too was found guilty.
Next was Ings’ turn, and the prosecution cleverly relied on the two traitors Adams and Monument to make sure they did not parade all twenty-five policemen through the witness box again. There were already rumblings of discontent about the first two convictions, and urgent demands for a new jury at the very least.
Adams’ testimony was particularly damning, no doubt to make up for all Ings had said about Edwards, in order to try to discredit it as much as possible.
According to Robert Adams, Ings volunteered to be the first one to enter the house as he wanted to say: ‘My Lords, I have as good men here as the Manchester yeomanry. Enter citizens and do your duty.’
Ings would be armed with a butcher’s knife, which was to be used to cut off the heads of Sidmouth and Castlereagh. Adams later claimed that Ings was put in charge of writing the proclamations that were to be distributed all over London after the successful overthrow of the government.
The planned message was: ‘Your tyrants are destroyed, the Friends of Liberty are called upon to come forward, as the Provisional Government is now sitting.’
Alistair ground his teeth audibly as Ings too was found guilty and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered.
"God, Philip, what are we going to do?" Alistair groaned that night at home by the fireplace in their drawingroom.
"I don’t know. All I can say is, something might turn up. We can only hope. They’re not dead yet. Anything can happen."
Alistair clasped his hands as if in prayer. "Like someone drops Edwards right in my lap. I wish I could believe in miracles. But we’re running out of time."
Viola snuggled up to his side and tried to soothe him by stroking his hair. "Perhaps a different tack? At this point we have nothing to lose."
Alistair sighed. "What can I try that I haven’t already? Without Edwards—"
"You can keep on mentioning him, but in the meantime, call the police constables in. Try to get them to say something inconsistent with what they’ve already gone down on record as saying. If the other three men were convicted on that testimony, and their statements are then called into question, we might be able to get a mis-trial."
Alistair nodded glumly.
"And try to get the jury on your side. Three scapegoats are quite enough. Then we can work on an appeal."
Both Alistair and Viola sighed. "They’ll never allow it."
"They will if sufficient new evidence comes to light," Philip asserted.
"If only," Viola sighed.
Philip gazed out the window stolidly. "We just have to keep hoping."
"We're running out of time," she said softly.
He nodded, and claspe
d his own hands as Alistair had done.
Viola hugged her husband around the waist, and prayed for another miracle for them all.
"Coming to bed, darling?" she asked when he made no move to return her embrace.
"Oh, aye, yes, gladly," he said, blinking and bestirring himself. "I'm sure I won't get a wink, but at least we'll be together, my love."
"That's all I could ever ask for," she said with a smile, though she couldn't help but wonder what their future held now that Alistair was prosecuting so volatile and high profile a case.
She felt as if danger were all around them, despite the snugness of their blue and gold bedchamber. She quickly undressed and drew her husband into the circle of her embrace as if it were the last time they would every make love. As if she would hold him to her hammering heart and never let him go….
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 5 Page 94
