Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in London's West End

by Geoffrey Howse

  Entrance to 72a Elizabeth Street, the basement flat where Lord Lucan was living at the time of the murder. The author

  On Friday 8 November, Lord Lucan’s car was found abandoned in Newhaven. In the boot was an empty US mail sack and a bludgeon made from the same lead piping as the one used to kill Sandra Rivett. Lord Lucan had disappeared, leaving no clues as to where he might have secreted himself. Despite numerous alleged sightings, all around the world, the missing peer’s whereabouts remain a mystery.

  Foul Murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, St James’s Square 1984

  A burst of automatic gunfire came from a first floor window.

  In 1984, the dignified town house, formerly the home of Nancy, Viscountess Astor (1879–1964), the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons, at 5 St James’s Square, was occupied by the Libyan People’s Bureau. In April of that year anti-Gadaffi Libyans demonstrated outside the People’s Bureau, against the Colonel’s regime. The police were marshalling the rival factions in an attempt to prevent them clashing, by placing metal barriers at strategic points. On Tuesday 17 April, a burst of automatic gunfire came from a first floor window. Several anti-Gadaffi demonstrators were injured and WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who was on crowd control duty, was killed outright. Her colleagues recovered her body and the square was sealed off. For four days WPC Fletcher’s hat lay in the gutter where it had rolled. The diplomatic status of those responsible for murdering WPC Fletcher meant that the occupants of the Libyan People’s Bureau were flown back to Libya. A memorial to the fallen policewoman was erected at the spot where she fell, the first such monument of its type.

  5 St James’s Square, which was occupied by the Libyan People’s Bureau in 1984, when WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot. The author

  The memorial to WPC Yvonne Fletcher, erected at the spot where she fell in St James’s Square. The author

  CHAPTER 2

  Gunpowder Treason and Plot 1605

  A watch, slow matches and touchwood, were found upon his person and a dark lantern with a light in it was discovered in a corner, presumably in readiness to light the fuses.

  The Gunpowder Plot was the reaction of a group of Catholic gentlemen to the bitter disappointment of failing to obtain relief from the anti-Catholic laws. The conspirators, of which there were twelve, were recruited by Robert Catesby, a Warwickshire landowner of good family, who recruited Guido Fawkes (better known as Guy), from York. Guido Fawkes was born on 16 April 1570, the son of Edward Fawkes, an advocate and notary, who lies buried in York Minster. He died when Guy was very young. Guy Fawkes was Protestant. His mother remarried and Guy was orphaned at eight. He was brought up by his stepfather, Denis Bainbridge, who if not a Catholic himself, brought Guy into contact with important Catholic families and Guy quickly became a Catholic convert. He served in the Spanish army in Flanders, in the Spanish wars against the Dutch, where he gained a high reputation for courage, fidelity, resolution and secrecy.

  Conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot. Author’s collection.

  King James I. Author’s collection.

  Since the beginning of his reign in March 1603, James I had been put under pressure to grant greater Catholic toleration. This he was not prepared to do. In the belief that it would further their cause, the conspirators planned to blow up the King and members of both houses of Parliament at the state opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605. In May 1604 they rented a house adjacent to the Palace of Westminster and painstakingly dug a tunnel through to the cellars beneath the House of Lords. A cellar was filled with barrels of gunpowder, which had been so positioned as to, when ignited, have devastating effect.

  One of the conspirators, aware of the dreadful carnage that would result from the mighty explosion caused by such a large quantity of gunpowder, decided to warn his brother-in-law, a Catholic peer, Lord Monteagle, to avoid the state opening. The letter, said to be in an unknown hand, was received by Lord Monteagle on 26 October, it read:

  My lord, out of the love I beare to some of youere frendz I have a caer of youer preservacion. Therefor I would advyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyf to devys some epscuse to shift of youer attendance at this parliament. For god and man hathe concurred to punishe the wickedness of this tyme. And thinke not slightly of this advertisement but retiere youre self into youre contri wheare yoiue maye espect the event in safti. For thowghe theare be no appearance of anai stir yet I ave [r] they shall recevue a terrible bloue this parliament and yet they shall not seie who hurts them. This cowncel is not to be contemned because it maye do yowe good and can do yowe no harme for dangere is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the letter. And I hope god will give yowe the grace to mak good use of it: to whose holy protection I commend yowe.

  To the right honorable

  The Lord Monteagle

  Lord Monteagle alerted the Secretary of State, the Earl of Salisbury, to this intelligence that same night. He showed the letter to some of the Privy Council but they could make nothing of it. Lord Salisbury said he thought there might be something in it as the information seemed to correspond with some he had received from abroad, that the papists were preparing to deliver a petition for greater toleration, which would be so well backed that the King would be loth to refuse. It seemed like a veiled threat. However, as the King was out of London, it was decided to take no action until he returned. On being informed of the letter the King decided that some kind of plot was afoot to endanger himself and Parliament at the state opening. He ordered that a search of the House of Lords should be made but not until the night of the 4 November, the eve before the state opening. Shortly before midnight on 4 November, Sir Thomas Knevet led a search party. Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellar, along with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. A watch, slow matches and touchwood, were found upon his person and a dark lantern with a light in it was discovered in a corner, presumably in readiness to light the fuses. Fawkes was bound hand and foot and after the council had been summoned, they joined the King in his bedchamber and Fawkes was taken there. When the King asked him:

  Why would you have killed me?

  Seventeenth century engraving by Wenceslas Hollar of Westminster, from the River Thames showing Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament. Author’s collection.

  Fawkes replied:

  Because you are excommunicated by the Pope.

  Surprised by his reply the King enquired:

  How so?

  Fawkes replied:

  Every Maundy Thursday, the Pope doth excommunicate all heretics, who are not of the Church of Rome; and you are within the same excommunication.

  After a greater part of the night had been spent questioning him, Fawkes was taken to the Tower of London, where he was incarcerated in the vaults of the White Tower, which also contained the torture chamber, which was soon to be put to use. Meanwhile, several of the conspirators, including Catesby, were on their way to Warwickshire. Others connected with the plot were caught in flagrante delicto and arrested. The plot having being discovered, Catesby was unable to summon help from his brother Catholics and decided to make a last stand at Holbeach, along with his fellow conspirators who had fled with him, as Sir Richard Walsh, High Sheriff of Worcestershire, closed in on them with three hundred men. In the last desperate fight Catesby was killed and those conspirators that survived were brought to London.

  The arrest of Guy Fawkes. Author’s collection

  The King himself wrote the warrant permitting torture, allowing Fawkes to be tortured gently at first and then et sic per gradus ad mia tenditur (and so on step by step to the limit), and in the days and weeks that followed Fawkes and other conspirators were shown no mercy as important information was extracted from them. The extent of suffering that must have been endured by Fawkes is no more clearly illustrated than by comparing his signatures before and after torture. One of the ringleaders, Francis Trensham, already seriously ill before his imprisonment and enduring much pain, died in the Tower, on 23 December 1605.

  On 27 January
1606 the conspirators were brought by barge from the Tower of London to Westminster Hall, where they were arraigned before six earls, Lord Chief Justice Popham, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Thomas Fleury, and Justices Walmis and Warburton. Sir Everard Digby was immediately separated from the rest as he pleaded guilty to the charges. The remaining seven pleaded not guilty to the long indictment, which attributed the Gunpowder Plot’s origin to the Jesuits. The prisoners were not called upon to speak as it was considered there was no possible line of defence. While the jury was out, the Court began the trial of Sir Everard Digby.

  King James I hawking. Author’s collection.

  Sir Everard made an admirable speech, which began by laying out his motives for his actions. He went on to make several requests. He said that as he alone was guilty, he alone should be punished and not his wife, nor any of his family. His son should inherit and his sisters should get that which was held in trust for them by himself. His final request was to ask pardon of the King and Court for his admitted guilt. He asked that his death would be sufficient punishment and that he might face death honourably by being beheaded. As the jury returned with a guilty verdict on the other seven, it mattered not what either Sir Everard or any of the others said. The same terrible sentence of half-hanging, unspeakable mutilation and exposure of the remains was pronounced.

  After the prisoners had been condemned, they were taken back to the Tower by torchlight. Only two days were allowed for preparation to die. They were to be executed in two batches. Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, John Grant and Thomas Bates, to be executed first in St Paul’s churchyard and Ambrose Rokewood, Thomas Winter, Robert Keyes and Guido Fawkes, were to die the following day at Westminster. No reason was given for dividing the Winter brothers at their executions.

  On the first day of the executions, 30 January, the prisoners were drawn upon sledges and hurdles to the western end of St Paul’s churchyard. The City had gone to great lengths to ensure that the spectacle of the occasion would be an imposing one. The Lord Mayor issued instructions to the alderman of each ward in the City to ensure that one able person, with a halberd in his hand was standing in the doorway of every dwelling house that marked the route the prisoners would be drawn on their way to the scaffold. The men standing guard should remain there from 7 am until the return of the sheriff. Sir Everard Digby died first. The executioner was merciless. Sir Edward was cut down very quickly from his half-hanging and was fully conscious and alert during his public castration and disembowelling. The severing of the privy parts had been introduced during the reign of Elizabeth I, thought up by her supporters as an additional indignity inflicted on those who had conspired against her. He suffered the terrible ordeal with great bravery and was much admired by the crowd. Robert Winter deprived the crowd of any enjoyment as he rushed up the ladder and threw himself off, dying a swift death before any further indignities could be inflicted upon his live body, as death released him from any such pain. Grant too was rapidly dispatched. Before he died, Bates professed complete penitence. He said it was his love of Master Catesby that had caused him to forget his duty to God, King and Country.

  On the next day, the remaining conspirators were dragged on sledges from the Tower to the old palace in Westminster, opposite the Parliament House. As the long procession passed through the Strand, Rokewood’s wife, Elizabeth, watched from the window of her lodgings. As her husband passed by, he called out to her:

  Pray for me.

  His highly devout wife answered:

  I will. Be of good courage and offer thyself wholly to God. For my part, I do as freely restore thee to God as He gave thee unto me.

  The execution of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, Old Palace Yard, Westminster. Author’s collection.

  Winter was the first to be brought to the scaffold. He said very little but proclaimed he died a true Catholic. On the scaffold Rokewood firstly offended the crowd by praying God to make the King a good Catholic and secondly robbed them of their enjoyment by dying at what was to be his half-hanging before his butchery. Keyes came next and finally Fawkes, who was so weak with torture and sickness that the executioner had to assist him up the ladder. It was intended to inflict upon the man who was allegedly the greatest villain of them all, every torture that had been prescribed in the sentence to its full effect. He cheated the executioner and the crowd out of any pleasure they might have derived from seeing him suffer, as his neck was broken at once, and it was his dead body that the indignities were inflicted upon.

  Such was the significance of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot that it was declared that 5 November should be a festival thereafter. The popular nursery rhyme, penned by a long forgotten hand has been recited down the generations to the present day:

  Remember remember the fifth of November

  Gunpowder, treason and plot,

  I see no reason why gunpowder treason

  Should ever be forgot.

  The Thanksgiving Service for the deliverance of November 5 was not removed from the Prayer Book until 1854; and the anniversary which today we continue to celebrate on ‘Bonfire Night’, 5 November, with bonfires, effigies of Guy Fawkes and firework displays, was, until well into the nineteenth century marked with anti-Catholic demonstrations. In commemoration of the events of 1605, a search is still made of the cellars beneath the House of Lords on the eve of each state opening of Parliament, when ten yeoman of the guard conduct a search, carrying lanterns.

  CHAPTER 3

  Execution of Charles I Whitehall, 1649

  At the instant when the blow was given there was such a dismal, universal groan among the people as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again.

  Andrew Broughton, the clerk of the court rose and read the sentence:

  The said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer and a public enemy, shall be put to death by the severing of his head from his body.

  The King was visibly shocked by the sudden ending of the trial and his request to be allowed to reply was refused, he called out loudly to John Bradshaw, President of the High Court of Justice, ‘Will you hear me a word, Sir?’ Bradshaw replied, ‘You are not to be heard after the sentence.’ He ordered the guard to take the King away with the words ‘Guard, withdraw your prisoner.’ His Majesty called out ‘I may speak after the sentence, by your favour, Sir. By your favour, hold! The sentence, Sir – I say, Sir, I do –’ As the soldiers moved in to drag the King away, if necessary, His Majesty said resignedly, ‘I am not suffered for to speak: expect what justice other people will have.’ The King left Westminster Hall to shouts of Execution! Justice! Execution! As the King left some of the soldiers blew smoke in his face, when one cried out ‘God bless you, sir!’ the soldier was struck with a cane by an officer. During his trial, the King had been lodged in Cotton House, the Westminster home of Sir Robert Cotton. It was a handsome mansion with a garden running down to the River Thames, and conveniently situated near Westminster Hall, a place easily guarded and one which could be safely cordoned off. However, on leaving Westminster Hall this final time, the King was hurriedly conveyed in a closed sedan chair along King Street to Whitehall Palace. Troops lined the entire route, all the while the sedan chair being watched by hordes of silent people from the street, windows and rooftops. The King entered the palace on foot through the Privy Garden, and between his guards he noticed a faithful old servant weeping. His Majesty said, ‘You may forbid their attendance, but not their tears.’

  John Bradshaw(1602–59), who presided at the trial of Charles I. Author’s collection

  Westminster Hall. Author’s collection.

  The 150 Commissioners who had attended the trial and who were also responsible for deciding on a place of execution for the King and of ratifying his death warrant, opted for a site immediately outside the royal Banqueting House. The Moderate, a weekly newspaper that commenced publication during the summer of 1648, in its issue for 23–30 January, hailed their choice saying that this was the very place where Charles
had first drawn his sword against his people:

  The King’s party, the day the citizens came down to cry for justice against Strafford, killed one of the citizens and wounded many, being the first blood spilt in this quarrel.

  The Trial of King Charles I, Westminster Hall, January 1649. Author’s collection

  However, in this The Moderate was inaccurate in its reporting of the events of May 1641, perhaps deliberately so. For when the London apprentices had massed outside Whitehall Palace, egged on by those parliamentarians who were rallying against the King’s authority, in screaming for Strafford’s (the King’s chief minister) execution, the King’s party did not retaliate. It was some seven months later during the Christmas revelries that the royal guards had clashed with some Puritan citizens, and although a few were injured, none had been killed. The choice for the King’s place of execution had nothing whatever to do with the events suggested in The Moderate. The Commissioners’ choice was purely a matter of convenience and security. This choice of a place of execution for the King is no better described than in Dame C V Wedgewood’s description in The Trial of Charles I: