Volume I
|
THE MURDERER OF MR THYNN in his study, where we were alone, related to me how much he had been scandalized and injured in the report of his being privy to the marriage of his Lady's niece, the rich young widow of the late Lord Ogle, sole daughter of the Earl of Northumberland; showing me a letter of Mr. Thynn's excusing himself for not communicating his marriage to his Lordship. He acquainted me also with the whole story of that unfortunate lady being betrayed by her grandmother, the Countess of Northumberland, and Colonel Bret, for money; and that though, upon the importunity of the Duke of Monmouth he had delivered to the grandmother a particular of the jointure which Mr. Thynn pretended he would settle on the lady, yet he totally discouraged the proceeding, as by no means a competent match for one that both by birth and fortune might have pretended to the greatest prince in Christendom ; that he also proposed the Earl of Kingston, or the Lord Cranburn, but was no means for Mr Thynn. "March 10th, 1682. -- This day was executed Colonel Vrats, and some of his accomplices, for the execrable murder of Mr. Thynn, set on by the principal Koningsmark. He went to execution like an undaunted hero, as one that had done a friendly office for that base coward, Count Koningsmark, who had hopes to marry his widow, the rich Lady Ogle, and was acquitted by a corrupt jury, and so got away. Vrats told a friend of mine who accompanied him to the gallows, and gave him some advice, that he did not value dying of a rush, and hoped and believed God would deal with him like a gentleman. Never man went, so unconcerned for his sad fate. March 24th. I went to see the corpse of that obstinate creature Colonel Vrats, -- the King permitting that his body should be transported to his own country, he being of a good family, and one of the first embalmed by a particular art, invented by one William Russell, a coffin-maker, which preserved the body without disbowelling, or to appearance using any bitu- minous matter. The flesh was florid, soft, and full, as if the person were only sleeping. He had now been dead near fifteen days, and lay exposed in a very rich coffin lined with lead, too magnificent for so daring and horrid a murderer." The Diary of John Evelyn. MURDERERS OF MR THYNN had taken place in England for some time. Mr. Thynne, a gentleman of 9,000L a year -- lately married to my Lady Ogle, who, repenting of the match, had fled from him into Holland before they were bedded -- was set upon by three ruffians, and shot to death as he was coming along the street in his coach. He being one deeply engaged in the Duke of Monmouth's interest, it was much feared what construction might be made of it by that party -- the authors escaping and not known. I was at Court that evening, when the King hearing the news, seemed much concerned at it, not only for the horror of the action itself, to which his good nature was very averse, but also apprehending the ill constructions which the anti-Court party might make of it. “At eleven o'clock the same night, as I was going into bed, Mr. Thynne's gentleman came to me to grant a hue-and-cry, and soon after the Duke of Monmouth's page, to desire me to come to his master at Mr. Thynne's lodging, sending his coach to fetch me. I found him surrounded with several gentlemen and lords, friends to Mr. Thynne, and Mr. Thynne mortally wounded by five bullets, which had entered his belly and side, shot from a blunderbuss. I granted immediately several warrants to search for persons suspected to be privy to the design, and that might give some intelligence of the parties that had acted that murder. At the last by intelligence from a chairman that had the same afternoon conveyed one of the ruffians from his lodging in Westminster to take horse at the Black Bull, and by a woman that used to visit that gentleman, the constables found out his lodging in Westminster, and there took his man, a Swede, who being brought before me, at last confessed that he served a gentleman, a German captain, who had told him that he had a quarrel with Mr. Thynne, and had often appointed him to watch his coach as he passed by ; and particularly, that day, so soon as the captain did know the coach was gone by, he had booted himself, and with two others -- a Swedish lieutenant and a Polander -- gone, as he supposed, in quest of Mr. Thynne on horseback. By this servant I further understood, where possibly the captain and his two friends might be found; and after having searched several houses with the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Mordaunt, and others, as he directed us, till six o'clock in the morning, having been in chase almost the whole night, I personally took the captain at the house of a Swedish doctor in Leicester Fields, I going first into the room, followed by my Lord Mordaunt. I found him in bed, and his sword at some distance from him upon the table, which I first seized, and afterwards his person, committing him to two constables. I wondered to see him yield up himself so tamely, being certainly a man of great courage, for he appeared unconcerned from the beginning, notwith standing he was very certain to be found the chief actor in the tragedy. This gentleman had not long before commanded the forlorn hope at the siege of Mons, where only two besides himself, of fifty under his command, came off with life. For which the Prince of Orange made him a lieutenant in his guards, and the King of Sweden gave him afterwards a troop of horse. “Several persons suspected for accessories and the two accomplices -- viz., the Swedish lieutenant and the Polander (whose names were Stern and Borosky, and the captain's name Fratz) -- were soon after taken by con- stables with my warrant, and brought to my house, where, before I could finish all the examinations, the King sent for me to attend him in Council, which was called on purpose for that occasion, with the prisoners and papers. His Majesty ordered me to inform him of my proceeding in that matter, both as to the way of the persons' apprehension and their examinations, and then examined them himself, giving me orders at the rising of the Council to put what had been said there into writing and form, in order to the trial. This took me up a great part of the day, though I desired Mr. Bridgeman, one of the clerks of the Council and a justice of the peace, to assist me in that matter both for the dispatch and my security, the nicety of the thing requiring it, as will appear hereafter. “February 15th. -- The Council meeting again, amongst other things to examine the governor to young Count Coningsmark, a young gentleman resident in Monsieur Faubert's academy in London, supposed to be privy to the murder. The King sent for him to attend the Council, where he confessed that the eldest Count Coningsmark, who had been in England some months before, and had made addresses to my Lady Ogle before she had married Mr. Thynne, had ten days before the murder come incognito into England, and lay disguised till it was committed. This gave great cause of suspicion that the said count was in the bottom of it. Whereupon his Majesty commanded me to go search his lodging, which I performed with two constables, but found he was gone, the day after the deed was done, betimes in the morning ; of which I presently returned to give the King an account. “I several times after this attended the King, both privately and in Council, to inform him from time to time, as new matter did occur. Upon the whole we discovered, partly by the confession of the ruffians, and by the information of others, that Captain Fratz had been eight years a companion and particular friend to Count Coningsmark, one of the greatest men in the Kingdom of Sweden, his uncle being at that time governor of Pomerania, and near being married to that King's aunt ; that whilst he was here in England some months before, and had made addresses to the Lady Ogle, the only daughter and heiress to the Earl of Northumberland, married after to the now murdered Mr. Thynne, the said Count had resented something done to wards him as an affront from the said Mr. Thynne, and that the said captain, out of friendship to the Count (but as he then pretended not with his privity), was resolved to be revenged of him. To which intent he, with the assistance of the said Stern and Borosky, had committed this so barbarous act, by obliging the latter to discharge a blunderbuss upon him in his coach, the others being present. I was glad to find in this whole affair that no English person nor interest was concerned, the fanatics having already buzzed it abroad that the design was chiefly against the Duke of Monmouth; and I had the King's thanks oftener than once, my Lord Halifax's also, and of several others, for my diligent discovery of the true cause and occasion, as well as the authors of this matter. The truth is, the Duke of Monmouth was gone out of the coach from Mr. Thynne an hour before; but I found, by the confession both of Stern and Borosky, that they were ordered not to shoot in case the Duke were with him in the coach. It was much suspected all this while that Count Coningsmark was not yet over sea ; and on the 2oth he was found by the Duke of Monmouth's servant disguised at Gravesend alone, coming out of a sculler, intending the next day to go aboard a Swedish ship. The King having notice, called an extraordinary Council to examine him that afternoon, at which I was present. He appeared before the King with all the assurance imaginable ; was a fine gentleman of his person ; his hair was the longest for a man's I ever saw, for it came below his waist, and his parts were very quick. His examination before the King and Council was very superficial, but he was after that appointed the same day to be examined, by order of the King in Council, by the lord chief justice, Mr. Bridgeman, the Attorney-General and myself. It was accord- ingly done, but he confessed nothing as to his being either privy or concerned in the murder, laying his lying here concealed upon the occasion of his taking physic for a disease, and therefore was unwilling to discover himself till he was cured ; and his going away in a disguise after the fact was done, upon the advice of some friends, who told him that it would reflect on him were it known he was in England, when a person that was his friend was under so notorious a suspicion for committing so black a crime; and therefore did endeavour to get away, not knowing how far the laws of his land might for that very reason make him a party. “February 21st. -- This night I was with the King at his going to bed, where, discoursing as to this matter, I found he was willing Count Coningsmark might come off. February 26th. -- A gentleman that kept the French academy in London, one Monsieur Faubert,1 came and desired me to direct him, if there was any method to be followed, for the saving of Count Coningsmark's life, insinuating at the same time that as he was a gentleman of a vast estate, he was sensible he could not lay it out to greater advantage than to support his innocence, and to secure him against the danger of the law in a strange country. I told him that if he was innocent, the law would acquit him, though he were a foreigner, as well as if he were a native; but that he ought to be careful how he made any offers of that kind, it being rather the way to make a man of honour his enemy than to gain for him a friend. "February 27th. -- The bills against the three murderers of Mr. Thynne had been found against them as principals, and against the Count as accessory at the sessions at Hick's Hall, which had begun on the 2oth of February, and ended on the 28th ; all the rest of the persons apprehended or bound over for that offence being reserved as witnesses till the trial. On the 28th they were tried at the Old Bailey, where, after a trial that lasted from nine in the morning till five in the afternoon, and a very strict prosecution by the relations of Mr. Thynne, the three were brought in principals of the said murder, and received sentence of death accordingly. The Count was acquitted as not accessory by the same jury, it being per medietatem linguae, according to the privilege of strangers. I carried the King the news the first of this, who was not displeased to hear that it had passed in this manner. The party of the Duke of Monmouth, who all appeared to countenance the prosecution, were extremely concerned that the Count did escape. "March 1oth. -- The captain and the other two that were guilty of Mr Thynne's murder, were hanged in the same street where it was committed. The captain died without any expression of fear, or laying any guilt upon Count Coningsmark. Seeing me in my coach as he passed by in the cart to execution, he bowed to me with a steady look, as he did to those he knew amongst the spectators, before he was turned off; in fine, his whole carriage, from his first being apprehended till the last, relished more of gallantry than religion." The Memoirs of Sir John Reresby.
|