Thomas Bedloe

“ It is meant to be serious, beginning 'The World is all on fire in Jesus' name, By quick nosed Jesuites who hunt for game,' and ends with an acrostic on 'William Bedlowe.' An 'Elegie on the Death of Captain William Bedloe' begins:–
Could Bedlow fall so softly to his tomb, Without a comet to foretell his doom ? But the shortest and severest epitaph is this, from an early manuscript:–
The Lord is pleas'd when man does cease to sin; The divil is pleas'd when he a soul do's win ”

“ Bedloe was a man of evil character. He had been in the service of Lord Bellasis, and had subsequently held a commission as lieutenant in a foot company in Flanders.201 He was of a type not uncommon in the seventeenth century, one of the vast crowd who lived a roving life of poverty and dishonesty, travelling from one country to another, in many services and under many names, living [112] upon their own wits and other people’s money, men for whom no falsehood was too black, no crime too gross to be turned to profit, men without truth, without shame, without fear of God or man. ”

“ Mr. Pollock’s theory of the relation of Bedloe to Godfrey’s murder is this: Bedloe had no hand in the murder, and never saw the corpse. The crime was done in Somerset House, ‘the Queen’s confessor,’ Father Le Fevre, S.J., having singular facilities for entering, with his friends, and carrying a dead body out ‘through a private door’—a door not mentioned by any witnesses, nor proved to exist by the evidence of a chart. This Le Fevre, with Walsh, lived in the same house as Bedloe. From them, Bedloe got his information. ‘It is easy to conjecture how he could have obtained it. ”

“ Bedloe gave himself out as a Jesuit agent; concerning the Plot he added monstrous inventions to those of Oates.
‘As to Sir Edmund Godfrey; was promised 2,000 guineas to be in it by Le Fere’ (Le Fevre, ‘the Queen’s confessor) ,’ [by] ‘my Lord Bellasis gentleman, AND THE YOUNGEST OF THE WAITERS IN THE QUEENE’S CHAPEL, IN A PURPLE GOWN, and to keep the people orderly.‘*
*See Pollock, pp. 384, 387. The report is from Secretary Coventry’s MSS., at Longleat. The evidence as to Bedloe’s deposition before the King (November 7) is in a confused state. Mr. ”

“ THOMAS BEDWORTH was born in the year 1764, in the parish of Bloxidge, Staffordshire. His parents were of honest reputation and industrious habits, and could well afford to instil into his mind the principles of a good education; but to this he was obstinately averse, and they not being firm in their purpose, he successfully opposed every attempt that was made to furnish him with that knowledge of good and evil, without which he fell a sacrifice to the consequences of sensual indulgence, and expiated a crime, conceived in jealousy and stimulated by intoxication, on the scaffold of Newgate. ”

“ Saintsbury tells us with sharp impatience that, in turning our backs so coldly upon the poet who enraptured our grandfathers, we are losing a great deal that we can ill afford to spare. The quality of youth is still more distinctly discernible in some of Thomas Beddoes's dazzling little songs, stolen straight from the heart of the sixteenth century, and lustrous with that golden light which set so long ago. ”

“ There was a meeting of some honest people in the city, upon the occasion of the discovery of some attempt to stifle the evidence of the witnesses.—Bedloe said he had letters from Ireland, that there were some Tories to be brought over hither, who were privately to murder Dr. Oates and the said Bedloe. The doctor, whose zeal was very hot, could never after this hear any man talk against the plot, or against the witnesses, but he thought he was one of these Tories, and called almost every man a Tory that opposed him in discourse ”

“ The murder had taken place at Somerset House in the way which he related, but he fastened the crime upon men who were guiltless of Godfrey’s death. The extent of Bedloe’s information also can be calculated. On every point of time and place he had prevaricated and contradicted himself beyond measure. On none of these is his testimony of the slightest value. Nevertheless he was possessed of enough knowledge to accuse definitely a man who was actively concerned in the crime and could relate the facts as they happened. ”

“ In spite of this false step Bedloe was a man of some ingenuity and even moderation. In his evidence against Atkins he had left the way open to advance, if possible, and charge Pepys’ clerk more fully with being implicated in the murder, or to retreat, if necessary, and protest with a profusion of sincerity that he had been hoaxed. He was far too careful to run the risk of definitely accusing any one with having been in a certain place at a certain time until he was sure that his reputation would not be ruined by running upon an alibi. ”

“ It seems that the Viceroy of Goa had sent some alleged relics of St. Thomas, who was supposed to have died in India, you know, back to the King of Portugal; and with them he had sent a lot of valuable papers and documents, as well as such things as gold and jewels—there has to be a treasure, of course.
"Well, that ship put into the bay which used to be at St. Thomas; she was driven ashore, and the garrison only had time to transfer her cargo to the fort before they were attacked. So far as anyone knows to the contrary, Hammer, it's there yet."
"I guess not." The American shook his head. ”

“ The inference therefore is sound that, as Bedloe accused correctly a man whom he knew by sight and not by name, some of the men whose names he gave directly in his account of the murder were probably the real criminals. These were Le Fevre, the Jesuit confessor of the queen, Charles Walsh, a Jesuit attached to the household of Lord Bellasis, and Charles Pritchard, a third member of the Society of Jesus. ”

“ Bedloe had moreover named other of the real criminals. They might yet be taken and the secret be dragged from them. This at any cost must be prevented. So Prance determined to pose as the repentant [159] convert and to shield the real culprits by bringing to death men whom he knew to be innocent. His knowledge of the crime enabled him to describe its details in the most convincing manner, while his acquaintance with the circle of Somerset House enabled him to fit the wrong persons to the facts. ”

“ In lodgings near Wild House lived four men. Two of them were Le Fevre and Walsh, parties to the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey; the others were Captain William Bedloe, “the discoverer of the Popish Plot,” and his coadjutor, Charles Atkins. Atkins had declared before the secretary of state that he lodged at Holborn, but Bedloe let the truth appear in his examination. As it was a slip, which he immediately tried to cover, and he was far from bringing it forward as a point in his favour, his statement may be accepted.288 Bedloe was thus in daily contact with two of the criminals. ”

“ Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, poet, son of above, born 1803, died 1849; published The Bride's Tragedy while a student at Oxford, studied medicine, and lived long abroad. His work was largely fragmentary, but his posthumous Death's Jest-book, or The Fool's Tragedy (1850) , received the high praise of such judges as Landor and Browning. His Poems, with memoir, appeared in 1851.
Bede, Beda, or Bæda, known as the Venerable, English historian and theologian, born in 672 or 673 in the neighbourhood of Monkwearmouth, County Durham; educated at St. ”

“ Thomas Lovell Beddoes, a noted English poet and dramatist, was born at Clifton, July 20, 1803, and died at Basle, January 26, 1849. He wrote: “The Improvisatore,” and “The Bride’s Tragedy,” “Poetical Works” (London, 1890) , and “Letters” (London, 1894) , were edited by Edmond Gosse.
Soft peace she brings; wherever she arrives
She builds our quiet as she forms our lives ”

“ I became, if I may so express it, dissociate from Bedford; I looked down on Bedford as a trivial, incidental thing with which I chanced to be connected. I saw Bedford in many relations—as an ass or as a poor beast, where I had hitherto been inclined to regard him with a quiet pride as a very spirited or rather forcible person. I saw him not only as an ass, but as the son of many generations of asses. I reviewed his school-days and his early manhood, and his first encounter with love, very much as one might review the proceedings of an ant in the sand. ”

“ Emboldened by his success he denounced various Roman Catholics, married an Irish lady, and having become very popular lived in luxurious fashion. Afterwards his fortunes waned, and he died at Bristol on the 20th of August 1680. His dying depositions, which were taken by Sir Francis North, chief justice of the common pleas, revealed nothing of importance. Bedloe wrote a Narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid Popish Plot (1679) , but all his statements are extremely untrustworthy.
See J. Pollock, The Popish Plot (1903) . ”

“ So it was that when the captain came on the bridge at what should have been eight bells in the afternoon he found his woman officer calmly breaking all the rules of any ship by smoking on duty.
“Nothing to report, uncle. Had a good sleep?”
“Yes; very good nap,” replied the Old Man mendaciously. “But I'm very worried about Selwyn.”
“Yes; seems very queer,” Vi admitted, rather conscious of a sense of relief that he was not there to annoy her. “Perhaps he's shut himself up in some cabin with the champagne. You know what he is.” ”

“ Bedloe’s tale on the contrary was that Le Fevre, Pritchard, Keynes, and Walsh, four Jesuits, had employed him to effect an introduction to Godfrey for them. Le Fevre afterwards offered him £4000, to be paid by Lord Bellasis through Coleman, if he would undertake to kill “a very material man” in order to obtain some incriminating papers in his possession, without which “the business would be so obstructed and go near to be discovered” that the great Plot would come to grief.259 At this point the stories begin to converge, and at the same time retain strikingly different features. ”

“ Methinks the damsel should be conveyed through the streets of Bedford town otherwise than swinging to a saddle like a market-wife's butter-basket. But, Sir Knight, thou knowest far better than I how to treat a fair lady."
"I have it!" exclaimed De Breauté. "There is the horse-litter of my sister, in the which she sometimes is graciously permitted to go abroad, when her ailments allow her not to mount her palfrey. She is ever sickly, the woman. I will send to Bedford for it. Nay, I would go myself, could I trust my men to guard."
"Go thyself, if thou art so minded," replied the priest. ”

“ Beddoes' laboratory at Bristol, were eminently characteristic of him: "I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth to recommend me; yet if I live I trust I shall not be of less service to mankind and my friends, than if I had been born with all these advantages." ”

“ Notes of Bedloe's evidence were surreptitiously placed in Prance's cell, and Prance, readily perceiving what was expected of him, begged the governor, Captain Richardson, to convey him to Shaftesbury House. There, on the evening of 22 Dec., he made a long disclosure about Godfrey's death before the Earl of Shaftesbury and three other members of the secrecy committee. Next day, before the king and the privy council, he accused three men employed at Somerset House and two priests of murdering Godfrey at Somerset House, and declared that he had kept watch while the crime was being perpetrated. ”

“ His comrade died, and he recovered after weeks, mainly through the efforts of old Catarina, the Indian woman who sometimes brought him his food.
John Bedford's spirits were at the bottom of the depths that afternoon. How could human beings be so cruel as to shut up one of their kind in such a manner, one who was no criminal? It seemed to him that lately the watch in the castle had become more vigilant than ever. More soldiers were about, and he heard vaguely of comings and goings. His mind ran back for the thousandth time over the capture of himself and his comrades. ”

“ His tragedy, like Hamlet's, was the tragedy of an over-powerful will—a will so strong as to recoil upon itself, and fall into indecision. It is easy for a weak man to be decided—there is so much to make him so; but a strong man, who can do anything, sometimes leaves everything undone. Fortunately Beddoes, though he did far less than he might have done, possessed so rich a genius that what he did, though small in quantity, is in quality beyond price. 'I might have been, among other things, a good poet,' were his last words. ”

“ The Bedouin, on the contrary, is a Nomad; his horizon is bounded by the desert or the mountain; his property is limited to his weapons, his horse, or his camel; he lives by pillage alone, and his ideas of religion and morality are of the vaguest possible description. A story is told of a Bedouin, convicted of murder and theft, having been asked by a Frenchman—"What would you say to God, if you were summoned to appear before Him?" ”

“ From the massive, personality of the man there went out to the girl a quiet force, a compellant for poise; a reassurance of strength and faith and love unassailable.
"You are not glad he has come?" asked Tom Lee, watching her eyes.
"No," she answered simply. "I do not believe in him!" A wistful smile came to her lips, as she touched his coarse black hair with caressing fingers.
"My dear," said Tom Lee gravely, "he has done great things for me; his treatment is helping me tremendously. He is efficient, that man!" ”