Speaker 1: Chapter eleven of Unknown London, written by Walter George Bell.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Janet,
Speaker 1: Chapter eleven. The Baga de Secritus. Three locks of cunning workmanship,
Speaker 1: each one different the shot bolts holding fast. Should the
Speaker 1: possessor of a single key attempt alone to open the
Speaker 1: jaws Three keys, deeply cut in varying patterns, one held
Speaker 1: in the keeping of the Lord Chief Justice, the second
Speaker 1: in that of the Attorney General, and the third by
Speaker 1: the Master of the Crown Office. Three high officers of state,
Speaker 1: acting together, each with his key in lock, might open
Speaker 1: the bag of secrets, but none others, nor one of
Speaker 1: them alone. Bluebeard's cupboard was not guarded with such care,
Speaker 1: it could disclose a story less tragical than this of
Speaker 1: the Great Baga. Less a thousand times. Perhaps one ought
Speaker 1: not to wonder that with such precautions the Crown kept
Speaker 1: inviolate against prying eyes the records which affected the King
Speaker 1: in his most intimate and domestic relations, the frailties of queens,
Speaker 1: the treason of subjects, the course of justice, which too
Speaker 1: often was in justice when the fountain itself was dishonorable.
Speaker 1: Far back in our history. These dim and stained parchments
Speaker 1: go to the reign of King Edward the Fourth. They
Speaker 1: are strangely intermixed, telling much of treasons and attainders, affecting
Speaker 1: the king's throne more than his personal relation. Till Henry
Speaker 1: the aiths much troubled life sent to the Bogadae Secritus.
Speaker 1: The piled documents so full of human sadness, with their
Speaker 1: questions of guilt or innocence, so monstrous inconceivable, it seems
Speaker 1: that still we are left in doubt, sometimes the doubt
Speaker 1: whether we can accept the word of man or woman,
Speaker 1: though they themselves, by their plea say they are guilty
Speaker 1: of this thing, charged, and so saying suffer. Anne Boleyn
Speaker 1: keeps this company a tragical figure asserting her innocence. Catherine
Speaker 1: Howard later Lady Jane Gray. Here too figures Sir Walter Rally,
Speaker 1: a great patriot and ill starred adventurer, beheaded at Westminster.
Speaker 1: Fisher and Moore, prisoners in the tower, together suffers for
Speaker 1: the same faith, in sharing the same fate. Sir Thomas Wyatt,
Speaker 1: rebel against Queen Mary, the handsome favorite, Robert Devereux, Earl
Speaker 1: of Essex, rebel against Elizabeth, members of the proud Duckle
Speaker 1: House of Norfolk, and statesman from Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick.
Speaker 1: The names, in hundreds even thousands, form almost an epitome
Speaker 1: of England's history. But some you miss, like Monmouth executed
Speaker 1: upon attainder without trial, and two there is nothing of
Speaker 1: Old Simon Fraser, Lord Lovett, the last man to suffer
Speaker 1: in George Second's time, decapitation upon Tower Hill. All the
Speaker 1: trials recorded in these papers are those of subjects for
Speaker 1: crimes against the king. One king was placed on trial
Speaker 1: for crime against his subjects, but of Charles the First.
Speaker 1: The Baga de Secritus contains nothing. The Crown State could
Speaker 1: not acknowledge the competence of that court sitting in Westminster
Speaker 1: Hall to give the record inclusion here. Long ago the
Speaker 1: great leathern Baga itself disappeared swollen by its contents, no doubt,
Speaker 1: till they reached such proportions that no ox hide could
Speaker 1: hold them in our own age. When the Baga was explored,
Speaker 1: it consisted of a closet in which this collection was
Speaker 1: kept separate from other documents of the King's bench. Still
Speaker 1: under the three keys held by the same three officers
Speaker 1: of state. Pouches or small bags were the receptacles of
Speaker 1: many of the ancient parchments, which generally were in good
Speaker 1: condition as to soundness, though crushed and crumpled in consequence
Speaker 1: of the mode in which they had been stowed. They
Speaker 1: ranged in shelves row upon row in the secret closet.
Speaker 1: The old order changeth, yielding place to the new. The
Speaker 1: older order that had produced these tragical happenings. The records
Speaker 1: deal with a long dead past history enthroned in judicial calm,
Speaker 1: sits in judgment upon these men and women, free from
Speaker 1: those influences and prejudices and fears which distracted judgment in
Speaker 1: their own day. Searching only for truth, loss, not public gain,
Speaker 1: results from concealment. All need for secrecy has gone. The
Speaker 1: locked jaws of the Baga de secritus are opened. Who
Speaker 1: can be harmed? And today its contents are distributed in
Speaker 1: their proper series and time, amongst the other documents of
Speaker 1: the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. Accessible These papers
Speaker 1: guarded by our kings with such jealous care to any
Speaker 1: student who fills out the required slip for the attendant,
Speaker 1: it was for centuries believed that the document of the
Speaker 1: trial of Anne Boleyn had been destroyed. The trial was secret,
Speaker 1: conducted by a few chosen instruments who should do a
Speaker 1: brutish king's brutal behests. The public had not knowledge by
Speaker 1: which to question the ju judicial act. The victim was sacrificed.
Speaker 1: So the story had grown, weaving around Anne Boleyn, pity, indeed,
Speaker 1: pity which none can withhold, and making her martyr, not
Speaker 1: quite saint, yet still not satisfying, still leaving doubt, still
Speaker 1: with that heart searching question unanswered. Was she this or
Speaker 1: libertine and worse, sweet Anne Boleyn, the gentle queen of
Speaker 1: a tragic epic, laughing herself at that little neck which
Speaker 1: next morning was to be severed by the Calais headsman's sword.
Speaker 1: Was she this or a brazen corrupted let us and
Speaker 1: pity leave out the word? The Baga de secritus revealed
Speaker 1: the documents, neither destroyed by designing hands, nor lost, but
Speaker 1: preserved with meticulous care, each order and writ and bill.
Speaker 1: Nothing is missing. One recalls the use fraud made of them,
Speaker 1: and how one's beliefs toppled over beliefs influenced in large
Speaker 1: part by that letter of infinite pathos which she wrote
Speaker 1: to Henry the Eighth and her protestations of innocence. The
Speaker 1: evidence on oath we have not got it satisfied the
Speaker 1: jurors of the different counties in which it was collected.
Speaker 1: The indictment based on their return sets out the place,
Speaker 1: the date, the personalities and respect of each act charged,
Speaker 1: indicating only too plainly the whole revolting story. Mark Smetten,
Speaker 1: the court musician accused, pleaded guilty, and being of ignoble birth,
Speaker 1: died at the giblet. The others of noble blood suffered
Speaker 1: by the acts, and at the end did not protest innocence.
Speaker 1: And what was the court which joined in collusion with
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth in this act of unspeakable infamy in
Speaker 1: putting to death a discarded queen, That is, if Anne
Speaker 1: beheld innocent, and the guilty that of Henry guiltmore read
Speaker 1: more shameful a thousand times even than hers, a pact
Speaker 1: carefully selected and corrupt tribunal. Let us see the attendant
Speaker 1: at the Public Record office in Chancery Lane will bring
Speaker 1: you the documents, still in the original white leather pouch
Speaker 1: drawn together at the mouth with a leathern thong in
Speaker 1: which they have been always kept, and thereon you may
Speaker 1: read the names. The trial of the Queen and of
Speaker 1: Lord Rockford, her brother, took place in the tower the
Speaker 1: fifteenth May fifteen thirty six. There were the two English
Speaker 1: Dukes of Norfolk, the veteran who had won his spurs
Speaker 1: at flodden Field in Suffolk, the one English Marquis of Exeter,
Speaker 1: the Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland, the Queen's early lover, Westmoreland, Darby, Worcester, Rutland,
Speaker 1: Sussex and Huntingdon. All those in the peerage save four
Speaker 1: lords Audeley de la Ware, Montague, Morley, Dacre, Cobham, Ma Travers, Powis,
Speaker 1: Mount Eagle, Clinton, Sandy's, Windsor, Wentworth Burgh and Mordant twenty seven.
Speaker 1: In all menhearethur Io of unblemished honor, the noblest blood
Speaker 1: in the realm. Lord Wiltshire, one of the four absent earls,
Speaker 1: was not called upon to give judgment upon his daughter
Speaker 1: and son, but he sat upon the commission and acquiesced
Speaker 1: in the finding which condemned the four commoners accused of
Speaker 1: adultery with the Queen. That commission consisted besides of Lord Audley,
Speaker 1: the Lord Chancellor of England, the Dukes of Norfolk and
Speaker 1: in Suffolk, the Earls of Oxford, Westmoreland and Sussex, Lord
Speaker 1: Sandy's Thomas Cromwell, Sir William Fitzwilliam, Lord High Admiral, often
Speaker 1: called the Nelson of the sixteenth century, Sir William Paulette,
Speaker 1: Lord Treasurer, and all the nine judges of the Courts
Speaker 1: of Westminster had ever other commoners such a court to
Speaker 1: try their cause. Thirty two knights and gentlemen were the
Speaker 1: grand jurors who returned true bills on the sworn evidence,
Speaker 1: and their names in the counties stood not less high.
Speaker 1: Were all these so craven, so despicable, so lacking in
Speaker 1: human soul, that, for fear of Henry's displeasure they returned
Speaker 1: to finding which they knew to be false, fearful to
Speaker 1: do right in the belief that the King desired or wrong,
Speaker 1: they accepted concocted evidence, knowing its worthlessness. Was there not
Speaker 1: one honest man among them? They had the evidence which
Speaker 1: we have not. They answered to their names individually when
Speaker 1: called upon for their verdict, and in the two trials
Speaker 1: there is not one dissent in voice. Can anybody conceive
Speaker 1: that Henry, arbitrary as were his methods, could alone have
Speaker 1: suborned the entire House of Peers, the full judicial bench,
Speaker 1: the ruling class, without whom government was impossible, the knights
Speaker 1: and gentlemen of the counties, and not find among them
Speaker 1: one witness to the truth. Who should speak out? These
Speaker 1: men who found the guilt of Anne Boleyn were the
Speaker 1: flower of England, of its blood, its chivalry, its learning,
Speaker 1: its character. If the tribunals appointed do not satisfy, where
Speaker 1: should others stronger have been found? The kingdom could not
Speaker 1: have produced their like the Baga de secritus. By disclosing
Speaker 1: the constitution of the courts and the jurors, has solved
Speaker 1: an historic doubt. Either the evidence was such as to
Speaker 1: satisfy reasonable men, or Englishmen at this time had sunk
Speaker 1: into a morass of infamy and impotency of which we
Speaker 1: have believed our country clean. They were the Englishmen of
Speaker 1: the Reformation. Call us Hans or what you will, if
Speaker 1: we are descendants of forefathers who shared with Henry the
Speaker 1: Eighth the guilt of this cowardly crime. Let us bury
Speaker 1: our pride of race under the disgrace to me. It
Speaker 1: is incredible if consolation lie in that fact. Let us
Speaker 1: admit that error is always possible with all parliaments, all
Speaker 1: judges with the largest numbers. But this trial and judgment
Speaker 1: were honest. Against the reveled fact stands a legend, And
Speaker 1: the legend must go the records of another queen's wrong
Speaker 1: fill in all fifty three members in the Great Baga.
Speaker 1: Catherine Howard, a plump little person, radiant with that immeasurable
Speaker 1: gift of youth. She was but twenty two, and pleasing.
Speaker 1: She must have been to Henry's eye almost we forget
Speaker 1: her admitted frailties in the remembrance of that weird scene.
Speaker 1: By candle light in the gloomy tower. The night before
Speaker 1: her execution, she desired that the block on which she
Speaker 1: was to be beheaded might be brought to her, that
Speaker 1: she might learn how she was to place herself. This
Speaker 1: was done, and she made the experiment, wrote the ambassador Chupius,
Speaker 1: and so prepared. On a February morning, she went out
Speaker 1: into the sunrise of her last day, for the execution
Speaker 1: had been fixed for seven o'clock. These other parchments at
Speaker 1: my elbow, separated in time but by a few years,
Speaker 1: are the papers of the trial of a third Queen,
Speaker 1: the Lady Jane Gray, the pitiful queen of a nine
Speaker 1: days reign. The charge against her is of high treason,
Speaker 1: and specifically that she signed various writings Jane the Queen
Speaker 1: against her allegiance. The commission is addressed in the first
Speaker 1: instance to Thomas White, Mayor of the City of London,
Speaker 1: other names following, and the precept to the Constable of
Speaker 1: the Tower, commanding him to bring her to Guildhall for
Speaker 1: trial is signed by me Thomas White, and afterwards T. Norfolk,
Speaker 1: the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshall of England. It is
Speaker 1: the acknowledgment of the Lord Mayor's precedence in the city.
Speaker 1: As in all cases where the trial was at Guildhall,
Speaker 1: she came on foot while this unnecessary humiliation, one wonders,
Speaker 1: and so returned. Cranmer and Guilford Dudley were with her,
Speaker 1: and with her pleaded guilty. Judgment against the Lady Jane Gray,
Speaker 1: that she be burnt to live on Tower Hill, or beheaded,
Speaker 1: as the Queen shall please. Oh the horror of those
Speaker 1: times of butchery that could admit such a sentence. I
Speaker 1: have said that the Baga de Secritis contains nothing of
Speaker 1: the trial of Charles the First, but packed into it
Speaker 1: are the papers of the regicides. Listen to the legal phraseology.
Speaker 1: When a king dies violently, they John lythe and forty
Speaker 1: seven others proposed and consulted to murder the said king,
Speaker 1: and took upon themselves authority and power to put the
Speaker 1: said king to death, an execution of which traitorous design viz.
Speaker 1: Thirty January in the parish of Saint Martin in the fields. They,
Speaker 1: together with a certain man whose name is unknown to
Speaker 1: the jurors, having a visor upon his face, and being
Speaker 1: clad in a frock, assaulted the same king, and the
Speaker 1: said unknown man, with an act which he held in
Speaker 1: both his hands, struck the said king upon his neck
Speaker 1: and divided his head from his body. Afterwards, William Hewitt
Speaker 1: was hurried to execution as the headsman, but as fate
Speaker 1: leaves unsolved the mysterious identity of the masked man on
Speaker 1: the scaffold raised outside the banqueting house at Whitehall, colder
Speaker 1: words than those sighted could not be used. For the
Speaker 1: most common crime. It is with the toll of death
Speaker 1: that the great Baga has been stuffed rare. Indeed, is
Speaker 1: it to light upon an acquittal? Here I find a
Speaker 1: man otherwise, John Johnson, a figure swollen with a great
Speaker 1: crime which still we recall each year. Do you know
Speaker 1: John Johnson? A complete stranger? He seems. It is Guy Fawx,
Speaker 1: who alone fills the bill of gunpowder plot as arch
Speaker 1: conspirator and desperado, with a name, ring and sounding down
Speaker 1: the sentries louder than ever Johnson would have done. I
Speaker 1: could not bring myself to light squibs and Catherine Wheels
Speaker 1: to celebrate Johnson. It was the name that Fox gave
Speaker 1: when bound hand and foot and under strong guard, he
Speaker 1: was brought into King James's presence in the Royal bed
Speaker 1: Chamber at Whitehall at one o'clock in the morning of
Speaker 1: his arrest, when the Privy Council was hastily assembled there,
Speaker 1: and he would say nothing save with a wry smile.
Speaker 1: Then his purpose was to blow the Scots back to
Speaker 1: Scotland again. Fox's crushed indictment of portentous length has been
Speaker 1: tumbled into the Baga, and in it I read that
Speaker 1: Thomas Winter Guy Fox, Otherwise, Johnson, Keys, Robert Winter, Grunt,
Speaker 1: Rookwood and Bates were charged that they conspired and attempted
Speaker 1: to blow up the King, Queen, Prince Henry, as well
Speaker 1: as the Knights, citizens and burgesses in Parliament assembled with gunpowder.
Speaker 1: And I am left more than ever with puzzling wonder
Speaker 1: why gunpowder plot was not unmasked earlier, this apart from
Speaker 1: the fact that the knowledge was in the keeping of
Speaker 1: thirteen conspirators auspicious number. On the eleventh December sixteen o four,
Speaker 1: these men began to dig with great labor a mine
Speaker 1: under the Parliament House, even to the middle of the
Speaker 1: wall of the said Parliament House, such foundation being of
Speaker 1: the thickness of three yards, with the intention of placing
Speaker 1: a large quantity of gunpowder therein for the purpose of
Speaker 1: carrying their treasonable intentions into effect. Finding the job tough,
Speaker 1: they hired through Percy, a fellow conspirator, a neighboring house
Speaker 1: which had the advantage of a cellar going right under
Speaker 1: the House of Lords, And on twentieth March next did
Speaker 1: remove twenty barrels of gunpowder from the house of Percy
Speaker 1: into the said cellar. Then on the thirty first July,
Speaker 1: fearing that their explosive had become damp, they brought into
Speaker 1: the cellar ten more barrels of powder. No suspicion had
Speaker 1: been aroused further. The plotters, on the twentieth September following,
Speaker 1: brought into the cellar four hogsheads filled with gunpowder, and
Speaker 1: also various iron bars and stones, took place upon the same,
Speaker 1: and placed them thereon, and in order that the same
Speaker 1: might not be seen, covered them with faggots. What was
Speaker 1: the sleepy Westminster watchdoing? Months were passing, eleven months in
Speaker 1: all in which digging was going on. Barrels and hogsheads
Speaker 1: of gunpowder and missiles for the explosion were being rolled
Speaker 1: in from the street till thirty four powder barrels in
Speaker 1: all were stored, and no one in authority was a
Speaker 1: penny the wiser. The fourth November came eve of the
Speaker 1: Parliament's meeting, and that night Fox was found in flagerente
Speaker 1: de licto in the cellar, watching beside the barrels, with
Speaker 1: touchwood and matches about him. His signature to the confession
Speaker 1: extorted from him when on the rack you may see
Speaker 1: in the Public Record Office the trembling broken lines, testifying
Speaker 1: that the poor wretch had been so nerve shattered by
Speaker 1: his torture that he could not grasp the pen. Now
Speaker 1: we make amends for the lack of caution shown when
Speaker 1: gunpowder plot was hatching, And though three centuries have passed
Speaker 1: since the peril, still each time that Parliament meets for
Speaker 1: a new session, the beefeaters conduct their search for powder
Speaker 1: barrels in the vaults below the Parliament House. A curious crime,
Speaker 1: of which the Baga contains the whole story, is that
Speaker 1: by Edward Squire, a yeoman of London, in his attempt
Speaker 1: to poison Queen Elizabeth. Squire had attached himself to Philip
Speaker 1: of Spain when he was preparing an armada for invasion
Speaker 1: of England and attempting the life of Great Elizabeth. This
Speaker 1: man brought back with him from Seville a poisonous confection
Speaker 1: contained in a double bladder, to the intention that he
Speaker 1: should smear the pommel of the Queen's saddle therewith when
Speaker 1: the Queen was about to ride, in order that she
Speaker 1: putting her hand on the pommel might be poisoned. He
Speaker 1: actually obtained admittance to the court yard, where the Queen's
Speaker 1: riding horse was awaiting her, and rubbed some of the
Speaker 1: poison on the pommel of the saddle, exclaiming loudly at
Speaker 1: the same time, God save the Queen for the purpose
Speaker 1: of better concealing his treason. But his clumsiness betrayed him
Speaker 1: judgment as against all traders. Timothy Pinchard forged the likeness
Speaker 1: of Elizabeth's seal to counterfeit rits of the Queen's bench.
Speaker 1: And this was his savage sentence, that he should be
Speaker 1: put in the pillory upon two successive market days in cheapside,
Speaker 1: and on the first day should have one ear nailed
Speaker 1: to the pillory, and on the second day his other
Speaker 1: ear nailed to the pillory, in such manner that he should,
Speaker 1: by his own proper motion, be compelled to tear away
Speaker 1: his two ears from the wood. Elizabeth had a short
Speaker 1: way with vagabondage. It was charged against Roland and Thomas Gabriel,
Speaker 1: Lawrence Banister, and Christopher Jackson on indictment found at Aylesbury,
Speaker 1: that they did keep company with four persons, but one
Speaker 1: of whom Diego, bears a foreign name, vulgarly called in
Speaker 1: calling themselves Egyptians, and counterfeited, transformed and altered themselves in dress, land, language,
Speaker 1: and behavior to such vagabonds called Egyptians, contrary to statute
Speaker 1: judgment that they are to be hanged. Why this petty
Speaker 1: felony should figure among the historic trials in the Bogadai
Speaker 1: secretis I do not know. But these and many other
Speaker 1: names of men of mean condition stand on equity with
Speaker 1: the ill fated dukes of Buckingham and Suffolk, with Surrey
Speaker 1: and Somerset, Essex and Cobham in the State Calendar of Crime,
Speaker 1: end of Chapter eleven,