In the Shadow of the Noose: Mad Earl Ferrers: The Last English Nobleman Hanged for Murder (5 page)

Getting to his feet, Ferrers bowed to the scores of gathered peers. They returned the compliment.

‘Laurence Earl Ferrers, you are brought to this bar to receive your trial upon a charge of the murder of John Johnson,’ continued Baron Henley, ‘an accusation, with respect to the crime, and the persons who make it, of the most solemn and serious nature.’

Onlookers leaned forward, hoping to see the expression on the Earl’s face.

‘It is a happiness resulting from your Lordship’s birth, and the constitution of this country, that your Lordship is now to be tried by your peers in full parliament. What greater consolation can be suggested to a person in your unhappy circumstances, than to be reminded that you are to be tried by a set of judges, whose sagacity and penetration no material circumstances in evidence can escape, and whose justice nothing can influence or pervert?’

He continued in this wordy vein for some time, and it may well have been that Henley, a lawyer by trade, was revelling in the limelight. He had been made a Baron only a few days previously, for the sole purpose of taking on the position of Lord High Steward at Lord Ferrer’s trial, and not everyone approved of his conduct. The politician and writer Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford, thought he behaved badly at the trial. ‘He neither had dignity, nor affected any,’ wrote Walpole. There may have been a hint of sniffiness, and even snobbery, in these words. Those born to the title perhaps did not enjoy the sight of this recent commoner sitting above them on his red velvet chair, just one step below the king’s throne.

Following the Lord High Steward’s address – full of talk of justice, candour and impartiality – the time came for the charge to be put to the nobleman by the clerk of the court. ‘How say you, Laurence, Earl Ferrers,’ he said, in ringing tones. ‘Are you guilty of the felony and murder whereof you stand indicted, or not guilty?’

‘Not guilty, my Lords.’

‘Culprit, how will your Lordship be tried?’ asked the clerk.

‘By God and my peers,’ replied the Earl.

The Attorney-General, Sir Charles Pratt – a ‘small, well-made man with a reputation for physical laziness and gluttony’ according to the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(DNB)
– gave the opening address, stating: ‘The noble prisoner stands here arraigned before your Lordships for that odious offence, malicious and deliberate murder. There cannot be a crime in human society that deserves more to be punished, or more strictly to be enquired after.’

He then outlined the facts; stating that Mr Johnson had been a long-serving, valued and trusted employee of the Ferrers family until that friendship ‘converted into hatred.’ Lord Ferrers accused Johnson of ‘having colluded secretly with his adversaries, with being in the interest of those he was pleased to call his enemies,’ he said, adding, ‘His Lordship, who best knew the malice of his own heart, has confessed that he harboured these suspicions.’

Sir Charles continued, ‘These notions, though void of truth, had so poisoned his Lordship’s mind, that he was determined at last to gratify his revenge by murder.’

The events of the fateful evening were unfolded as the bewigged Lords, dressed in the finest silks and brocades of the day, were told about the shooting.

Charles Yorke, the Solicitor-General and counsel for the crown, called the first witness, Elizabeth Burgeland, one of the Earl’s maids, who described being frightened by the gunshot.

‘When I heard the pistol go,’ she said, ‘I run into the yard, and the other maid-servant with me.’

‘What happened afterwards?’

‘We stayed in the yard a while, a few minutes, and came back to the wash-house. My Lord came when we were in the wash-house, and called. He hooped and hallooed, “Where are you all?” I went out and said, “We are here, my Lord!” He ordered that we should walk down to the house.’

The maid said she helped the injured Mr Johnson. ‘I took him up to bed by the arm, by his Lordship’s order.’

Elizabeth Saxon, another maid, was the next witness. Her evidence included an admission that she had heard her employer shouting at Mr Johnson.

‘I heard them very loud,’ she said. ‘I heard my Lord say, “Down on your other knee and declare that you have acted against Lord Ferrers!”, and then the pistol went off, and I and the other maid were frightened and run away.’

The third maid, Elizabeth Dolman, who had worked for Earl Ferrers for two months at the time of the murder, was sworn in. She told the Lords how she witnessed her master pull Mr Johnson by the wig and threaten him following the shooting.

‘He said he would shoot him through the head,’ she said.

George Perrott, a further lawyer for the prosecution, then had the opportunity of questioning the dead man’s daughter, Sarah Johnson.

Composed and articulate, Miss Johnson told the Lords she was summoned to Staunton Harold at between 4pm and 5pm on January 18
^th
, the message being relayed by a servant.

‘I asked what he wanted me for,’ she said, ‘and he said my father was taken very ill.’

She described being taken to Earl Ferrers, asking after her father and being shown upstairs by a maid. She said she was followed by the Earl who told her that he thought he had not shot her father.

‘Sometime after that, Lord Ferrers came up again and he turned the clothes down and he said he saw he had shot him and throwed (
sic
) something out of a bottle; I don’t know what it was; he poured something upon it out of a bottle.’

Mr Perrott asked, ‘Did he tell you how the accident happened?’

‘He did not say anything about that.’

‘Did he at any time?’

‘He said he had shot him. He said it was what he designed.’

She agreed that the Earl had settled to look after her family if her father died, and went on to describe how he had demonstrated to Dr Kirkland the angle which he had held the pistol at the time of the shooting.

Earl Ferrers was ‘very angry,’ Miss Johnson said, and kept attempting to pull the bedclothes off her father.

After giving evidence about how Earl Ferrers had tried to evict her father from his farm, Miss Johnson was allowed to step down.

She was replaced by Thomas Kirkland, who told the court that he had known the Earl for ‘many years’ and been his physician for nine.

Dr Kirkland described the scene when he went into the bedroom where Mr Johnson lay. ‘Upon seeing Mr Johnson and that he had lost no blood, I bled him,’ he said. ‘He complained of a violent pain in his bowels.’

He said he examined the entry hole, which was on the left hand side and below the ribs, and decided that the shot could not be removed, and so simply dressed the wound.

Damning evidence that the Earl had planned the killing followed. ‘He [Earl Ferrers] was not sorry for it,’ said Kirkland. ‘He owned it was premeditated; that he intended to shoot him, for he said he was a villain and deserved death.’

He then related how Lord Ferrers was drunk, but not incoherent, and how he refused to allow his mortally-wounded steward to be moved to his own home, ordering that ‘he shall not be moved till he be either better or dead’, and adding that he was glad Mr Johnson was at the Hall so that he could, ‘plague the rascal.’ Dr Kirkland said he went against the aristocrat’s instructions and arranged for Mr Johnson to be taken to his own home after the Earl had gone to bed.

As he was accused of murder, Earl Ferrers was not entitled to legal representation and had to defend himself in court, doing the best that he could without a lawyer. It was for this reason that he then cross-examined Kirkland himself. Having little to work with, he attempted to impute some underhand motives to the surgeon. ‘At the time that we were talking this over a bottle of wine,’ he said, ‘did you talk with me as a friend; or did you intent to betray me?’

But Kirkland, a straightforward and honest man, did not fall into this trap. ‘I do own, my Lord, that I intended to deceive you,’ he said. ‘And I thought it absolutely necessary.’

Richard Springthorpe, one of the men who captured Earl Ferrers on the morning that Mr Johnson died, was the sixth witness for the prosecution. When asked to describe the events of the day, he said he found out that his friend Mr Johnson had died and went straight to Staunton Harold. ‘When I came to the hall-yard,’ he said, ‘my Lord in a few minutes came. He seemed to be going to the stable, with his stockings down and his garters in his hands. His Lordship, seeing me, demanded to know what I wanted.

‘I presented my pistol to his Lordship and I said it was he I wanted, and I would have him. He put his hands, whether he was going to put his garters into his pocket or to pull out a pistol I cannot say, but he suddenly ran into the house.

‘I never saw more of him for two hours. In about two hours he came to the garret window… he said “How is Johnson?” I said he was dead. He said, “You are a lying scoundrel, God damn you.”’

Once Mr Springthorpe had convinced the nobleman that he
had
killed his steward, the Earl told him to bring the large and increasingly agitated crowd into his home for food and drink.

Mr Springthorpe said, ‘I told him I did not come for victuals, but for him – and I would have him. He went away from the window swearing he would not be taken.’

He told the gathered Lords that it was another two hours before the Earl was seized on the bowling green. ‘Two colliers had hold of his Lordship. I said I would take care no-body should hurt him.’

Mr Springthorpe explained that he took weapons from two men to prevent them from using them against the Earl.

‘I heard my Lord say he had shot a villain and a scoundrel and, clapping his hand upon his bosom, he said, “I glory in his death!” That is all I know of the matter.’

The last witness for the prosecution was Francis Kinsey, who ran the pub in Ashby-de-la-Zouch where Earl Ferrers was taken after he was apprehended. He was there from Saturday until Monday and according to Mr Kinsey was very well-behaved – although he asked the landlord many times whether Mr Johnson was dead, and said that he would not believe it until he had heard it from the coroner.

Following Mr Kinsey’s evidence the Attorney-General said, ‘My Lords, we rest it here for the crown.’

Earl Ferrers was invited to offer evidence in his defence. He requested more time to prepare as ‘the law will not allow me the assistance of counsel in this case, in which, of all others, I should think most wanted.’

His plea was refused and Elizabeth Burgeland was recalled for cross-examination.

She was asked about her employer’s drinking habits. ‘He drank some brandy in his tea in the morning,’ she said and added that some time after the shooting, ‘he was quite fuddled.’

Earl Ferrrers, getting more frantic, interrupted the proceedings. ‘My Lords, by the kind of defence recommended to me, it will be impossible to go on at present. There are several witnesses to be examined, and really, my Lords, I am quite unprepared.’

The Lord High Steward – who was notoriously bad-tempered due to gout caused by a fondness of port – slapped him down. ‘My Lord Ferrers,’ he said, ‘it is required that you should open the nature of your defence. My Lords will be able to judge from that, whether it will be proper to give your Lordship time to make your defence, agreeable to your request.’

‘My Lords,’ continued the Earl, ‘I can hardly express myself, the very circumstance shocks me so much; but I am informed, from several circumstances, of an indisposition of mind.’

The peers trailed out of Westminster Hall to decide on what would happen next. After some time they returned, and the Lord High Steward told Ferrers, ‘You are to proceed to your defence.’

Again Earl Ferrers prevaricated, stating that he did not know how to proceed but that he intended to defend himself on the ground that he was mad. ‘The defence I mean is occasional insanity of mind,’ he said. ‘I am convinced, from recollecting within myself, that, at the time of this action, I could not know what I was about.’

On this, the first afternoon of his trial, he was forced to continue as best he could and called a further two witnesses; John Bennefold, a wig-maker, clerk and magistrate who had known the Earl for twenty years, and Thomas Goostrey, a business adviser.

Questioning the witnesses in a chaotic manner, Earl Ferrers asked Mr Bennefold what he thought of his state of mind. ‘His Lordship has always behaved in a very strange manner,’ said Bennefold. ‘Very flighty, very much like a man out of his mind – more particularly so within these two years past – such as being in liquor, and swearing and cursing and the like, and talking to himself, very much like a man disordered in his senses… and then he has behaved himself as well as any other gentleman at times.’

He confirmed that he knew Lord Ferrers’ uncle Henry, who had died in a lunatic asylum, and that he had heard that another family member, his aunt, Lady Barbara Shirley, had also suffered from mental illness. The Attorney-General asked the witness, ‘Did Mrs Shirley [the countess] ever treat him as an insane person, or talk of sending for a physician to him?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Did any other person think my Lord so insane as to want that?’

‘I cannot recollect any person in particular,’ came the reply.

Mr Goostrey, a reputed lawyer and acquaintance of the Earl’s for a decade, was initially not the best defence witness. Far from giving examples of the aristocrat’s eccentricities and lunacy he told the court he found him to be of ‘a very remarkable disposition’ and ‘extremely sensible’ and capable of being lucid in his business dealings. After much questioning, he reluctantly pointed to some odd business decisions and his stubbornness as proof of his insanity. ‘I have frequently had directions from him to do things that in my opinion were either fruitless, or opposite to his interest, and upon those occasions I have always found it in vain to endeavour to dissuade his Lordship from it,’ he said. ‘I have never been capable of accounting for his behaviour otherwise than by apprehending that he has been at times out of his mind.’

By way of an example of this ‘madness’, Goostrey cited a visit to one Sir Thomas Stapleton. Sir Thomas had offended his Lordship so he visited the lawyer ‘to draw an advertisement to be inserted in all the papers intending to challenge Sir Thomas Stapleton [to a duel], and to post him for a coward if he did not give him satisfaction. I was extremely uneasy and with difficulty did dissuade him from it.’