Liverpool laughed politely. “It's proving to be a good year thus far, isn't it? We've got the Peterloo conspirator trials under way in York, and next month the Cato Street boys will experience English justice.”
“What were the conspirators at Peterloo eventually charged with?” Harrowby asked.
“I believe it was âassembling with unlawful banners at an unlawful meeting for the purpose of exciting discontent.' Doesn't get more unlawful than that.”
“Ha! True. I imagine, though, that they'll get light sentences. At least, I hope so. Too many women were killed for the government to take too hard a stand against them. And there's no real proof that they intended treason, much as I hate their radical agitating. Unlike with our Cato Street situation, where it's obvious to even the most dull-witted street urchin that they planned the overthrow of the government.”
“Well, the passage of the Six Acts back in December will seal the Peterloo rioters' fates, and was fortuitous in helping our own cause with the Cato Street conspirators, eh?”
Harrowby spat away a bit of cigar leaf that was stuck on his lower lip. “Indeed. Although I'm worried that the specific measure prohibiting public meetings of more than fifty people without permission may work against us. After all, there were only about a dozen of them, meaning their meetings were not illegal, per se.”
Liverpool shook his head. “Not to worry. The Cato Street brutes will certainly be found guilty of gathering for the purpose of training for a radical act. I just wish we'd been able to make that punishable by death instead of just seven years' transportation. Although the government will present such a terrifying case of what the no-good knaves were up to that there won't be any doubt as to the trial's outcome.”
“So, your prediction is ... ?”
“My prediction is that the scaffoldmaker will be a very busy man next month. Which reminds me, I had a visit from one of the conspirators' family members, a young woman, begging for the life of her brother. Sad, really. She'd been to see the king, who of course paid her no attention. I sent her on her way, too. I see no reason to show a traitor mercy just because he has a beautiful sister, do you?”
Harrowby sat up straight in his chair. “Was her name Annabelle Stirling, by chance?”
Liverpool frowned. “Why yes, I think it was.”
“Do you know the woman visited me, as well? She must be making the rounds on Parliament, trying to find a sympathetic member. A fruitless effort, poor girl. Although I wouldn't use the word âbeg' to describe her visit. Miss Stirling was quite ferocious about her brother's release. Said he was her only family left in the world. I had to explain to her that justice doesn't make decisions by counting siblings. Honestly, I had a moment where I thought the woman planned to tear out my eyes. I'd hate to be married to such a she-wolf.”
“Why? For fear she would make you give up cigar smoking altogether?”
“Ah, you're a scoundrel, Liverpool. But that reminds me, I need to dash off a note to my valet to send off for another box of Jamaicans. The Spaniards produce some decent cigars, too, and I hear that veterans of the wars are trying their hand at growing tobacco. I doubt anything will beat my Jamaicans, though.”
Lord Harrowby opened the slant front of his new secretary, and pulled up a chair in front of it. “You know this is the desk they sent over in their obvious attempt to get the layout of my home?”
“Is it? Exquisite work. You profited handsomely by allowing them into your home.”
Harrowby smiled. “I deserved no less. Imagine the risk I ran of the constables not breaking them up when they did, and instead having criminals arrive on my doorstep with torches and pitchforks.”
“Yes, the gossip would have been unbearable, I'm sure. It seems a heavy expense for the group, don't you think? It must have cost them easily quite a few quid.”
“Perhaps they had a wealthy financier. Or Thistlewood had a rich widow in the background.”
“Possibly. Still, it strikes me as an odd âgift' to present you just to gain access to the home. Surely they could have found something more reasonably sized. What did you find inside it?”
“Nothing. It was brand-new. Still smelled of staining oils.”
“Then whyâjust a minute!” Liverpool jumped up from his chair. “Aren't these things sometimes made with secret drawers and hidden nooks and such?”
“I suppose. But why would they want to give me a desk with secret compartments?”
“I don't know. Why would they want to kill everyone in Parliament? Move aside, Harrowby, let's have a look.”
Lord Liverpool pushed the slant front closed, and pulled out the drawers that lay beneath it, handing them to Harrowby, who looked over each one for false bottoms before setting it on the floor. Liverpool dropped to his knees and felt around inside the carcass of the desk, seeking springs, knobs, or anything else that might suggest a hiding place.
Nothing.
He stood and opened the two doors on the top of the desk, admiring the fine marquetry that displayed a scene of female Greek statues swathed in gently draped fabrics. He could find nothing inside here, either. Perhaps it was just a foolish notion on his part.
“Harrowby, do you mind if I look in the slant-front section, as well? Anything personal of yours in it?”
“Go ahead. I've hardly used the desk at all yet. I'm interested now myself in what you might find.”
So Lord Liverpool pulled the heavy wood front down again, and started anew the process of pulling out the myriad of drawers, this time miniature in size. One drawer rattled.
“What's this? A pin. It must have a use. I seriously doubt the craftsman who made this piece would have been careless enough to leave a pin in it.”
Liverpool probed the slots and drawer openings with his fingers and the pin. He was about to admit defeat and apologize for tearing the secretary apart when he felt a tiny click as he ran the pin along a drawer wall. He repeated the action slowly. There. The pin connected with a small depression in the wood. He pressed harder against the indentation, and a decorative column popped away from the front of the interior, revealing a long slot behind it.
“Well, what do we have here? A secret compartment, stuffed full of papers.” Liverpool turned it over, scattering its contents on the desk. “Receipts, bills, a map of Grosvenor Square. Harrowby, I do believe we've found documents of utmost interest to the Cato Street trial. God has smiled upon us tonight, my friend. I'll carry them to court myself first thing in the morning.”
“Wait a minute. Something is coming to me. I recall someoneâa fellow member?âmentioning a cabinetmaker. Something about the fellow being falsely associated with the conspiracy. Or was he a conspirator who got lost in the melee? Hmm. Wonder if it deserves an investigation.”
Liverpool clapped him on the shoulder. “Up to you, although if it was a false accusation, it might make fragments of the pie, eh? Perhaps it's best to stick with the ingredients we know won't crumble our case.”
“You're right. I just wish I could remember what it was I heard, and from whom. It nags at the back of my mind.”
“Harrowby, you are your own worst nag. How about breaking open that bottle of port I see on the sideboard? Damned selfish of you to taunt me with it all evening.”
And so the two men celebrated victory for a second time that evening.
13
Forgiveness spares the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.
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âHannah More, English writer, 1745â1833
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April 1820
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B
elle sat in the gallery of the courtroom, watching in dread as the inevitable played out before her. Her brother was shuffled in each day with the rest of the conspirators, chained and unwashed, as evidence was presented and arguments made.
The court was startled by last-minute evidence provided by Lord Liverpool in the form of documents seized from Lord Harrowby's home. The documents were discovered inside a secretary that the conspirators had given the earl as a supposed anniversary gift in order to have a look inside his home.
A secretary! Belle spun her head to look at Wesley, who, for the first time, looked nervous instead of expressionless. He fidgeted in his chains while the contents found in the desk were enumerated, but visibly settled down when the itemization was complete.
Why? Did Wesley know about the documents stored in the desk? Was there something specific he thought troubling?
Would she not ever understand her brother?
Her subsequent visits to Wesley since trying to find a sympathetic ear to his plight had been less than successful. His body was more emaciated, and his eyes more vacant. He took little interest in the food offerings she brought him, nor in any of the shop gossip about some of his favorite patrons.
He was fading away, dying in a surer way than any hangman could impose.
A woman seated next to her leaned over and whispered, “Looks like they's just presented the length of rope, hasn't they? There hasn't been a public hanging in London in some time. It'll be a lesson to other radicals, won't it?”
Belle stared straight ahead without replying, willing herself not to cry. Or slap the woman.
The trial had thus far revealed the infiltration of a George Edwards into the Thistlewood group. Edwards helped the conspirators form the plan to invade Lord Harrowby's home and kill as many members of Parliament as possible.
Edwards revealed that the conspirators' most brutal act would be to cut off the heads of at least two members and spirit them off to Westminster Bridge, putting them on pikes as a broad announcement of their accomplishment and as a warning to others.
Belle was even more aghast to learn that the conspirators intended to fire a rocket from Lord Harrowby's home to signal to other Spenceans in the city that the deed was done, followed by setting fire to a nearby oil shop to add to the confusion and attract a mob. They then planned to attack a bank and throw open the gates of Newgate to thoroughly paralyze the city and enable their escape.
Although the conspirators had posted a couple of watchers outside Harrowby's residence the day of the supposed dinner party to ensure all was going as planned, they were duped by a real dinner party being hosted by the Archbishop of York, who lived next door. So the parade of carriages lining the street assured them that all was well, and they reported it as such to Thistlewood. Hence the Bow Street Runners were able to intercept the conspirators before they ever left their secret meeting place.
One of the runners provided damning testimony about their watch on the Cato Street hayloft from the upper story of the Horse and Groom. From their perch, they were able to witness far more about the proceedings than Belle, and offered significant detail as to how the conspirators were heavily arming themselves inside the hayloft. The constable also gave gruesome details of Thistlewood's murder of the Bow Street leader, a man named Smithers, who was one of the first to climb up into the hayloft.
After Thistlewood's drop from the window, he made a temporary escape to a house in Little Moorfields, but was apprehended the next morning, wearing a military sash and breeches full of pistol cartridges. His flight only added to the list of that man's crimes.
Thistlewood made a long, rambling speech, primarily slandering the informer, George Edwards, who he suggested was the greatest villain of them all for having joined “the reformers” under false pretenses and continued to encourage them in their vital work without confessing to his immoral workings against the group.
Other conspirators attempted the same line of attack, only to be greeted with scorn. Wesley remained silent throughout the proceedings.
The mulatto William Davidson presented his own eloquent defense, telling the jury, “You may suppose that because I am a man of color I am without any understanding or feeling and would act the brute. I am not one of that sort. When not employed in my business in Birmingham, I have employed myself wisely and conscientiously as a teacher of a Sunday school. “
But the presiding judge responded, “You may rest most perfectly assured that with respect to the color of your countenance, no prejudice either has or will exist in any part of this court against you. A man of color is entitled to British justice as much as the fairest British subject.”
Belle had hoped British justice would mean mercy for her brother, but her hope was fading like the embers of a kitchen hearth, long after the family meal has been cooked and eaten, nor did anyone much care whether her hope flickered out.
The court recessed for the day, and she hurried home to pack a basket of foodstuffs to take to her brother. She dreaded having to trudge back to court again tomorrow, after enduring yet another sleepless night, to hear verdicts.
Shame on you, Belle Stirling. How sleepless do you think it will be for Wesley?
She'd tried so hard to find someone who would intercede for her brother, but it was no use. The king, Lord Liverpool, Lord Harrowby, and a half-dozen other members of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons completely ignored her, if they didn't outright laugh at her.
Mr. Nash was sympathetic to the situation, but only offered her the same sad shake of the head to tell her she was on a fool's errand.
Amid the years of famine, unrest, and rioting, England sought a way to put a final ending on the turmoil. This trial was the government's statement that it was quelling all insurrection in the country.
Wesley accepted the food with perfunctory thanks, although it didn't look as though he was eating anything she brought him. Of more concern to him was money to purchase ale and “other supplies” as he could find in the prison.
Belle dropped another pouch into his outstretched hand.
She arrived at court as early the next day as possible, to ensure a seat along the banister overlooking the trial. It went much as she expected, with a supreme look of satisfaction as the same judgment was rendered on all of the suspects.
Guilty.
Except that justice was parceled out differently to the various conspirators, according to their roles in the plot. Thistlewood, of course, had the harshest sentence brought against him: to be hung by the neck until dead, then beheaded.
Perhaps his head would be posted where he once intended the members of Parliament's heads to be staked.
The Jamaican-born Davidson and three others were also found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to hanging and beheading. But the embers of hope were stoked again in Belle when several other men were found guilty, but because of their lesser roles in the conspiracy, they were sentenced to deportation for life.
Deportation! Was it possible that Wesley could find mercy by deportation to Australia or America? Belle was mentally calculating what would have to be done in order to close down the London shop to start anew in one of those countries, but was diverted by the judge, who placed a black cap on his own head before pronouncing Wesley's fate.
Guilty of high treason, with a sentence of hanging by the neck until dead, followed by ceremonial beheading, outside Newgate Prison two days hence.
Belle heard no more, for the world collapsed around her in a violent torrent of blood rushing in her ears, blocking out the clinking of chains as the prisoners were filed out of the courtroom for the final time.
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The king and Privy Council met, as was the custom in death sentences, to determine whether some of the conspirators should be offered a reprieve. To no one's surprise, all of the sentences were upheld, yet Belle held out hope that the king would extend mercy to her brother at the last minute, if for no reason other than the fact that he was brother to the Pavilion's draper.
She paid her final visit to Wesley in Newgate. He had been moved into a condemned cell, which had the ironic benefit of larger, more private quarters, with a better bed and more windows, although here the thick walls were covered with nail-studded planks.
But a condemned man spent his last hours alone, without the chaotic company of dozens of other prisoners around him. Belle would have thought all of those other people might be of comfort at such a time, but prison officials apparently thought otherwise.
Wesley's mood was strangely calm as he sat on the edge of his bed with Belle next to him.
“You don't understand, Belle. They want us to make peace with God, without distractions. I suspect that's entirely too late for me, don't you?” His upper lip cracked from dryness as he smiled, sending a small rivulet of blood into the corner of his mouth.
She took his hands. They were damp and sticky, in sharp contrast to the dryness of his mouth, and giving the lie to his placid demeanor. Her brother was as terrified as she was. “I am so sorry, Wesley, truly I am. I tried everything I could. No one would pay me any mind.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn't think anyone would.”
“I still think a pardon could come at the last moment. It's happened before.”
“I doubt it. Others have also tried to help me, with little result. I seem to have made one bad decision after another. At least I'll die knowing that I prevented taking anyone else with me.”
Belle was moved by his concern for her. “I wish I could take this punishment for you, Wesley. How preferable it would be to end my own life than to see yours gone.”
“Don't be ridiculous, Belle. You warned me not to involve myself in anything illegal. But I had my own selfish goals, and here we see the outcome. I just wish I weren't shaming our family name.”
“I'll never be ashamed of you. You made a mistake, is all.” She lifted one of his clammy hands to her face, but he pulled it away.
“A mistake? A mistake is ordering cotton when you intended to order velvet. A mistake is cutting three yards when you mean three and a half. What I did was make a colossal blunder. The Duke of Monmouth couldn't have been more foolish when he tried to take the throne of England.”
But what difference did the level of Wesley's crime make now? “I can't believe it's all come to this. How will I live without you, Brother?”
“More nonsense. You'll be much better off without me, I think. You should marry Mr. Boyce. He's fond of you. You should have seen the secretary he made, thinking it was for you. He'll take care of you, Belle.”
“I don't require anyone's assistance.”
“Sister, he's not like me or Clive. I admit now that my intention was to take the business from you. And Clive wanted you to abandon it altogether. But I don't think Mr. Boyce has that kind of design on you. Think how complementary his cabinetmaking shop would be to ourâyourâdraper shop.”
Belle laughed uneasily. Hadn't Put said much the same thing to her? “This is hardly the topic of conversation for such a moment. We should be discussing what else I can do for you.”
Wesley disengaged his hands and turned away from her. Placing his elbows on his knees, he leaned forward and rested his chin in his palms. “There's nothing else that can be done for me, Belle. Lord, how I wish I hadn't listened to Darâothers. If I'd paid the slightest attention to you, I wouldn't be sitting in this rathole today.”
He put both hands to his neck. “What do you imagine it feels like, Belle? The rough rope around your neck, slowly choking you to death? Do you think you black out quickly? That you're in blissful unconsciousness before you actually die?”
No, she didn't think that. Although the hangman's noose was intended to quickly break a man's neck and prevent suffering, many a man had struggled mightily against the rope, sometimes for up to a half hour. The heavier a man, the more forceful his drop, and the more likely that he would die quickly. But Wesley, poor Wesley, was so thin and gaunt now that he would probably flutter in the breeze endlessly. Belle shuddered. No, no, she couldn't let that happen.
She spoke quietly, hardly believing her own words. “Brother, there is one last service I can provide you. I can pay to have someone posted underneath the gallows, to pull on your legs when you drop. So that the end is more ... immediate. Do you want me to do this?”
He sat straight again to face her. A single tear coursed down his face. “Yes, Sister. I deserve no mercy from you, but if you will grant me such a favor, I will be eternally grateful. Eternally grateful, ha! Grateful in hell.”