The Cantor Dimension (22 page)

Another witness stated that Mr. Hawley was greatly aggrieved by the murder, declaring to a friend that the death of Capell was a piece of villainy. He later spoke to Braddon who had spent much time researching the case, asking Braddon why he'd gotten involved when he didn't know anything. On hearing of this conversation the city coroner asked Mr. Hawley, "If you know that Mr. Braddon knows nothing in relation thereunto, what must you know of that matter?"
²¹

Hawley made no reply but his knowledge cost him dearly because the following March of 1684, Mr. Hawley went missing according to the testator, which was coincidentally the same month that Edmond Halley went missing.

Another of the warders spouted that Hawley had been running his mouth and for this he was forced to flee. The warder added that after he'd been missing for a few days, Hawley's wife posted a reward in several
Gazettes
of 100 pounds to anyone who could find her husband dead or alive. Coincidentally, Joane Halley posted a reward of 100 pounds in the
News-Book
for her missing husband,
dead or alive
.

The warder's testimony stated that six weeks later, Hawley's body was found dead and stripped in a river near Rochester. His murderers had beaten and bruised him and altered his face so far from its natural form that by his face none could know him. The murderers had left his stockings upon his legs and thereby his wife was able to identify him, for he wore three stockings on one leg and two stockings plus a seer cloth on the other. By this warder's testimony we could conclude that Hawley and Halley were one in the same person, and that Halley had been murdered for his knowledge about the murder of the Earl of Essex.

According to another testator, others were murdered or beaten for blabbing what they knew about Capell's death. One soldier was tied to a wooden horse and whipped 53 times, being told that he should have been hanged for saying that he thought Capell had been murdered rather than uphold the suicide story.

William Edwards, one of the children who had witnessed the bloody razor being thrown from the window, later testified that Major Hawley had threatened him with whippings for the next seven years if he did not properly deny witnessing the razor being flung from the window.

One would suppose that the truth would be found in the witness who stated that Hawley of the Capell incident was one in the same as the man found naked in the river with multiple socks on, but there was another Hawley working as a yeoman warder that year. According to Volume 8 of the state trials, a T. Hawley was a yeoman warder in 1681. In another publication, a Thomas Hawley was listed as a Major at the Tower of London from 1690-1697.

Major Thomas Hawley is mentioned in the calendar of treasury papers as filing a petition to the king. In his petition he states that he was a Major at the Tower of London where he served during the reign of King Charles II and King James II. He claimed that he was stationed at the Tower during the horrid conspiracy against the king and that others had whispered malicious rumors about him, causing him to be arrested and held in custody for 11 weeks.

Thomas Hawley begged for an audience with the king, and to be paid the money which was due him and which had cost him to 'part with his places' when we wasn't paid. In addition, he wanted to be granted the next vacancy of yeoman warder and to be given a pension of 60 pounds per year. The petition was summarily denied. As King James did not take the throne until 1685, Thomas Hawley could not have been the man who was found dead in the river in 1684.

Was Edmond Halley the soap-boiler murdered for his position as a yeoman warder on the day of Capell's murder? Did he know something for which he was silenced? Was Edmond Halley even a yeoman warder when searches of the warders rolls fail to bring up his name?

The names Halley and Hawley were interchangeable in those days along with a variety of other spellings. Might they have been kinsmen? If so, is it possible that Hawley confided in Halley who then told others, causing his own demise? People who spoke out about Capell's murder were immediately disposed of, the king wanting Capell's death to be labeled suicide.

Or could Halley's identity have been mistaken for Major Thomas Hawley who played such a big role in the murder of Capell? Was Halley killed for a case of mistaken identity? Reports of his murder had been connected to the Rye House Plot so many believed that Halley had been a yeoman warder.

Captain Hawley was in fear of his life and was soon after reported dead, beaten and strangled, yet he later filed a petition with the king. Was the dead man identified by the testator as Hawley actually the body of Edmond Halley? Surely there were not two dead men found in the river in April 1684 wearing multiple socks whose wives posted rewards of 100 pounds dead or alive.

King Charles died the following year and the Duke of York ascended the throne as King James II. The Duke of Monmouth led a rebellion against him with forces from Holland. The rebellion failed and the Duke of Monmouth was captured and subsequently executed at the Tower of London according to the official reports.

So much of the history surrounding King Charles II, King James II, the Duke of Monmouth, and the Rye House Plot was shrouded in mystery. Even the death of Monmouth was not simply accepted at face value.

The Duke of Monmouth was believed by some to be
the man in the iron mask
, a prisoner whose face was kept hidden for 34 years. Rather than executing his own nephew, the new king may have executed someone else in his place and sent Monmouth secretly to France to be imprisoned by a fellow Catholic for the rest of his natural life.

An even more bizarre legend surrounded Monmouth after his execution. A painting was discovered in a farmhouse near Sevenoaks which had been purchased by Sir Seymour Haden. The inscription on the back of the painting said, "
From Miss Wray and to her father, Sir William Ultethorne Wray, the son of Sir Cecil Wray of Lincolnshire, in whose possession it was originally. Monmouth.
"

The painting was believed to be the head of Monmouth after his execution
²²
according to a story posted in the New York Times on November 13, 1910. It was said that the execution of Monmouth was the most ghastly of its kind on record, five blows being necessary to sever the head from the body.

In the painting, Monmouth's head is resting on a white velvet cushion as if sleeping and his neck is completely hidden. Whether his head was sewn back onto his body prior to the portrait is unknown. He is covered right up to his chin.

Deathbed paintings were common practice in the 1600s as a way to provide a visual memory for the bereaved, later being replaced by deathbed photographs which were popular even into the early twentieth century. Being the son of a king, Monmouth would surely have been awarded such an honor in spite of his quarrel with his uncle.

With its ghastly history, the Tower of London is considered to be one of the world's most haunted places. The yeoman warders to this day occasionally experience time slips where they can "see" things that once took place in the Tower as if they were really there.

The deaths of Monmouth, Hawley and Halley will forever be shrouded in mystery. While we cannot be certain as to whether Halley was a warder and thus involved in the coverup, or whether he was killed simply as a case of mistaken identity, the facts that link the two men's history are indisputable.

Table of Contents

Three compasses were designed by Edmond Halley with Xenotime crystals, peridot bearings and coordinate dials. They were given to his good friend Isaac Newton, his father Edmond Halley the soap-boiler, and his wife Mary Halley.

Newton's compass is presumed to be destroyed; the location of the compass owned by the murdered father of Edmond Halley is unknown; while Mary Halley's compass passed down through the generations and into the hands of Maxwell Cantor.

Max's compass had an inscription:
To my beloved Paramour.
While most believed that the inscription was intended to say "paramour" to honor someone's mistress, Max knew better. He knew that his compass had been designed by Edmond Halley himself to guide his own travels on the good ship
Paramour
.

Max had discovered the power of the compass quite by accident. Shortly after he purchased the Pallasite ring he was dusting around his compass collection and found himself in California with no idea how he'd gotten there. All he knew was that he felt dizzy for a moment and closed his eyes, and when he opened his eyes a moment later he was in California. It had cost him a pretty penny to fly back to Memphis.

He didn't make the connection until it happened again and he realized that both times he was holding the compass. It took Max quite awhile to connect the ring as his efforts were focused on studying the compass. He came to the realization that the decorative dials determined the location and he intentionally traveled to India to test the theory.

When he discovered that he was not only in a different country but had also gone back in time, he got stranded. Trying various combinations in an attempt to figure out how to get back home, he ended up in Germany, Russia and a variety of other places, all at different times in history, before he figured out the key.

Once he knew how to use the compass and ring together, his test runs included spying on Brody which was the only way he could verify that he was indeed traveling and not simply dreaming or hallucinating. Through spying on and later questioning his friend, he was able to determine that he had indeed unlocked one of the greatest discoveries of all time. He fully intended to share the discovery with Brody but before he did so, he wanted to accomplish one task.

Max had set out to go back in time and save his family from the car accident that had killed his parents and his brother Grant a few years earlier. They had been on their way to Arkabutla Lake in Mississippi for the Fourth of July when a drunk driver swerved into their lane and hit them head on.

Max was supposed to have gone with them but he had picked up a nasty flu virus and had stayed home. His brother Parry had survived the accident though he'd suffered grave injuries. The accident had happened on Highway 51 in Mississippi. In his attempt to locate and stop the accident, Max had miscalculated and was now hovering in a time bubble over Highway 51 just west of Utica, Illinois.

In that same instant, a fellow time traveler came hurdling through space-time colliding with Max. A spectacular show of lights played across the sky over Utica as exotic particles collided in the upper atmosphere causing the aurora borealis to extend down into the United States, and Max and the intruder were hurled even further back in time. Their bodies hit the ground with a jarring thud in the year 1937.

The two of them sat on the ground eyeing each other suspiciously. Max noticed the name
Jerome
stitched on the intruder's blue shirt. It looked like a gas station attendant's shirt. Max remembered one of his earlier experiences with time travel where he had bumped into someone with a name sewn on their shirt. It had happened so fast he hadn't been sure if the name was Jerry, Jeremy or Jerome. Now he knew.

"Why don't you watch where you're going?" Max shouted angrily. Jerome jumped up and took off running into the woods that ran along the roadside in either direction. "Hey!" Max shouted. "Hey wait!"

Max stood up to run after Jerome but sank back to the ground when he realized he'd twisted an ankle. The most vivid impression he had of Jerome were his eyes: two glittering pitch black pools of pure hatred.

Max realized right away that he wasn't where he'd set out to go. He thought about returning home and trying again but found himself brimming with curiosity over his collision with another time traveler. He decided to stick around and see if he could find Jerome. As Max had needed a compass of which only two existed, in addition to a very rare meteorite ring, he was surprised that it was even possible for the remarkable combination to fall into someone else's hands.

Max limped toward the spot where Jerome had disappeared into the woods, breaking off a sturdy branch to use as a cane. The ground was moist and sucked at his shoes. It had evidently been raining before they arrived and Jerome's footprints left a clear trail in the mud. Max set off to follow him, making his way slowly on his injured ankle.

He had started out determined to find and talk to Jerome but he'd been limping through the woods for hours and the sun was beginning to descend toward the horizon. A series of rumblings escaped Max's stomach reminding him that he hadn't eaten for a day and a half. He had to find a way out of this forest but he didn't know which was the quickest route to the edge so he just kept following those damnable footprints.

He stumbled out of the woods just as the sun was about to disappear for the night. He saw the dark silhouette of a building and made his way toward it. The soft whinnying of a horse told him that it was a barn which meant a potential bed of hay to sleep on. Gratefully he crept inside, his sing-song voice wheedling, "There, there, now. I'm not going to hurt you. Take it easy there, fella. Settle down. It's okay, I'm a friend. I just want to rest a little while, okay?"

Max was rewarded by another soft whinny signaling the horse's acceptance of him. He crawled up into the hayloft and fell fast asleep. He was awakened at daybreak by the sound of heavy boots. A cheerful voice admonished, "Whoa there, Penelope! Easy now, old girl, breakfast is coming! You're a spoiled hunk o' horseflesh, you are."

The man was answered by a series of snorts and whinnies. "There y'are, old girl. There's yer breakfast." Max could hear Penelope pawing at the cobbles, her whinnies becoming more insistent. Max winced.

"Whassa matter, Penelope? C'mon, eat up!" the man wheedled affectionately. Max sat rigid atop his bed of hay. "Penelope? What're you trying to tell me, old girl? Settle down, whoa!" Penelope's whinnies grew louder and the cheerful voice became angry.