The Tragedy of Captain Harrison; or, the Brownlow Street Mystery. Put together ... from the conflicting reports of the 'Tryal of Hen. Harrison, gent,' and the 'Last words' of the convict, Lond. 1692. By R. C. J

Front matter

THE TRAGEDY OF Captain Harrison OR The Brownlow Street Mystery. put together, historically and conjecturally, from the conflicting reports of the "TRYAL OF HEN. HARRISON, Gent.,' AND THE "LAST WORDS" OF THE CONVICT (LOND. 1692). BY R. C J. Published by David Nutt in the Strand, London, mdcccxc, LO.VDON : li. NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, HART STREET, COVIMT GARDEN. TO THE READER. The tragic event recorded in the following pages is one which nearly two centuries ago excited a grave interest in London, and (like several similar occurrences in our own day) awakened the most anxious doubts in many minds in regard to those who were the actors in it. The only authentic documents which we are able to consult on the subject are the official report of the trial itself, now a rare publication, and the still rarer tract, written before his execution, by Harrison himself;* and the almost impossibility of reconciling the two statements led the writer of the following pages to undertake a narrative of the tragic story founded on a careful comparison of both, and only filled up in those portions of it which needed connection * This the Author found in a valuable collection of tracts formerly belonging to a branch of the Liddell family in Northumberland, now in his possession, extending from 1624 to 1703. with a few subordinate persons who might pro bably have taken an inferior part in this drama of real life.

These are — Frank Ottway, the nephew of the Serjeant at whose chambers Harrison had been a clerk, Mrs. Ottway, the Jew Lazarus, and the Chaplain, Mr. Purfew. All the other characters are real, and are represented as fairly as was possible in a story which has two versions, almost as diametrically opposed to one another as the romantic narrative upon which Shelley constructed his great tragedy of the Cenci is to the terribly matter-of-fact version of it by which Signor Bertolotti dispelled the illusions of three centuries of heroine worship, and of the unjust condemnation of the only one who could really have told the tale of horror. The twenty sixth chapter is conjectural, but founded upon the probabilities indicated in the " Last Words." With these few words of Introduction, the writer commends his view of a mystery which can never be fully solved in this world to the favourable consideration of the reader. THE £ragtd}> of Captain OR, THE BROWNLOW STJ\EET MYSTERY,

Chapter I. Five

and twenty years had passed since the great Fire, and London had nearly risen from its ashes. The buildings which we now see as time worn and darkened with the smoke and decay of two centuries, were then bright and fresh from the hands of the builder, and though the picturesque gables and storeys of woodwork overlapping one another, and the narrow alleys strangely intersect ing each other and leaving but little room even for the foot passengers to thread their intricate mazes had been swept away, to be replaced by lofty and brick-built dwellings, and the plague which had been their too frequent tenant had passed away with them, the old Londoner could hardly remember without regret the scenes of his earlier life, the quaint and primitive shops with their open fronts — the variety of shape and outline which had been succeeded by so unwelcome a uniformity of ugliness in which not a single element of the picturesque had survived.

The crowning feature ofthe City, old St. Paul's, with its grand tower and lengthened roof, which in spite of its anomalies and anachronisms had been the object of interest and admiration to so many generations of citizens, no longer rose above the heightened roofs, and gave a central ornament to the avenues of brick and stone which radiated towards it. The fifty churches of the good Queen Anne had not replaced the group of spires which the pictures of London before the fire present to the eye. But the terrible conflagration, which spread along the river from St. Paul's to Westminster, and devoured the very heart and centre of the great city, spared by a strange caprice the venerable abodes of the law, and left the Inns of Court, if not intact, at least but partially destroyed. The lonely and murky build ings of Gray's Inn had been left comparatively uninjured, for the line of the river marked the course ofthe devouring element, and the northern parts of London, the least important and the least picturesque, were left comparatively harmless in the terrible fray.

In one of the central houses of this forbidding mass of brickwork were situated the chambers of Serjeant Ottway, one of the most eminent and venerable possessors of the coif who had taken a prominent part in the chief cases of his day, and by steering clear of the shoals and quicksands which were spread through the changeful years which successively witnessed the fall of the monarchy, the restoration, and the revolution, had obtained the respect and the confidence of all parties in Church and State. At the moment at which our narrative opens he was sitting in his consulting-room, in the midst of vast piles of documents, some spread out on the table before him, others relegated to the floor, the legal accu mulations which the trial of the Earl of Danby, in which he was engaged, had heaped up in its long and dreary course.

As the principal counsel for the Earl, he was perusing a brief of no ordi nary length and intricacy, when a slight knock at the door disturbed his work, and his wife entered the room, an unusual visitor at such a place and in such an hour. " My presence," she said, on entering, " must be unexpected, but my errand is one of no light import to the poor widow whose case has given us so much anxiety and trouble." " And what has happened to increase that anxiety? Ever since I acted as executor to Mr. Cornelius Vandinanker I have had ceaseless trouble and difficulty in carrying out his benevolent wish, to make some provision for herself and her children. You remember his bequest to her of five hundred pounds— no very large sum in these days when old and frugal habits are dying out, and London is rising from its ashes to a strange resurrection-life of luxury and pride.

But i * the poor woman is acting as if it were five thousand instead, and seems to think the fund, which was designed to help her in the evil day, an inexhaustible treasure. But what new folly has she committed ? " " You shall hear it in her own words," replied Mrs. Ottway, producing a letter, which she un folded and read. It was as follows : — " My dear and honoured Friend, " I shrink from the thought of opening to your good husband my new troubles, and there fore entreat you to have the great goodness to communicate to him the contents of this letter, and to ask whether he can save me from the perplexing position in which I am again placed. It is now a fortnight since I somewhat indis creetly, as I confess, prevailed on a benevolent friend, who spends her time in visiting the prisons and workhouses, in order to comfort and relieve the unfortunate inmates, to allow me to accompany her in her visit of mercy.

We went, among other places, to the Compter, and there found a young man of the highest education and greatest promise imprisoned for a debt, which would have brought him to ruin had it become known in the regiment to which he belonged, for he was an officer in my Lord Danby's regiment, and had rashly borrowed of one Lazarus, a Jew, the money to buy his commission. He was to pay it off in instalments at regular periods, and when one of these arrived, and he begged for a brief extension of time, the cruel money-lender came upon him for the debt, and he was at once immured in the Compter. And now my own part in the narrative begins. I was, I own, strangely affected to see a young man, evidently of gentle birth and high breeding, thus dealt with. I was struck with the artlessness of his manner, his high bearing and address, with his touching description of his present state, and of the sad outlook of the future, and in a moment of weakness I engaged to stand security for the forty pounds which would redeem his life and restore him to his former state.

I know that the Serjeant will blame me, perhaps even reproach me, for neglecting the good advice he gave me ; but he has the means of releasing me from my perilous state, for I may too probably have to change places with this unhappy young man — now, indeed, happier than I am in the prospect of his restored liberty. The Serjeant is , as you know, the trustee of Mr. Vandinanker's legacy, and has the power of advancing out of it a sufficient sum to relieve me of this dreadful burden, and to save me from the terrible fate of a separation from my children, and the breaking up of my poor but happy home, which he has done so much already to cheer and to bless. I cannot add more, for I am unable to bear the prospect of such a sorrow, or to follow the train of thought which must bring it before me in all its features of misery.

Forgive me for interrupting with my troubles your own peaceful and useful life, and believe me ever your devoted and grateful friend, "Anna Katharina Vanwyck." The Serjeant's countenance alternated in its expression between anger and pity. He seemed to be making notes in his mind of every passage, and even of every word, and his thoughts at last found utterance in a kind of half-dialogue and half soliloquy. "What could have induced her for to do it?" (This was his usual exclamation when a client had done something egregiously illegal.) " She knew that her money was in settlement — that she had only a life interest in it, and that the reversion belonged to her children — that we have no power of raising money upon it. One could almost wish that she might have a little prison discipline, if it only could teach her her own duties and a little prudence."

" But think, my dear, of the children ! She is indeed a foolish woman, and yet an affectionate mother. And poor Mr. Vanwyck made you their guardian." " Yes, that I might protect their interests ; but what if she betrays them ? That fatal legacy will be her ruin. 'Tis like the ' Fatal Dowry' we heard at the playhouse yesternight. But who is this young officer who has so strangely enchanted her ? " " My dear, she is silent— I fear suggestively silent — at this point. Is it possible that we can supply the name ? " " I believe it myself to be " — the Serjeant paused as if to emphasize the coming words — "none other — none other than Henry Harrison, who was once in our office, and who left us so suddenly." "And so ungratefully," rejoined his wife ; "for we had done all for him, and condoned many errors and much ill-conduct — and that after all his family had cast him off as worthless and incorrigible."

"Never," rejoined the Serjeant, "was a more dangerous or inopportune conjuncture of circum stances. Of all persons whom I should dread to bring together — of all whom I would keep, as far as the poles, from one another — Anna Vanwyck and Henry Harrison would be those persons. The one impulsive, impressionable, having the pathetic influence of a young, engaging widow — the other a handsome, reckless, gallant, but quarrelsome man, who never forgave an enemy and never secured a friend." Here he paused, as an advocate would do to impress a jury with the picture he was colouring, and resumed, " She had a fatal dowry when poor old Vandinanker left her the legacy — but the death-warrant will come from Harrison ! " " But, my dear Serjeant, what can be done to avert this terrible calamity ? Can we not prevail upon this Shylock to wait for his pound of flesh ? or can we get him to compound with us for it, and so save the very life-blood of the widow and her children ?"

" I have told you, Margaret, that her money is beyond her reach, and, fortunately, beyond ours. Would you hear the terms of the will ?■" " My dear, legal terms are Latin and Greek to me — I should not understand a word. Your assurance is sufficient for me ; but alas ! our agreement at this point cannot help on this wretched case. What are we to do ?" " I must see the widow," was the reply. " Desire Mrs. Vanwyck to be here punctually at ten to morrow morning. After that I have a consultation with Sir John Northeyon Lord Danby's case, and cannot be disturbed for a moment."

Chapter II. Dr

Andrew Clenche was at the close of the seventeenth century one of the most eminent physicians in London. During the wealthier period of " Old London," and before the great Fire had brought desolation to so many households, he had amassed a considerable fortune, much of which his legal advisers had led him to lend upon mortgage to the many builders who were now engaged in restoring the city, and in substituting the more durable structures of brick and stone for the far more picturesque wooden tenements of the former century. His house was in Brownlow Street, then peopled by a far different class of tenants from that which now occupies it. As the sphere of his practice embraced the legal colonies which were grouped in the near neighbourhood, he was naturally familiar with the heads of the learned profession of which Serjeant Ottway was so distinguished an ornament.

We cannot therefore be surprised to find Mrs. Clenche and Mrs. Ottway sitting in conclave in the drawing-room at Brownlow Street, and might almost guess the subject on which they were so earnestly conversing. Dr. Clenche was almost a public character, and his knowledge of persons, enlarged as it was by his devoted attention to the sufferers from the great Plague, which perhaps was rather burnt out by the cauterizing effects of the fire than banished by the appliances of medical skill, gave him an influence which few in that day could have acquired. Nor was his wife less worthy of a grateful memorial than himself. For by the aid which she rendered to the afflicted, and the interest she manifested in the poorer patients of her husband, she had gained their affections on the ground of benevolence as entirely as her husband had secured them by his devoted labours for their recovery.

Among these the widow had been numbered, for he had attended her husband during a long illness, leaving her under a pecuniary obligation to him which she had been hitherto unable to satisfy. Earlier in life he had attended professionally, though as a friend, the prisoner for whose debt the widow had so imprudently bound herself. It was natural therefore that Mrs. Ottway should appeal to her for advice and counsel, after the earnest entreaty which Mrs. Vanwyck had ad dressed to her husband. Mrs. Clenche anticipated her narrative. " I know it all," she said. " I know your mission, my dear friend, and am prepared to consult with you upon the steps which ought to be taken to extricate this impulsive being from a position at once so fatal to her future hopes and so ruinous to her present peace.

But what have you to suggest ? " " Alas ! I come to you for counsel, for I dare none of my own. I know that your good husband thinks more of the widow and orphan than of himself, and I have some recollection of his having attended the late Mr. Vanwyck in his last illness, and too probably finding his widow unable to pay for his many and kind visits." " You are right," rejoined Mrs. Clenche, " and at this moment there is a debt of some fourteen pounds, which perhaps will never be settled, for the Doctor's forbearance is too much of a proverb to induce his poorer debtors to lay by even a penny for the solution of their debts. I know that this is the case even in regard to old Lazarus, the Jew living at the sign ofthe 'Three Bezants,' by Holborn Bars. "You never could have thrown out the wisest suggestion which would be worth one-half the simple fact you have described.

Lazarus is the very man to whom poor Anna Vanwyck is bound. A word from the benevolent Doctor would bind him as firmly to delay the forcing of this claim as her hapless folly has bound her to satisfy it." " But a difficulty occurs to my mind," and Mrs. Clenche paused thoughtfully. " We cannot conceal the truth that the concession to the widow will ultimately accrue to the profligate — we cannot hide the fact that Harrison will be the re#l object of it — and you know how deeply my husband feels his conduct to your own, and the career of dissi pation he has run since his rash attempt to raise his outward position at the sacrifice of the humbler respectability which might have led him on to real advancement and honour." " But this," rejoined Mrs. Ottway, " need not be known. Many good works we do to our nearer neighbour may have ill results to a distant one, for could we see the less direct results of our good works we might find that we had innocently ministered to evils of whose possibility we were unconscious.

As in a noble pedigree, but a few steps might lead us back to something quite as ignoble." "But would it be conscientious in myself to conceal what I cannot dissemble the knowledge of?" " My dear, the question will be never asked ; and if ever it should be asked, your part in the matter will need no defence ; and, if blame should fall on any, let it fall upon me, and make me the transgressor. I know that your good husband will readily condone his oldest friend, if even he deems that condonation for such a work is needed. But what we do we must do quickly — the matter will not bear delay." It was at once determined that these real sisters of charity should proceed to the abode of the Jew, and carry out their project of mercy.

Chapter III. The

old clock in the turret of Gray's Inn had scarcely struck ten when Mrs. Vanwyck entered the chambers of Serjeant Ottway. We can readily imagine the state of mind in which she passed from the waiting-room to the audience chamber of the great lawyer, who in words of calm solemnity, uttered in a kind of funereal tone, bade her be seated, when the following colloquy began. " I know, madam, your errand, and have already heard of the incredible imprudence which has again made it necessary for you to appeal to me for advice and for help ; the one is hard indeed to give, the other all but impossible." " But, perhaps, you have only heard the worst. My letter was vague and feeble. I knew not how to clothe in words an indiscretion from which, had its defence been in your hands, a humane jury would at once have absolved me."

" Nay, madam, do not think that we lawyers can listen to sentimental reasons, when you have acted on an illegal assumption, and even betrayed the rights of your children and compromised their slender inheritance for the behoof of a stranger, a spendthrift, a gambler, a profligate." This terrible verdict was pronounced with an energy and in an impassioned tone which made it difficult to the widow to summon up courage to reply, or to plead for an arrest of the heavy judg ment. At last she said in plaintive tones — " But I believed that I was able to raise the sum that I had bound myself for, upon the legacy of Mr. Vandinanker, and Mr. Harrison promised to repay it with the first money he could procure. and assured me that there were many in Lord Danby's regiment who would at once come forward to help him and to refund the sum."

" Mr. Harrison," returned the Serjeant, " Mr. Harrison " — and he repeated the name, slowly, and with a bitterness which was unusual to him — " Mr. Harrison, I repeat, is a liar and a swindler — a profligate whose proper home was where you found him. But you knew the words of the will. You knew that the legacy was left to you and to your children ; that you had only an interest in the income derived from it, while the principal was in strict settlement. Let me read the clause ofthe will. I have it within reach. He took from a shelf that was near him a parchment roll, out of which he read, slowly, and laying special emphasis on the words which supported his assertion. " I give and bequeath to Mrs. Anna Katharina Vanwyck, as a token of my regard to her late husband, the sum of five hundred pounds of the sterling money of the realm, which I will to be settled upon herself and her children, so that the interest may alone be received by her quarterly, while the principal shall be held in trust by my friend Dr. Edisburie, one of the Masters of the Court of Chancery, for her children after her decease.

And I charge him that he do not suffer her to anticipate any interest arising therefrom, or to raise money upon it, or in any way to preju dice the right of her children to the reversion." "And this disposition of the will of your friend you have deliberately broken, and broken in behalf of one whom the testator would have regarded with horror, and would have shuddered at the thought that such a wretch could be even indirectly and remotely benefited by the provi sion he was making for the widow of his friend. And what, Mrs. Vanwyck, after so fatal an act, can we advise you to do ? How can we possibly aid one who requires rather to be saved from herself than from the miserable man she has so rashly accepted as a friend ? " The widow struggled in vain to reply; her voice was choked with sobs of grief, and her eyes were almost blinded with tears.

At last she gave utterance to a few broken and disjointed words, in which sorrow, penitence, and entreaty seemed to contend with one another for precedence. She knew that she had erred, and erred grievously. She confessed that she had disregarded the charge of her benefactor, and compromised the claims of her children. But her sin was an inadvertent one. She had been overcome by a tale of sorrow which reminded her of her own lifelong grief. She had been unable to resist the appeal of the prisoner, its earnestness, its candour, its evident reality. She dared not include in her confession the admission that the fascination of his form, his manner, his manly bearing, his gentle breeding, had been the real cause of her weakness. But the keen penetration of the Serjeant had too easily detected this, and he replied — " Mr. Harrison, madam, is only too well known to me.

Coming of a family which was as well connected asitwas justly respected,he dishonoured his race with a course of living which disgraced him in their eyes, and compelled them to disown him as a relation. I took him into my office with a view to give him the first step towards a higher position, which he was well able to attain to had his moral character been as pure and clear as his manners and bearing were manly and engaging. But he flew again to the company of men who dragged him down to their own depth of dis honour and ruin, and earned the penalty from which your foolish benevolence has perhaps for a time, but can never permanently, redeem him. If I engage to assist you in this matter, it must be on your distinct engagement— yea, on your solemn promise— that you will never receive him under your roof; that you will break off all acquaintance with him, and thus save your fortune and your reputation from the inevitable danger and disgrace of being a friend of Henry Harrison."

The last words were spoken with a bitterness of manner which was so foreign to the usual kindliness which the Serjeant had always shown to the widow as to create in her an indescribable feeling of pain and alarm. The expression of her face changed so rapidly, and showed such sudden alternations, that it was difficult to analyze the emotions which it presented. Pity for the subject of this pitiless condemnation, and then indignation at the thought that her own reputation could be affected by an act which she too fondly deemed to be one of charity and mercy, seemed to struggle in her bosom for the mastery. At last she armed herself to the determination to refuse an aid given on a condition which involved a confession of her own indiscretion and a sentence of such extreme severity and complete isolation from one whom she had hoped to raise from his fallen state.

Summoning up all her courage for this final resolve, she replied — " Serjeant Ottway, you were the friend of my husband, and you have proved yourself to be mine. But you have asked me to do what, as a woman, and above all as a Christian woman, I can never consent to do. You have said that my reputation would be at stake if I became the friend of this unfortunate man. Would it not be still more fatally injured in the eyes of every honest and good man were I to desert him — to forsake him in the hour of his greatest need — to hold out my hand to save him, only to withdraw it to his utter ruin ? Oh ! forgive me, forgive me ! For the memory of my dear husband, for my belief in the good God, I cannot — I will not promise." "Then the die is cast. I cease for ever to have any part in your affairs.

No one who claims to be a friend of Captain Harrison shall ever enter my house or claim my help." " But can you not trust me ? Have you no confidence in my conduct ? Has my past (and it was known to you from my early years) been so undeserving of credit — so base — so unworthy?" " You know the reason which led to the strict settlement of your legacy on your children. As I drew up his will, Mr. Vandinanker's words were these : ' It must be strictly tied up ; she can scarcely, poor woman, be trusted even with a life interest in it. My motive is to save the children from destitution. It will be safe in Master Eddis burie's hands.' If you have really in view your children's interests, how could you have betrayed them by this fatal gift — for gift it will inevitably prove to be ? " " But he promised, he even pledged his life, that he would repay it — repay it with interest — repay it immediately he reached his comrades.

Could I doubt the sincerity, the earnestness of such an assurance ?" " 'Tis, indeed, an assurance, madam, and none but a man of the most daring assurance could proclaim it. It is not worth a rush ; but it seems that he has fascinated you, and it would need an angel from heaven to disenchant you." The widow, who was every hour more and more conscious that her feeling towards Mr. Harrison was approaching a state of infatuation, which might end in affection, was for that very reason increasingly indignant at the imputation. There was, again, a strange conflict in her breast — to give her consent to the hard condition imposed upon her, and to deny herself even the privilege which the humblest was free to exercise, of doing good to those in trouble, of visiting the prisoner and giving relief to those in captivity, confronted her on the one side.

On the other there arose before her the picture of the desertion of her earliest friend, and a prospect of ultimate destitu tion. Her mind was truly " in a strait betwixt two." With an inward prayer and a feeling hitherto strange to her, of being influenced by some special grace, she resolved to stand by her newest friend, even at the peril of losing her oldest one, and took refuge in the thought that her duty to the friendless one was higher than her obliga tion to the man who had befriended her when she herself was friendless. But had she been able to analyse her motives, she would have found that there was a deeper reason for her resolution than that which was on the surface of her mind. The growing admiration for the young soldier of fortune, his winning address, his lively conversation, his manly bearing, his apparent sincerity, his very thoughtlessness of the past and recklessness for the future — all these had rather enchained her feelings than merely excited her sympathy.