Eighteenth Century Waifs

Whereupon Houseman said, ‘Something must be done to prevent her telling,’ and pressed him to it very much, and said, ‘If she does not tell now, she may at some other time.’

‘No,’ said her husband, ‘we will coax her a little until her passion be off, and then take an opportunity to shoot her.’

Upon which Houseman appeared satisfied and said, ‘What must be done with her clothes?’ Whereupon they both agreed that they would let her lie where she was shot in her clothes.

She, hearing this discourse, was much terrified, but remained quiet, until near seven o’clock in the same morning, when Aram and Houseman went out of the house. Upon which Mrs. Aram, coming down-stairs, and seeing there had been a fire below and all the ashes taken out of the grate, she went and examined the dung-hill; and, perceiving ashes of a different kind to lie upon it, she searched amongst them, and found several pieces of linen and woollen cloth, very near burnt, which had the appearance of belonging to wearing apparel. When she returned into the house from the dung-hill, she found the handkerchief she had lent Houseman the night before; and, looking at it, she found some blood upon it, about the size of a shilling. Upon which she immediately went to Houseman, and showed him the pieces of cloth she had found, and said ‘she was afraid they had done something bad to Clark.’ But Houseman then pretended he was a stranger to her accusation, and said ‘he knew nothing what she meant.’

From the above circumstances she believed Daniel Clark to have been murdered by Richard Houseman and Eugene Aram, on the 8th of February, 1744-5.

Several witnesses gave evidence that the last persons seen with Clark were Aram and Houseman, and two surgeons gave it as their opinion that the body might have lain in the ground about thirteen or fourteen years.

During the inquiry Houseman seemed very uneasy: he trembled, turned pale, and faltered in his speech; and when, at the instigation of the coroner, in accordance with the superstitious practice of the time, he went to touch the bones, he was very averse so to do. At last he mustered up courage enough to take up one of the bones in his hand; but, immediately throwing it down again, he exclaimed: ‘This is no more Dan Clark’s bone than it is mine!’ He further said he could produce a witness who had seen Clark after the 8th of February; and he called on Parkinson, who deposed that, personally, he had not seen Clark after that time, but a friend of his (Parkinson’s) had told him that he had met a person like Daniel Clark, but as it was a snowy day, and the person had the cape of his great-coat up, he could not say with the least degree of certainty who he was.

Of course, this witness did not help Houseman a bit, and then the suspicion increased that he was either the principal, or an accomplice in Clark’s murder. Application was made to a magistrate, who granted a warrant for his apprehension. At his examination he made a statement, which he would not sign, saying, ‘He chose to waive it for the present; for he might have something to add, and therefore desired to have time to consider of it.’ This confirmed former suspicions, and he was committed to York Castle.

On his way thither he was very uneasy, and, hearing that the magistrate who committed him was at that time in York, he asked him to be sent for, and he made the following statement:

The examination of Richard Houseman, of Knaresbrough, flax-dresser

‘This examinant saies that true it is that Daniel Clark was murdered by Eugene Aram, late of Knaresbrough, schoolmaster, and, as he believes, it was on Friday morning, the 8th of February, 1744, as set forth by other informations, as to matter of time; for that he, and Eugene Aram and Daniel Clark were together at Aram’s house early in the morning, when there was snow on the ground, and moonlight, and went out of Aram’s house a little before them, and went up the street a little before them, and they called to him to go a little way with them; and he accordingly went with them to a place called St. Robert’s Cave, near Grimble Bridge, where Aram and Clark stopt a little; and then he saw Aram strike him several times over the breast and head, and saw him fall, as if he was dead, and he, the examinant, came away and left them together, but whether Aram used any weapon or not to kill him with, he can’t tell, nor does he know what he did with the body afterwards, but believes Aram left it at the Cave’s mouth; for this examinant, seeing Aram do this, to which, he declares, he was no way abetting, or privy to, nor knew of his design to kill him at all. This made the examinant make the best of his way from him, lest he might share the same fate; and got to the bridge-end, and then lookt back, and saw him coming from the Caveside, which is in a private rock adjoining the river; and he could discern some bundle in his hand, but does not know what it was. On which he, this informant, made the best of his way to the town, without joining Aram again, or seeing him again till the next day, and from that time to this, he has never had any private discourse with him.’

After signing this statement, Houseman said that Clark’s body would be found in St. Robert’s Cave, in the turn at the entrance of the cave, its head lying to the right; and, sure enough, in the spot described, and in that position, was a skeleton found, with two holes in its skull, made apparently with a pickaxe or hammer.

A warrant was at once issued for the apprehension of Aram, and duly executed at Lynn. When first questioned, he denied ever having been at Knaresborough, or that he had ever known Daniel Clark; but when he was confronted with the constable from Knaresborough, he was obliged to retract his words. On the journey to York, Aram was restless, inquiring after his old neighbours, and what they said of him. He was told that they were much enraged against him for the loss of their goods. Whereupon he asked if it would not be possible to make up the matter? and the answer was, perhaps it might be, if he restored what they had lost. He then said that was impossible, but he might, perhaps, find them an equivalent.

On his arrival at York, he was taken before a magistrate, to whom he made a statement, which was a parcel of lies. He was committed to York Castle, but had not gone more than a mile on his way thither when he wished to return and make a second statement, which was as follows:

‘That he was at his own house on the 7th of February, 1744-5, at night, when Richard Houseman and Daniel Clark came to him with some plate; and both of them went for more, several times, and came back with several pieces of plate, of which Clark was endeavouring to defraud his neighbours; that he could not but observe that Houseman was all night very diligent to assist him to the utmost of his power, and insisted that this was Houseman’s business that night, and not the signing any note or instrument, as is pretended by Houseman; that Henry Terry, then of Knaresborough, ale-keeper, was as much concerned in abetting the said frauds as either Houseman or Clark; but was not now at Aram’s house, because as it was market-day – his absence from his guests might have occasioned some suspicion; that Terry, notwithstanding, brought two silver tankards that night, upon Clark’s account, which had been fraudulently obtained; and that Clark, so far from having borrowed twenty pounds of Houseman, to his knowledge never borrowed more than nine pounds, which he paid again before that night.

‘That all the leather Clark had – which amounted to a considerable value – he well knows was concealed under flax in Houseman’s house, with intent to be disposed of by little and little, in order to prevent suspicion of his being concerned in Clark’s fraudulent practices.

‘That Terry took the plate in a bag, as Clark and Houseman did the watches, rings, and several small things of value, and carried them into the flat, where they and he’ (Aram) ‘went together to St. Robert’s Cave, and beat most of the plate flat. It was thought too late in the morning, being about four o’clock, on the 8th of February, 1744-5, for Clark to go off, so as to get to any distance; it was therefore agreed he should stay there till the night following, and Clark, accordingly, stayed there all that day, as he believes, they having agreed to send him victuals, which were carried to him by Henry Terry, he being judged the most likely person to do it without suspicion; for, as he was a shooter, he might go thither under the pretence of sporting; that the next night, in order to give Clark more time to get off, Henry Terry, Richard Houseman, and himself went down to the cave very early; but he’ (Aram) ‘did not go in, or see Clark at all; that Richard Houseman and Henry Terry only went into the cave, he staying to watch at a little distance on the outside, lest anybody should surprise them.

‘That he believes they were beating some plate, for he heard them make a noise. They stayed there about an hour, and then came out of the cave, and told him that Clark was gone off. Observing a bag they had along with them, he took it in his hand, and saw that it contained plate. On asking why Daniel did not take the plate along with him, Terry and Houseman replied that they had bought it of him, as well as the watches, and had given him money for it, that being more convenient for him to go off with, as less cumbersome and dangerous. After which they all three went into Houseman’s warehouse, and concealed the watches, with the small plate, there; but that Terry carried away with him the great plate; that, afterwards, Terry told him he carried it to How Hill, and hid it there, and then went into Scotland and disposed of it; but as to Clark, he could not tell whether he was murdered or not, he knew nothing of him, only they told him he was gone off.’

Terry, being thus implicated, was arrested and committed to gaol; but the prosecutors for the crown, after the bills of indictment were preferred against all three, finding their proof insufficient to obtain a conviction at the coming assizes, prevailed on the judge to hold the case over until the Lammas Assizes. There was not enough outside evidence to convict them all; evidence, if any, could only be furnished by the criminals themselves. There was sufficient to convict either Aram or Houseman singly, if one or other would tell the truth, and all he knew; so after many consultations as to the person whom it was most advisable and just to punish, it was unanimously agreed that Aram, who from his education and position was the worst of the lot, should be punished, and in order to do so it was necessary to try to acquit Houseman, who would then be available as evidence against Aram. The case against Terry was so slight, that he was, perforce, let go.

On Friday, 3rd of August, 1759, the trials took place, and Houseman was first arraigned, but there being no evidence against him he was acquitted, to the great surprise and regret of everyone who was not behind the scenes.

Then Aram was put in the dock to stand his trial, and deep, indeed, must have been his disgust, when he found his accomplice, Houseman, step into the witness-box and tell his version (undoubtedly perjured) of the murder. His evidence was, except in a few minor particulars, similar to his previous statement. Sweet innocent! When he saw Aram strike Clark, he made haste home, and knew nothing of the disposal of the body until the next morning, when Aram called on him, and told him he had left it in the cave, and dire were his threats of vengeance should Houseman ever disclose the dread secret of that eventful night.

After this sensational evidence the other witnesses must have seemed very tame. Clark’s servant proved that his master had just received his wife’s little portion, and that Aram was perfectly cognizant thereof. Another witness deposed to seeing Houseman come out of Aram’s house about one o’clock in the morning of the 8th of February. A third deposed to the recovery of some of his own goods of which Clark had defrauded him, and which were found buried in Aram’s garden. The constable who arrested him had a few words to say, and the skull was produced in Court, when a surgical expert declared that the fractures must have been produced by blows from some blunt instrument, and could not possibly proceed from natural decay.

Aram was then called upon for his defence, and he produced a manuscript of which the following is a copy. It is, as will be perceived, a laboured and casuistical defence, not having a true ring about it, and not at all like the utterance of a perfectly innocent man.

‘My Lord,

I know not whether it is of right or through some indulgence of your Lordship that I am allowed the liberty at this Bar and at this time to attempt a defence, incapable, and uninstructed as I am to speak. Since, while I see so many eyes upon me, so numerous and awful a concourse, fixed with attention, and filled with I know not what expectancy, I labour, not with guilt, my Lord, but with perplexity. For having never seen a Court but this, being wholly unacquainted with law, the customs of the Bar, and all judiciary proceedings, I fear I shall be so little capable of speaking with propriety in this place, that it exceeds my hope, if I shall be able to speak at all.

I have heard, my Lord, the indictment read, wherein I find myself charged with the highest crime, with an enormity I am altogether incapable of, a fact to the commission of which there goes far more insensibility of heart, more profligacy of morals, than ever fell to my lot. And nothing, possibly, could have admitted a presumption of this nature, but a depravity not inferior to that imputed to me. However, as I stand indicted at your Lordship’s Bar, and have heard what is called evidence induced in support of such a charge, I very humbly solicit your Lordship’s patience, and beg the hearing of this respectable audience, while I, single and unskilful, destitute of friends, and unassisted by counsel, say something, perhaps like an argument, in my defence. I shall consume but little of your Lordship’s time; what I have to say will be short, and this brevity, probably, will be the best part of it. However, it is offered with all possible regard, and the greatest submission to your Lordship’s consideration, and that of this honourable Court.

First. My Lord, the whole tenor of my conduct in life contradicts every particular of this indictment. Yet I had never said this, did not my present circumstances extort it from me, and seem to make it necessary. Permit me here, my Lord, to call upon malignity itself, so long and cruelly busied in this prosecution, to charge upon me any immorality, of which prejudice was not the author. No, my Lord, I concerted not schemes of fraud, projected no violence, injured no man’s person or property. My days were honestly laborious, my nights intensely studious. And I humbly conceive my notice of this, especially at this time, will not be thought impertinent or unreasonable, but, at least, deserving some attention. Because, my Lord, that any person, after a temperate use of life, a series of thinking and acting regularly, and without one single deviation from sobriety, should plunge into the very depth of profligacy, precipitately, and at once, is altogether improbable and unprecedented, and absolutely inconsistent with the course of things. Mankind is never corrupted at once; villainy is always progressive, and declines from right, step after step, till every regard of probity is lost, and all moral obligation totally perishes.

Again, my Lord, a suspicion of this kind, which nothing but malevolence could entertain, and ignorance propagate, is violently opposed by my very situation at that time, with respect to health. For, but a little space before, I had been confined to my bed, and suffered under a very long and severe disorder, and was not able, for half a year together, so much as to walk. The distemper left me, indeed, yet slowly, and in part; but so macerated, so enfeebled, that I was reduced to crutches, and was so far from being well about the time I am charged with this fact, that I never to this day perfectly recovered. Could, then, a person in this condition take anything into his head so unlikely, so extravagant? I, past the vigour of my age, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage, no ability to accomplish, no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact; without interest, without power, without motive, without means.

Besides, it must needs occur to everyone that an action of this atrocious nature is never heard of, but, when its springs are laid open, it appears that it was to support some indolence or supply some luxury, to satisfy some avarice or oblige some malice, to prevent some real, or some imaginary want; yet I lay not under the influence of any one of these. Surely, my Lord, I may, consistent with both truth and modesty, affirm thus much; and none who have any veracity, and knew me, will ever question this.

In the second plea, the disappearance of Clark is suggested as an argument of his being dead; but the uncertainty of such an inference from that, and the fallibility of all conclusions of such a sort, from such a circumstance, are too obvious and too notorious to require instances; yet, superseding many, permit me to produce a very recent one, and that afforded by this castle.

In June, 1757, William Thompson, for all the vigilance of this place, in open daylight, and double-ironed, made his escape, and, notwithstanding an immediate inquiry set on foot, the strictest search, and all advertisements, was never seen or heard of since. If, then, Thompson got off unseen, through all these difficulties, how very easy was it for Clark, when none of them opposed him? But what would be thought of a prosecution commenced against any one seen last with Thompson?

Permit me next, my Lord, to observe a little upon the bones which have been discovered. It is said, which, perhaps, is saying very far, that these are the skeleton of a man. It is possible, indeed it may; but is there any certain known criterion which incontestably distinguishes the sex in human bones? Let it be considered, my Lord, whether the ascertaining of this point ought not to precede any attempt to identify them.

The place of their deposition, too, claims much more attention than is commonly bestowed upon it. For, of all places in the world, none could have mentioned anyone wherein there was greater certainty of finding human bones than an hermitage, except he should point out a churchyard. Hermitages, in times past, being not only places of religious retirement, but of burial, too, and it has scarce or never been heard of, but that every cell now known, contains, or contained, these relics of humanity, some mutilated and some entire. I do not inform, but give me leave to remind, your Lordship, that here sat solitary sanctity, and here the hermit, or the anchoress, hoped that repose for their bones, when dead, they here enjoyed when living.

All this while, my Lord, I am sensible this is known to your Lordship, and many in this Court, better than I. But it seems necessary to my case, that others, who have not at all, perhaps, adverted to things of this nature, and may have concern in my trial, should be made acquainted with it. Suffer me, then, my Lord, to produce a few of many evidences that these cells were used as repositories of the dead, and to enumerate a few, in which human bones have been found, as it happened in this in question, lest, to some, that accident might seem extraordinary, and, consequently, occasion prejudice.

1. The bones, as was supposed, of the Saxon, St. Dubritius, were discovered buried in his cell at Guy’s Cliff near Warwick, as appears from the authority of Sir William Dugdale.

2. The bones, thought to be those of the anchoress Rosia, were but lately discovered in a cell at Royston, entire, fair, and undecayed, though they must have lain interred for several centuries, as is proved by Dr. Stukeley.

3. But our own country, nay, almost this neighbourhood, supplies another instance; for in January, 1747, was found by Mr. Stovin, accompanied by a reverend gentleman, the bones in part of some recluse, in the cell at Lindholm, near Hatfield. They were believed to be those of William of Lindholm, a hermit, who had long made this cave his habitation.

4. In February, 1744, part of Woburn Abbey being pulled down, a large portion of a corpse appeared, even with the flesh on, and which bore cutting with a knife, though it is certain this had lain above two hundred years, and how much longer is doubtful, for this abbey was founded in 1145, and dissolved in 1558 or 1559.

What would have been said, what believed, if this had been an accident to the bones in question?

Further, my Lord, it is not yet out of living memory that a little distance from Knaresborough, in a field, part of the manor of the worthy and patriotic baronet who does that borough the honour to represent it in Parliament, were found, in digging for gravel, not one human skeleton alone, but five or six, deposited side by side, with each an urn placed at its head, as your Lordship knows was usual in ancient interments.

About the same time, and in another field, almost close to this borough, was discovered also, in searching for gravel, another human skeleton; but the piety of the same worthy gentleman ordered both pits to be filled up again, commendably unwilling to disturb the dead.

Is the invention[25 - Finding.] of these bones forgotten, then, or industriously concealed, that the discovery of those in question may appear the more singular and extraordinary? whereas, in fact, there is nothing extraordinary in it. My Lord, almost every place conceals such remains. In fields, in hills, in highway sides, and in commons lie frequent and unsuspected bones. And our present allotments for rest for the departed, is but of some centuries.

Another particular seems not to claim a little of your Lordship’s notice, and that of the gentlemen of the jury; which is, that perhaps no example occurs of more than one skeleton being found in one cell, and in the cell in question was found but one; agreeable, in this, to the peculiarity of every other known cell in Britain. Not the invention of one skeleton, then, but of two, would have appeared suspicious and uncommon.

But then, my Lord, to attempt to identify these, when even to identify living men sometimes has proved so difficult – as in the case of Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Symnel at home, and of Don Sebastian abroad – will be looked upon, perhaps, as an attempt to determine what is indeterminable. And I hope, too, it will not pass unconsidered here, where gentlemen believe with caution, think with reason, and decide with humanity, what interest the endeavour to do this is calculated to serve, in assigning proper personality to those bones, whose particular appropriation can only appear to eternal omniscience.

Permit me, my Lord, also, very humbly to remonstrate that, as human bones appear to have been the inseparable adjuncts of every cell, even any person’s naming such a place at random as containing them, in this case, shows him rather unfortunate, than conscious prescient, and that these attendants on every hermitage only accidentally concurred with this conjecture. A mere casual coincidence of words and things.

But it seems another skeleton has been discovered by some labourer, which was full as confidently averred to be Clark’s as this. My Lord, must some of the living, if it promotes some interest, be made answerable for all the bones that earth has concealed, and chance exposed! and might not a place where bones lay, be mentioned by a person by chance, as well as found by a labourer by chance? Or, is it more criminal accidentally to name where bones lie, than accidentally to find where they lie?

Here, too, is a human skull produced, which is fractured; but was this the cause or was it the consequence of death – was it owing to violence, or was it the effect of natural decay? If it was violence, was that violence before or after death? My Lord, in May, 1732, the remains of William, Lord Archbishop of this province, were taken up by permission, in this cathedral, and the bones of the skull were found broken; yet certainly he died by no violence offered to him alive, that could occasion that fracture there.

Let it be considered, my Lord, that upon the dissolution of religious houses, and the commencement of the Reformation, the ravages of those times affected the living and the dead. In search after imaginary treasures, coffins were broken up, graves and vaults broken open, monuments ransacked, and shrines demolished; your Lordship knows that these violations proceeded so far, as to occasion parliamentary authority to restrain them; and it did, about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I entreat your Lordship, suffer not the violence, the depredations, and the iniquities of these times to be imputed to this.

Moreover, what gentleman here is ignorant that Knaresborough had a castle, which, though How a ruin, was once considerable, both for its strength and garrison. All know it was vigorously besieged by the arms of the Parliament. At which siege, in sallies, conflicts, flights, pursuits, many fell in all the places around it; and where they fell were buried. For every place, my Lord, is burial-earth in war; and many, questionless, of these yet rest unknown, whose bones futurity shall discover.

I hope, with all imaginable submission, that what has been said will not be thought impertinent to this indictment, and that it will be far from the wisdom, the learning, and the integrity of this place to impute to the living what zeal, in its fury, may have done; what nature may have taken off, and piety interred; or what war alone may have destroyed, alone deposited.