married Lord Duncannon's eldest son, and to
have died of a surfeit from sweetmeats. Mary
remained unmarried, living with her mother at
Chepstow. But after twelve years of widowhood Mrs. Beddoe, alias Bedloe, took another
husband, one Taynton, who had trailed a pike
at Chepstow Castle under Thomas Nanfan.
He was an ingenious contriver of clocks and
watches, but made his living chiefly as a cobbler. William Bedloe worked with him at
this trade, and it is here that we are on safe
ground. If we suppose the reported genealogy to be true, it merely proves that William
Bedloe was the most disreputable of his family.
If it were false, his forefathers could scarcely
have surpassed him in wickedness. He claimed
for himself the attainment of proficiency in
Latin, heraldry, and mathematics. David
Lewis, the Jesuit, who was afterwards executed at Monmouth, took notice of the boy
when he was twelve years old, and taught him
much, with intent of converting him. When
aged twenty, in 1670, he travelled to London with one hundred pounds in his pocket,
and lived near two Jesuits, Father Harman
and Father Johnson. They dined at Locket's
ordinary, and were said to adjourn to Mother
Cresswell's. Bedloe certainly lived a sharping
life in London before he went to Dunkirk,
where he was recommended by the lady abbess to Sir John Warner, who sent him to
Father Harcourt, the Jesuit, afterwards executed on the evidence of Oates. By his own
account, William Bedloe went to Rome,
Flanders, Spain, &c., carrying letters; but
opened them and made forged copies, which
he delivered, retaining the originals. He
bore an alias of Captain Williams, under
which he cheated the Prince of Orange, and
from him, by fraud, obtained a captain's commission. But this captaincy was as apocryphal as the 'invisible degree' of doctor won
by Titus Oates at Salamanca. Five years of
varied service, intrigues, frauds, and broils,
prepared him, with occasional employment by
the Jesuits, for emerging into notice as a betrayer and forsworn spy. He declared that
Titus Oates had anticipated and outstripped
him in making revelations of the popish plot.
At the beginning of August 1678, he confessed
that he 'had once been an ill man, but desired
to be so no more.' He wrote from Bristol,
offering to make startling declarations. The
Earl of Danby gave little credit to him; and
in revenge for this, Bedloe asserted that a
bribe was offered to him by Danby, who promised that he should be supported in whatever country he chose to retire into, if he
would suppress his threatened revelations.
The commons accepted his account of the
murder of Sir E. B. Godfrey, and gave him
500l. The extant portrait of Bedloe, prefixed
to his 'Narrative' of the fire of London having
been caused by the papists, shows a villainous countenance, harsh and forbidding, full
of malice and revenge. With beetle brows,
hard mouth, and savage eyes, we see the man,
unscrupulous, unrelenting, as he in later life
became. Dressed in finery beyond his station, his arrogance is as self-evident as his
malice. He declared that Counsellor Reading
had tried to tamper with him for suppression
of his testimony, and Reading was condemned
to a year's imprisonment, with exposure for
an hour in the pillory, and to pay a fine of
1,000l. Bedloe made many accusations and
found willing associates. The king's chemist,
Dr. James, deposed that one Dr. Smith, a
papist, tried to make him poison Bedloe with
a pill on 20 March 1679. By this time he was
almost as popular as Oates. He received ten
pounds weekly allowance from the royal funds,
and lived at the rate of two thousand a year.
Rich dupes were plentiful. The citizens
feasted him. His folio pamphlets, with copperplate portrait prefixed, had a large sale.
He attributed the most extensive plots and
execrable crimes, falsely, to the Romanists.
He now married the elder of two sisters, reputed co-heirs of six hundred pounds per
annum, and Richard Duke wrote a clever
buffooning poem on the marriage as an 'Epithalamium.' It was popular as a broadside,
and is preserved in the Roxburghe collection
(iii. 835), reprinted in 'Roxburghe Ballads '
(iv. 165). It begins, ' Goddess of Rhime, that
didst inspire the Captain with Poetic fire.'
This poem was issued at Christmas 1679. The
lady's name was Anna Purifoy, daughter of
an Irishman, Colonel Purifoy. After Bedloe's
marriage he did not remain long in London,
where he had printed and published a folio
tragedy in 1679, entitled 'The Excommunicated Prince, or the False Relique: a Tragedy, as it was acted by his Majesty's Servants,
being the Popish Plot in a Play. By Captain
William Bedloe.' It is believed to have been
written by Thomas Walter, an Oxford scholar
of Jesus College. The sub-title was added to
gain a sale, and it was dedicated to George
Villiers, second duke of Buckingham. The
hero is Teimurazez, prince of Georgia, who is
excommunicated by the pope. Bedloe had
travelled on the continent as courier to Lord
Belasyse, against whom he afterwards swore
acts of high treason; but he pretended to have
been a soldier, though he never saw a battle.
He went to Bristol with his wife, and lived
on Stonie Hill for half a year. Then he was
recalled to London in the middle of July
1680. He was now, with Oates, experiencing
the fickleness of fortune and the waning of
