popularity. Sir George Jeffreys, on the bench,
told him sharp truths, and he felt his power
deserting him. He retreated back to Bristol,
where he had left his wife Anna, who, in her
illness, summoned him, at beginning of August. He fell ill after his hurried journey,
having 'broken his gall' by violent riding. He
was said to be past cure. At the commencement of the assizes on 16 Aug., Sir Francis
North, chief justice of the common pleas, attended Bedloe, and took his dying deposition.
There had been a promise of fresh revelations,
but none of importance were forthcoming. He
reiterated old statements as really true, his
wife being beside him. James Bedloe made
immediate application for money from King
Charles, through North, next day. This application, 'that his sickness was very changeable, and that money was required for his
subsistence,' explains the persistence of the
family in the accusation of the Jesuits. William's death took place on Friday, 20 Aug.
1680. Richard Duke, who had written 'a
panegyrick upon Oates,' beginning 'Of all the
grain our nation yields,' again came forward
with a fresh lampoon, unsigned, beginning,
- Sad fate! our valiant Captain Bedloe,
- In earth's cold bed lies with his head low.
The body lay exposed, as if in state, at Merchant Taylors' Hall, Bristol, on Sunday, and was in the evening buried within the mayor's chapel, called the 'Gaunts.' Thomas Palmer preached a funeral sermon on Romans xiv. 12, 13. Many dreary poems and livelier pasquinades appeared on the occasion, several of which are reprinted in the Ballad Society's twenty-first publication, 1881.
To enter fully into particulars of Bedloe's numerous allegations and sworn depositions would occupy too much space. His chief work is 'A Narrative and Impartial Discovery of the Horrid Popish Plot, carried on for the Burning and Destroying the Cities of London and Westminster, with their suburbs, &c.; setting forth several Consults, Orders, and Resolutions of the Jesuits concerning the same. By Captain William Bedloe, lately engaged in that horrid design, and one of the Popish Committee for carrying on such fires, 1679.' Next in importance, for his history, is 'The Examination of Captain William Bedlow (sic), Deceased, relating to the Popish Plot, taken in his last sickness by Sir Francis North; together with the Narrative of Sir Francis North at the Council Board, 1680, appointed by the commons to be printed.' It need scarcely be added that every part of this wretched man s evidence is tainted and untrustworthy. His bitter spite against Scroggs and Jeffreys, when they no longer accepted his testimony, showed that his charges against the Romanists proceeded as much from hatred as from greed. He and his brother James had been accustomed to cheat in company, exchanging the post of master and man in turn. When, in the summer of 1677, he arrived at Ghent, he there took the name of Lord Newport. When he passed into Spain he bore the name of Lord Gerard at Bilbao; thence he went to Valladolid, Santiago to Corunna, and embarked for England. After his death a book was published, called 'Truth made Manifest, or the Dead Man's Testimony to the Living; being a composition of the last sayings of Captain William Bedlow.' This gave Thomas Palmer's sermon. Among the poems not already mentioned are these: In Luttrell Collection, i. 9, 'An Elegy upon the Unfortunate Death of Captain William Bedloe, who departed this life on Friday, 20 Aug. 1680.' It begins, 'How fickle is the state of all mankind,' and eulogises him as 'blest with a kind wife;' ending with the declaration that 'Had he liv'd longer he had more made known.' In Luttrell Collection, i. 112, is 'England's Obligation to Captain William Bedlowe, the grand Discoverer of this most Horrid Plot;' printed by Thomas Dawks, 1679. It is meant to be serious, beginning 'The World is all on fire in Jesus' name, By quick nosed Jesuites who hunt for game,' and ends with an acrostic on 'William Bedlowe.' An 'Elegie on the Death of Captain William Bedloe' begins:–
- Could Bedlow fall so softly to his tomb,
- Without a comet to foretell his doom ?
But the shortest and severest epitaph is this, from an early manuscript:–
- The Lord is pleas'd when man does cease to sin;
- The divil is pleas'd when he a soul do's win;
- The world is pleas'd when ev'ry rascal dies:
- So all are pleas'd, for here Will Bedlow lies.
[Life and Death of Captain William Bedloe, 1681; folio pamphlets on the Popish Plot; Roxburghe Coll. of Ballads; Luttrell Coll. of Broadsides, Elegies, and Poems; The Righteous Evidence witnessing the Truth, being an account of the sickness and death-bed expressions of Mr. William Bedlow, &c., with his two last prayers, London, 1680; Defence of the Innocency of the English Jesuites relating to the crimes unjustly charged on them by E. C. in his Narrative, 1680; Granger's Biog. Hist. England, iv. 202, 203 (a very slight account); Reed's Biog. Dramatica.]
BEDWELL, THOMAS (d. 1595), mathematician and military engineer, matriculated
as a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in
November 1562. He became a scholar in
the same year; in 1566-7 he took the degree
of B.A.; he was subsequently elected fellow;
