Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Prance, Miles
PRANCE, MILES (fl. 1689), perjurer, was a Roman catholic goldsmith of Princess Street, Covent Garden, and maker of religious emblems to the queen consort of Charles II. When, towards the close of 1678, the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey [q. v.], following upon the revelations of Titus Oates [q. v.], greatly alarmed the people of London, Prance, whose trade and creed alike rendered him peculiarly liable to suspicion, was on 21 Dec. arrested upon the information of a lodger in his house, named John Wren. Wren alleged that Prance was absent from his house for some nights at the time that Godfrey was missing. It afterwards appeared that Wren was in arrears with his rent, while Prance's absence from home occurred some time before the murder. Upon his arrest Prance was taken before the committee of secrecy, which had been appointed by the House of Lords, under the presidency of Shaftesbury, to investigate the alleged ‘popish plot.’ Prance denied all knowledge of Sir Edmund's murder, though he admitted that he had worked for some of the papists accused by Oates and Bedloe. He was recommitted to Newgate, where he was thrown into the ‘condemn'd hole’ and loaded with heavy irons. Bedloe the informer was, up to this time, the sole witness as to the manner in which Godfrey was alleged to have come by his death. He had, however, made inquiries respecting Prance, and judged that he might be usefully employed in fabricating some corroborative testimony. Notes of Bedloe's evidence were surreptitiously placed in Prance's cell, and Prance, readily perceiving what was expected of him, begged the governor, Captain Richardson, to convey him to Shaftesbury House. There, on the evening of 22 Dec., he made a long disclosure about Godfrey's death before the Earl of Shaftesbury and three other members of the secrecy committee. Next day, before the king and the privy council, he accused three men employed at Somerset House and two priests of murdering Godfrey at Somerset House, and declared that he had kept watch while the crime was being perpetrated. On 29 Dec. he was privately interrogated by the king at the house of Mr. Chiffinch; on the same afternoon he informed the council that the whole of his story was false, and he persisted in his recantation next day. He was thereupon sent back to his dungeon at Newgate and treated with great cruelty. On 12 Jan. 1679 he renewed his allegiance to his original statement.
Following the example of Oates, he now dictated to his keeper, Boyce, ‘A True Narrative and Discovery’ of Godfrey's murder, which appeared early in 1679. The discrepancies between this narrative and Bedloe's deposition are glaring; nevertheless, the combined evidence of the two informers sufficed to obtain the conviction of the three men employed at Somerset House—Green, Hill, and Berry (5 Feb. 1679). On 13 June 1679 Prance gave minor evidence in support of Bedloe and Dugdale against the two jesuits Harcourt and Fenwick, and on 10 Jan. 1680 he obtained 50l. from the exchequer ‘in respect of his services about the plott’ (Ackerman, Secret-service Money under Charles II, p. 28). During the rest of that year he proved himself a most assiduous supporter of Oates; and, by publishing his sworn depositions to prove that Sir Roger L'Estrange [q. v.] was a papist, helped Oates to temporarily discredit a most formidable opponent. On 15 June 1686 he pleaded guilty to perjury at the king's bench, and declared his repentance, upon which he was sentenced to pay a fine of 100l., to be pilloried and whipped. The last part of his sentence was remitted. He afterwards made a confession in writing, attributing his perjuries to ‘fear and cowardice,’ and in December 1688 he thought it best to seek refuge abroad. He was, however, captured off Gravesend, along with some other papists, on the hoy Asia, bound for Dunkirk, and was sent up by the mayor of Gravesend for examination by the House of Lords. No proceedings were taken, and it is probable that he ultimately found employment among his co-religionists on the continent.
[The evidence as to Prance's career is very contradictory, as may be seen by comparing Eachard's Hist. of England, ii. 504–9, 513–14, 564, 807, and Ralph's Hist. of England with Burnet's Own Time and Oldmixon's History. Cf. also Luttrell's Brief Hist. Narration, i. passim; Cobbett's State Trials, vol. vii.; House of Lords MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. vi. 61–2); Sir W. Fitzherbert's MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. vi. 14–16, 154–8); Rapin's Hist. 1703, ii. 702–3; Lingard's Hist. of England, ix. 192; Pictorial Hist. of England, iii. 724; Twelve Bad Men, ed. Seccombe, p. 120; Bagford Ballads, ed. Ebsworth, ii. 679 sq.; Willis Bund's Selections from the State Trials, ii. 615; Stevens's Cat. of Satirical Prints. See articles Godfrey, Sir Edmund Berry; L'Estrange, Sir Roger; and Oates, Titus.]