dislocated. Bishop Burnet, who viewed the body, writes (long after
the event): 'A mark was all round his neck, an inch broad, which
showed he was strangled. . . . And his neck was broken. All this I
saw.'*

*Burnet, History of his own Time, ii. p. 741. 1725.


L'Estrange argued that the neck was not broken (giving an example of
a similar error in the case of a dead child), and that the mark
round the neck was caused by the tightness of the collar and the
flow of blood to the neck, the body lying head downwards. In favour
of this view he produced one surgeon's opinion. He also declares
that Godfrey's brothers, for excellent reasons of their own, refused
to allow a thorough post-mortem examination. 'None of them had ever
been opened,' they said. Their true motive was that, if Godfrey
were a suicide, his estate would be forfeited to the Crown, a point
on which they undoubtedly showed great anxiety.

Evidence was also given to prove that, on Tuesday and Wednesday,
October 15 and 16, Godfrey's body was not in the ditch. On Tuesday
Mr. Forsett, on Wednesday Mr. Harwood had taken Mr. Forsett's
harriers over the ground, in pursuit of the legendary hare. They
had seen no cane or scabbard; the dogs had found no corpse.
L'Estrange replied that, as to the cane, the men could not see it if
they were on the further side of the bramble-covered ditch. As to
the dogs, they later hunted a wood in which a dead body lay for six
weeks before it was found. L'Estrange discovered witnesses who had
seen Godfrey in St. Martin's Lane on the fatal Saturday, asking his
way to Paddington Woods, others who had seen him there or met him