returning thence. Again, either he or 'the Devil in his clothes'
was seen near the ditch on Saturday afternoon. Again, his clerk,
Moore, was seen hunting the fields near the ditch, for his master,
on the Monday afternoon. Hence L'Estrange argued that Godfrey went
to Paddington Woods, on Saturday morning, to look for a convenient
place of suicide: that he could not screw his courage to the
sticking place; that he wandered home, did not enter his house,
roamed out again, and, near Primrose Hill, found the ditch and 'the
sticking place.' His rambles, said L'Estrange, could neither have
been taken for business nor pleasure. This is true, if Godfrey
actually took the rambles, but the evidence was not adduced till
several years later; in 1678 the witnesses would have been in great
danger. Still, if we accept L'Estrange's witnesses for Godfrey's
trip to Paddington and return, perhaps we ought not to reject the
rest.*

*Brief History, iii. pp. 252, 300, 174, 175; State Trials, viii. pp.
1387, 1392, 1393, 1359-1389.

On the whole, it seems that the evidence for murder, not suicide, is
much the better, though even here absolute certainty is not
attained. Granting Godfrey's constitutional hereditary melancholy,
and the double quandary in which he stood, he certainly had motives
for suicide. He was a man of humanity and courage, had bravely
faced the Plague in London, had withstood the Court boldly on a
private matter (serving a writ, as Justice, on the King's physician
who owed him money in his capacity as a coal dealer), and he was
lenient in applying the laws against Dissenters and Catholics.

To be lenient was well; but Godfrey's singular penchant for Jesuits,