Prance, who denied everything, was hurried to Newgate, and thrown,
without bed or covering, into the freezing 'condemned hole,' where
he lay perishing of cold through the night of December 21, December
22, and the night of that day. On December 23, he offered, no
wonder, to confess. He was examined by the Lords, and (December 24)
by the Council.

Prance knew, all the world knew, the details about Godfrey's
bruises; the state of his neck, and the sword-thrusts. He knew that
Bedloe had located the murder in Somerset House. As proclamations
for the men accused by Bedloe had long been out, he MAY have guessed
that Le Fevre, Walsh, and Pritchard were wanted for Godfrey's
murder, and had been denounced by Bedloe. But this is highly
improbable, for nothing about Godfrey's murder is hinted at in the
proclamation for Le Fevre, Walsh, and Pritchard.* We have no
reason, then, to suppose that Prance knew who the men were that
Bedloe had accused; consequently he had to select other victims,
innocent men of his acquaintance. But, as a tradesman of the Queen,
Prance knew her residence, Somerset House, the courts, outer stairs,
passages, and so on. He knew that Bedloe professed to have
recognised him there in the scene of the dark lantern.

*Lords' Journals, xiii. p. 346; Lords' MSS., p. 59.

Prance had thus all the materials of a confession ready made, but
not of a confession identical with Bedloe's. He was 'one of the
most acute and audacious of the Jesuit agents,' says Mr. Pollock.*
Yet Mr. Pollock argues that for Prance to tell the tale which he did
tell, in his circumstances of cold and terror, required a most