In the Shadow of the Noose: Mad Earl Ferrers: The Last English Nobleman Hanged for Murder by Dan Alexander Randall
Authors: Dan Alexander Randall
Ads: Link
without cause, going armed where there is no danger, spitting in a mirror, talking to himself, drinking hot coffee from the spout of the pot, being seized with fits of rage. He was asked whether each such action might be considered a symptom of lunacy. The doctor replied that they might.
‘Is it common to have such a disorder in families in the blood?’ asked Ferrers.
‘Unfortunately, too common,’ came the reply.
Some may have believed that the Lord was suffering from some sort of mania in court that day as he called witness after witness with the sole intention of proving his own insanity, revelling in their repeated confirmations of that lunacy – and ignorant or careless of the obvious anguish and consternation this was causing his noble family.
‘Was I generally reputed to be a madman, or a man in his senses?’ he asked the next witness, one Roger Griffiths, a man he knew in London.
‘Generally reputed a lunatic,’ said Griffiths. ‘Some said cracked in his head.’
He recalled Mr Goostrey to the stand to ask him if he thought him ‘remarkably jealous and suspicious.’
‘Very remarkably so.’
Eventually, the Lords decided that the Earl had made his case – such as it was – and prevented his from recalling any more witnesses.
‘My Lords,’ he said, ‘I have done with my evidence. But it is impossible for me to sum up, and what I have to offer to your Lordships I have reduced into writing, and desire the clerk may read it.’
In his wordy letter, he tried further to prove his insanity, claiming to have ‘an unhappy disorder of mind, which I am grieved to be under the necessity of exposing.’ Towards the end of the letter he showed his lack of remorse for what he had done, saying, ‘My life is in your hands, and I have everything to hope, as my conscience does not condemn me of the crime I stand accused of; for I had no preconceived malice and was hurried into the perpetration of this fatal deed by the fury of a disordered imagination.’
*
CHARLES YORKE, the corpulent Solicitor-General, then had his moment, summing up the evidence for the Lords sitting in judgment. He said Shirley did not deny killing Johnson but claimed that he was ‘incapable, knowingly, of doing what he did’ and therefore, ‘insists upon an incapacity of and insanity of mind in his defence.’
The Lords then sat through long and doubtless tedious legal definitions of insanity (both partial insanity of mind, where the sufferer is ‘competent as to some matters, and not so as to others’, a judge and jury deciding whether the perpetrator was mad at the time the crime was committed, and total insanity, which is ‘perfect madness’ and will absolve the perpetrator of all guilt). Lunacy while drunk was no defence in law, said the lawyer, because it is a ‘voluntary contracted madness’ and ‘shall have the same judgment as if he were in his right senses.’
He asked the Lords, ‘Is the noble prisoner at the bar to be acquitted from the guilt of murder on account of insanity… could he, did he, at that time, distinguish between good and evil?’
Mr Yorke’s bias was exposed somewhat, as he described Lord Ferrer’s animosity towards his servant and his vengeful nature – citing the fact that he tried to drive Johnson out of his farm, with the intention of allowing his mistress’s father to rent the land instead – and stating, ‘It was plain, his Lordship gradually wrought himself up to a resolution of destroying Mr Johnson.’
He claimed that the act of murder was clearly premeditated. On the Sunday before the shooting, the Earl had invited Johnson to visit him at 3pm on Friday. He had locked the door of the room they were in. He had produced a paper for Johnson to sign admitting that he had betrayed his master. He had tested the gun before the shooting. And, after he had shot Johnson and failed to kill him, he had told Dr Kirkland that he intended to shoot him again.
‘The evidence shows that
‘Is it common to have such a disorder in families in the blood?’ asked Ferrers.
‘Unfortunately, too common,’ came the reply.
Some may have believed that the Lord was suffering from some sort of mania in court that day as he called witness after witness with the sole intention of proving his own insanity, revelling in their repeated confirmations of that lunacy – and ignorant or careless of the obvious anguish and consternation this was causing his noble family.
‘Was I generally reputed to be a madman, or a man in his senses?’ he asked the next witness, one Roger Griffiths, a man he knew in London.
‘Generally reputed a lunatic,’ said Griffiths. ‘Some said cracked in his head.’
He recalled Mr Goostrey to the stand to ask him if he thought him ‘remarkably jealous and suspicious.’
‘Very remarkably so.’
Eventually, the Lords decided that the Earl had made his case – such as it was – and prevented his from recalling any more witnesses.
‘My Lords,’ he said, ‘I have done with my evidence. But it is impossible for me to sum up, and what I have to offer to your Lordships I have reduced into writing, and desire the clerk may read it.’
In his wordy letter, he tried further to prove his insanity, claiming to have ‘an unhappy disorder of mind, which I am grieved to be under the necessity of exposing.’ Towards the end of the letter he showed his lack of remorse for what he had done, saying, ‘My life is in your hands, and I have everything to hope, as my conscience does not condemn me of the crime I stand accused of; for I had no preconceived malice and was hurried into the perpetration of this fatal deed by the fury of a disordered imagination.’
*
CHARLES YORKE, the corpulent Solicitor-General, then had his moment, summing up the evidence for the Lords sitting in judgment. He said Shirley did not deny killing Johnson but claimed that he was ‘incapable, knowingly, of doing what he did’ and therefore, ‘insists upon an incapacity of and insanity of mind in his defence.’
The Lords then sat through long and doubtless tedious legal definitions of insanity (both partial insanity of mind, where the sufferer is ‘competent as to some matters, and not so as to others’, a judge and jury deciding whether the perpetrator was mad at the time the crime was committed, and total insanity, which is ‘perfect madness’ and will absolve the perpetrator of all guilt). Lunacy while drunk was no defence in law, said the lawyer, because it is a ‘voluntary contracted madness’ and ‘shall have the same judgment as if he were in his right senses.’
He asked the Lords, ‘Is the noble prisoner at the bar to be acquitted from the guilt of murder on account of insanity… could he, did he, at that time, distinguish between good and evil?’
Mr Yorke’s bias was exposed somewhat, as he described Lord Ferrer’s animosity towards his servant and his vengeful nature – citing the fact that he tried to drive Johnson out of his farm, with the intention of allowing his mistress’s father to rent the land instead – and stating, ‘It was plain, his Lordship gradually wrought himself up to a resolution of destroying Mr Johnson.’
He claimed that the act of murder was clearly premeditated. On the Sunday before the shooting, the Earl had invited Johnson to visit him at 3pm on Friday. He had locked the door of the room they were in. He had produced a paper for Johnson to sign admitting that he had betrayed his master. He had tested the gun before the shooting. And, after he had shot Johnson and failed to kill him, he had told Dr Kirkland that he intended to shoot him again.
‘The evidence shows that
Similar Books
