Conspiracy Culture in Stuart England: The Mysterious Death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, by Andrea McKenzie

The mysterious death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey is one of English history’s most intriguing puzzles. As this book by Andrea McKenzie deftly re-articulates, the grim discovery of Godfrey’s body on 17 October 1678 ignited crisis and confusion throughout the Stuart world. Godfrey’s demise was—in McKenzie’s words—‘the proverbial spark that set the political nation ablaze’ (p. 15) and its consequential embers of conspiratorial politics, party and propaganda remain relevant even today.

After a detailed introduction to the labyrinth of intrigue and historiographic debate that surrounds Godfrey’s death, McKenzie then considers a series of hypotheses posed by previous writers. Each chapter investigates a potential motive or interrogates certain possible assassins. Chapters One and Two address the ‘usual suspects’: first, ‘the Catholics’, as the ubiquitous and always expedient enemy deployed by so much early modern propaganda, and then, secondly, Thomas Osbourne, earl of Danby, and other political players who benefited from the wave of anti-Catholic hysteria unleashed by the discovery of Godfrey’s body. Chapter Three then explores an undercurrent of claims that Godfrey had taken his own life, a suggestion first seriously argued by Tory propagandist Roger L’Estrange in his Brief History of the Times (1688) but then also propounded by Alan Marshall’s The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey (1999). The idea that Godfrey’s brothers had covered up his own self-harm is temptingly convenient but, as McKenzie notes, clashes with much of the evidence. Chapters Four and Five arguably contain the author’s more novel directions and most original analysis as McKenzie cross-examines a selection of alternative suspects. Her investigation is thorough, with everyone from anti-papist plotter Titus Oates to the Catholic heir James, duke of York, considered against available evidence. Readers are given a grand tour of Restoration London’s underground clubs and clandestine networks, as well as an accessible introduction to the larger webs of espionage and diplomatic intrigue that stretched across contemporary Europe.

The central theme of each chapter is well contextualised and clearly articulated, rendering what might superficially appear to be a niche seventeenth-century subject of far broader interest. Scholars of other periods and places with parallel interests in conspiracy, propaganda and anti-Catholicism will find it valuable. Suggestive parallels to the ‘fake news’ debates and conspiracy theories of our own time, a point that McKenzie sporadically revisits throughout her analysis, also invite debate from those studying contemporary society. A detailed chronology and helpful list of the ‘dramatis personae’ involved are also included at the beginning of this book to support non-specialist readers. Indeed, although written as a scholarly monograph, the subject matter and often entertaining details may well translate into general public appeal, although the current academic price-point may well deter such wider readership.

Analysis throughout this book rests upon a colossal amount of primary evidence. McKenzie’s footnotes demonstrate painstaking research into everything from coded correspondence and words whispered in backstreet inns to public addresses and judicial witness statements. Entirely new archival material is also introduced, including a 1680 Latin manuscript found in the British Library and an anonymous French narrative uncovered in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris. McKenzie’s book is thus about as close as one could get to a modern investigation of the crime scene and its aftermath. But, with the primary record itself so often contradictory or clouded by rumour, McKenzie must still occasionally guide readers by rhetorical questioning and appeals to ‘common sense’ (p. 151) in a way that some might consider speculative. Yet McKenzie’s use of this evidence to unpick the layers of mythos that have shrouded Godfrey in the centuries following his death remains an unquestionable strength. In this vein, I found analysis of shorthand letters penned by Godfrey’s friend, William Lloyd, especially fascinating. Lloyd possessed important insights and even—McKenzie argues—espoused his own ideas on how and why Godfrey had died. Notably, L’Estrange also turned to Lloyd while conducting his own investigations and published passages from this correspondence to support his suicide hypothesis, which have in turn also been used by modern historians. By deciphering the full-length manuscripts, however, McKenzie shows how these printed excerpts were purposefully curated out of context and, in fact, point firmly in the opposite direction.

Without revealing any theatrical ‘spoilers’, McKenzie’s conclusion forms something of a denouement, even advancing her own chief suspect behind Godfrey’s death: an ambitious power player and ‘one of the most volatile and unscrupulous of all Restoration figures’ (p. 196). Was I convinced? She makes a strong, well-supported case and, certainly, ongoing secret diplomacy between the Stuart court and foreign Catholic leaders must surely have influenced Godfrey’s fate, even if more precise blame can only ever be more circumstantially proportioned. But McKenzie’s final chapter also offers a thorough and much needed re-examination of Godfrey as an individual and this, arguably, is the most important aspect of this book’s concluding section, as well as one that sets it apart from the focus on events after Godfrey’s death found in most other relevant literature. Revisiting Godfrey’s personal correspondence and scrutinising his manifold retrospective and often contradictory characterisations (as, among other roles, an amateur sleuth and corrupt official), McKenzie sketches a man organically connected to multiple parties whose actions are not always explicable using present-day assumptions. McKenzie’s Godfrey is a man whose death came to symbolise the drama and opacity of Stuart-era conspiracy culture but whose life also embodied the contradictions and complexities of the Restoration period in ways that must also be equally appreciated.

Ultimately, it is impossible to resoundingly settle the precise circumstances of Godfrey’s death without further fresh evidence and, given both the nature of his demise and the depth of McKenzie’s research for this volume, it does seem unlikely that this exists to be found. This book remains, however, an exhaustive and enjoyable exposé of Stuart England’s conspiratorial machinery and will surely reignite broader fascination.