The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl

“But think, dear lady, how constant he had been to me for so many years! Surely his patience deserved my confidence.”

“And what good did you ever find it do you, Margaret? Look at the consequences.”

“I could not foresee them. How could I then look at them?”

“Though you were so blind as not to foresee the consequences, others, with more reflection and forethought, might have done so for you; and, assuredly, had you hinted the matter to me, I should have prevented what has happened.”

“I wish indeed, now, that I had done so. I suffer most severely in my mind, not from the fear of punishment, but because I have been the cause of William Laud’s death.”

“And he will have been the cause of your own, Margaret. Had he not persuaded you to break out of prison, he would not have been killed. He knew the penalty was death to you if you were caught, and he has met that very end to which he has now made you liable. Had he loved you lawfully and honourably, as he ought to have done, he would have waited for your free and happy discharge.”

“But it seems to me,” said Margaret, “so very strange, something so out of justice, to condemn a person to die for that which does not appear to her to be a crime. I cannot see the blood-guiltiness that I have thus brought upon myself. In God’s commandments I find it written, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ I stole the horse, and I could see that I deserved to die, because I transgressed that commandment; but I do not find it said, ‘Thou shalt not escape from prison.’”

“Now Margaret, your own reasoning will condemn you. You acknowledged that you deserved to die for stealing the horse. Now consider the difference between the sentence you were actually prepared to submit to and the one for which it was in mercy changed. Though justly condemned to death, you are permitted to live and undergo a comparatively mild punishment, yet you cannot see the duty of submitting to it. You should have endured the lesser punishment without a murmur. You appeared to receive the award of it with such thankfulness that it made all your friends rejoice for you. But how deep is their present sorrow! What will the judge say to you now when you are placed before him? Religion teaches you submission to the constituted authorities of your country; and you ought to think with humility, as you once did, that, like the thief on the cross, you suffer justly for your crimes. To my mind, Margaret, you have no excuse whatever. It may be all very well for romantic ideas of fancy to make your lover the excuse; but you were not at liberty to choose to roam over the sea with him until you could do so with a free conscience.”

“It is not for me, dear lady, to say a word against your reasoning. I did not look upon my crime in this light.”

“You must learn to look upon your crime as one which has done injury to society. Which of your friends, who interceded for you with the judge, and gave you so good a character, can now intercede for you again? I am persuaded, Margaret, that the judge himself will think his former mercy much displaced, and that you will meet with severity and reproach at his hands.”

“Dear lady! who can give me comfort? Laud is dead, my father is dead, my brother is at a distance and will probably be so ashamed of me that he will never come to see me again. To whom, then, can I look for help? You, my dear mistress, must be hurt at my conduct, and all my friends likewise. I do not deserve their compassion, and yet I never wanted help so much. Oh! who shall comfort me now?”

“You shall have all the consolation I can give you; I will pray for you continually; I will lend you such books to read as I think may assist you; and were we not now about to remove from St. Margaret’s Green to the Cliff again, and in the midst of much bustle, I would come to see you much oftener than I can now do. My family is increasing, and your master says he must return again to the brewery and to business. But I will come and see you many times, and when I cannot come I will write such instructions as, if you pursue them diligently, may, with God’s blessing, promote your everlasting benefit. I am glad that you are sensible of your sins. This will go some way towards your deriving consolation from the Word of God. Attend to the precepts of the chaplain, who is a good man, and understands your disposition as well as I do; I shall often communicate with the Rev. Mr. Sharp concerning you. You must indeed be very, very humble, before you can obtain that sweet peace of mind which you once possessed. It will come to you again, if you are sincerely penitent and resigned, but not without.”

“You are a dear friend, madam, to the poor destitute, and the only one now left me upon the earth. Oh! how, dear lady, can I be worthy of such kind consideration? Forgive me! oh, pray forgive me!”

“Margaret, I wish the law could as freely forgive you as I do, but you must not expect it. You must fortify your soul with religious consolation alone. Everything else will fail. You must think of far greater love than I can show to you, Margaret; love that has endured inexpressible anguish for you; love that has laid down life for you; and that will teach you how to die. You must think of your Saviour’s love – free, unsought, undeserved love. Oh, the depth of His riches! Who can estimate them as he ought? You must look up to Him during every moment of your short existence, and be never weary of praying to Him for forgiveness. But I must now leave you, Margaret. It shall not be long before I see you again. God bless you! Good-bye!”

Margaret could not speak, but she knelt down and prayed inwardly.

For the next three months Mrs. Cobbold became a frequent visitor at the gaol, and found that Margaret made the best use of her time between the period of her committal and her trial. How instructive are the minutes of her progress, which that lady made, during that most engaging period! and how blessedly employed was the enlightened mistress in communicating light to her poor benighted servant! It was now that she made amends, in her own heart, for that too common error among all who exercise power and authority: the neglect of the spiritual welfare of their dependants. She applied her powerful faculties to the strengthening and refreshing of her servant’s mind, by humbling herself with her before God. And well was she repaid for this exertion. Abundant was the reward to herself in obtaining that experience in the ways of godliness which strengthened her own faith and increased her charity.

Margaret’s mind underwent a complete change. She might be truly said to be a resigned and patient Christian; one who, from that day to her latest moments, never lost the influence of those purest principles and most blessed hopes which were then instilled and rooted in her soul.

On the 1st of August, the day previously to her departure for Bury, Margaret received the following letter from her excellent mistress: —

"Cliff, Ipswich, August 1st, 1800

“Margaret,

“I cannot come and see you, as I had intended this day to have done, having been so unfortunate as to sprain my ankle in getting out of my carriage on to the stone step at the Cliff. But I am so full of thought about you, that my painful foot shall not prevent my willing hand writing to you a few words before you depart. It may be good for you and me that this accident has occurred, however much it may seem our present privation. It may teach us that we never can command events, or tell what a day may bring forth. It may so happen that this letter may do you more good than my visit; if so, I shall not regret the pain I suffer, since I shall have the consolation of its seeming evil being productive of some good. Oh, how I wish that we could look upon all events in the same manner, and be persuaded that all things ‘work together for good to them that love God!’ Let us (i. e. you and I) be thus persuaded. It will prevent us experiencing any present mortification in the impossibility of our seeing each other at this time.

“I would first speak to you about your conduct at the trial, and my pen does that which my tongue would do. Do not attempt in any way to defend your conduct. Being fully convinced, by God’s grace, of the criminality of your act and deed, let no legal sophistry whatever induce you to plead not guilty. In a court of justice, you should stand before man in the same way as you would before your Maker, without any covert deceit, any desire to make a bad cause appear a good one.

“Satan is sometimes transformed into an angel of light. He is so eloquent, so engaging, so bold, so devoted, so earnest, so intelligent, so interesting, so persuasive, that a lie comes from him with such apparent grace, that the sons of God are almost deceived by his transformations. But let not any one persuade you to take advantage of his services. Truth, Margaret, needs no fiction to defend it; for ‘whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie shall never enter into the city of truth.’ So do not suffer any one who calls himself your friend to persuade you to trust to fallacies. You know yourself guilty. Conduct yourself as a person conscious of your guilt before God and man. I shall not deceive you. The penalty of your crime is death; and you do not forget the argument that I used upon a former occasion, ‘that if a man owns himself justly condemned to suffer death, and has mercy shown to him by giving him a lesser punishment, his duty is to suffer that lesser punishment with the same resignation as he would death. And if he fail in this duty, he justly deserves the former punishment.’ So do you justly deserve sentence of death for your present or late sin. And you will be condemned to die!

“Be prepared for much severity at the hands of our offended judge. I say, be prepared; for unless he should know as much of you as I do, he will think you one of the worst persons alive, and therefore only fit to be made a public example of by a violent death. I know you, however, Margaret; and though I believe that if you were now restored to liberty you would be a Christian servant, and never more be a guilty slave of sin, yet your judge cannot know this. Indeed, scarcely any of the magistrates know this. It is, therefore, best to be prepared for a severe trial. Do not attempt to call any one to speak to your character. It will be of no use. The representations made by the magistrates at the last assizes will be sufficient testimony up to that time; and since then, you cannot say that you deserve any defence. You must not expect any mercy, but prepare yourself not only to receive sentence of death, but prepare yourself to die

“If a prisoner who knows himself to be guilty does not prepare himself to die before the sentence of death is passed upon him, his is a very dangerous state, since the period is so short between condemnation and execution that he must be very much distracted.

“You have read through ‘The Christian’s Consolations against the Fears of Death,’ and you tell me that your mind has been greatly strengthened by the piety expressed in this good old book. I agree with you that it touches upon every source of consolation which a Christian man can contemplate. It meets almost every case. But it does not exactly contemplate a female convict, like yourself; and on this account I would add a very few words of advice to you upon this subject.

“To die a Christian, and as a Christian ought to die, is to have no desire whatever but for the kingdom of God. You suffer justly for your crimes; and you must not let any one deceive you into any false idea of your own worthiness to live. The penitent malefactor on the tree rebuked the boldness of his brother, who railed upon the Saviour of the world, and used these words of reproof, ‘Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed suffer justly; but this man hath done nothing amiss.’ Then he prefers that humble prayer, which should ever be yours, Margaret, up to your latest moment, ‘Lord, remember me when thou comest into Thy kingdom!’ How infinite in mercy is the Lord! How loving! How pitiful! How generous to the poor wretch at the moment of his late repentance! We cannot tell, Margaret, how late that repentance was. He might have been convinced of his guilt long before he was lifted up to die. In prison he might have heard, as you have done, of the great, the good, the only Christ. So that men do wrong to take even this example for the success of a death-bed repentance at the last hour. We cannot tell when our last hour may be. Our first should be one of repentance as well as our last. And the whole desire of our lives should be, to be remembered in the kingdom of Christ. The blessed words of our Saviour must have taken away the sting of death from the faithful heart of the penitent: ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.’

“I conceive that we are justified in taking these words to our own selves in our own contemplation of death, and in considering them as the most blessed words that can be used to destroy the power which the King of Terrors often raises in the minds of weak and sinful mortals. If you are truly penitent, justly sensible of all your sins, and are fully convinced of the meritorious sacrifice which God has once made for your sins and those of the whole world, I see no reason why your faith should not be so fully fixed on these blessed words as to let them be the hope of your heart. It is almost impossible for the true penitent to beg to be remembered in the kingdom of Christ without experiencing comfort from the Saviour’s words, ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.’

“Death frees us from the dominion of sin; that is, if we die in Christ. We are then with Him in Paradise, in that state of innocency in which Adam was before he was driven out of the Garden of Eden. Our spirits know no fear, since we are in love; and ‘perfect love casts out fear, because fear hath torment.’

"Your judge, Margaret, will probably tell you to make good use of the short time you have to live. I not only tell you this, that you may be fortified against your sentence of death, but that you may prepare yourself for entering upon another and a better life. I am glad to find, by my friend the chaplain, that you have diligently applied your whole strength to the Word of God, and have found how weak, how wicked, how lost you have been all the days of your life. I hope to be able to come and see you, with him, after your return from Bury, and to partake with you of spiritual refreshment. Till then, my poor servant, I can only pray that you may be rich in grace, strong in faith, humble in heart, devout in prayer, lowly and contrite in spirit, watchful against all temptation, in love, in peace, in charity with all, praying for all: for your judge, jury, and fellow-prisoners.

“Oh that your end may be as you wish it, a warning to all your sex, and especially to those in your situation of life, never to let passion get the upper hand of virtuous principle! That God may fortify you with His spirit, cheer you with His Word, and comfort you in death, is the earnest prayer of your former mistress

"And present friend,"Elizabeth Cobbold.

“To Margaret Catchpole.”

Margaret fed upon the contents of this letter, and followed the advice given her; and with what effect will be best seen by the account preserved of her second trial. She went to Bury on the 2nd of August, and on the 3rd was conducted to the same court, and appeared before the same judge, as she had done upon her first trial three years before.

The Lord Chief Baron Sir Archibald Macdonald was this time accompanied by Sir Beaumont Hotham. The juries for the county and liberty were the following honourable gentlemen: —

FOR THE COUNTY

FOR THE LIBERTY

The usual forms of the court having been gone through, Margaret Catchpole was again placed at the bar. Margaret was dressed, as formerly, in a plain blue calico dress. She appeared pale and thin, but perfectly free from any of that emotion which she formerly exhibited. There was a calmness of deportment without the least obduracy, and no obtrusive boldness nor recklessness. She did not look round the court with any of that anxiety she formerly exhibited, as if she wished to see any one there who knew her. She knew that Will Laud was gone, and that neither her father nor her brother was there. She was quite indifferent to the public gaze, and with her eyes cast down upon the bar, she saw not that piercing glance which the judge gave her as she took her station before him, though every person in court noticed it, and looked at the prisoner to see if she did not quail before it.

The indictment having been read aloud, once more the clerk of the court addressed her in these terms:

“How say you, prisoner at the bar, are you guilty or not guilty?”

Margaret lifted up her dark eyes once more, and looking her judge calmly in the face, said —

“Guilty, my lord.”

There was a perfect stillness in that crowded court, while the judge now addressed her in the following terms: —

“I cannot address you, prisoner at the bar, in the same strain I formerly did, since I am persuaded that you are hardened in your iniquity. I pitied you at that time for your youth; but though young in years, you are old in crime. I considered you then a person who, if you had the chance, would form, for the remainder of your days, an estimable character. In this, however, I have been greatly deceived, and I now look upon you as a person whom I believe to be dangerous to the morals of others, and therefore unfit to live. You have shown your sense of the past mercy extended to you by your bold and daring conduct in breaking out of prison. I had fully intended to have obtained your discharge from the Ipswich gaol at these very assizes, had I heard the good report I received last year confirmed. You may judge, then, of my surprise and indignation when I heard of your escape from the gaol.

“So bold a woman would make a very bad companion for any man. She who, after receiving pardon for her past crimes, in the merciful permission to live when condemned to death, will again be guilty of setting a bad example to all, instead of a good and reformed one: she who will set at defiance the laws of her country, and be so bold as to break out of prison before the period of her confinement had expired, shows such a disregard to all past and present mercies that she is not worthy to live.

“You have, I understand, been the occasion of sudden death to one man, and might have involved others in your guilt. The turnkey of the gaol might have been severely punished for your delinquency. Your gaoler, whose duty it is to attend the prisoners to Bury, and of whose absence you took such a shameful advantage, might have suffered a heavy fine. You had very nearly eluded his activity, and I consider that great credit is due to him for the manner in which he recovered you and has brought you to justice. The magistrates of this county have very properly applauded his zeal; and I consider it a fortunate thing for society, that you are not this moment at large in any part of his Majesty’s dominions.

“I will not waste words upon a person so ungrateful as you are. What can you possibly have to say why sentence should not be passed upon you? You may say anything you have to say. It cannot be anything good, or in the least mitigate the severest penalty of the law. Have you anything to say, prisoner at the bar?”

There was such a still silence in the court at this moment that the scratch of a pen might have been heard. The barristers all looked up at the prisoner. Every eye was fixed intently upon her pale face, as she looked up and made such a composed reply to the Lord Chief Baron’s speech, that one of the most eminent barristers of that day, afterwards as eminent as a judge, declared it to be the most able and impressive he had ever, under such circumstances, heard. She spoke with perfect ease, and apparently without the slightest tremor, and was heard all over the court.

“My lord, I fully expected that your lordship would condemn me severely for my present offence. I expected severity; but I did not think that I should receive the language of judgement without mercy from one whose former kindness touched my heart. As to my being a hardened offender, I humbly hope that in this respect your lordship is mistaken. I have committed two offences against the laws of my country. The first I acknowledged, not without a sense of its guilt; the second, when I committed it, I was quite unconscious of the light in which the law viewed it, and I thought it no crime at all. Had not the arguments of one wise as your lordship, and a far dearer friend to the prisoner, convinced me of its enormity, I had this day stood before the court and felt myself condemned as an innocent person. Thank God, such is not the case! and your lordship’s accusation of my being a hardened offender is without foundation.

“At this moment of condemnation you refer to your intention of obtaining my discharge at these assizes. At such a time as this, the expression of such an intention might have produced extreme bitterness in my heart, did I not know, that before the last assizes, your lordship received a memorial, signed by all the magistrates who visited the Ipswich gaol, praying for my discharge on account of exemplary conduct up to that time. Had you, then, my lord, attended to that prayer, the offence for which I am now to suffer the severity of the law would never have been committed, the life of the man whom it was my fault to love would have been spared, and I should not have had the anguish of being compelled to speak as I now do, nor this court the pain of hearing me. The bitterness then which your reference to my intended discharge would have given me must remain with your lordship, not with me. You may be well assured, my lord, that I am not hardened, but penitent. In the twinkling of an eye I shall meet your lordship at the tribunal of perfect justice, where we shall both be prisoners at that bar where we shall require, and, I hope, shall find mercy.

“You could not imagine what I should say, and what I do say is not meant as a defence of my improper act, but only in justice to those who may wish me ‘God speed’ in this court, and who might think from your lordship’s language that I was insensible to their or your lordship’s past kindness. The day will come, and not long after my departure hence, when your lordship will be convinced that your opinion, now expressed, was not such as the circumstances of my case warranted or called for. Your lordship will then clearly see, that through ignorance, and prompted somewhat beyond the bounds of reason by the force of gratitude to one whom I too dearly loved, I was induced to attempt to gain that liberty which I then felt could only be pleasant in his company.

“Your lordship will, I hope, send me soon to the enjoyment of a liberty with which no laws of man can interfere. I call no persons to speak to my character since the period when your lordship received the testimony of the gaoler, chaplain, and magistrates of the Ipswich division. I humbly beg pardon of you, my lord, and of all this court, if I have said anything which may seem disrespectful to you or any persons present; and I now await your lordship’s sentence.”

After Margaret had finished speaking, all eyes were turned towards the judge. The barristers who were present whispered together, and his lordship caught the sounds of words like these: “Admirable answer!" "Sensible speech!" “Able reply!" which made the colour come into his face, and it required some degree of judicial self-possession to disperse it. He soon resumed, however, his wonted dignity and calmness, and proceeded to pass sentence upon the prisoner, prefacing the awful terms with these words: —

“Prisoner at the bar, I am glad to say that my opinion may be altered with regard to your hardened state; I may lament, also, that the prayer of that petition made in your behalf was not sooner complied with, as you expected it would have been. This will not, however, excuse your crime. It might be sufficient to establish the propriety of your conduct up to that time, but your subsequent act completely cancelled that character. You have artfully attempted to throw the blame, which rests entirely with yourself, upon me as your judge.” Here Margaret looked at him with piercing scrutiny, but uttered not a word. “He will not blame himself again under similar circumstances, having had such occasion to blame himself for too great leniency upon your former trial. You are sufficiently sensible to be aware of the short time you have to live, and of the necessity of making good use of it. I shall add no more than the judgement of this court, which is – ”