A man was running before the carriage, a flaming link in his hand. At the lower end of St Alban’s Street, a sudden discharge shattered the night. William Cole turned upon his heel: through the settling smoke, his master cried out that he was murdered; three horsemen were already spurring away along the right side of the vehicle. Raising the hue and cry, Cole dashed in their pursuit, following their flight as far as the Haymarket.
Thomas Thynn was returning from the residence of the Countess of Northumberland. His coachman, William Ellers, later deposed that one of the horsemen had shouted, “Hold, you dog!” ere the piece was discharged directly into the carriage. Mr Hobbs, the surgeon, was summoned about nine of the clock. Four balls had torn through Thynn’s body, rending vital organs and shattering bones. He expired on the morrow, having been conveyed to his own mansion. The judicial account published by George Borrow preserves the particulars of this outrage and of the trial convened on 28 February 1681 according to the Old Style, which corresponds to 28 February 1682 in the historical reckoning of our day. The four prisoners at the bar were foreigners; the panel of the jury was composed half of Englishmen and half of aliens, and the proceedings were rendered to them by sworn interpreters.
The marksman, Charles George Boroski, did not deny having discharged the weapon, yet maintained he had not loaded it with his own hands. He affirmed he had received it from Captain Christopher Uratz. Uratz admitted having provided the blunderbuss and having halted the coach. By his account, his design was merely to compel Thynn to meet him in fair duel: the victim, he averred, had repeatedly declined his cartel after Uratz had heard that Thynn had spoken in disparaging terms of Count Coningsmark. Uratz protested he had strictly charged Boroski not to fire unless they were hindered from fighting or cut off in their retreat; he insisted that the piece had gone off by some wretched mischance.
John Stern, the third prisoner, presented a far darker narrative. He testified that Uratz had spoken to him of a feud, promised him two or three hundred crowns to procure a fellow who would despatch Thynn, and had earlier bade him find an Italian bravo to stab a man. Boroski, for his part, swore that Uratz had commanded him to fire the very instant the carriage was brought to a stand. Thus, though all three men occupied the same ground of guilt, their testimonies distributed intent and authority in radically conflicting measure.
The name of the Count was drawn into the indictment through the intricate web of lodgings, secret errands, and sudden removals that encompassed the conspirators. John Hanson, tutor to the Count’s younger brother, explained that his lordship had arrived in England some four weeks prior and had repeatedly shifted his quarters. He went by the appellation of “the stranger,” and subsequently of “Carlo Cuski”; a physician noted that he wore a dark periwig. The Count kept to his chamber, receiving Captain Uratz, who had crossed the Channel in his company. Indeed, he quitted one lodging after a mere two days under the pretext that the chimneys smoked, only to maintain the same suspicious retirement elsewhere.
Boroski had reached London but a short time before the murder. Hanson encountered him at the French academy, whence he conducted him to the Count’s apartments. His lordship declared he had expected the fellow and intended to employ him in the management of English horses. On the Friday and Saturday preceding the attack, Boroski repaired thither once more. On Sunday morning, a servant delivered to him a great riding-coat and a sword; the boy of the house saw him depart in boots, a buff doublet beneath his cloak, and the sword tucked beneath his arm. That night, he did not return.
On the morning following Thynn’s demise, the Count was busied in having his portmanteaus packed. The lad Watts had seen Uratz enter his master’s chambers on Sunday night, after the fatal shot, and had not observed him leave before his own watch ended. Watts’s father, a common porter, was hired to carry two trunks as far as the Windsor coach. The Count then journeyed to Redriff, proceeding thence through Deptford, Greenwich, and Gravesend. The King’s messengers apprehended him as he was setting foot on shore the Sunday following the murder. As he was seized, his periwig fell from his brow. When informed that the Captain and the Polonian had made certain disclosures, he spoke of a blot upon his blood, adding that a gallant exploit in the wars might yet wipe it clean away.
The King’s counsel linked these covert movements to a bitter contest of the heart. Upon the death of her father, Elizabeth Percy, sole heiress to the earldom of Northumberland, had wedded Henry, Earl of Ogle, and had soon been left a widow. The proceedings record that Coningsmark was among the noblemen who paid court to her hand. The Dowager Duchess had brought about a private match between the heiress and Thynn the summer preceding the murder; Lady Ogle had straightway departed in secret for Holland ere the marriage was consummated. A witness deposed that the Count had made inquiry touching the legal consequences of a duel with Thynn, and whether such an encounter would bar his subsequent pretences to the lady. These circumstances suggested an undeniable motive, yet they did not of themselves establish that he had hired the assassins.
Hanson, moreover, had conveyed a query from the Count to the Swedish envoy: what peril would he incur were he to call Thynn to account? The minister, it was said, warned him that he could scarce look to live in England if he laid hands upon such a man. At the bar, it was demanded whether this discourse had reference to Lady Ogle; Hanson answered that the Count had sought to know whether the law of England would stand in the way of his pretensions. This conference had taken place prior to Boroski’s arrival, and in the shadow of the assassination, the prosecution invested it with a sinister significance.
To this accusation, Coningsmark replied that he had come into England solely to raise a regiment for the King’s service against France. He affirmed he had already campaigned at Tangier, with Boroski attending him, and that he had remitted a thousand pistoles for the purchase of mounts. He excused his seclusion by alleging an indisposition in his arms and breast, and his changes of raiment by the want of suitable equipage. By his account, the sword and boots bestowed upon Boroski pertained strictly to the equestrian duties designed for him; he protested upon his honour that he had never set eyes on Thynn. His flight down the river he attributed to a mortal dread of being torn to pieces by the fury of the populace.
The Crown lawyers countered this defence by marshaling the damning sequence of preparations: Boroski armed that very morning, Uratz admitted to the Count’s closet that same night, the trunks corded on the morrow, and the stealthy descent of the Thames. They demanded what profit three penniless mercenaries could hope to reap by such a slaughter of their own motion, reminding the court that the witnesses nearest to his lordship had yielded their testimony only under constraint. The Lord Chief Justice, however, drew a precise boundary in law. The marksman and his two confederates might well be guilty of willful murder; yet to convict the Count, the jury must be convinced beyond doubt that he had commanded or abetted the design. If his retainers had acted without his privity, he could not in law be adjudged an accessory.
Ere sentence was passed, Uratz cried out that he had not received an impartial trial; Stern declared he had embarked in the affair solely for the Captain’s sake. Boroski offered no palliation: he acknowledged he could not deny the slaughter of Thynn, protesting only that he had acted in blind obedience to his master. After half an hour’s consultation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against Boroski, Uratz, and Stern, but acquitted Count Coningsmark. The acquittal did not reconcile the discordant testimonies; it marked merely what the court deemed legally established against the noble prisoner. The three condemned men were hanged in Pall Mall the following week. Boroski’s body was subsequently hung in chains hard by Mile End.
In the days that followed the fatal volley, many perceived in the outrage a fresh branch of the Popish Plot. The trial drew public scrutiny back to the tangled relations subsisting between Thynn, his bride, and the foreign Count, yet the verdict spared the nobleman. Cole had pursued the assassins on foot as far as the Haymarket; the Count, seized on the muddy shores of the estuary, walked forth a free man. Three lives, meanwhile, paid the forfeit upon the gallows.