From four of the clock in the afternoon, several unknown persons dogging his heels followed John Talbot through the streets of London. The clergyman had only just entered the city following a dispute with certain parishioners of Laindon, in Essex; he dreaded lest a warrant of arrest should be served upon him. The faces he met in the thoroughfares seemed to him those of officers of the law. Yet on that evening, the men who tracked his steps had not come to execute a writ. They were awaiting their hour to strike.
The criminal compilation of George Borrow, published in 1825, names four of these pursuers: Stephen Eaton, a confectioner; George Roades, a broker; Henry Pritchard, a tailor; and Sarah Swift. It counts six men and one woman in all. Talbot had served as chaplain to a regiment in Portugal; having returned to London, he preached at St. Alphage, then accepted a curacy at Laindon. A contention with his flock had driven him back to the capital. Persuaded that men sought to serve process upon him, he strove to suffer no stranger near his person. The motive of those who tracked him was of another kind: the purse they hoped to wrest from him, or some malice never fully demonstrated.
Talbot endeavoured to shake them off by shifting his course time and again. He reached Gray’s Inn, penned letters to friends imploring them to come to his defence, and waited in the chambers of a gentleman of the law. When no one came, he slipped away by a rear door, crossed Old Street, and struck out through the open fields toward Shoreditch.
The night was already far spent. In the fields, he caught sight once more of those who had followed him. He sought to reach a gardener’s hovel by forcing his way through a hedge; before he could gain it, several men seized him. They stripped him of his money and his pocket knife, and thereupon attacked him with that very blade. When the bricklayers sleeping hard by came out to discover whence the cries proceeded, they found Talbot in his shirt, wounded and drenched in blood. One of them gave him a dram of spirits to drink. The minister pointed out the direction his assailants had taken.
The Shoreditch watch was raised. A watchman perceived a man lying among the nettles. Near at hand lay a bloody knife and Talbot’s doublet. The fellow feigned sleep, then attempted to take flight as they drew near. The watchmen overpowered him. Beside him was found a pewter pot whose mark had been scraped away. It was Eaton. The confectioner was conveyed to the Star Inn, whither Talbot had been carried and placed in the hands of a surgeon.
Talbot recognised Eaton, and being unable to speak distinctly, wrote down that he had seen him deal the blow. He declared likewise that there were other confederates. When Sarah Swift was brought before him, he knew her again as well: during the afternoon, he had heard one of the men ask whether they should take a coach, addressing her as Sarah. She gave her name to the constable. The minister’s written recognition, committed to paper, governed the arrests that followed. Three other persons were apprehended, and Talbot singled out yet another of them.
The earliest hopes of recovery came from the medical men. Mr. Litchfield, the surgeon, dressed the wound; he was joined by Dr. Hodges, who had served the City during the Great Plague of 1665, and subsequently by Dr. Ridgely, summoned at the instance of the preacher of the Charterhouse. For several days, no mortal symptoms appeared. On the Sunday, Talbot rose and dressed; those tending him deemed him out of present danger. Later, a violent fit of coughing reopened a vessel and brought on so copious an effusion of blood that he swooned, his extremities growing cold. The haemorrhage was at first stayed, but broke out anew upon another access of coughing. Litchfield subsequently testified that the weapon had penetrated the lung, and that this wound was the cause of death.
During the night, Talbot sent for the minister of Shoreditch. He answered him aloud, having spent several days communicating only by signs or in writing. He was asked whether he remained steadfast in the accusations he had made. The account states that he affirmed his identifications. Being asked whether he forgave them, he answered that he prayed for their souls, but desired that the law might take its course. He expired shortly thereafter.
At the trial, Constable Went recounted the arrests and produced the sheets written by Talbot’s hand. In the letters addressed to his friends, the curate had recounted the seven hours during which he had believed himself pursued, and the turnings he had taken. The labourers who had discovered him, the watchmen who had found Eaton, and the surgeon who had examined the hurt deposed in their turn. The evidence gathered round a few plain articles: the blade, the doublet cast into the nettles, the defaced pewter pot. Witnesses testified that Talbot had been dogged for hours and that the men had lain in wait in the fields.
Before his death, Talbot had also instructed Went in writing to examine Eaton: had any person from Laindon paid or incited him? Eaton not only denied having received any commission, but protested that he had never set eyes on Talbot until he was brought into his presence. The search for a hidden prompter came to naught. Sarah Swift likewise denied all share in the deed. The prosecution observed that the four prisoners at the bar could not account for their whereabouts after nine of the clock on the night of the assault. The jury found them guilty. Henry Pritchard was subsequently reprieved, according to the narrative, by reason of favourable circumstances urged on his behalf; the others were conveyed to Tyburn. The chronicle records that the two men then confessed the murder, whilst Sarah persisted in her denials to the end.
The true spring of the assault remained unanswered. Talbot had come to London on parish business, and the account suggests that his pursuers may have imagined him possessed of money; it hints also at the possibility that an enemy had set them upon his track. Neither the condemned nor the chronicle identified an instigator. What remains with greater clarity is the passage of an evening: the turnings of the streets where Talbot doubled back, the chambers of Gray’s Inn where he sought help in vain, and the flight across fields with which the gang was already familiar. The brickmakers heard the cries and came upon him before his wounds could carry him off. The papers he wrote, and the garments abandoned beside his assailants, ensured that his final night did not perish with him.