On the third of July, 1751, towards two of the clock in the morning, Elizabeth Jeffries stood before a neighbor’s door, barefoot and in her shift. “They have killed him, I fear,” said she. Then, turning all heed from her own plight, she urged that her uncle must be seen to at once. Edward Buckle entered the house. Swan, the gardener, admitted him. The old man lay upon his side, bearing three deep wounds to the head. Speech was denied him, yet he pressed his neighbor’s hand when desired to signify whether he knew him. On the evening of the following day, he expired.
The scene did not yet bear the guise of conspiracy. Jeffries was a childless widower, formerly a London butcher, who had retired to Walthamstow in Essex and taken his niece beneath his roof. Swan, bred to husbandry, was in his employ. A few hours after the alarm was raised, Elizabeth charged Buckle to cry it abroad that a murder had been done and that certain goods were missing: a silver tankard, a silver cup, and fifteen pewter plates. Yet when Buckle spoke of apprehending Matthews, a former servant, she implored him not to meddle, lest, as she said, he bring her into trouble herself.
The relation of the design’s contrivance was to come from Matthews, who became the King’s evidence. He had come out of Yorkshire in search of bread. Jeffries had come upon him on the highway, destitute, and taken him on to assist in the garden, with his keep for his pains, but no wages. Four days after his coming into the service, as he was wiping a chest of drawers and some chairs, Elizabeth asked him what he would do if any man should offer him one hundred pounds. Matthews replied that he would do anything honest. She bade him go speak with Swan.
In the garden, Swan smiled. He led Matthews into an outhouse and made the offer plain: seven hundred pounds should be his if he would knock their master on the head. Two days later, Jeffries discharged the young man, bestowing upon him a shilling. Swan, for his part, slipped half a guinea into his hand to buy a brace of pistols. In the narrative laid before the court, the promise of wealth and the weapon thus followed hard upon each other, shortly before the master’s death.
According to this account, Matthews did not keep the money long. He spent it at the Green Man in Low Layton, then took the road for London again. Swan overtook him and drew him to Whitechapel, to Gall’s house at the Green Man and Bell. There they drank until nightfall. Swan, in liquor, began to hector the company, offering to fight any man for a guinea; he then stripped off his greatcoat and cast it into the fire. The landlord snatched it out. The garment was heavy. In the pockets, he found the two pistols.
The two men lay that night in the watchhouse, and were brought on the morrow before Samuel Gower, justice of the peace, who committed them to Clerkenwell as disorderly persons. Elizabeth stood surety for their appearance. All three met again at Gall’s. She upbraided Matthews for having brought Swan into hazard; this he denied. She gave him a shilling and appointed him to meet them at Stratford. At Stratford, Swan gave him half a crown and set another meeting for six of the clock the following morning, at the Buck inn in Epping Forest. Finally, he bade him return to Walthamstow on the Tuesday following, at ten at night.
Matthews entered by the garden gate, which was left upon the latch, and concealed himself behind a tub in the pantry. Swan brought him some cold boiled beef. Towards midnight, Elizabeth and Swan joined him. Swan told him that the hour was come to dispatch the master. Matthews drew back, declaring that he had not the heart for it. Elizabeth called him a coward for not keeping his word; Swan, armed, threatened to blow his brains out. Then, producing a book, he compelled Matthews to swear he would never peach. He took the oath, reserving to himself, however, the right to speak if it were to save his own life.
Shortly thereafter, Matthews heard the report of a pistol. He slipped out by the back, crossed the ferry, and made his way to Enfield Chase. The chronicle relates not what he saw: he heard only the shot, and fled. In the hours that followed, the neighbors heard Elizabeth’s cries. Diaper perceived her half out of a window, attempting to get down. He entered with Clarke and searched for an intruder. The dew upon the grass had not been trampled. The tale of a housebreaking heralded by screams found no confirming trace without.
Swan went to fetch a surgeon from Woodford. Forbes perceived the blood to be congealed and dressed the wounds. The gardener appeared in an agony of terror; he protested that he would have lost his own life to save his master. Jeffries, however, could answer questions no longer. He died in great torment at eight of the clock on the following evening. Elizabeth declared to the magistrates that she had heard a shot and discovered her uncle murdered. There being no present proof against her, she proved the will and entered into possession of the estate.
The inquiry did not rest upon these first declarations. The absence of any sign of forcible entry, the presence of the pistols, and what was related of the meetings with Matthews gave another color to suspicion. The niece and the gardener were committed to gaol. The trial might have proceeded before Matthews was found, but the prosecution opposed it, the Crown having need of the absent witness. The court accordingly respited the matter to the next assizes.
Gall, the Whitechapel publican, went in search of Matthews. Learning that he had left the India House, where he had enlisted in the service of the Company, he came upon him in a house in Abel’s Buildings, Rosemary Lane. Taken upon a warrant, Matthews consented to turn evidence for the Crown. On the eleventh of March, 1752, at the Chelmsford assizes, he recounted the offer, the firearms, and the nocturnal meeting. Elizabeth swooned repeatedly, lying insensible on one occasion for half an hour. Matthews’s deposition, according to Borrow, was clear and consistent; other circumstances corroborated it. The jury found both prisoners guilty.
Following the verdict, Elizabeth confessed her guilt, affirming that she had harbored the design of the murder for two years past. She said she had found no means of effecting it until she engaged Swan in the business, accusing him of having been her instrument. Swan was transported with rage upon learning of her words; later, being informed that his body was to hang in chains upon a gibbet, he seemed to repent. Borrow’s account does not place these two tempers upon the same footing: Elizabeth maintained her design, whereas Swan passed from fury to contrition as death drew near.
They were brought out of prison at four of the clock in the morning, on the twenty-eighth of March, to be conveyed near the six-mile stone in Epping Forest. Elizabeth traveled in a cart, Swan upon a sledge. She was seized with fits, but became composed before the execution. She confided to the clergyman that her uncle had carnally known her whilst his wife was yet living, and had twice given her medicines to procure an abortion. Borrow adds that this charge rested solely upon her own word. Elizabeth swooned just as the halter was put about her neck. Her body was delivered to her friends. Swan’s was subsequently hung in chains upon a gibbet, which was removed to another quarter of the forest.