On 5 January 1825, two young men took outside places in London aboard the Express coach bound for Brick-hill. The following day, they were seen walking towards Fenny Stratford, the one bearing a gun in a green canvas bag, the other carrying a box upon his shoulder. The Eclipse overtook them; they mounted the coach, only to leap down at Whaddon Chase. Moments later, a hedge-carpenter at work in the field heard a cry that he took for a call of murder.
This man, Meechan, looked toward Snell’s Copse. He beheld two travellers whom he had earlier observed in the vicinity. One raised his fowling-piece and struck down his fellow with the butt of the weapon. The stock seemed to splinter beneath the blow; the assailant then beat the prostrate body repeatedly with the barrel. Meechan was too seized with terror to intervene. He watched the attacker exchange his blue coat for a fustian shooting jacket, then walk away. When his alarm had somewhat abated, he ran to his master’s house, some two hundred yards distant, and related what he had seen.
Mr Clarke and his three sons set out with him. After nearly two hours of fruitless searching, they espied the man emerging from a copse and apprehended him. They conveyed him to the Haunch of Venison, an inn at Whaddon, before the magistrates Lowndes, Smith, and Mansel. The prisoner gave his name as Charles Lynn, and identified his dead companion as Abraham Hogg. The coroner’s inquest heard witnesses regarding the attack, the discovery of the body, and its injuries, which the chronicle presents as the manifest cause of death. The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Lynn.
The chronicle distinguishes between what was first published and the narrative Lynn subsequently gave. According to the initial reports, the two men had slept at the White Lion, then walked toward Fenny Stratford before boarding the Eclipse. Following his apprehension, Lynn gave a different account of their route. He claimed to have set out with Hogg from Snow Hill aboard the Liverpool coach. Two men, he asserted, had engaged in long discourse with Hogg; Lynn maintained he had recognized them as resurrection-men. Two surgeons were also travelling inside, he said. He claimed to believe that Hogg had agreed to sell Lynn’s body to the surgeons after his death.
Under this second declaration, the two companions had alighted at the White Lion in Brick-hill. Talk overheard in the taproom regarding robberies and murders disquieted Lynn; he went to sleep at the house opposite. The following morning, returning to the White Lion, he claimed the landlord told him he was fortunate not to have risen earlier, for his corpse would already have been halfway to London. Lynn then related that he climbed into another coach with Hogg. As they passed near a common, he leaped down and fled; Hogg pursued him, carrying Lynn’s gun. Approaching a wood, Lynn said he heard horns and trumpets, believed the resurrectionists were in pursuit, and fancied that Hogg meant to kill him. His conclusion was that he had struck first to preserve his own life. The chronicle presents this defence as Lynn’s declaration; it confirms neither the designs imputed to Hogg nor those ascribed to the passengers of the coach.
Before his removal to Aylesbury, Lynn made several attempts upon his own life. Being informed of Hogg’s death, he answered that he was glad of it, as his companion would not have the money. He asked to write to his mother, commencing his letter with the words: “Dear Mother, I have committed murder,” before giving way once more to despair. Only after these attempts was the prisoner conveyed to Aylesbury. He viewed Hogg’s body without, according to the chronicle, exhibiting any agitation; upon his arrival at the gaol, he dictated a letter to his mother through the gaoler, King. The chaplain, Mr Ashfield, visited him; his mother, his sister, and a clerk from Sir Robert Burnett’s establishment also came to the prison.
At his mother’s request, Lynn made before her, his sister, and the clerk from Burnett’s the declaration whose substance Pelham recounts. The chronicler notes that it was committed to paper and produced at the trial. It remained the prisoner’s version of events, distinct from the scene that Meechan professed to have witnessed.
The trial took place at Aylesbury on Tuesday, 8 March 1825. Pelham states that the evidence substantially rehearsed the facts laid before the coroner’s inquest. In his defence, Lynn reiterated his belief that men meant to kill him and deliver his body to the surgeons. Witnesses deposed that they believed him insane. The jurors found him guilty of killing Hogg, but declared that he was of unsound mind at the time of the act. This wording belongs to the verdict reported in the chronicle; it provides no more precise medical diagnosis.
The court ordered that Lynn be detained during His Majesty’s pleasure; he was subsequently removed to an asylum. Pelham adds that Lynn had worked from an early age as a cooper at Sir Robert Burnett’s vinegar manufactory at Vauxhall, where he had borne an unblemished character. Hogg was likewise employed there as a cooper, and had become Lynn’s constant companion. The prisoner’s mother kept a confectioner’s shop at No. 4, Morehall-place, Vauxhall; the clerk who attended her to Aylesbury belonged to Burnett’s establishment.
The chapter concludes by turning to Mangan, known as “Long Dan,” a fellow workman of the two men. He had been seen with Lynn on Sunday, 2 January, at Manor-place, Walworth, and had subsequently disappeared. Lynn’s remark concerning Hogg’s money had lent weight to the suspicions surrounding this disappearance. Mangan eventually came forward and declared that he had enlisted in the service of the East India Company, refusing to assign any reason for his departure. The chronicle notes that it remained unknown why Lynn and Hogg had quitted their employment and taken the road to Liverpool. It closes upon this unresolved question, even as Lynn’s legal fate was already sealed: found guilty by the jury, declared to have been of unsound mind at the time of the act, and detained by order of the court.