Cornish Characters and Strange Events. Baring-Gould Sabine
Mount Charles Turnpike Gate at the top of Dunmeer Hill and a place called Lane End. We came on the turnpike road all the way till we came to the house near the spot where the murder was committed. We did not go into the house, but hid ourselves in a field. My brother knocked Mr. Norway down; he snapped a pistol at him twice, and it did not go off. Then he knocked him down with the pistol. He was struck whilst on horseback. It was on the turnpike road between Pencarrow Mill and the directing-post towards Wadebridge. I cannot say at what time of the night it was. We left the body in the water on the left side of the road coming to Wadebridge. We took money in a purse, but I do not know how much it was. It was a brownish purse. There were some papers, which my brother took and pitched away in a field on the left-hand side of the road, into some browse or furze. The purse was hid by me in my garden, and afterwards I threw it over Pendavey Bridge. My brother drew the body across the road to the water. We did not know whom we stopped till when my brother snapped the pistol at him. Mr. Norway said, 'I know what you are about. I see you.' We went home across the fields. We were not disturbed by any one. The pistol belonged to my brother. I don't know whether it was broken; I never saw it afterwards; and I do not know what became of it. I don't know whether it was soiled with blood. I did not see any blood on my brother's clothes. We returned together, crossing the river at Pendavey Bridge and the Treraren fields to Burlorn village. My brother then went to his house and I to mine. I think it was handy about eleven o'clock. I saw my brother again on the Sunday morning. He came to my house. There was nobody there but my own family. He said, 'Dear me, Mr. Norway is killed.' I did not make any reply."
The prisoner upon this was remanded to Bodmin gaol, where his brother was already confined, and on the way he pointed out the furze bush in which the tablet and the keys of the deceased were to be found. James Lightfoot, in the meantime, had also made a confession, in which he threw the guilt of the murder upon his brother William.
This latter, when in prison, admitted that his confession had not been altogether true. He and his brother had met by appointment, with full purpose to rob the Rev. W. Molesworth, of S. Breock, returning from Bodmin market, and when James had snapped his pistol twice at Mr. Norway, he, William, had struck him with a stick on the back of his head and felled him from his horse, whereupon James had battered his head and face with the pistol.
The two wretched men were tried at Bodmin on March 30th, 1840, before Mr. Justice Coltman, and the jury returned a verdict of "Guilty"; they were accordingly both sentenced to death, and received the sentence with great stolidity.
Up to this time the brothers had been allowed no opportunity for communication, and the discrepancy in their stories distinctly enough showed that the object of each was to screen himself and to secure the conviction of the other.
After the passing of the sentence on them, they were conveyed to the same cell, and were now, for the first time, allowed to approach each other. They had scarcely met before, in the most hardened manner, they broke out into mutual recrimination, using the most horrible and abusive language of each other, and, not content with this, they flew at each other's throat, so that the gaolers were obliged to interfere and separate them and confine them in separate apartments.
On April 7th their families were admitted to bid them farewell, and the scene was most distressing. On Monday morning, April 13th, they were both executed, and it was said that upwards of ten thousand persons had assembled to witness their end.
As Mr. Norway's family was left in most straitened circumstances, a collection was made for them in Cornwall, and the sum of £3500 was raised on their behalf.
William Lightfoot was aged thirty-six and James thirty-three when hanged at Bodmin.
There is a monument to the memory of Mr. Norway in Egloshayle Church.
In the Cornwall Gazette, 17th April, 1840, the portraits of the murderers were given. Mention is made of the tragedy in C. Carlyon's Early Years, 1843. He gives the following story. At the time of the murder, Edmund Norway, the brother of Nevill, was in command of a merchant vessel, the Orient, on his voyage from Manilla to Cadiz. He wrote on the same day as the murder: —
"About 7.30 p.m. the island of S. Helena, N.N.W., distant about seven miles, shortened sail and rounded to, with the ship's head to the eastward; at eight, set the watch and went below – wrote a letter to my brother, Nevell Norway. About twenty minutes or a quarter before ten o'clock went to bed – fell asleep, and dreamt I saw two men attack my brother and murder him. One caught the horse by the bridle and snapped a pistol twice, but I heard no report; he then struck him a blow, and he fell off the horse. They struck him several blows, and dragged him by the shoulders across the road and left him. In my dream there was a house on the left-hand side of the road. At five o'clock I was called, and went on deck to take charge of the ship. I told the second officer, Mr. Henry Wren, that I had had a dreadful dream, and dreamt that my brother Nevell was murdered by two men on the road from S. Columb to Wadebridge; but I was sure it could not be there, as the house there would have been on the right-hand side of the road, but it must have been somewhere else. He replied, 'Don't think anything about it; you West-country people are superstitious; you will make yourself miserable the remainder of the passage. He then left the general orders and went below. It was one continued dream from the time I fell asleep until I was called, at five o'clock in the morning.
There are some difficulties about this account. It is dated, as may be seen, February 8th, but it must have been written on February 9th, after Mr. Norway had had the dream, and the date must refer to the letter written to his brother and to the dream, and not to the time when the account was penned.
From the Cape of Good Hope to S. Helena the course would be about N.N.W., and with a fair wind the ship would cover about eighty or ninety miles in eight hours. So that at noon of the day February 8th she would be about one hundred miles S.S.E. of S. Helena, i.e. in about 5° W. longitude, as nearly as possible. The ship's clock would then be set, and they would keep that time for letter-writing purposes, meals, ship routine, etc.
The difference would be twenty minutes of longitude, and the difference in time between the two places one degree apart is four minutes. Reduce this to seconds: —
Therefore, if the murder was committed, say, at 10h. 30m. p.m. Bodmin time, the time on the ship's clock would be 10h. 28m. 40s. p.m. An inconsiderable difference.
The log-book of Edmund Norway is said to be still in existence.
One very remarkable point deserves notice. In his dream Mr. Edmund Norway saw the house on the right hand of the road, and as he remembered, on waking, that the cottage was on the left hand, he consoled himself with the thought that if the dream was incorrect in one point it might be in the whole. But he was unaware that during his absence from England the road from Bodmin to Wadebridge had been altered, and that it had been carried so that the position of the house was precisely as he saw it in his dream, and the reverse of what he had remembered it to be.
Another point to be mentioned is that one of the murderers wore on that occasion a coat which Mr. Norway had given him a few weeks before, out of charity.
Both brothers protested that they had not purposed the murder of Mr. Norway but of the Rev. Mr. Molesworth, parson of S. Breock, who they supposed was returning with tithe in his pocket. This, however, did not agree with the evidence that William Lightfoot had watched him counting his money at Bodmin, and then had made off.
On the occasion of the discovery of the murder, Sir William Molesworth sent his bloodhounds to track the murderers, but because they ran in a direction opposed to that which the constables supposed was the right one they were recalled. The hounds were right, the constables wrong.
SIR WILLIAM LOWER, KNT
Sir William Lower was the only son of John Lower, and was born at Tremere, in S. Tudy, about the year 1600.
The Lowers were a very ancient family