Murder at Lees Court

MURDER AT LEES COURT SIR RICHARD FABER At about 5 o'clock on the morning of Tuesday the 7th of August, 1655, Freeman Sondes murdered his elder brother, George, who was asleep in his bedroom at Lees Court, Sheldwich. He hit George with the blunt side of a meat cleaver, on the right side of his head, about five times. Then, he seems to have had a revulsion of feeling. His brother, mortally hurt but still alive, was writhing and moaning on his bed. So Freeman tried to put him out of his pain by striking him repeatedly with a dagger around his heart. At length he threw the cleaver out of the window and went into his father's bedroom, which was next door. Undrawing the bed curtains he shook him by the shoulder and said: 'Father, I have killed my brother!' 'What sayest thou?' said his father, 'Hast thou, wretch, killed thy brother? Then thou hadst best kill me too.' 'No, sir, I have done enough.' 'Why, then you must look to be hanged.' The father was Sir George Sondes, K.B., a wealthy landowner and former M.P. who had been Sheriff and a Deputy Lieutenant of Kent just before the Civil War. During the troubles, although only a moderate Royalist, he had suffered sequestration and lengthy imprisonment. Some time after his release from the Tower of London in 1650 he had left the family house at Throwley and moved into Lees Court, which he had probably begun rebuilding in the 1630s, while his wife was alive. She was the only daughter of Sir Ralph Freeman, who became Lord Mayor of London and died during his term of office in April 1634. She herself was buried at Throwley in May 1637. George and Freeman were the only surviving children; the former was 22 at the time of the murder, the latter 19, rising 20. After confessing to his father Freeman never saw .him again. He spent Tuesday night under guard at a neighbouring house and next day was taken to Maidstone, where the assizes had just begun. On Thursday he was examined by the Justices, chaired by the regicide Sir Michael Livesey, his father's first cousin but political opponent. Then, he was sentenced by the Assize Judge to be hanged. This 167 RICHARD FABER sentence was not carried out until Wednesday the 15th of August; meanwhile he was lodged in the house of the prison-keeper, where a small band of Anglican clergymen laboured to save his soul. After close examination by them, Freeman was adjudged a genuine penitent: he confessed, was absolved and given Communion. Although he had been bitter against his father when he first came to Maidstone (sitting on a foul-smelling privy he said 'it was more pleasant to him than his father's dining-room'), he later wrote to him asking forgiveness and said to the clergymen that, if he were to live (which he did not expect), he would wait on him 'upon my knees all the days of my life'. On the scaffold at Penenden Heath he besought God to forgive him his sins against both father and brother, before dying quietly, expecting to sup with Christ in Paradise. The murder was a sensational event, both locally and nationally. Prayers were offered up in churches; edifying pamphlets appeared; there was dispute about whether Freeman's guilt had been 'daubed over' by the traditional establishment, or whether his father had neglected his education and treated him unfairly. The measure of the sensation appears from the prominence given to it in the London weekly Mercurius Fumigosus or the Smoking Nocturnall, in its number for 8-15 August. This weekly specialised in softly pornographic 'nocturnall newes', but always included three or four serious items. On this occasion there were three such items: a petition to desire Cromwell to accept the title of King; the King of Sweden's bloodless conquest of Poland; and 'The sad Newes from Kent of the unnaturall difference between Sir George Sonds his two onely Sons, the Younger unnaturally killing the Elder, for which he is condemned according to the Laws, and likely to answer his Brothers life, by the forfeit of his own.' Even today the story is a dramatic one. But perhaps its chief interest for us lies in the vividness and detail of the contemporary documentation. One of the clergymen at Maidstone, Robert Boreman, a royalist and former fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, wrote an account of Freeman's last days under the title A Mirror of Mercy and Judgement. This seems to have moved Sir George to publish his own account as His plaine Narrative to the World of all Passages upon the Death of his two Sonnes. In this, because of the attacks to which he had been subject and the widespread belief that nobody could lose two sons so tragically without having incurred the anger of God, he went into intimate detail with remarkable frankness. Both accounts (Boreman's and Sir George's) were reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany in 1813. There was never any dispute about the facts of the murder. Freeman pleaded guilty throughout. The account which he gave to 168 MURDER AT LEES COURT the clergymen largely tallies with that of his father; both are corroborated by the findings of an inquisition on the dead body conducted by a group of Sheldwich residents at the time. A pathologist has given me his opinion that what is recorded of the killing is 'entirely acceptable from the medical point of view . ... Persons with very severe head injuries may of course move around even though they are semi-conscious .... Equally, it is entirely conceivable that more than one dagger thrust was required to the prae-cordium.' It would be easy to cause a wound that would not be immediately fatal. There would also be nothing improbable about the victim uttering 'sad groans' not loud enough to wake his father next door. What still remains to some extent mysterious is why Freeman committed the murder and what he hoped to get out of it. For his contemporaries, and even for himself, it was a case of temporary possession by the Devil. Boreman records that, about two hours before Freeman's death, he discussed with him a pamphlet reporting that the youth had seen, and talked with, the Devil: 'he mildly (as his manner was to answer) replied, that there was no such apparition, and that he was only assaulted with a strong suggestion, which he believed (as is true) was from the devil, arising from discontent and melancholy; which he advised all men to avoid and shun ... lest they fall into some fearful sin as he did.' Boreman believed that, in Freeman's case, the Devil had exploited 'an envious discontent, thinking he had lost his father's love, or that his brother had too much, and he too little of it', as well as 'a melancholy passion (he being deeply in love with a fair gentlewoman)'. Sir George thought he knew who this fair gentlewoman was and saw no reason why love for her should trouble Freeman, since he himself 'liked very well' of a match between them. But he, too, blamed Freeman's envious disposition: 'certainly the main thing that provoked thee was thy envy at they brother's virtues and growing goodness, and that I and the world began to look on him, and love him.' Why was Freeman so envious of his brother? What had his 'melancholy passion' to do with the murder? I shall try to throw some light on these questions. But first we must pose a question which neither the clergymen nor the father seem to have considered - or at least, if they did consider it, they have not recorded their conclusions. What did Freeman actually hope to achieve by murdering his brother? This question might not be relevant if the murder had been committed in hot blood. But it is clear that it was no case of instant violence. Freeman had taken the cleaver from the kitchen, and put it 169 RICHARD FABER in his chest, on the Sunday night before the murder. Next day the three Sondeses went to Faversham for 'a running match'. Sir George then believed 'all former quarrels quite forgot . . . we were as pleasant as ever, and so went to our chambers and bed, without the least shew of any discontent'. The whole of Monday, then, Freeman successfully dissembled his intentions. There is no evidence that Freeman was sub-normal or in any way insane. The second wife of Sir Richard Sondes (Sir George's father) had become a lunatic before 1644 and was still living, probably at Selling, in 1655. Her own children may have inherited some tendency to insanity; but Sir George was the eldest son of Sir Richard's first wife, a sister of Lord Montagu of Boughton. There is no trace of insanity in this branch of the Sondes family. From what we know of Freeman we can feel sure that he was not a born scholar and may guess that he was not outstandingly clever. But he had had a normal education, including two years at Cambridge, and his father had intended him for the Inns of Court. The few things he is recorded as saying in prison seem shrewd and sensible enough. He had a close friend, Edmund Crisp, who stuck to him after the murder and wrote down his confession. He was also apparently good friends with the girl whom his father regarded as a suitable fiancee; Sir George wrote: 'I think they loved one another's company very well, meeting often, and gaming together.' Both the two brothers were said to be popular in the neighbourhood, with rich and poor alike. Nor is there any evidence of pathological disorder. If Freeman acted under any sort of compulsion (other than diabolic) it must have been emotional, rather than physical. I have been advised by a leading authority that, although a person 'in a state of automatism due to cerebral disease ... might strike someone in his immediate vicinity, he would not be capable of making his way towards a victim and putting him to death'. More particularly: 'the behaviour of those who attack others in the course of an epileptic discharge from a focus on one of the temporal lobes or damage of similar kind has a quite different quality from that manifest in Freeman Sondes's murder.' Of course it is quite conceivable that Freeman felt such a strong sense of grievance that his only plan was to assuage it, without caring what happened to himself afterwards. But, even in that case, he must have given some thought beforehand as to whether, having done the deed, he would give himself up, lie low, or commit suicide. Attempted suicide was indeed what one pamphlet (The Devil's Reign upon Earth) attributed to him: 170 MURDER AT LEES COURT 'Now the Devil having effected this wicked work straightway possessed him with thoughts of being his own Executioner, bidding him destroy himself: who immediately went to his father's chamber with his hands all blood and told him how that he had murthered his brother, and was now going to destroy himself: who being greatly affrighted, immediately started up, and laid hold of him ... ' But there is no hint of self-destruction in Sir George's account. On the contrary he reproaches Freeman that 'when thou hadst brought me to him, after that thou hadst slain him, I saw not any relenting in thee, or one tear drop from thine eyes for that foul fact'. There is equally no mention of attempted suicide in Boreman's account. Freeman's behaviour strongly suggests that, whatever plan he had formed beforehand, he gave it up when he saw the horror of what he had done to his brother. Sir George did not credit this and thought that all the blows and stabbings had been given 'in the height of malice'; but then he was deeply angered and distressed and could not bring himself to make any allowances for the murderer. There seems no reason to doubt that, as he told Boreman, Freeman was 'sadly troubled' by his brother's torment and because of that, tried to despatch him with his dagger. Freeman also told Boreman, a little before he died, that, after the murder, 'he thought he was for this world utterly undone'. This perhaps implies that, when planning the murder, he had not been without some hope of worldly success. Then again, the throwing of the cleaver through the window looks like a symbolic gesture of renunciation, or at least of shame at the meanness of the weapon he had used. Otherwise there would be no need to get rid of it once he had decided to confess. When he went into his father's bedroom Freeman still had the dagger in his pocket. In a parenthesis Boreman comments: 'surely he had no further intentions of murder, God restraining the malicious power of Satan'. At that stage, if the boy had had such intentions, he had certainly abandoned them. But it seems quite likely that they formed part of the original plan. Sir George at least (and perhaps Boreman, too) suspected this. The father wrote to the son: 'And thanks be to heaven that restrained both his [the Devil's] and your power from acting further mischief on me: will and opportunity were not wanting, only heaven forbade it, and preserved me ... ' From what he told the Justices at Maidstone it is evident that Freeman's grievance was at least as much against his father as against his brother. Perhaps he originally intended the cleaver for the latter and the dagger for the former. The words 'No, sir, I have done enough' suggest to me that the thought of a second murder was not a new one. It is impossible to feel at all certain what Freeman originally meant 171 RICHARD FABER to do after the death of George. But I have come to believe that he did fully intend to kill his father as well as his brother. He would thus revenge himself on both Georges for his father's preference for his elder son. This could well have been his chief motive; but he could also have hoped that, if all went according to plan, he would inherit from both of them and be able to marry whom he chose. Perhaps his idea was to blame the crimes on burglars; he knew where his father's 'spending money' was and could easily arrange to have the box rifled. His bedroom was not next to George's or to his father's, so he would not necessarily have heard any disturbance. He may have planned to take an early morning ride, before the household stirred, and to return, innocently, to find everything in commotion. Nobody would be likely to accuse the only heir, if some other explanation was available. Of course, there was a risk; but Freeman was fond of gambling. He must always have realised, however, that it would be an unacceptable risk to kill George and leave his father alive. His father would soon find him out. If this is highly speculative, though not implausible, there are stronger grounds for guessing what the specific reasons for Freeman's envy were. They were, basically, financial, as I shall hope to show. But first I must indulge in a little further speculation about his 'melancholy passion'. Could this have been part of his envy of his brother and of his grievance against his father? We would know nothing about Freeman's ill-starred love if it were not for what Boreman wrote to Sir George Sondes (whom he had never met) in a letter introducing his pamphlet: 'Thus a command from you his father, in reference to his elder brother, being not obeyed, forced you to a paternal severity, to threats, etc. which were not a sufficient ground to provoke him to that bloody act, unless a melancholy passion (he being deeply in love with a fair gentlewoman) together with a diabolical suggestion, had (God's grace for a time deserting him) possessed his heart, and carried on his hand to attempt and act so horrid a sin.' That is all Boreman says about the 'fair gentlewoman'. He must have heard about her from Freeman himself, or from one of his friends, like Edmund Crisp; but he did not necessarily know who she was. Nor did Freeman's father, although he thought he did. Sir George could not avoid professing gratitude to the clergyman for saving his· son's soul; but he seems to have been irritated by this and other passages in Boreman's account. He wrote: 'In the first part of his book he brings in these words, with a parenthesis, 'He being in love with a fair gentlewoman' (note that the word 'deeply' is here omitted], intimating that to be one of the things which might provoke my son. Truly this is more than ever he would confess to me, or any friend or servant about me, that I 172 MURDER AT LEES COURT know of: and when he bath been asked about it, he would deny it with much slighting, and profess the contrary: and this he did, not above two or three days before the fact. Indeed I think they loved one another's company very well, meeting often, and gaming together. If they intended marriage, it never received hindrance or dislike from me: I always liked very well of it; and when such a thing was spoken of to me, I so much encouraged it that I presently said, "They tell me that she bath three or four hundred pounds a year; whatever it be, I will give my son as much at present, besides his future expectancies, and they are not small". Thus much I proffered of myself. I know not, then, why any thing concerning that gentlewoman should trouble him.' We only have one other clue to the identity of the 'fair gentlewoman'. Sir George wrote to his son in prison complaining of his 'perpetual running to Lingsted against my mind, and staying out until ten and twelve at night: and this you would do three or four times every week, and make me wait those late hours for you, both for supper and bed. And when I told you the danger of riding those late hours, the amends that followed upon it was, the next day to do the same again, or worse; and never could I prevail with you to stay any one time from going there, though you knew it was extremely against my mind, you receiving no good from thence: but you continued it the rather and that to the last.' We can surely take it for granted that, if Freeman was in love, this 'perpetual running' was connected in some way with his being so. Indeed, it would not be easy to explain such behaviour without a passion of some kind, melancholy or otherwise. Lynsted must have been about an hour's brisk ride from Lees Court. There was no mystery for Sir George about where his son was entertained once he got there. Anne Sondes, three years younger than her brother Sir George, had married, as her second husband, William (later Sir William) Hugessen, as his third wife. William's father, James, had died in 1646, in possession of 'a large and handsome seat' (according to Hasted) opposite Lynsted Church and a house at the neighbouring village of Norton, still known as Provender. In the 1630s William Hugessen had lived at Provender, but around 1640 he seems to have exchanged houses with his father and then moved to Bogle in Lynsted in time for his second marriage in 1644. (A plaque over the front door of Bogle still bears the date '1643' and the initials 'W.H.'.) The house opposite the church was then or later pulled down. By his first marriage William Hugessen had one surviving son, John, who was married and apparently living at Provender in 1655. But he also had two unmarried daughters - Anne, born in 1635, and Elizabeth, born in 1639. Anne later married twice, had no children and lived into the reign of George I. Elizabeth died unmarried in 1665, having moved Elizabeth Oxinden to write in 1662: 173 RICHARD FABER 'Mis Hugusson is returned from London. I have a letter from her while she was there: excepting your self deare Mother I doe not know her fellow for goodnesse in the world. I am not able to commend her to her meritt therefore I will say nothing.' It is conceivable that Anne, or even Elizabeth, Hugessen was Freeman's gaming girlfriend but, if so, it seems unlikely that she could have been the object of his 'melancholy passion'. Even if we discredit Freeman's denials, Sir George's account suggests that they had a cheerful relationship and that there was no obstacle to their marriage. Also living at Bogle was a young girl, Dorothy, William Hugessen's daughter by his second marriage. But she must have been about 10 in 1655 and she did not marry till 1661. Apart from Anne and Elizabeth Hugessen the only marriageable girl at Bogle in 1655 seems to have been Anne Delaune, aged about 21 and daughter of the elder Anne Hugessen (nee Sondes) by her first husband. (There is a memorial in Lynsted Church to an Anne Delaune, but this is confusingly to Anne Hugessen, who married Gideon Delaune as her second husband.) According to The Devil's Reign upon Earth Anne Delaune was 'a very handsom Gentlewoman, but of no great fortune'. She comes into the story because, in 1654, young George Sondes had made love to - and perhaps been to bed with - her; he had also made her some promise of marriage. It was indeed rumoured locally that they had actually been married. This is not impossible because, for a few years under the Commonwealth, a purely religious ceremony had no legal force. However, both George and his father denied that there had been any marriage, whether under the old or the new form, and George seems to have convinced his father that there had been no fornication either. In any event Sir George managed to put a stop to the match by threatening to break with his son, on the ground that he strongly disapproved of marriages between first cousins. He sent George off to Sussex for nearly six months under the tutelage of his Uncle Dudley, Sir George's half-brother and a confirmed bachelor of about 35. Nephew and uncle returned to London in February 1655, five or six months before the murder. Meanwhile Anne Hugessen and her daughter, who had at first made strenuous efforts to promote the match, had had to acknowledge defeat. The mother, at least, must have remained deeply resentful of her brother's interference, given that her nephew was already of age. After the murder Sir George wrote of his elder son that he 'was ready to hearken to his father's advice, and, I think, was virtuously disposed. I am confident all the world could not make him commit a known sin. He never failed, morning and evening, to betake himself to his private devotions, that I observed; neither do I know any vice that he was inclined to: he was of an affable, mild, and soft nature, which won him the hearts of his friends and acquaintance.' 174 MURDER AT LEES COURT There are some reasons for suspecting that Sir George may have exaggerated his elder son's virtue. First, Boreman evidently thought that Freeman was not solely to blame for what had happened. He writes of both sons having abused their father's indulgence and of 'this complicated sin in you and them'. Second, when Sir George was putting pressure on his elder son to abandon Anne Delaune, his sister said to him: 'Brother, what if my daughter be with child?' Was this a stratagem, as Sir George thought, or a genuine fear? Third, Sir George records his son as being heard to say, not long before his death: 'That he would not for ten thousand pound that he had been married to his cousin Anne Delaune, for I could not have loved her (said he) a month to an end'. This hardly sounds like the remark of a rigidly virtuous young man. Fourth, in 1664 a woman named Peck claimed to be the widow of George Sondes and brought a case - which she lost - against his father's appointment as administrator of his estate. This grant of administration, which described the murdered George as a bachelor, had been made by the Prerogative Court to Sir George on 23 November, 1655. In 1664, George's widow(?) seems to have pleaded that she could not come forward earlier because she had not been married by a J.P., as legally required during the 'fifties'. If so, George took advantage of Commonwealth legislation to get what he wanted from his unacknowledged wife. He could have used the same tactic with his cousin some months before. If George did make Anne Delaune pregnant, there was, of course, no safe and effective method of abortion open to her. Rue and savin and a wide range of substances were believed by many, at that time and later, to be effective as abortifacients. But the current view seems to be that few, if any, of these substances, in spite of their reputation, were capable of inducing an abortion. People probably believed in them because spontaneous miscarriages were, and still are, common. If a substance was administered and was followed a day, a week, or even a month later by a spontaneous miscarriage, the substance would get the credit. However, the only sure way of procuring an abortion was to insert an instrument into the uterus; and that, though effective, was desperately dangerous. So we must assume that, if her mother's. suspicions were well-founded, Anne had a spontaneous miscarriage - after which she could afford to release George from his vows and/or promises. Now, if we could suppose that Freeman fell in love with Anne Delaune, either before or after his brother did, that would explain quite a lot. It would certainly explain his repeated trips to Lynsted. More importantly, the murder, and the double murder which I have postulated, would become more explicable. If Freeman's envy of his elder brother was compounded by sexual jealousy, it is easier to 175 RICHARD FABER understand why he went to such extreme lengths. At Lynsted he would have learned to resent the way in which Anne had been treated by his father and brother. Moreover, if he was to have any hope of marrying her, he would have to acquire a fortune. He would also have to ensure that his father was in no position to prevent him, as well as George, from marrying his cousin. Anne Delaune must have been older than Freeman and perhaps even a bit older than George. George had all the advantages of an elder son and seems to have had some personal advantages, too. Even after his brother stopped seeing Anne, Freeman may have realised that, though she might accept him (Freeman) with a fortune, she was still in love with George and would be so long as he lived. If Freeman had been the first of the two brothers to fall in love with Anne, if George had cut him out, then his bitterness would have been all the greater. The two boys had been motherless and, while Sir George was in prison, fatherless. At school and at university they had been together; George only preceded Freeman to Cambridge by one term. They both came down in the summer of 1651. Sir George, who had been continuously in prison from 1643 to 1650, then, 'brought them to London, intending to send my eldest abroad into France, and my youngest to the inns of court, because he had no disposition to travel. I went with my eldest once or twice to Dover for that end, but France being at that time in much garboil, I durst not venture him. After that, some overtures of matches stayed him; and the eldest not going abroad, the youngest would not be persuaded to go to the inns of court (though I much pressed him to it) but would keep with his brother ... This suggests that, at least until the end of 1651, the two brothers had a particularly close relationship, which had survived all their time at school and college. Something must have set them quarrelling between then and later. In August 1655, Sir George could reproach Freeman with 'the janglings with thy brother upon the least trivial occasions'. Of course, there is no direct evidence that Freeman ever did fall in love with Anne. Some other girl, living at or near Lynsted, may have been the object of his 'melancholy passion'. In that case there was presumably no sexual jealousy to embitter his relationship with George. But he could still have needed a fortune before his girl would agree to marry him. In either case, whether or not the 'melancholy passion' was the driving force, money was the root of the evil. This is borne out by what Freeman told the Justices at Maidstone on Thursday the 9th of August. Boreman mentions his 'preexamination' by them and says that, when next day the Assize Judge pressed him to explain his motives, he answered 'that he had done it 176 MURDER AT LEES COURT in his examination before the justices'. But that is all Boreman tells us. He had not himself been present in Maidstone on the 9th and the 10th, since he only arrived at the prison on Monday the 13th of August. All we know of what Freeman said at his 'pre-examination' is derived from his father's account. Sir George, too, had not been present, but he must have been told what had passed by a friend or by his steward, Mr Charnock, who seems to have had an opportunity of talking to one of the clergymen at some stage. Sir George, commenting on Freeman's 'pre-examination', says: 'it is strange to see how he seems to make my hard using of him to be the motive and provocation; whereas it is well known to all, that never son was treated more tenderly by a father'. He continues: 'The fact of murdering his brother he freely confessed before the justices: it is already in print, and it is my grief to repeat it. But being asked why he did it, he answered, it was upon a difference between him and his brother, about a week before May day last, concerning a doublet, his father threatened that he would ruin him: never look on him more; keep him short while he lived; and at his death make him a servant to his brother: that whereas it was said by some that he had a thousand pounds a year, I would not leave him a thousand groats, and that I would make him as poor as his Uncle Nicholas; and that for the space of four years last past he hath not had of his father forty pounds, he believeth not twenty; and that his father's displeasure against him still continued.' The quarrel about the doublet was in itself trivial. The importance of this incident lay in what Sir George (understandably losing patience) told Freeman - or at least in what Freeman understood him to say. Sir George was to wax indignant with the boy for 'charging him with the most false and devilish untruths'. But his own recollection of what he said suggests that his already excited son could quite easily have construed it in the way that he did. In his Story of the Doublet Sir George records using these words: 'These cross and dogged humours of yours, if you continue in them, will ruin you: you need not be so dogged to your brother, for I tell you, if I die you must be beholding to him, and whatever your flatterers tell you of an estate of a thousand pounds a year, or more, that you have, which your father cannot keep from you, I who know better than they, tell you, that you have not a groat but what you must be beholding to your father for, and that it is in his power to leave you as little as your Uncle Nicholas had left him: and therefore you need not carry yourself so stubbornly and doggedly towards him, as if all were your own already.' Uncle Nicholas was one of Sir George's half-brothers, probably the youngest, and was living as a dependant at Lees Court. Sir George had inherited all the family land and, when his father died in debt, there was little left over for anybody else. Consequently, Sir George's relations with his half-kindred, like his relations with his sister at Lynsted, were not always happy. Presumably, Freeman's 'flatterers' 177 RICHARD FABER were his uncles and aunts. His father blames his half-brothers for not having made 'good use of the courses they were put in'. They must have influenced Freeman against entering a trade, or a profession, as his father wished him to do. But where did they get the idea that Freeman was entitled to a thousand pounds a year, or more, that his father could not keep from him? The importance of such an income to Freeman is obvious. It would enable him to marry well, though of course not as splendidly as his brother, and to avoid the drudgery of law and commerce. His father evidently had no intention of settling any land on him. Even if Sir George intended to build up a capital sum for his younger son, out of the profits of the estate, he had not committed himself to any definite arrangement by the time of the murder. Perhaps he thought it more likely that Freeman would take a job, if he could not count on a fortune; or perhaps he was waiting until the estate had fully recovered from its heavy losses under sequestration. Sir George's first priority was to keep his landed estate intact, to clear it of encumbrances and, when possible, to enlarge it. Where there was enough money younger sons could have their share and they must certainly be given some start in life. But any idea of selling land for their benefit must have been abhorrent to him. Although Sir George's father and father-in-law both failed to leave enough cash to fulfil their secondary obligations, the landed inheritance, whether or not entailed, seems to have been sacrosanct. In so regarding it Sir George was no doubt typical both of his peers and of his ancestors. Religion apart, his estate was the chief lasting passion of his life. The rules governing inheritance in seventeenth-century Kent were complex. Traditionally, under the Kentish custom of gavelkind, a deceased man's land would be divided equally between his sons. As I understand it, it was not until the Statute of Wills in 1540 that a Kentish owner of gavelkind lands could evade the custom by specifically bequeathing a larger share to his elder son. At that time, as a result of increasing social and economic pressure to resist the fragmentation of landed estates, some of the more important landowners had their lands specially 'disgavelled' by Act of Parliament. Sir George's great-grandfather, Anthony Sondes, is among several persons listed as having done this in the reign of Henry VIII, together with all his wealthier neighbours. After that time, if a Sondes died intestate, his land would pass in accordance with the Common Law of England, under which the principle of primogeniture would prevail. However, under the 1540 statute, he was free to dispose of two-thirds of his lands by will, so long as he had not inherited them under an entail. Cases arising for judgement under Henry VIII and Edward VI had established that such 'disgavelled' lands could be devised in 178 MURDER AT LEES COURT accordance with gavelkind custom, if a landowner so wished. Thus, at least in theory, 'disgavelling' still left a lot of discretion to the landowner. I have not discovered how much of the property inherited by Sir George was entailed; the lands left him by his father-in-law certainly were. But, if George had disobeyed him over Anne Delaune, there was evidently some property that he could have kept from him. If he had so wished, a portion of these lands could presumably have been given, or promised, to Freeman. The Sondes estate as a whole was very considerable. Shortly after the death of Anthony Sondes it had amounted to 6,485 acres, in Kent, Surrey, Sussex and elsewhere. Many of these acres had since been sold, but the Kentish core of the estate had been strengthened. The younger George could expect a solid inheritance when the elder died. In spite of this, in spite of the tradition of gavelkind, and in spite of some feeling under the Commonwealth that elder sons were over-privileged, Freeman's grievance is unlikely to have centred on his brother's eventual inheritance of the Sondes acres. George had not inherited them yet and would not do so while his father lived. In any case the elder son's position in this respect must always have been clear to everybody at Lees Court. It may have been an underlying cause of envy, but hardly a direct incentive to murder. It looks as if, in the doublet incident, the chief shock to Freeman was the sudden withdrawal of the thousand pounds a year, on which he had been counting. From his own confession to the Justices it seems to have been this, together with other things said by his father, that determined him to kill his brother. But it is difficult to see where, on the Sondes side of the family, such an expectation could arise. At this point the obvious question is whether Freeman was left something by his mother or her father. Sir George had not only inherited wealth, he had married into it. Alderman, later Sir Ralph, Freeman had started as a clothier, but gone on to become a merchant and a leading financier. Lady Sondes, whose mother had died in 1615, was his only surviving child, at least three - probably four - sons having died in infancy. He had a nephew, another Ralph Freeman; but otherwise he must have looked to his daughter's children to justify the years he had spent in building up a fortune. When he died in the spring of 1634, he had two grandsons. The elder, Freeman Sondes, was his godson and was then four and a half years old; the younger, George, had been born in 1633 and lived to be murdered twenty-two years later. Sir Ralph had drawn up his will in the summer before his death. It is very long and detailed, containing many bequests to charities, relations and servants. It was signed on 3 July, 1633; Abraham 179 RICHARD FABER Delaune (Anne Hugessen's first husband) was among the witnesses. Sir Ralph wanted to be buried near 'his late deare and loveing wife and loveing brother William Freeman'. William's son Ralph (who was left property in London, Hertfordshire and elsewhere) was appointed executor; when he renounced this executorship, Sir George and Lady Sondes took out letters of administration. Sir George ( described as 'my deare and loveing sonne in law') was left a life interest in lands in Surrey and Kent, including some that Sir Ralph had bought from Sir George's father. After her husband's death Lady Sondes was to have a life interest in these lands and, following her, her male heirs 'begotten and to be begotten'. Only in default of such heirs would the lands go to nephew Ralph and his heirs. Sir George and Lady Sondes were also given separate pecuniary legacies, which seem to have remained unpaid through lack of cash. Most of the other legatees were disappointed in what they received. Sir George wrote in 1655 that, because of bad debts, greater expenses than anticipated arising out of Sir Ralph's mayoralty, a 'falling short of the Muscovy stock' and the capture of two ships by the Turks, the estate was short of some £46,500. 'Enough to sink a good estate' was Sir George's dry comment: 'And therefore the world need not wonder that his estate which remains will pay but four shillings and a penny in the pound'. The landed legacies, of course, were made over in full. Sir George got his lands in Surrey and Kent; if young George had lived, he would have inherited them when his father died. Meanwhile both he and his elder brother Freeman had their own landed legacies under the will. Freeman and his heirs were left property 'in severall Counties' which Sir Ralph had recently bought from Charles I. George was left a share of property in Devon, with Sir George as trustee during his minority. Freeman and George were to share an interest in other Devon property with 'all other the sonnes which my said daughter shall have liveing at the time of my decease'. A sum of money was also intended for a granddaughter, Elizabeth Sondes; if she died (as she did before the will was signed), this was to go to the rest of her brothers and sisters on majority or marriage. But the amount seems to have been left unspecified and this legacy presumably never materialised. Now Sir Ralph's godson, the elder Freeman Sondes, only survived his grandfather by five months. He was buried at St. Michael Cornhill on 1 September, 1634. The younger Freeman Sondes, who in due course murdered his brother, was born about a year later. He was given the name 'Freeman' in honour of his grandfather; but his grandfather never knew him, having died a year and a half before his 180 MURDER AT LEES COURT birth. As a result our Freeman could not have been a beneficiary under any part of Sir Ralph's will, so long as George remained alive, apart from the purely notional cash left to his dead sister. While Freeman had nothing, George was to find himself a much richer young man than his grandfather had intended. Under the English feudal law of succession he inherited from his elder brother and so became the sole beneficiary of all the three bequests to Sir Ralph's grandsons. His profits were to accrue during his minority and there must have been a substantial sum waiting for him when he celebrated his 21st birthday on the 7th of March, 1654 (New Style). Possibly his father continued to administer his affairs for the time being; but, from that date, he was legally the master of his fortune. It would be like Sir George not to have discussed his son's prospects with him, in any detail, until he was obliged to do so. If so, the extent of George's immediate wealth may have come as a surprise both to him and to Freeman in March 1654. It could well be that the relationship between them deteriorated from that date. Freeman must have been badly shaken by the gulf which had now opened between him and his brother. But some aunt or uncle had told him that he could count on £1,000, or more, a year. With that he could hope to live very comfortably, without drudgery and without dependence on his father or brother. It was when that hope was so roughly stripped from him by his father, about three months before the murder, that his resentment began turning to violence. None of Freeman's kindred, except his father, could be expected to have an accurate knowledge of Sir Ralph's will. The witnesses to it would not have been informed of its contents. But they may well have been able to form some idea, right or wrong, of its main provisions. Confusion could easily have arisen because of the two Freemans; or a layman could have taken it for granted that, on the elder Freeman's death, the younger Freeman would have stepped into his, or George's, shoes; or the financial legacy to Elizabeth Sondes may have seemed more important than it proved to be. Something of this kind seems the most likely explanation of what Freeman's 'flatterers' led him to expect. There is no suggestion that Sir George acted at any stage illegally. But it is to my mind inconceivable that, if Sir Ralph had lived two more years, he would not have given the younger Freeman, who had after all been named after him, a share in his will- at least as much as he had originally intended for George. This thought must surely have occurred to Sir George, but he says nothing about it in his apologia, for all his frankness in other regards. He seems to have felt some moral obligation to compensate Freeman. Yet, he was not ready to settle unentailed land on him, while building expenses and seques- 181 RICHARD FABER tration had so far prevented him from building up a special fund for his younger son's benefit. A certain unease may thus have coloured his attitude towards Freeman from the start, leading to a mixture of over-indulgence and aloofness, which in turn estranged the boy. Sir George complained that Freeman was 'cross-grained, to all, as much to his father as any'. But the clergymen at Maidstone did not find him cross-grained; nor, presumably, did Edmund Crisp or the girl friend who, according to Sir George, took pleasure in his company. Perhaps Boreman was right in supposing that the murder had originated in a 'complicated sin in you and them'. Perhaps (though this is not what he meant) both George and Freeman were victims of their father's acquisitiveness, as well as of their own vices. If so, Sir George paid a heavy price for the ambitious urge which he had inherited from his ancestors and which was all he had to fall back upon after the tragedy. In 1656, he married again; his young wife gave him two daughters, but not the male heir that he wanted. He lived till 1677 and died as first Earl of Feversham. He left no sons and there is some evidence that, in his later years, he was unable or unwilling to transact business. Nonetheless he did leave a flourishing estate and his family name still lives in a title. His failures as a parent had been dreadfully punished; but his struggle for wealth, land and position was well rewarded. Or, as he might have put it, God had tried him, like Job, but relented at the last. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very much in debt to Mr John Owen for his help, as well as for much information about the Sondes family and estate. I am also most grateful to the following for giving me their time and their expert advice: Professor J.W. McKnight, School of Law, Southern Methodist University, Dallas; Sir Martin Roth, Professor of Psychiatry at Cambridge University; Dr Irvine Loudon, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford; and Dr Leo Hunter, Royal Berkshire Hospital. SELECT SOURCES The Harleian Miscellany, Vol. X, 1813, pp. 23-67 Mercurius Fumigosus, or the Smoking Nocturnal/ communicating Dark and hidden Newes Out of all Obscure Places in the Antipodes, either in Fire, Aire, Water or Earth, for the right understanding of all the Mad Merry PEOPLE in the Land of Darkness No. 62 for 8-15 August, 1655 (Colindale Newspaper Library) 182 MURDER AT LEES COURT Public Record Office, London. ASS 1 35/96/6: Home Circuit Maidstone (for the inquisition on the dead body) The Devil's Reign upon Earth, being Relation of several sad and bloudy Murthers lately committed, especially that of Sir George Sands, his son, upon his own brother, set forth that others may be terrified thereby, the like being never known in any age before Anon. London, 1655. (Brit. Mus. Cat. under 'Sondes') Hasted, Edward, History of Kent. Second Edition, 1797-1801 The Oxinden and Peyton Letters, 1642-1670. Ed. by Dorothy Gardner, London, 1937, pp. 264-5 1 Keble 668, 83 Eng. Rep. 1175 1 Keble 683, 83 Eng. Rep. 1184 (for 'Sir G. Sandes against Pecke') Public Record Office, London. Grants of Administration for 1655 Robinson, Thomas, The Common-Law of Kent or the Customs of Gave/kind. Third Edition, 1822 Parish Registers for St. Michael Cornhill, London, published by the Harleian Society Public Record Office, London. PROB 11/165 (Sir Ralph Freeman's will in 1634) PROB 11/328 (Capt. Thomas Sondes's will in 1668) 183