or, the Story of the Marlborough Pin-Maker. O71 
‘*Wixts.—To the Keeper of His Majesty’s Gaol of Fisherton Anger, in this 
county, or his sufficient deputy,—These. I send you herewithal the body of 
Lawrence Braddon, apprehended in the town of Bradford, in the county afore- 
said, this present two and twentieth day of August, taken upon suspicion of 
being a dangerous and ill-affected person to the government, and for refusing 
to give an account of his business in these parts, and for having letters of dan- 
gerous consequence about him. These are therefore in the King’s Majesty’s 
name to will and require you that upon sight thereof you receive him the said 
Lawrence Braddon into your gaol, and him there safely keep, not permitting 
him to have pen, ink, or paper, or person to converse or speak with him, until 
you shall receive further orders from His Majesty and Privy Council. Hereof 
you are not to fail at your peril. Given under my hand and seal at Bradford, 
this 22nd day of August aforesaid, anno regni Caroli secundi Angl. 35, a.p., 
1683.” 
Mr. Braddon having, with some difficulty, got a sight of this 
instrument, expostulated with Colonel Eyre as to the construction 
of the final clause, urging that by virtue of such wording he might 
lie in prison for ever without conviction or trial, for that all such 
warrants ought to conclude “till he be discharged by due course 
of law.’ Colonel Eyre, fortified by the presence of several attor- 
neys who had collected in the inn, told him he would maintain the 
legality of the warrant, and forthwith despatched him to Fisherton, 
some 30 miles distant ; where, as Braddon says, he found the keeper 
possessed of more sense and honesty than either his worship or his 
cabal, for the gaoler immediately assured him that he might con- 
verse with and write to whomsoever he would, himself being by. 
Taking advantage of which civility, he at once demanded a copy of 
his commitment, and wrote to London for his Habeas corpus thereon ; 
whither he was shortly after removed, and in the following month 
was, together with Hugh Speke, tried before Lord Jeffereys for a 
misdemeanor in suborning witnesses to prove that the Earl of Essex 
was murdered by his keepers. They were both found guilty and 
fined, Braddon in £2000, Speke in £1000. Braddon lay in prison 
for five years, that is to say till the close of James II’s. reign. 
Speke and his father paid first and last £5000 to the King, but the 
young man seems to have been finally won over to act as James’s 
spy on William of Orange. 
But we have not yet done with Braddon’s trial. He, himself, 
asserts that the authorised printed report repressed much of the 
38D2 
