Thomas Dangerfield

His violent death at the hands of the barrister Robert Francis was clearly a homicide, although whether the killing was murder or manslaughter was a matter of considerable public debate at the time.

She was, with her patroness Lady Powis, tried for high treason but acquitted in 1680: with the general waning of hysteria, men as disreputable as Dangerfield were no longer considered to be credible witnesses.

However, his character was so unsavoury, even compared to that of the other informers, that Chief Justice William Scroggs, who knew his record of crime thoroughly, began instructing juries to disregard the evidence of "so notorious a villain....

[6] Dangerfield went into hiding in 1684 as soon as he heard about the threatened trial, but when James succeeded as King in February 1685 the new Government made a determined search for him and found him.

[6] On his way back from the first whipping on 22 June Dangerfield, who rather surprisingly was travelling by coach, got into an argument at Hatton Garden with a barrister, Robert Francis, who made a jeering remark, on the lines of "How do you, after your little race?"

[11] Sir John Bramston in a contemptuous epitaph wrote that Dangerfield deserved no pity: "he had been a highway thief, a cheat, a little rogue.. but there is an end of him".