Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/22

  [Eliot's Biog. Dict. 145; Farmer's Genealogical Register, 78; Hutchinson's Hist. of Massachusetts Bay (1764), i. 189, 323, 329, 331, 380, 404; Collections of Massachusetts Hist. Soc. 1st series, i. 229, v. 75; Quincy's Hist. of Harvard Univ. i. 450, 457, 589, ii. 136, 137, 230–2; Sullivan's Hist. of Maine, 385, 386.] 

DANGERFIELD, THOMAS (1650?–1685), false witness, born at Waltham in Essex about 1650, was son of a farmer of Cromwellian tenets. Dangerfield began life by robbing his father of horses and money, fled to Scotland, returned as a repentant prodigal and was forgiven, but soon ran away to the continent, and rambled through Portugal and Spain, Flanders and Holland, where he got some credit as a soldier from William of Orange; was apprehended for larcenies, in danger as a spy, and was at least once ordered for execution. He returned to England, took to coining and circulating false money, and was imprisoned at Dorchester, in Newgate, and at Salisbury. He escaped after having been burnt in the hand, and had again in 1675 ‘broken prison’ at Chelmsford and been outlawed. He had pretended to be converted to Romanism while abroad, but laid this claim aside in Holland, and resumed it in 1679, when a second time confined in Newgate, taking help from Mrs. Elizabeth Cellier [q. v.], known later as ‘the Popish midwife.’ She was almoner for the Countess of Powis, befriending the imprisoned catholics. He had boasted of having been instrumental in securing the release of a Mrs. White, who reported to Mrs. Cellier that he threatened revenge against Captain Richardson for excessive severity in the prison. He received money and (he said) instructions whereby an accusation could be framed against Richardson, but the charges were not carried into court. Dangerfield, through interest exerted by the recorder and Alderman Jeffreys, received better treatment while in prison, and also his discharge, but was speedily rearrested and carried to the Counter. He there sued out his habeas corpus, and was removed to the King's Bench, where Mrs. Cellier came to him in disguise, telling him that he was to ingratiate himself into the confidence of a fellow-prisoner, one Stroud, who had threatened to reveal a secret that would blast the credit of the witness William Bedloe [q. v.] Stroud was plied with drink and drugged with laudanum. But Dangerfield failed to acquire his secret. He learnt enough, however, to start as a rival discoverer of plots. He was furnished by Mrs. Cellier with money to compound with his creditors, to whom he owed 700l., and thus regained liberty; was admitted to the presence of the Countess of Powis, employed in the enlargement on bail of priests from the Gatehouse, carrying letters to Roger Palmer, the Earl of Castlemaine [q. v.], sent into Buckinghamshire to assist Henry Nevil, alias Paine, in correspondence and pamphlets, to take notes of the jesuit trials, and claimed, although this was denied, to have held intercourse and credit with the catholic lords in the Tower, whom he afterwards betrayed. He appeared against John Lane, alias Johnson, and Thomas Knox, who were convicted of having brought infamous charges against Titus Oates [q. v.], 25 Nov. 1679; he had obtained a royal pardon on the previous day, to qualify him as a witness. He dispersed through the country libellous broadsides and books, such as ‘Danby's Reflections,’ written by Henry Nevil. He had been servant to travellers, and found it easy to win the confidence of his dupes. That he was sometimes trusted is beyond dispute. In his own ‘Narrative’ he declares unblushingly that Lord Arundel of Wardour and Lord Powis tempted him to murder the Earl of Shaftesbury, offering a reward of 500l., and gave him ten guineas as earnest money; but that he rejected their suggestion of killing the king, and was reproached for this by John Gadbury, the astrologer [q. v.] Nothing came of the assassination scheme beyond three apocryphal attempts. He now drew up a paper concerning pretended clubs or meetings of the presbyterians, with full lists of the members of each, which paper, according to his ‘Narrative,’ was shown to the Duke of York, and intended to incriminate the Duke of Monmouth and others as plotting a commonwealth. He was introduced to the king's presence by Lord Peterborough, who described him as ‘a young man who appeared under a decent figure, a serious behaviour, and with words that did not seem to proceed from a common understanding’ (, Succinct Genealogies). Charles II reported the alleged plot to his council as ‘an impossible thing,’ but allowed 40l. to be paid to Dangerfield. His next fraud was an assumed discovery of correspondence between the presbyterians and the Dutch. Having thrice gone to Lord Shaftesbury, he was entrusted by Lady Powis on 14 Oct. 1679 with fifteen letters, intended to direct suspicion against Colonel Roderick Mansell. He took lodgings in the same house with Mansell, and hid the treasonable papers behind the head of the colonel's bed, then gave information to William Chiffinch [q. v.], got a search-warrant, and on 22 Oct. assisted to find the concealed papers. Detection followed quickly. After having been apprehended, and bailed by Cel-