Speaker 1: This is an I heart original Newgate Jail was built
Speaker 1: into the old Roman walls that had once bounded the
Speaker 1: city of London. It had been a fixture of the
Speaker 1: landscape since, and the interviewing years hadn't done much to
Speaker 1: change its essential nature. Newgate was a horrible, horrible place,
Speaker 1: full of desperation, damp, and disease. It was home to
Speaker 1: highwaymen and murderers, rapists and thieves, as well as petty criminals, pickpockets,
Speaker 1: and political activists who had fallen afoul of the establishment. Men,
Speaker 1: women and children were crowded into the same words, and
Speaker 1: there was no distinction between crimes. When William Challoner shuffled
Speaker 1: into Newgate in August, heavy iron shackles at his ankles
Speaker 1: and wrists, it was at least his third day in
Speaker 1: London's most notorious prison, and by now he knew his
Speaker 1: way around. Chalder's first objective would have been to get
Speaker 1: some coins, some real, actual coin, into the hands of
Speaker 1: the jailer. To get those shackles off easy enough. Newgate
Speaker 1: was so corrupt that the guards would allow robbers out
Speaker 1: at night to go thieving in exchange for a cut
Speaker 1: of the profits. Chalder's next job would have been to
Speaker 1: sort out the basic necessities. Newgate was said to be
Speaker 1: so filthy, so disgusting, that the floors were carpeted in
Speaker 1: lice and bed bugs, and open sewer flowed through the
Speaker 1: middle of it, and people sometimes tried to escape that way,
Speaker 1: but not everyone survived. Typhus was so endemic, but it
Speaker 1: was called jail fever. In the main cells, there were
Speaker 1: no beds, just to fit a bare board or straw
Speaker 1: to sleep on. The water was tainted, the food was spoiled,
Speaker 1: and everywhere was cold, dark and airless. Chaloner would have
Speaker 1: spent some more coin to procure a real betting and
Speaker 1: better food, and maybe even some wine or beer. He
Speaker 1: might have even gotten a cell to himself, depending on
Speaker 1: how much of his ill gotten coin he wanted to
Speaker 1: part with. That sorted, his next step was obvious, sit
Speaker 1: down and figure out exactly what kind of mess he
Speaker 1: was in and how to get out of it. There
Speaker 1: would be a trial soon, maybe in a few months time,
Speaker 1: and challenger, of course, had no defense attorney, no one
Speaker 1: did he knew. The warden's case rested on the testimony
Speaker 1: of Thomas Holloway, and though Halloway was his friend, his
Speaker 1: long time accomplice, Chaloner knew that loyalty only went so far. Certainly,
Speaker 1: Chaloner was loyal to no one but himself. But Joner
Speaker 1: also knew that, beyond Holloway's testimony, the evidence Student had
Speaker 1: on him was thin. Challenger's first move was to start
Speaker 1: talking in the hopes of earning and out the same
Speaker 1: way most other people did, informing he accused Aubrey Price
Speaker 1: of several criminal acts, counterfeiting among them. Price had been
Speaker 1: part of that convoluted plan that led to Challenger's arrest.
Speaker 1: But the problem was Aubrey Price was already in prison,
Speaker 1: a man of quote good parentage but poor morals. Evidently,
Speaker 1: he was later executed for forging banknotes, which was a
Speaker 1: capital offense. So that didn't work. But Chaloner had another plan,
Speaker 1: one that involved removing Thomas Holloway from the picture. For
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, I'm Linda Rodriguez, Mcrabbie and this is
Speaker 1: Newton's Law and I heard original podcast episode six Quicksilver,
Speaker 1: Act one Rotten Apple. While Shanoner was trying to figure
Speaker 1: a way out of his current jam, Newton was just
Speaker 1: a three mile walk away through London's crooked, smoky, filthy streets.
Speaker 1: He now lived in Westminster, much quieter, less smelly than
Speaker 1: his home at the Mint had been. He sat alone thinking.
Speaker 1: Newton could have been reviewing all the depositions, all the
Speaker 1: information he'd collected since he'd first scotten wind of challengers
Speaker 1: Eggam operation. He would have been looking for something, anything,
Speaker 1: that would give him leverage. If Chaloner knew that Newton's
Speaker 1: case against him was thin, then Newton certainly did too.
Speaker 1: Or maybe his mind drifted a bit. He might have
Speaker 1: been thinking about his work on optics, for example, experiments
Speaker 1: and research that had talled somewhat since he arrived in London.
Speaker 1: He might have been thinking about his theological studies, ideas
Speaker 1: that sometimes took him to the brink and beyond of heresy.
Speaker 1: Or he might have been thinking about how he Isaac Newton,
Speaker 1: born on a lincoature farm to rise to scholarly fame,
Speaker 1: had gotten here sitting in his London study, struggling with
Speaker 1: a different kind of problem, how to nail down a
Speaker 1: slippery criminal mastermind. Newton was no stranger to introspection as
Speaker 1: a teenager, and in his first years at Cambridge he
Speaker 1: the ledger of his quote sins making Pies on Sunday night,
Speaker 1: missing chapel, twisting accord on Sunday morning, using Wilford's towel
Speaker 1: to spare my own wishing death and hoping it to
Speaker 1: some striking many having on clean thoughts, words and actions
Speaker 1: and dreams. Also on the list, trying to spend a
Speaker 1: bronze and therefore counterfeit groat, which is well ironic. Newton's
Speaker 1: childhood and adolescence hadn't been exactly pleasant. His father was
Speaker 1: a relatively well off farmer who died before Newton was born.
Speaker 1: His mother remarried when little Isaac was just about three
Speaker 1: years old. Her new husband was more than twice her age,
Speaker 1: a widower, and as part of their marriage contract, she
Speaker 1: was meant to move in with him alone. Little Isaac
Speaker 1: was to be left in the care of his grandparents
Speaker 1: at the farmhouse where was born. When her second husband
Speaker 1: died eight years later, his mother returned with three smaller
Speaker 1: children into Biographers have suggested that this early perceived rejection
Speaker 1: by his mother left Isaac Newton with a few issues.
Speaker 1: Punching my sister, rubbing my mother's box of plums and sugar,
Speaker 1: threatening my father and mother to burn them. I'm the
Speaker 1: househover them with my mother, with my sister. Newton's brilliance
Speaker 1: carried him into university. His years in academia were characterized
Speaker 1: by intense study and also by a lack of connection
Speaker 1: with other people. During his Cambridge years, he rarely left
Speaker 1: his rooms at the college, and when he did, he
Speaker 1: was usually unkempt, with his hair uncombed, and he tended
Speaker 1: to draw mathematical equations in the dust by the river
Speaker 1: cam that sort of thing. Newton wasn't exactly happy in
Speaker 1: his solitude, but neither did he particularly enjoy the company
Speaker 1: of other people. For I see not what there is
Speaker 1: desirable in public esteem. Where I able to acquire and
Speaker 1: maintain it, it would perhaps increase my acquaintance the thing
Speaker 1: which I chiefly study to decline. Still, Newton could only
Speaker 1: stand the intellectual isolation for so long. Newton had been
Speaker 1: restless in his last few years at Trainee College, around
Speaker 1: the time that he was looking for another job in
Speaker 1: a way out of Cambridge. But that wasn't the only
Speaker 1: explanation for his abrupt departure from academic life for London.
Speaker 1: In the Mint in the years before he left, Newton
Speaker 1: was behaving erratically. I am extremely troubled at the embroilment.
Speaker 1: I am in. I have neither ate nor slept well
Speaker 1: this twelve month, nor have my former consistency of mind.
Speaker 1: Newton confessed this to his friend, the ubiquitous Samuel Peeps
Speaker 1: in a letter from sixty nine three. Not sleeping or
Speaker 1: eating is a bad sign, even from Newton, who tended
Speaker 1: to be too distracted by work to do either consistently.
Speaker 1: But there was more. I must withdraw from your acquaintance,
Speaker 1: and seeing neither you nor the rest of my friends anymore,
Speaker 1: if I may leave them quietly. Newton did have a
Speaker 1: reputation for being quick to lose people if they offended him.
Speaker 1: He once stitched a friend for telling a dirty joke
Speaker 1: about a nun, even though he definitely wasn't Catholic and
Speaker 1: didn't seem to have any particular respect for nuns. And
Speaker 1: Newton could be for sure petty and vindictive. He fought
Speaker 1: with many of the leading scientists of the day, in
Speaker 1: some cases physically. In the sixteen nineties, Newton visited John Flamsteed,
Speaker 1: the first astronomer Royal, out at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich,
Speaker 1: and the two got into an actual wrestling match over
Speaker 1: one of Flamsteed's Instruments. Flamsteed says that Newton called him
Speaker 1: all the names that he could think of. Poppy was
Speaker 1: the most innocent of them. But Newton's declaration that he
Speaker 1: intended tosevered ties with peeps and others was strange worrying.
Speaker 1: Just three days after his letter to Peep's, Newton wrote
Speaker 1: to philosopher John Locke, one of his closest allies, being
Speaker 1: off opinion that you endeavored to embroil me with women
Speaker 1: and by other means. I was so affected with it
Speaker 1: that when one told me you were sickly and would
Speaker 1: not live, I answered to a better if you were dead.
Speaker 1: Locke's reply was graceful and kind, and he clearly forgave Newton.
Speaker 1: But Newton's response to that was, if anything more worrying, sir,
Speaker 1: the last winter, by sleeping too often by my fire,
Speaker 1: I got an ill habit of sleeping, and a distemper
Speaker 1: which this summer has been epidemical, put me farther out
Speaker 1: of order, so that when I wrote to you, I
Speaker 1: had not up to an hour and night for a
Speaker 1: fortnight together, and for five days together. Not a wink
Speaker 1: I remember, I wrote to you. But what I said,
Speaker 1: of your book, I remember not. Newton's letters worried peeps
Speaker 1: so much that peeps wrote to another Cambridge academic, John Millington.
Speaker 1: I had lately received a letter from him, so surprising
Speaker 1: to me, for the inconsistency of every part of it,
Speaker 1: as to be put into great disorder by it, for
Speaker 1: the concernment I have for him, I mean a discomposure
Speaker 1: in head or mind or both. Peeps asked Millington to
Speaker 1: check in on Newton discreetly. It wouldn't do anyone any good,
Speaker 1: at least of all Newton, to have people start suspecting
Speaker 1: that the great genius of Trinity was having a breakdown.
Speaker 1: For I own too great an esteem for Mr Newton
Speaker 1: as for a public good to be able to let
Speaker 1: any doubt in me of this kind concerning him lie
Speaker 1: a moment uncleared where I can have any hopes of
Speaker 1: helping it. New news quote frenzied state, and the flurry
Speaker 1: of paranoid letters coming from him prompted all kinds of
Speaker 1: schaden freda, as well as real concern from the gossipy grades.
Speaker 1: At the time, Dutch physicist Christian Hygens heard it from
Speaker 1: his friends in England. He told mathematician and philosopher Godfried
Speaker 1: Wilhelm von Leibnez, who spread it around to his circle.
Speaker 1: By the time Newton's frenzy made it back to England
Speaker 1: via German philosopher Johann Christoph Sturm to a Dr. Wallace,
Speaker 1: Newton had been quote reduced to very ill circumstances by
Speaker 1: a quote disturbance of mind caused by a supposed fire
Speaker 1: that destroyed his lab, his home, and all of his
Speaker 1: worldly possessions. It was like the longest game of telephone ever.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of Newton's frenzied state that newton fancies pace?
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about Newton's dancing. Wait, okay, so there hadn't
Speaker 1: been in a lab destroying fire in Newton, unlike many
Speaker 1: other educated people in his time, didn't believe that his
Speaker 1: periods of frenzy were the product of the influence of
Speaker 1: the devil or evil spirits. But there was definitely something
Speaker 1: going on in Newton's head Act two. The alchemist. Newton had,
Speaker 1: according to some sources, struggled with depression at several points
Speaker 1: in his life, times when he'd retreat to his inner
Speaker 1: world and cut off what few ties he had with
Speaker 1: friends and fellow academics, But this particular episode seemed so
Speaker 1: much more profound and incomprehensible to his worried friends. Something
Speaker 1: was going on, and it's possible that something was mercury poisoning.
Speaker 1: Newton had for years been a semi secret practicing alchemist.
Speaker 1: Alchemy was an ancient science with roots in Eastern cultures.
Speaker 1: It was largely concerned with pulling substances of heart and
Speaker 1: trying to put them back together in more valuable ways,
Speaker 1: for example, transforming lead into gold. In the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: alchemy was branching in two directions. There was a branch
Speaker 1: that would eventually become what we'd consider chemistry today, and
Speaker 1: the branch that stuck with the more metaphysical stuff that's
Speaker 1: kind of alchemy was regarded as more or less madness.
Speaker 1: Newton was sort of between the two branches. He was,
Speaker 1: as John Maynard Keynes later wrote, The Last of the Magicians,
Speaker 1: But he wasn't interested in power or living forever. Rather,
Speaker 1: Newton was trying to find God in his work. All
Speaker 1: of his work. He had written the Principia, he said,
Speaker 1: not with it design of betting defiance, but to enforce
Speaker 1: and demonstrate the power and superintendency of the Supreme Being.
Speaker 1: Many of Newton's meticulous notes on his alchemical experiments survive
Speaker 1: one million handwritten words describing his interpretations of scripture, of
Speaker 1: the essences of elements, the movements of the heavens. Arcane
Speaker 1: potions meant to prolonged life, but Newton's search for divinity
Speaker 1: through experimentation also meant messing about with some fairly toxic substances,
Speaker 1: like mercury. Mercury is an element number eighty on the
Speaker 1: periodic table, although the periodic table wouldn't actually be created
Speaker 1: for another hundred and seventy years. It's the only metallic
Speaker 1: element that's a liquid at room temperature, giving it the
Speaker 1: historic and popular name quicksilver. If you've ever accidentally cracked
Speaker 1: up in a thermometer, young people, thermometers used to have
Speaker 1: mercury inside them. True story, you probably remember the way
Speaker 1: that the silvery liquid coalesced into little blobs like a
Speaker 1: bad guy in Terminator two. For eighteen years, Newton carried
Speaker 1: out hundreds of experiments involving all kinds of metals gold, silver, lead,
Speaker 1: and mercury. He would often heat things up and then
Speaker 1: intentionally breathe in their fumes or even taste the results
Speaker 1: once they cooled. When he was on an experimental bender,
Speaker 1: he tended to sleep in his laboratory by the fire
Speaker 1: while his experiments bubbled merrily away, releasing fumes into the air.
Speaker 1: Newton used quicksilver so much in his experiments that he
Speaker 1: once joked, quite possibly his only joke ever, that his
Speaker 1: hair had turned prematurely silver because of it. But mercury
Speaker 1: is toxic, hence why thermometers aren't made with mercury anymore.
Speaker 1: Exposure to mercury can lead to mercury poisoning. The mercury
Speaker 1: builds of in your system over time, eventually resulting in
Speaker 1: serious neurological issues. You can suffer ill effects from ingesting mercury,
Speaker 1: of course, although nineteenth century doctors used to prescribe it
Speaker 1: as a laxative because it's so dense it just moves
Speaker 1: right through you. But it's most damaging when it's inhaled
Speaker 1: in vapor form, moving quickly from the lungs into the
Speaker 1: blood into the brain. The symptoms of mercury poisoning we
Speaker 1: know now include irritability, depression, anxiety, problems with memory. I
Speaker 1: remember I wrote to you, but what I said of
Speaker 1: your book, I remember not insomnia. I had not slipped
Speaker 1: an hour and night for a fortnight together. In quote
Speaker 1: pathological shyness, I must withdraw from your acquaintance. Researchers are
Speaker 1: divided on the impact of mercury on Newton's health, certainly,
Speaker 1: and it's never a really good idea to diagnose the
Speaker 1: physical and mental problems with someone who died nearly three
Speaker 1: years ago. But if we're looking for a suspect and
Speaker 1: the quote madness of Isaac Newton, mercury poisoning seems like
Speaker 1: a prime one. But that wasn't all that was going
Speaker 1: on in Newton's life right now. His mind was traveled,
Speaker 1: and so is his heart. Newton had never married or
Speaker 1: seemed to show the slightest romantic interest in anyone at all,
Speaker 1: but it's possible that in six Newton was dealing with
Speaker 1: a romance, or at least a very strong emotional attachment
Speaker 1: that ended badly. A few years earlier, Newton had begun
Speaker 1: paying a lot of attention to a young Swiss mathematician
Speaker 1: and philosopher called Nicola Fatiou to Julie. Newton wrote to
Speaker 1: Fatio with a kind of warmth that he rarely showed
Speaker 1: in letters to other people, not even to his own relatives,
Speaker 1: and Fatio seemed to return his regard. I could wish
Speaker 1: to live all my life, or the greatest part of it,
Speaker 1: with you, if it was possible. When Newton found out
Speaker 1: that Fattio was desperately ill in September, he was truly distraught.
Speaker 1: Ah last night received your letter with which how much
Speaker 1: I was affected. I cannot express pray, procure the advice
Speaker 1: and assistance of physician before it is too late, And
Speaker 1: if you want any money, I will supply you with
Speaker 1: my prayers for your recovery. I rest he signed it
Speaker 1: your most affectionate and faithful friend to serve you. Newton
Speaker 1: tried to send presidents, medical remedies, even money, but Fattier
Speaker 1: didn't take them. In February nine three, Newton even suggested
Speaker 1: that Fattio come live with him in Cambridge so that
Speaker 1: Newton could take care of him. Fattia refused, saying he
Speaker 1: didn't want to be a burden, and then Fattio seemed
Speaker 1: to end it. Fatio wrote Newton to say that he
Speaker 1: had made a new friend in London, a good and
Speaker 1: upright man. Newton rushed to London. But what happened there
Speaker 1: we can only guess. After that, letters between the two
Speaker 1: largely ceased. It's possible that Newton was in love with Fatio,
Speaker 1: although there was no indication that this relationship was ever
Speaker 1: physical or sexual. A much older Newton later told a
Speaker 1: relative that he had quote never violated chastity with anyone. Ever,
Speaker 1: the way to chastity is not to struggle with incontinent thoughts,
Speaker 1: but to avert the thoughts by some employment, or by reading,
Speaker 1: or by conversation, or by meditating on other things. But
Speaker 1: whatever his attachment to Fatio, it appeared to be one
Speaker 1: of the very few deep relationships Newton had ever been
Speaker 1: able to form with another human being, and its loss
Speaker 1: would have cut him to the bone. Later in s
Speaker 1: John Millington, Newton's Cambridge colleague, paid Newton a visit at
Speaker 1: Peeves's request. Millington reported back to Peep's that Newton seemed fine.
Speaker 1: At least Newton still seemed to have his intellect. He
Speaker 1: is now very well, and though I fear he is
Speaker 1: under some small degree of melancholy, yet I think there
Speaker 1: is no reason to suspect it hath at all touched
Speaker 1: his understanding and I hope it never will. But Millington's
Speaker 1: response contained another clue as to what was grieving Newton.
Speaker 1: Millington said that it was a sign, not a good one.
Speaker 1: It seemed of how much the love of learning and
Speaker 1: the honor of the nation was looked after. When such
Speaker 1: a person as Mr Newton lies so neglected by those
Speaker 1: in power, Newton was feeling overlooked, less relevant. Though the
Speaker 1: publication of Brinkipia had been a triumph that was now
Speaker 1: behind him, and his work following Principia wasn't a failure
Speaker 1: by any means, but he was conscious that it wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know, explaining the universe. At the same time, his friends,
Speaker 1: people like Peeps in Locke, had long been trying to
Speaker 1: find him work outside of Cambridge, with little success. What
Speaker 1: it all added up to was a crisis. Dr Patricia Farah.
Speaker 1: He certainly does seem to have had some sort of breakdown.
Speaker 1: I imagine life was a bit difficult for him. He
Speaker 1: perhaps wasn't the easiest man in the world to get
Speaker 1: on with. Perhaps he was worried about his failing mathematical paths.
Speaker 1: That's something that a lot of mathematicians talking about when
Speaker 1: they get to the age about forty or fifty that
Speaker 1: there past their creative best. I don't think there's any
Speaker 1: single reason, and I'm not sure we even really know
Speaker 1: exactly why, so new to this period of disordered mind.
Speaker 1: Could have been a lifelong struggle with depression compounded by
Speaker 1: mercury pois ning. Or it could have been a love
Speaker 1: affair gone south. Or it could have just been a
Speaker 1: regular old midlife crisis. He was in his early fifties,
Speaker 1: after all, and he'd been trying for years to get
Speaker 1: out of Cambridge, where it could have been all of
Speaker 1: the above. But whatever it was, Newton needed a new purpose,
Speaker 1: finding counterfeiters and sending them to the gallows. Well maybe
Speaker 1: that was it. Act three, no face, no Case. In
Speaker 1: s and Pillsbury, a poor woman who lived in Westminster
Speaker 1: went to a bakery with her young daughter to buy food.
Speaker 1: A night near bread please, and a night me a chase.
Speaker 1: The shop, however, was run by an informant of Newton's,
Speaker 1: and he believed that the sixpence that she tried to
Speaker 1: pay with was fake. You consider me a fool. He's
Speaker 1: not legitimate coin of the crown. The informants searched her
Speaker 1: right there in the shop, finding a good sixpence between
Speaker 1: her bodice and stomach, evidence that she knew she had
Speaker 1: been passing bad coin, as well as evidence of the
Speaker 1: shop owner wasn't at all concerned about being brought up
Speaker 1: on sexual assault charges or humiliating poor Anne. He then
Speaker 1: brought her to Newton himself. Newton ordered her and her
Speaker 1: daughter searched again, well, search again, both of them, this
Speaker 1: time finding more counterfeit coins wrapped in paper and hidden
Speaker 1: in the child's clothing. You dare embroyal the girl in
Speaker 1: your petty scheme, please, sir. The bat six pinches off
Speaker 1: a person? What sells linen cloth in streets? They made it,
Speaker 1: and that was There's no word on what happened to
Speaker 1: Anne and her daughter next, but it's possible, and I
Speaker 1: really hope this is the case, that she became another
Speaker 1: of Newton's informants rather than being packed off to Newgate.
Speaker 1: Patricia Farra again, I mean, these people who were being
Speaker 1: persecuted as criminals were often living on the edge of poverty.
Speaker 1: They were very ignorant, they hadn't got any work. And
Speaker 1: although there was the most criminals like Challoner who managed
Speaker 1: to become quite rich, a lot of the petty theft
Speaker 1: going on was just so that people could survive. Newton
Speaker 1: was not moved by the plight of the people he
Speaker 1: squeezed for information or even sent to the gallows, and
Speaker 1: his industriousness in pursuing counterfeiters and clippers might have been
Speaker 1: fueled or at least aided by this darker side of
Speaker 1: his personality. But as it turns out, it was precisely
Speaker 1: this unforgiving character, combined with his laser like focus, that
Speaker 1: made him so good at being a cop. And in
Speaker 1: William Chaloner, Newton had found his equal and opposite, so
Speaker 1: to speak. Where Challenger was garrulous, charming and friend lee,
Speaker 1: Newton was terse, introspective, quick to anger, where Challenger seemed
Speaker 1: too so anarchy. Newton wanted to order, He wanted to
Speaker 1: use his scientific abilities to fix things, where Challenger was
Speaker 1: happy to twist and bend the law to break it.
Speaker 1: Newton was devoted to the oath he took to protect
Speaker 1: the mint and its machines. Tom Levinson m I T.
Speaker 1: Science writer and author of Newton and the Counterfeiter Does
Speaker 1: he really see him? I think in this as as
Speaker 1: as one three dimensional person rather than as Newton the
Speaker 1: scientists new in the mathematician, ding the magician, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, because you really see the two to me
Speaker 1: dominant characteristics of Newton's mind at playing in his confrontation
Speaker 1: with Chaloner. On the one hand, he's just really smart.
Speaker 1: He has a disciplined mind, He defines problems, all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff that you think of as Newton, the
Speaker 1: great mind that we know him as. But I think
Speaker 1: you also see something that is often underestimated in the
Speaker 1: lives of great scientists. They are persistent and focused in
Speaker 1: a way that most other people are not. They have
Speaker 1: power of concentration combined with stamina that's really distinctive. And
Speaker 1: Newton stayed with the problems over months and years and
Speaker 1: with Challenger, and Challenger was a problem. In March, Newton
Speaker 1: received a pleading letter from Thomas Carter, one of challengers colleagues,
Speaker 1: who was then languishing in Newgate jail. Carter promised, all
Speaker 1: kinds of information, I should have the irons put on
Speaker 1: me tomorrow if your worship not older. The contrary, being
Speaker 1: clapped in irons sounds like something that happened to pirates
Speaker 1: because it was, but it was also extremely painful. Heavy
Speaker 1: iron shackles were secured around the prisoners ankles, leaving bruises,
Speaker 1: broken skin sores. It sounds a lot like torture. Newton
Speaker 1: was undoubtedly willing to let people be hurt in his
Speaker 1: pursuit of justice. He once said, of a counterfeiter in prison,
Speaker 1: better to let him. But to be fair, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of evidence that Newton was torturing people to
Speaker 1: get his information. That reference is the only one that survives,
Speaker 1: although he did burn much of his records concerning counterfeiters.
Speaker 1: The idea of Newton as this aggressive, sadistic inquisitor comes
Speaker 1: in part from a biography of him written by Frank
Speaker 1: Manuel In that read his role as warden through a
Speaker 1: union psychoanalytical lens. Manuel saw Newton's evident zeal for the
Speaker 1: job as working out his anger with his deceased stepfather
Speaker 1: on a socially acceptable object, the treason his coiner that's
Speaker 1: probably not really merited at all. Manuel suggested that Newton
Speaker 1: was unusual in his passion, but the fact was not
Speaker 1: a day went by in the late sixteen nineties of
Speaker 1: the government wasn't talking about counterfeiters. In some way, Newton's
Speaker 1: interest was an excessive, nor were his methods of getting information.
Speaker 1: The pressure Newton applied was already there. Many of his
Speaker 1: informants were already facing the gallows, and irons were part
Speaker 1: of the prison toolkit. Newton's attitude was shared by his contemporaries.
Speaker 1: But where Newton did differ was in just how dogged,
Speaker 1: thorough and analytical his pursuit of coiners was, and just
Speaker 1: how much they hated him for it. Tom Levinson, again, Chaloner,
Speaker 1: like many others, really underestimated Isaac when he came to London.
Speaker 1: They would have seen this Cambridge professor, this mathematician, this
Speaker 1: person whose mind was in the stars, who wouldn't stand
Speaker 1: a chance, wouldn't last a week in the rough and
Speaker 1: tumble real world of you know, London and all its
Speaker 1: bustle and joyous crime and exuberance and misery. Well they
Speaker 1: were wrong. Newton did just fine. He had no problem
Speaker 1: dealing with the real world. And I think Chaloner was
Speaker 1: was really unprepared to confront somebody who wasn't the sort
Speaker 1: of airy, fairy boffin that he may have imagined he
Speaker 1: was facing. Newton so far had proven a lot tougher,
Speaker 1: a lot more ruthless, a lot more tenacious than Challenger
Speaker 1: had imagined. But that didn't mean that Challenger was done.
Speaker 1: Thomas Holloway was out of jail. He was to be
Speaker 1: Newton's star witness in just a few weeks, whenever the
Speaker 1: next sessions of trials were to be held. He sat
Speaker 1: in a quiet corner of the Bolt and Ton Inn
Speaker 1: on Fleet Street, just around the corner from where William
Speaker 1: Challenger sat in his Newgate cell. He waited, tankred a
Speaker 1: veil in front of him for a man called Michael
Speaker 1: gilling Him. Gilling Him was a longtime associated Challengers. He
Speaker 1: was a useful publican who kept an ale house by
Speaker 1: Charing Cross Road and who did jobs for local criminals.
Speaker 1: He'd even done a bit of counterfeiting himself. The rumors said.
Speaker 1: Chaloner had passed word to Gillingham, probably through one of
Speaker 1: Newgate's notoriously corruptible jailers, to find Holloway and get him
Speaker 1: out of the picture. No, he wasn't gonna have him killed.
Speaker 1: Challoner is a con man, He's not a murderer. This
Speaker 1: isn't going to turn into that kind of podcast. What
Speaker 1: Challoner wanted was for Holloway and his family, including his
Speaker 1: wife Elizabeth and their five children, plus their maid servant
Speaker 1: to just disappear for a while. He offered Holloway, through
Speaker 1: gilling him twenty pounds to make a run for Scotland.
Speaker 1: Despite sharing a monarch, England and Scotland were separate kingdoms still,
Speaker 1: so making a run for Scotland meant that English law
Speaker 1: couldn't touch him there, though, Challoner was offering a fairly
Speaker 1: substantial some of money. Fairly substantial, about four thousand pounds today,
Speaker 1: enough to buy then like three horses, or pay for
Speaker 1: the Halloways expenses for a bit. Halloween didn't take it
Speaker 1: at first. Maybe he liked having a bit of power
Speaker 1: over Challenger. Maybe he was holding out for a bit more.
Speaker 1: Maybe he just didn't want to leave the city he
Speaker 1: called home for an uncertain journey north. Maybe he was
Speaker 1: worried about his family. Challenger, however, wasn't a man to
Speaker 1: be trifled with. He was playing nice now, offering money,
Speaker 1: but he could just as easily flip the script turn
Speaker 1: informant on Holloway. Halloway's wife, Elizabeth, she was also embroiled
Speaker 1: in this too. She had been challengers utterer. She had
Speaker 1: passed fake coins into circulation and It's not like Challenger
Speaker 1: hadn't snitched people right into the gallows before, wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to do so right now with Aubrey price. A few
Speaker 1: weeks went by, and the trial was getting closer and closer.
Speaker 1: In at October, Halloway finally agreed, but he refused to
Speaker 1: make a promise until he and gilling Him were in
Speaker 1: front of a man called Henry Saunders. Holloway evidently trusted
Speaker 1: Saunders and wanted to make sure that there were witnesses
Speaker 1: to the deal he was making with gilling Him and Chaloner. Holloway,
Speaker 1: gilling Him, and Saunders met at yet another pub, the
Speaker 1: Turk's Head and Whopping near the river. This was where
Speaker 1: condemned men about to hang at execution docks. They're like
Speaker 1: buccaneers and pirates and smugglers and mutineers would have their
Speaker 1: last pint at the Turk's Head. Halloway went over the plan.
Speaker 1: Gilling Him would take care of the kids and the
Speaker 1: maid servant for a few weeks while Halloway and his
Speaker 1: wife got on some horses and rode north. He'd send
Speaker 1: the children and the maid up the coast by boat,
Speaker 1: paid for of course, by William Chaloner. Gilling Him paid
Speaker 1: Holloway part up front, and then a few days later,
Speaker 1: gilling Him and Saunders escorted Holloway and his wife to
Speaker 1: the livery, where they collected their horses, mounted up and
Speaker 1: left town. Gilling Him and Saunders went Newgate that day
Speaker 1: to tell Challenger the news. Charleona then seemed to be
Speaker 1: very joyful and said a fault for the world. Challenger
Speaker 1: declaring a fart for the world was actually in the
Speaker 1: deposition of Saunders that Newton took as in this Saunders
Speaker 1: person told Newton directly that Challenger said, quote a fart
Speaker 1: for the world. I don't even know what that means.
Speaker 1: The Halloways were now out of the picture, and Newton's
Speaker 1: most important witness was gone because two other witnesses recanted,
Speaker 1: although exactly how Challenger threatened or bought them off is unclear.
Speaker 1: Tom Levinson, you know, it is a classic sort of
Speaker 1: mafia what we now think of as mafia organized crime techniques,
Speaker 1: of just systematically dismantling the case that's about to be
Speaker 1: presented against you until there was nothing left. And that's
Speaker 1: what happens Newton. He had the case just fell apart,
Speaker 1: went to trial by late October Newton's case against Challenger
Speaker 1: had crumbled. The judge overseeing the case dismissed the charges.
Speaker 1: Newton was fuming. He knew it was a weak case
Speaker 1: from the start, but he'd been pressured by the Lord's
Speaker 1: justices to pursue it. And Newton hated losing, hated it
Speaker 1: if he got on the wrong side of it. Took
Speaker 1: heroic efforts to sort of heal the breach, and and
Speaker 1: and most and most often people didn't. And so Challenger
Speaker 1: had come along this you know, this criminal, this blaggard um,
Speaker 1: this this you know, annoying horse fly nipping at at
Speaker 1: Newton's flanks. In November, that annoying horse fly buzzed out
Speaker 1: of Newgate Jail a mostly freeman. Now we know that
Speaker 1: Challenger is not a man content to slink away and
Speaker 1: feel lucky to have escaped this brush with the law
Speaker 1: in certain death. We also know that seven weeks in jail,
Speaker 1: paying jailers for basic necessities, paying off the witnesses against him,
Speaker 1: had left Chaloner pretty much broke. He needed money, but
Speaker 1: luckily he had a plan, the word three coming up
Speaker 1: on Newton's law. Ask no questions, but if you knew
Speaker 1: who my friend was you'd allow he was as great
Speaker 1: a master as Charlonough In June or July law, Mr Challoner, I,
Speaker 1: Mr Davis came to my mistress's lodging and Mr Challon
Speaker 1: and locked himself in a room upstairs. Well I was curious,
Speaker 1: so well, I don't through the Kale. Newton's Law is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. It's written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Me Linda Rodriguez mccrobie. Our senior producer is Ryan Murdoch.
Speaker 1: Our producer is Emily Marina. Our executive producer is Jason English.
Speaker 1: Original music by Alice McCoy with editing help from Mary Do.
Speaker 1: Sound design and mixing by Jeremy Thal, Research and fact
Speaker 1: checking by Me and Jocelyn Sears. Voice acting by Keith Fleming,
Speaker 1: Robbie Jack, Ruthie Stevens and Paul Tinto. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Dr Patricia Farah and Tom Levinson. Our show logo is
Speaker 1: designed by Lucy Cantonia. Thanks for listening.