Francis Charteris (rake) - Rape of Anne Bond

Rape of Anne Bond

Charteris' reputation preceded his trial for raping a servant named Anne Bond. In fact, when Bond was hired, on 24 October 1729, she was informed that her employer was "Colonel Harvey" for fear that his reputation would put off his prospective employee. Charteris had a number of contacts who engaged in this pursuit, regularly hiring women to work as servants who would then be trapped and then "urged" to have sex with him. When Bond began to work, she was immediately besieged by "Harvey's" advances, along with offers of money; but she refused. On her third day of employment, Anne realised that Harvey was in fact Colonel Francis Charteris and requested to leave. This request was refused, and staff were positioned to prevent her from escaping.

The next morning, 10 November, Charteris attacked and raped Bond. There were no witnesses, and Charteris' servants in the next room later testified that they heard nothing. When Bond told Charteris she was going to the authorities over the crime, he ordered servants to whip her and take her belongings and throw her out the door, telling them that she had stolen money from him. With assistance from Mary Parsons, perhaps a former employer, Bond brought a complaint for the misdemeanour of "assault with intent to commit rape." The Middlesex grand jury originally found grounds to proceed with this charge but later upgraded the charge to the capital felony of rape.

On 27 February 1730, Charteris was tried for rape at the Old Bailey. The trial was a media sensation. The defence attacked the virtue and motives of the complainant, accusing her of compliance, prostitution, theft, and extortion. However, many of his witnesses and documents were shown to be false, and the jury quickly found him guilty. On 2 March, he was sentenced to death and held in Newgate Prison.

On 10 April 1730, after a substantial campaign to clear Charteris' name, joined, remarkably, by Anne Bond (who was possibly prompted by the promise of an annuity), King George II granted him a pardon. As a convicted felon, his property should have been forfeit under the doctrine of attainder, but he petitioned the King for its return. In composition for his offence, he paid substantial sums to the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex. He was also suspected of having given substantial gifts to various important individuals. Jonathan Swift commented on Charteris in several poems. In Lines on the Death of Dr. Swift (1731), he explains "Chartres" as, "a most infamous, vile scoundrel, grown from a foot-boy, or worse, to a prodigious fortune both in England and Scotland: he had a way of insinuating himself into all Ministers under every change, either as pimp, flatterer, or informer. He was tried at seventy for a rape, and came off by sacrificing a great part of his fortune" (note to l. 189).

In 1732, he died from natural causes in Edinburgh, possibly from a condition caused by his stay in Newgate Prison. He was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard; his coffin was attacked on its way to the graveyard, and it is said that dead cats were thrown into his grave. Upon his death, John Arbuthnot published Epitaph on Don Francisco in The London Magazine (April 1732). In it, he wrote that Charteris was a man,

"...who, having done, every Day of his Life,

Something worthy of a Gibbet,

Was once condemned to one

For what he had not done."