This has all the tenor and import of something heavily serious, indicating that there was something momentous about the fact that a rake and a Hell-Fire member had been brought to justice. Santry was then brought to the bar; he made three reverences and a salute was returned. Clearly, here was no ordinary trial of a petty criminal.

The crime had allegedly been committed in a public house in Palmerstown on 9 August in the previous year. Santry and his bucks were in a room in the tavern enjoying themselves and Murphy was in the kitchen, linked to the room by a narrow corridor. Murphy was employed as a general servant really, doing such things as carrying messages, being a porter and helping in travel arrangements. He was a married man with three children and the Attorney General at the trial made a point of saying that poor Murphy was ‘a person who with a good deal of industry and difficulty maintained himself and family…’

After the main celebrations of the evening had passed and most guests had left, an argument developed between Santry and a man called Humphreys. Everyone was intoxicated, as witnesses stated. One witness, Jocelyn, testified that Santry had twice tried to draw his sword to set about attacking Humphreys that night.

Santry raged out down the passage to the kitchen and there he bumped into Murphy. He shoved him away and shouted that he would kill the next man who said a word. For some reason, Murphy did speak, and they were his last words. The drunken Santry, totally out of control, stabbed his servant and mortally wounded him. But he was a long time dying. On the night of the stabbing, so the writer of the trial report said:

The poor man spoke, and the noble Lord the prisoner too punctually performed what he had so rashly sworn and stabbed him. Upon this the man went into a room near the kitchen, stayed but a little while, and came back into the kitchen; the blood gushed out of the wound, the man fell down and cried out, I am killed…

As for Santry, drunk as he was, he mounted his horse and thought he could buy silence by giving £4 to the landlord. He gave no directions as to what should be done or whether help might be called.

Laughlin Murphy took a long time to die: he passed away on 25 September, in Hammond Lane in the city. That fact was the saving of Santry. Because death had not been instant, there was an opening for the defence counsel of course – that it had been disease that had actually caused the death. There was no highlighting of such factors as the fact that no medical help had been called, no remorse expressed, and so on. The buck had merely thrown a coin and implied that it had better be all hushed up.

Where the turning point lay which led to the acquittal through a reprieve from the King is up for discussion, but certainly a letter written by Dr Thomas Rundle, Archbishop of Perry, mentions one important figure – the Solicitor General, Bowes. Rundle wrote that ‘He did not use one severe word against the unhappy Lord, nor omitted one severe observation that truth could dictate.. But I think the Counsel for the prisoner acted detestably. They only prompted him to ask a few treacherous questions…’

In other words, justice was done, because there had quite clearly been the most terrible and callous behaviour on the part of this notorious buck and scoundrel. As Rundle wrote, still with a bitterness in his tone:

When the 23 peers returned to give their opinion, their countenances astonished the whole house, and all knew, from the horror in their eyes, and the paleness of their looks, how they were agitated within before they answered the dread question ‘Guilty upon my honour’ and he was so most certainly, according to the law…

But Santry never went to the scaffold. In fact, he was awarded a full pardon. The Duke of Devonshire, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had been largely responsible for petitioning George II. If Santry had gone to meet his death, it would have been a beheading; but he lived to carry on his rakish life. He was also attainted, meaning that he had to forfeit his estate, but that was returned to him after the pardon in 1740. A year after his pardon, Santry travelled to see King George II and thanked him face to face; his pardon had come from the Lords Triers who had found him guilty, but all except one of them signed a letter asking for a pardon. As soon as he had seen the king in Germany, the process of redeeming his estates started.

On his death, the Santry title became extinct.