A Dark Chapter in Dutch History

The Netherlands has acquired a reputation as a pioneer and champion of lgbt rights, but it is also a dark chapter that involves the worst secular persecution of homosexuals in European history prior to the 20th century. The news of the virtual massacre of gay men in the summer of 1730 in the Dutch republic spread across Europe resulting in similar persecutions.

As has often been the case throughout history, any natural or economic disaster is often attributed to divine retribution because of the actions (or even the very existence) of specific sections of the community. Many times in recent decades the lgbt community has been accused of bringing that divine retribution in the form of floods, famine and disease. Just last week an American religious group accused the lgbt community of bringing down the wrath of God who inflicted the covid pandemic on the world because of our continuing existence.

Such appears to have been the case in the Netherlands in the early 18th century. For a generation there had been disease that had suddenly attacked the country’s cattle herds, and parasitic worms that were breeding in the water dikes. A generation earlier there have been freak weather, and even an earthquake that destroyed much of Utrecht’s main church, the Domkerk. In general also, there was a feeling that society was becoming too immoral, lazy and weak-willed. People were looking for someone to blame for the disasters and deterioration in society and soon the gay community became their target. This became a nationwide persecution.

Where the Dutch persecution of gay men began.

An engraving of a painting by Herman Saftleven the Younger (1609-1685)

showing the ruins of Domkerk nave (Utrecht Archives).

The damaged Domkerk became a meeting place for gay men. In January 1730 the sacristan, the person who looked after what was left of the building, discovered two men having sex in the church tower. He recognised one of them as Zacharias Wilsma, and the sacristan had him arrested. Wilsma, a 23-year-old ex-soldier from Leiden, was interrogated. He revealed the existence of a network of gay men across the Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam. He probably hoped that his confession and co-operation would save him from punishment. It appears that this may have been the case because there’s no record of his execution in the ensuing “purge” of Dutch homosexuals.

Wilsma also revealed details of his own sexual activities prior to moving to Utrecht. As the foreman on the country estate of a wealthy burgomaster near Leiden he often had sex with other men in his master’s carriages.

Wilsma named four men in Amsterdam as sodomites, as homosexuals were termed in those days, and they were tracked down and arrested. Wilsma testified against them at their trials and all four were executed in June 1730. But this was just the tip of the iceberg. Under interrogation the men revealed the names of forty others. The revelation that there was a thriving secret gay community in Amsterdam threw the city and the nation into a panic.

In July 1730 the Netherlands government issued an edict that went out to every city, town and village. It warned against the dangers and evils of sodomy (sodomy was considered to be an infectious disease at the time). The edict reminded people of the death penalty.

By this time word had spread among the gay community, or rather the loose network of gay men, to be more accurate. Although many men were arrested, convicted and executed, some managed to escape, at least for a short time.

One of the most prominent men hoping to avoid capture was Baron Frederick van Reede van Renswoude (1659-1738), a diplomat and magistrate renowned internationally as a peace-keeper. The London Journal described him as “the First Noble of the Province of Utrecht”. It is thought that he fled to Venice. Several men who were executed for sodomy referred to him as “the Greatest of All Buggers”. He was stripped of his legal and municipal offices, but he thought it safe for him to return a few weeks later. That seems to have been the only punishment he received.

The most notorious crack-down on gay sex networks occurred in Faan, a tiny village near Groningen. There the local magistrate arrested 24 men in the village for sodomy. He found all of them guilty and they were all hanged.

News of the arrests and executions spread across Europe. Unlike today there was no condemnation from the general public of the homophobic purge. It would be wrong to assume that the public had been scared into believing the Church propaganda against sodomy. The historical evidence says otherwise. The public believed sodomy was a moral evil just as much as the majority of Christian Churches did.

One British newspaper summed up the general view of the public perfectly. The London Journal of 6th June 1730 reported “… It is about a Fortnight since the court of Holland have had under Prosecution Seven young persons for the detestable Sin of Sodomy, formerly unknown in these Parts, and confined to the South Side of the Alps: Several have been seized upon the Score at Leyden, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Campen, and in short in almost all the Province…” The report indicates the view in northern Europe that sodomy was only practiced in Italy, in particular Florence. In fact, the Germans had a slang word for a sodomite – “florenzer” (we’ll encounter some actual “florenzers” next month). Additionally, the persecution of gay men in Utrecht itself gave rise to a slang name for a gay man – “utrechtenaar”.

As news of the persecutions and executions spread across Europe people began to view recent visitors from the Netherlands with suspicion. Some of these visitors were indeed escaping homosexuals but many were not.

Arrests, interrogations, trials and executions went of sporadically for decades, but none were as intense as the 1730 Dutch persecutions. What makes the whole affair so horrifying to our modern ears is the manner of the executions. The law permitted judges to choose the methods of execution. As well as hanging, some men were burnt alive, some were strangled and crushed, some had their corpses burnt and their ashes thrown in to the sea, In fact, the remains of quite a lot of these men ended up being thrown into the sea. It is estimated that there were about 300 men were convicted of sodomy in the summer of 1730.

History shows just how much nations and public opinion can change over time. This change in the Netherlands has been recognised. In 1999 the authorities in Utrecht placed a memorial stone, called the Sodomonument, in the street outside the Domkerk tower, the only surviving part of the church, to commemorate the lives of the persecuted men.

Scandal in the Navy at the YMCA

One of the concerns still providing much debate, especially in Donald Trump’s America, is the acceptance and inclusion of lgbt personnel in the armed forces. The focus at the moment for Trump’s regime is the presence of transgender personnel.

For seven years, from 1994 to 2011, the USA imposed a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in which lgbt personnel had to publicly hide or deny their sexuality in order to remain in the armed forces. The policy itself has a long history of its own which was in some respects influenced by a scandal which began 100 year ago this month in the US Navy. Wikipedia refers to it as “the Newport Sex Scandal”.


Modern madge of the US naval station
at Newport, Rhode Island.

The scandal began in February 1919 in the naval training hospital in Newport, Rhode Island. In the months prior to this reports of homosexual behaviour at several other naval training stations had reached the US Judge Advocate General. The reports he received from Newport were considered much more serious as Newport was a major naval base.

Events began to unfold when Chief Machinist’s Mate Ervin Arnold was admitted to the hospital with acute rheumatism. He was a self-confessed “gay hunter”, claiming to be able to identify a gay man by his behaviour and speech. He had been a detective before enlisting in the navy and began his witch-hunt of gay men long before arriving in Newport.

Arnold was first made aware of gay activity in and around Newport after talking with two other patients, Samuel Rogers and Thomas Brunelle who both made Arnold’s “gaydar” ping. Thomas Brunelle, rather unwisely, described Samuel Rogers’ reputation as a “pogue”, a man who prefers being a passive gay partner in sex. Even more unwisely Brunelle went on to tell Ervin Arnold of other gay men in the naval station and Newport. This set Arnold on his campaign to hunt down all the gay men in town and lock them up.

Arnold coaxed out more information and was told of the regular gay meeting spots, especially the Newport Army and Navy YMCA and the Newport Art Association.

The Army and Navy YMCA seemed to be the major meeting place, with several of its staff also being gay men. Arnold took his collected information to the station commander, Lt. Cdr. Murphy Foster. Even before Foster had agreed to an inquiry, which would go on to recommend using trained investigators to collect more evidence, Arnold was recruiting sailors to act as spies and pose as homosexuals in order to gather more detailed reports of their activities, however explicit, and however much the spies participated in sexual acts.


Newport Army and Navy YMCA as it looks today.

Foster’s inquiry was passed on to the US Attorney General who handed the investigation over to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, someone who went on to become US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt immediately authorised a full investigation to be led by the gay-hunter himself, Ervin Arnold.

Arnold instructed his spies to use any means to get their evidence, including taking part in sexual activity. By April 1919 there was enough evidence to have 17 sailors arrested based on the spies’ entrapment techniques. Fifteen of the sailors were found guilty of homosexual behaviour and court-martialled. Two were given dishonourable discharges.

What turned the gay witch-hunt into a public scandal against the US navy was the arrest of the naval chaplain, Rev. Samuel Neal Kent on 31st July 1919. Rev. Kent was an Episcopalian priest who had been a military chaplain since 1917 and was appointed as assistant chaplain to the Newport naval hospital during the flu epidemic on 1918. Following the Armistice Rev. Kent remained at Newport.

Ervin Arnold and his spies had seen Rev. Kent visiting the Army and Navy YMCA daily with various men, both military and civilian. Arnold had already established that the YMCA was a regular gay meeting place and it was obvious to him that there was no other reason why Rev. Kent visited the building so often. Arnold instructed his spies to entrap the minister. Their “evidence” led to Rev. Kent’s arrest on eleven counts of “lewd and scandalous behaviour”.

It was at Rev. Kent’s trial that Arnold’s disgraceful techniques were made public. The previous trials of the 17 sailors were military and private. The testimony of Arnold’s spies and the vigour with which the prosecutors handled the case outraged the public more than the idea that an ordained priest was homosexual. Rev. Kent was one of the most respected, liked and honest people in Newport. There was no problem in gathering enough character witnesses to attest to his trusted reputation. The jury agreed, and Rev. Kent was found not guilty, mainly because Arnold’s spies acted under unlawful commands and their evidence could not be accepted. A second federal trial against Rev. Kent also found him not guilty.

By the end of the two trials the public were demanding a response from the navy. A group of clergy presented a letter to US President Woodrow Wilson denouncing the navy’s action against Rev. Kent. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt went on the offensive, claiming he was unaware of Ervin Arnold’s spies or their activities, and that adverse reaction to Kent’s trials would harm the navy’s reputation (as if they hadn’t already done so!). An investigation by the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs began, and in 1920 harshly criticised Roosevelt for his role in the scandal. By this time FDR had left the navy and entered politics, claiming personal political opposition as the reason for the Committee’s findings.

Nothing was done to recompense the sailors court-martialled, or Rev. Samuel Kent. Roosevelt carried on with his political career, refusing to make any further comment on his involvement in the scandal. Most of those accused died in obscurity. Rev. Kent’s reputation was tarnished, despite being found not guilty. His regular visits to the YMCA were seen as courting suspicion and the church gradually removed Kent’s pastoral duties over the new few years. He remained a respected member of the communities in which he lived and fulfilled several voluntary duties. He died in 1943.

The 1919 Newport navy scandal may seem a distant affair, but a hundred years later. There’s still government discrimination in the US military against a significant section of the lgbt community.

JFK : The Queer Conspiracies

History is full of events which become surrounded in myth and controversy and become centres of conspiracy theories. One event which has produced more than any other in the 20th century (apart, perhaps, from Roswell and the aliens) is remembered today – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Even though a survey carried out in 2017 found that two thirds of the American population believe that the credited assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was not acting alone, many also believe he was set up and didn’t even fire the bullets that killed the president. Several people have been accused of being Oswald’s co-conspirator or alternative assassin. Only one of them was ever put on trial, and that was a gay man from New Orleans called Clay Shaw (1913-1974).

Clay Shaw has been wronged twice. First was his arrest and trial at the instigation of the homophobic District Attorney Jim Garrison. Garrison was one of the many people who considered the official investigation into the assassination that was published by the Warren Commission in September 1964 was a whitewash and that there was a conspiracy to hide the truth.

Highly ambitious and ruthless Garrison seized on the possibility of a conspiracy to frame someone for Kennedy’s death – someone he could put on trial, thereby claiming himself to be a hero for uncovering the “truth”. To justify his own version of events he invented a “homosexual thrill-kill” at the reason behind the assassination.

Cobbling together a theory based on little or no evidence Garrison claimed Lee Harvey Oswald was a bisexual acquaintance of a New Orleans pilot called David Ferrie. During his investigations Garrison also came across the name Clay Bertrand, whom he believed was a gay man in New Orleans. This led him to assume Clay Bertrand was an alias used by Clay Shaw, a well-known businessman in New Orleans. This was all Garrison needed to fabricate his gay thrill-kill theory and prosecute Clay for Kennedy’s assassination.

Clay’s trial began in 1969. Garrison paraded a series of witnesses whose evidence contradicted each other and it took less than an hour for the jury to acquit Clay Shaw of all charges. However, the damage was already done.

Clay Shaw came from a highly respected family and had received high honours for his war service, including the French Croix de Guerre, the US Legion of Merit, and knighthoods from both France and Belgium. He became an influential businessman in New Orleans.

Another two-year trial for perjury he was alleged to have committed at his first trial, again fabricated by Garrison, was eventually thrown out, though by now Clay had used his wealth to pay for his defence. He died in 1974 of cancer. A plaque to his memory was placed on one of the buildings in the French quarter of New Orleans that he had helped to restore with his own money.

Just as his reputation seemed to be restored Oliver Stone (an egotistical homophobe I’ve never l had a high opinion of, I don’t care what anyone else thinks) produced the equally homophobic film “JFK”. Clay Shaw was portrayed as a camp, effeminate gay man who held regular sex slave parties. The truth is the opposite, except that he was a gay man, but he was discreet and anything but camp. The devious legacy Jim Garrison is alive and well in the person of Oliver Stone.

A year ago the “National Enquirer” (the spiritual home of fake news) ran a front page headline declaring “Proof! J. Edgar Hoover Ordered JFK Murder!” J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), another discreet gay man, was the head of the FBI at the time of the assassination. The “National Enquirer” weren’t the first to think the FBI and Hoover had some part in it, and nothing new was actually presented. It just presented a conspiracy theory to attract attention on the 54th anniversary.

In the 1960s being gay, or even being accused of it, was often used to justify a witch-hunt in many political scandals. The Kennedy assassination was no different. At various stages in its history several suspects have been labelled as being gay, lesbian or bisexual in order to create justification for them to be included in a conspiracy. Even Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife were called bisexual perverts purely on the fabricated links to the New Orleans gay subculture and Oswald’s wife leaving him to live with a female friend.

There will be no end to the publication of new and old conspiracies. One book published back in 1975 was called “Presumed Guilty: Lee Harvey Oswald in the Assassination of President Kennedy”. It was written by a young gay man who had become fascinated by the assassination since he was 14.

Howard Roffman, the teenager in question, bought all 26 volumes of the Warren Commission report and immersed himself in the vast amount of official documents. “Presumed Guilty” was the result of years of his research. It, too, questioned the findings of the Warren Commission.

Howard’s significance to the canon of literature concerning the Kennedy assassination is that he was the first gay man to publish a book on the subject. What he has done since is so different that you’d never guess it was the same man.

At the time “Presumed Guilty” was published Howard was a recently graduated law student. He went on to work in the US Court of Appeals as a law clerk. From there he moved into the world of media and film. And here’s where we make a spectacular leap from President Kennedy that is worthy of inclusion in my “Around the World in 80 Gays” series. In 1980 Howard Roffman became the legal adviser to Lucasfilms. In 1986 he was appointed its Vice President of Licensing and later President of Lucas Licensing. If you have bought any “Star Wars” merchandise since the 1990s thank Howard Roffman. He relaunched the Star Wars merchandising franchise in 1991, effectively creating the modern mass merchandising techniques used by every blockbuster film franchise ever since. Since the Kennedy assassination Howard’s publishing efforts have gone into photographic books – predominantly featuring naked men!

However much of Howard’s “Presumed Guilty” book will be used to further develop the truth, myths and conspiracies into what happened 55 years ago today one thing is certain. There will always be someone who will write a new book, come up with a new conspiracy theory, or finally debunk an old one. We may never know the truth, but let’s hope that any new material, including any new motion picture, will avoid the unjustifiable homophobia that surrounded so much of the original investigations.

From First to Last : Last

While there are many places around the world where homosexual activity is punishable by death we in the UK think ourselves lucky that the death penalty was lifted in 1861.

A lot of gay men executed in England may never be identified but the final ones have their names perpetuated in the nation’s memory. They were James Pratt and John Smith and they were both executed on this very day in 1835.

There isn’t a great deal of new information I can find concerning the trial as it is covered by various historians online. You can do no better than go to the website of Rictor Norton where you will find a transcript of the trial itself.

Although James Pratt and John Smith both protested their innocence they were both found guilty. Even though their executions proceeded as arranged there were calls for clemency and remission from the death sentence. This article will take a look at those appeals and the people involved in them and their attempts to change the sentence passed down at the trial.

During his sentencing the judge, Sir John Gurney (1768-1945), declared that Pratt and Smith had no hope of lodging an appeal or of being reprieved. Judge Gurney had a reputation for being independent and not susceptible to political pressure. He was, however, very severe in his judgements, particularly early in his career. Therefore his sentence and his opinion on a reprieve were not out of character.

In his later years he mellowed, relatively speaking. There is one court case where he didn’t pass the death sentence on a murderer, which he would undoubtedly have done a few years earlier. In his lifetime Judge Gurney was also known to be an extremely charitable man, giving several hundreds of pounds every year to various worthy causes.

The local magistrate who took the case of James Pratt and John Smith to trial was also charitable. He came from a family with strong humanitarian and philanthropic convictions, the Wedgwoods. Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803-1891) was the police magistrate at the Surrey Magistrates Court in Southwark, the district in which Pratt and Smith were arrested.

Wedgwood had trained as a barrister but never sought a position above that of a magistrate. He resigned this position shortly after the execution of Pratt and Smith, partly on grounds of conscience. He turned to his great passion – etymology and philology, words. He also became heavily involved in the Victorian craze of Spiritualism and séances.

After Pratt and Smith’s trial Wedgwood wrote to the Home Secretary urging him to commute the death sentence. Even though he described Pratt and Smith as “degraded creatures” he wrote that their crime was also practised by many rich men. Because rich men had the money to pay for secure private premises for their activity, or carry them out in the privacy of their large properties, they escaped the punishment that went to poorer people like Pratt and Smith, whose only crime was that they were caught. Wedgwood wrote that the crime of consensual sex between men does no harm to anyone, and in that respect was the only harmless crime punishable by death.

The Home Secretary who received Wedgwood’s letter was Lord John Russell (1792-1878) who would later go on to become Prime Minister. He was an advocate of parliamentary and social reform and was the chief architect of the Reform Act 1832 which extended voting rights and redistributed parliamentary constituencies to reflect the population movement resulting from the Industrial Revolution. There’s no real evidence of his thoughts about acts of sodomy but his career was dominated by matters affecting the whole of society rather than individuals.

Two surprising people who urged the dropping of the death sentence were the married couple who caught Pratt and Smith having sex in one of their rented rooms, George and Jane Berkshire. They put their names to a petition that was collected by friends of James Pratt. Even the Crown Prosecutor at the trial, Mr. Bonill, added his signature.

Various other documents and letters were prepared for a meeting of the Privy Council to be held in Brighton Pavilion, the residence of King William IV. The Privy Council met regularly to decide which appeals against convictions would receive what was called the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. The Council itself was made up of various politicians, officers of state and clergy and it was on their advice that the king would make his decision. Then, as now, the sovereign has little actual choice – the decision of the Privy Council, like parliament, is effectively binding and any sovereign who wants to keep the crown does not challenges them.

The Privy Council met on 21st November 1835 and the cases of 17 men on death row were considered. All but James Pratt and John Smith had their death sentences commuted to either imprisonment or transportation. King William IV’s personal opinions on same-sex relationships are not known, but he was a supporter of Home Secretary Lord John Russell’s parliamentary reforms.

Pratt and Smith were informed of the Privy Council’s decision several days later on the morning of their execution. Presumably, they had already guessed what the decision was when they heard the noise of the scaffold being constructed outside their jail. Hangings were rare in those days and they were the only ones awaiting execution in that jail.

James Pratt and John Smith were hanged simultaneously at 8 a.m. on Friday 27th November 1835. No one knew it at the time, because the death penalty for sodomy wasn’t lifted until 1861, that they had become the last men who would be hanged for a homosexual act in England and Wales.

From First to Last : First

These last few days of November sees the anniversaries of two events that were significant in the lgbt histories of their respective nations. In a few days I’ll cover the trial of the last men hanged for sodomy in England. Today I’m going to cover the first known trial of a man hanged for sodomy in the American colonies.

Today, when USA is celebrating Thanksgiving, we look at the period around Thanksgiving 1624 in the colony of Virginia. Most of the English colonies followed the laws of the home country. As such they adopted the Buggery Act of 1533 which set down that anyone found guilty of sodomy would be hanged. The definition of sodomy under this act was any sexual act with a man, woman or animal which involved anal intercourse. It was not an anti-gay law because it applied to everyone. Of the 162 known death sentences recorded in colonial court documents in the 17th century there are 5 which deal with same-sex sodomy. The hanging of Richard Cornish shortly after 3 January 1625 (or 1624 as it would have been regarded at the time, because New Year was in March in those days) is the first recorded.

The trial of Richard Cornish began on 30th November 1624 in the Council and General Court of Virginia, presided over by the Governor of Virginia, Sir Francis Wyatt. An accusation of sodomy and sexual assault was brought against Cornish by a fellow mariner called William Couse.

William Couse was a 19-year-old crew member on board the merchant ship “Ambrose” of which Richard Cornish was the Master. Couse testified that on the pervious 27th August Master Cornish had sexually assaulted him in his cabin. The “Ambrose” was at anchor in the James River. Master Cornish had been drinking and called for Couse to come and put a pair of clean sheets on his bed in his cabin. Couse did so, and Master Cornish climbed into bed and pleaded with young Couse to join him. Couse refused. Master Cornish got out of bed and cut off Couse’s cod-piece. The Master pushed him onto his bed and lay on top of him, kissing and hugging him, and then raped him.

The next day Master Cornish apologised to young William Couse, yet he continued to kiss him and grab the teenager’s cod-piece on several later occasions. After Couse refused further unwanted attention Master Cornish brought him up in front of the rest of the ship’s crew and forbad any of them from eating with him. Couse was then forced to cook meals for all of the crew.

Couse had intended to wait until the ship had returned to England before making any accusation against Master Cornish. Instead, perhaps due to Cornish’s persistent harassment, Couse decided to take the matter up with the local authorities. Technically, such as accusation would have been heard by the Admiralty back in England. Being such a serious offence it isn’t likely that the Governor of Virginia himself was not present to pass sentence.

The sentence of death by hanging was inevitable. We don’t have a record of the exact date when Cornish was hanged but it was after 3rd January 1625, when a fellow crew member gave his testimony, and probably before 8th February 1625, when Couse was called to help choose a new ship’s master for the Ambrose.

Of Richard Cornish himself we know very little other than his occupation and the manner of his death. He was also known by the name of Richard Williams. Naming conventions, even in the 17th century, were not fixed. The two names may indicate that he or his family came from Cornwall. Cornwall had a very strong maritime tradition at the time, and Williams was a very common name. Perhaps there were two Richard Williams’ in the English navy and the surname Cornish was used to distinguish one from the other. As a ship’s master Richard Cornish would have been older than the 19-year-old William Couse. We can assume that he was probably born before 1600. We also know that Cornish had a brother (see below).

We know almost more about the ship “Ambrose” than we do about its master. The “Ambrose” may be the same ship that later became a colonist passenger ship, one of the Winthrop Fleet of 1630.

The case of Master Cornish didn’t end with his death. Before the end of the year his brother Jeffrey became involved in the aftermath of the execution.

Jeffrey Cornish was in Virginia Colony during 1625. He discovered his brother’s fate and sought out people who could help him to clear his brother’s name and reputation. He had heard rumours that Richard has been put to death wrongly. At Dambrella Cove in Canada (now called Damariscove Harbour Island not far from Portland, Maine; Canada was a general name given at that time to the coast of New England) Jeffrey boarded the ship “The Swan” where he had obviously been told he could find someone who could shed more light on the matter. There Jeffrey spoke to several men who knew about the case, even some who were present at his brother’s trial and execution. Jeffrey swore revenge on all who had been involved in his brother’s death, including the governor. Several witnesses overheard crew members criticising the governor for ordering Master Cornish’s execution, for which they were brought before the Governor’s Council and General Court. Criticism of the governor was an offence and both crew members were punished. One had both ears cut off and the other just one ear in addition to other punishments. Jeffrey Cornish appears not to have been charged with any offence and we know no more about him.

The case of Master Richard Cornish languished in the archives until 1971 when historian Edward S. Morgan used the case to illustrate the governance of Sir Francis Wyatt. From then on it became part of lgbt heritage often referenced in lgbt articles and, more recently, websites.

Whether the execution of a convicted rapist should be commemorated or not is a matter of opinion. Capital punishment is not what I, personally, support, and I condemn the sentence of the court but can’t condone the crime. Despite what his brother Jeffrey thought there is no evidence that the case against Master Richard Cornish was fabricated.