Yea, oh Man, oh Man, oh Man, Friends and neighbors, fellow Ridiculous historians, Welcome to the show. I for one, am excited because today's episode concerns one of our favorite genres of historical individuals, the con artist flim flam Man, which our last episode did as well. We have we have a preponderance of con artists in the show, and I have no regrets about it. Who am I? I'm Ben? Who you are I'm Noel? This ridiculous history? And who's that handsome man outside of the booth? Why that devil as I live and breathe? That's super producer Casey Pegrom. Oh my goodness, gracious, I love what people say as I love a breathe. Well, it's funny too, because when you said that sound, yes, I do allow that expression. When you said that, and then the sound happened, a beautiful glint on Casey's pearly white, very straight teeth lit up the room. That's true. It's true. We Uh off Air Nolan. I spend uh a lot of time just sort of staring and Casey when we think he's not looking, you know, he always sees. Though. Yeah, I'm sorry I had to find out on air casey. You know it's fine though, it's fine. It's endearing, not creepy at all, not creepy at all. Let's make that a T shirt. We have so many ways to begin today's story to I guess one of the easiest ways to begin it would be to give a brief shout out to the king of gravity, Isaac Newton. Can we have an air horn? There we go? Yes, a boy, Isaac Newton, uh invented gravity. Beforehand it was pandemonium, and now it was nuts. Isaac Newton was an English mathematician and astronomer, a theologian uh. He was described in his day as a natural philosopher, one of the predecessors to what we would call a scientist today. He was born in December of sixteen forty two December, and he lived until uh the seventeen twenties seventy seventy seven. Today's episode does not concern his many many innovations and his scientific pursuits. It concerns something much more noir can I also point out that in his day he was a dead sexy s o B a sexual no way, He's like some of a Morrissey figure, a less problematic Morrissey figure. It's it's not too controversial to say that a lot of people are less problematic, uh than Morrissey, Right, I think that's very fair. So he did. He did, by all accounts, die a virgins, So maybe it's unfair to give him that term a sexual or ace, but he did die virgin. I put forth that he just didn't have time for that kind of shenanigans. He was occupying his time with more important pursuits, celestial pursuits and terrestrial pursuits. Yeah, it's it's true. Maybe he was just busy, sort of a tesla figure. We often hear about Isaac Newton in relation to his many many scientific pursuits as well as some of his more spiritual or esoteric pursuits. But what many of us may not know, I'll come clean what I did not know before we began researching this episode. He also Uh, he also worked as a lawman of sorts. Yeah. Now, not only allowment like a like a sleuth, like like a Batman level detective. Yeah. Yeah, that's where you put it. He took his scientific acumen and his cognitive prowess and he applied it to the problem of crime. Journey with us back to sixteen nine five, England's Royal Mint found out that they had a very very alarming problem. They had a bunch of currency in circulation, right, A large portion of that currency was fake. It was counterfeit, it was phony, and this is not a good look for the Royal meant it's not a good look for the economy at large. And the counterfeiting operations were growing increasingly sophisticated, sort of like in the Terminator franchise, when the original robots are easily distinguishable from humans, but then they get better and better and better and increasingly difficult to identify, unless we forget to mention that the man who discovered this problem of counterfeit coin was Isaac Newton himself after he was made the Warden of the Royal Mint. Not to be confused with like the Warden of the North or something, but it really does carry quite a weighty aura the term warden, you know. Yeah, yeah, oh, And we just got new business cards, and I'm kicking myself. We could have chosen some times. Do you think they would have led us to supervising warden of production? Sounds very Yeah. When I first got business cards here way way back in the day. Because I've been here forever. They allowed me to choose my own job title. Casey, you remember this because I was I was pulling everybody, and I got very close to changing my job title to a life coach or the experience like the Edge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but good. His guitar tone is very influential. I just think meeting someone and having to call them the Edge, it's a it's a preposterous expectation. He also seems like a pretty boring dude, does he just does? He's got like he is this lizz whole look. He just doesn't seem I could be wrong. I'm sure he's a great guy, but he seems like the least edgy type of dude, especially when you go by the name of the Edge. You know, nicknames are weird. And he's not hurt in anyone. I'm glad he's happy. I hope he's happy with the name. I hope he doesn't feel trapped in that Moniker. Well, I'll tell you who wasn't happy. It was Warden of the Royal Mint, Sir Isaac Newton, in the year of six when he made that shocking discovery that twenty percent of the coins that the mint was circulating were in fact at counterfeits, and he decided to set out on a fact finding expedition. Dare we say an investigation? Yes, yes we dare, because you see Newton. It turns out was quite talented as warden of the Mint, and he was able to catch quite a few counterfeiters. Yet there was one fellow very high in the world of forgery and counterfeiting, a man named William Chaloner, who kept escaping Newton's grasped time after time. William Chaloner is someone who could be the subject of Gosh, a multiple episode series all his own, and much like our friend Mr Fritz Dufkine in the previous episode, this gentleman was also something of a villainous figure um a villainous renaissance man if you will, yeah yeah, A grifter. Will Iam Challoner was born sometime in sixteen fifty to a poor family in Warwickshire, but he eventually attained great financial success through his career in counterfeiting and through his career in con artistry. He started by forging Birmingham Groats that was a English and Irish silver coin that was worth four pence, or it could also be a Scottish coin originally worth fourpence. And from that point he moved on to creating counterfeit Guinea's crowns, half crowns, bank notes, even lottery tickets. There there's one side note that we we have to get out of the way. He didn't just uh make counterfeit currency for a time. Uh, he also made and sold uh sexual aids. I'm sorry, sexual coming aids. Can we say it on the show? Come a third time? Can we say it on the show? You think dildos here? Dildos? Yeah? See, dildo was such a funny word because to too many it would be considered a swear. But it is such a silly, silly word. Yeah, it's you know, it's still somehow sounds less dirty than the phrase dongle, dongles way worse. It's so bad. But yeah, am a false thallus. Yes, there we go, Yes, a counterfeit phallus. You know what we got there. We talked about this off air, we did, and it's totally true. So he was counter Not only was he counterfeiting money, he was also a counterfeiting penis. So this is this is a funny episode for us because we had intended to record it earlier before we had to before I had to leave town for a second. And when we got back together after I came back, we had an extensive, I think what over over an hour and a half kind of quest to figure out if we had recorded this episode or not. And I think it was because of the false fallace discussion, because we talked about it so much off air that we were like, I think we maybe did do it, you know, oh yeah that And then Casey, you know, on the case to the rescue, Uh, let let us know, to our delight in fact, that we had not recorded this yet. And this is what you hear before your very ears. It was. It was hilarious because, as we do so often, Uh, the two of us couldn't figure out what we were supposed to be doing, and so we basically flamed Casey, say, please tell us what we have or have not done in Casey, by the way, thank you so much for keeping the ship on course my pleasure. Casey always on the case, always perpetually on the case. So here we are, uh. William Challenger. He is described as a willful youth with dishonest tendencies. He is originally apprenticed as a nail maker before he begins working in the thriving counterfeit industry of London. In the sixteen seventies, he purchased a largest state in the country so he could move his minting process away from the heat, away from the heat of London's law enforcement, and he had a pretty good workflow set down. He would hire middlemen who would pass the fake coins into circulation, and those guys had the tough gig in his operation because the middlemen were the ones who were often caught, and when they were caught, they were hanged yikes, yikes. Indeed, and because this was such a risky business, he garnered a reputation um sort of a Moriarty of finance, you know, shadowy kingpin. Holy crap, No, you're you're you're dead on because there is like this kind of Batman and Joker or Sherlock and Moriarty relationship between these two men. He's sort of like the one that got away the white whale, you know, for um our buddy Isaac Newton, who this guy was a thorn in his side because, like you said, he did a pretty good job of cleaning up the counterfeit scene. Um, but this this gentleman continued to slip through his fingers. Yeah. And a big part of this comes about because in the sixteen nineties English currency was moving away from purely coin based stuff two notes, bank notes and paper money. And Chaloner, although he had a lot of close calls for a long time, he avoided the law or the punishment for his crimes because the development of paper money was in advance of the laws. Cree aided to ban forging paper money. Which sounds a little bit word sality. A better way to say it is that technology will typically outpaced legislation. We're running into it in, will be running into it in the year three thousands, totally six nineties, no different, because the wheels of justice grind ever so slowly, while the wheels of commerce and progress tend to be a little more lightning quick. Yeah. And his success became his undoing because he got squarely in the crosshairs of Sir Isaac the Warden himself and Chaloner. Although he had escaped jail for numerous years and had never had to serve time, he had not escaped unscathed. He had a long paper trail of arrest and accusations, and this helped paint a picture of a guy who spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the law, and he was also a rat. Did you hear about this? No? I No, I didn't, But nobody likes a rat. Yeah. He He managed to get out of legal trouble multiple times by selling out other counterfeiters, and so of the counterfeiters that he had sold out who had been imprisoned or punished and not killed or not executed, Sir Isaac was able to question these guys and gather many people who would say, yeah, I'll go to court. I will point out that dirty rat Billy Chaloner because I want my revenge, to which Isaac said, all right, let's make it, let's make it official, let's do it. Let's make a deal. Um. He may have slipped the noose spend, but he did not slip the clink because Um Newton was able to amass enough evidence and these witness testimonies to get him locked up. But it didn't really eight could did it? No? No, he bribed the prosecution star witness, paid the witness enough money to flee to Scotland and then Chaloner was released and he accused Newton of framing an innocent man. We should step back for a second and say that Newton knows and despises Challenger at this point, because earlier Challenger had appeared before Parliamentary committee and he said that Newton was incompetent, terrible at his job, and that the ment employees were the ones responsible for the epidemic of counterfeit currency. So this is two strikes against the guy in Newton's mind, and this attack on his integrity enrages him. So he decides that he is going to play dirty as well as you would call it an old dirty pool. Uh. He began bribing crooks for information, He started making threats. He found not only challengers associates, but the wives and mistresses of his associates and started intimidating and threatening them. In short, as Judy Dutton says in an excellent article of mental Floss, Newton became the dirty Harry of his time. I don't understand that reference. Dirty Harry. Are you serious? What is he like? Isn't it? Is he a cop? I don't know what dirty Harry is, Casey, He's a cop that doesn't follow the rules. It doesn't like a lot of red tape, So he's sort of like a Serpico type figure. He asked punks if they're feeling lucky? Ye? Did? He had to be at a big giant gun, didn't Heah? Yeah? Okay, all right, casey on the case? Can we get Do you feel lucky? Punk? I know what you're thinking, Punk? You're thinking diddy fire? Six shots are only five? How to tell you the truth? If about myself and all this excitement, but being this is a forty four magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and we'll blow your head clean off? You could ask yourself question, do I feel lucky? Well? Do you? Punk? Perfect? So yes, the comparison does hold because he was operating outside of the law, and he spent two more years chasing down Chaloner and eventually his ethically questionable methods give him enough evidence to put Chaloner away for good. I picture Isaac Newton with his um, you know, very expertly quaffed ringlets, you know, and his uh kind of ruffle shirt, you know, and some sort of velvet what would you call that a doublet or something like that, like water boarding dudes, and background you know, ducking their heads and toilets and stuff like that, just to get to this guy Chaloner, you know, and who knows it could have happened just like that. This is so. But for some reason, I see you see a tildo with the intimidation tactics. Can we we should probably cut that? No, no, no, okay, let's let's let's get your mind out of the of the gutter. He clearly would have used it as more of a blackjack kind of That's what I'm thinking, because he can probably beat somebody with a tildo and it wouldn't leave a mark. I'm not like a sack of oranges. Yeah, I'm not. I mean, I'm not thinking of something sexual. I'm thinking of just an I know I was helping you out to thank you, thanks for the same. On March third, Challenger has found guilty of high treason and he is sentenced to hang the very next day. Before his sentence is carried out, several days before, Challenger has written Newton a long letter proclaiming his innocence, and we we have a little bit. We can read an excerpt, but we're not going to read the whole letter, because he writes him a series of letters that go on. And here's one example. I have been close prisoner in eleven weeks, and new friends suffered to come near me, but my little child, and I am not guilty of any crime. And why am I so strictly confined? I do not know. I doubt sir you are greatly displeased with me about the late business in parliament. But if you knew that truth, you would not be angry with me, for it was brought in by some persons against my desire. My favorite line ex or that was wonderful read Ben, is I am going to be method? It says m U r t h e r e D, but then later spells it correctly. I'm not sure this is a typo on this website, the Newton Project dot X dot a C dot UK, but I like to believe that he chose to spell murdered method. So he says I AM going to be method, although perhaps you may think not, but tis true. I shall be maddad, the worse of all murders, that is, in the face of justice with an eye. So it's like if and unless I am rescued by your merciful hands. Yes, yeah, one of the very last lines he has is braiser, consider that these persons, that those accused me, are those formerly convicted for crimes, and hope your worship nor the court will believe the suggestions of such evil persons against me. That's a very similar argument to what's going on right now. In the trial of drug kingpin el Chappo. Apparently, you know, the prosecution um had dozens and dozens of witnesses, and el Chappo's lawyer had I think, no witnesses, and el Chappo didn't even take the stand, and his lawyer's whole defense was, all of these witnesses are scum, and they're just trying to, you know, get out of their own problems. Right. The plea deals and he signs this letter. You're near murdered, humble servants, w Challoner. It's quite pitiful because he's literally begging this man for his life. He's been bested by his nemesis. Uh, and now he's behind bars awaiting the news. Yep, this did not work. No, Newton felt no pity. He even adding insult to injury. Did the ultimate snub. He did not attend the hanging. He stayed home. I guess he was busy. Maybe something was on the seventeenth century netflix. Maybe he was you know, it was probably the crown, it was probably the crowd. Maybe he was at home, uh, nursing his ego. But everybody knew his guilty. Quick correction. I said that he was supposed to be hanged the next day. He was sentenced the day after the trial, and he had a fortnight in which he wrote those letters. What is that two weeks time? Yeah, it's a period of two weeks. And over these two weeks, that's when he he writes these series of increasingly desperate letters, not just in Newton, but to Justin Railton, who is the supervising magistrate. And you can see the stages of grief. They are apparent in these letters. Of course, there are five stages. Uh. The first is denial, which he was he was obviously doing. Then there's anger, he was aggressive in these letters. Then there's bargaining, which he had done before by you know, saying he would name other people. Then there's depression, which was probably a personal thing for him, and acceptance, which I don't think he really reached. So Newton had written during Chaloner's first trial, the one where he got away that the counterfeiter had formed a quote confederacy against the warden, and Chaloner could have lived a long, honest life had he let the money and the government alone. After this is very interesting, and this is kind of sketchy. After Chaloner is executed, Newton takes all the records of his investigation and burns them. He destroys all records of his involvement in the investigation, and nowadays scholars believe that is solely to cover up the ways that he broke the law in pursuit of this counterfeitterez. So he definitely did some dirty cop tactics. He continues working in law enforcement until seventeen o three, when he turns in his badge figuratively speaking and becomes President of the Royal Society, returning to the world of academia. Yeah, live out his twilight years. But man, he had a stretch there for a while where he was something of a bad cop. Badass, wasn't he? Absolutely, And there ends the story of the counterfeit Kingpin William Chaloner, who was hanged on the twenty two March sixteen nine. The Physicist and the fat the physicist in the forger. That's wonderful. This also reminds me of a great book I would like to recommend, called The Professor and the Madman. Did we ever talk about this on on air? We had to. We did an episode related to this guy, The Oxford English Dictionary. Okay, it doesn't ring about Bennett. It's it's all a blur for me. It's it's the Professor and the Madman. Tale of murder, insanity and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Reminds me of the strange pairing we have here with Newton and Chalon Or and would you know what it inspires me to think about? Would be other stories of these great rivalries, you know what I mean, like the Untouchables and organized Crime. I wonder what other stories are out there. There's something so compelling, so um, there's a high drama to it, you know. I'd love to see a film adaptation of this rivalry. Who would play Newton? I'm going to say, Um, I don't know, maybe Benedict Cumberbatch, are you are you? Are you getting a Sherlock? I would be interested to see Steve Bushemy play either of these characters. I think he would make a fantastic Newton. I think you're right, but I honestly think he might do better as the weird, twitchy villain guy because of his eyes, uh, those Bouchemy eyes. Let us know what stories of personal crime rivalries have captured your attention, and don't just let us know. You can also let your fellow listeners know by finding us on Instagram, by finding us on Twitter, or by finding us on our Facebook community page. Ridiculous Historians. Big thanks to super producer Casey Pegram, to Alex Williams, who composed our theme, to Gabe are delightful and talented research associate, and to you Ridiculous Historians for checking out the show. Speaking of checking out, if you want to see our off air, sometimes non ridiculous history related adventures, you can follow us on our very own instagrams. I am in a burst of creativity at ben Bulan and I am at Embryonic Insider, which I don't think I've ever said this on aerror. I don't think i've said this to you in person ever. We've known each other for years, But I think that's a cool name. Thanks man. It's actually it was the name of a song in a band that I was in a kind of uh, a little bit embarrassing tidbit from my youth, kind of like a new metal type band that you cannot find anywhere, so don't even look around for We had a song called Embryonic Inside, and so I changed it to Ambryonic in that's the inside scoop. Peek behind the curtain for more inside scoops on the Ridiculous, Bizarre and hilarious Tales of Human History. Stay tuned for our upcoming episodes, and uh, swing by our website, Ridiculous History Show dot com. We're in the t shirt business, as I think we've mentioned before, and you know it's probably time for us to add some new T shirts and all. My favorite and our newest is casey on the Case. Does it exist? Yeah, yeah, it's there. It's really cool. PC. I don't think I didn't hear you slip in that other Casey on the case sound cute? No, seriously, man, you don't have to do it every time we say the phrase, but it's fine when he does. It's so good. See you next time. Fox

Yea, oh Man, oh Man, oh Man, Friends and neighbors, fellow Ridiculous historians, Welcome to the show. I for one, am excited because today's episode concerns one of our favorite genres of historical individuals, the con artist flim flam Man, which our last episode did as well. We have we have a preponderance of con artists in the show, and I have no regrets about it. Who am I? I'm Ben? Who you are I'm Noel? This ridiculous history? And who's that handsome man outside of the booth? Why that devil as I live and breathe? That's super producer Casey Pegrom. Oh my goodness, gracious, I love what people say as I love a breathe. Well, it's funny too, because when you said that sound, yes, I do allow that expression. When you said that, and then the sound happened, a beautiful glint on Casey's pearly white, very straight teeth lit up the room. That's true. It's true. We Uh off Air Nolan. I spend uh a lot of time just sort of staring and Casey when we think he's not looking, you know, he always sees. Though. Yeah, I'm sorry I had to find out on air casey. You know it's fine though, it's fine. It's endearing, not creepy at all, not creepy at all. Let's make that a T shirt. We have so many ways to begin today's story to I guess one of the easiest ways to begin it would be to give a brief shout out to the king of gravity, Isaac Newton. Can we have an air horn? There we go? Yes, a boy, Isaac Newton, uh invented gravity. Beforehand it was pandemonium, and now it was nuts. Isaac Newton was an English mathematician and astronomer, a theologian uh. He was described in his day as a natural philosopher, one of the predecessors to what we would call a scientist today. He was born in December of sixteen forty two December, and he lived until uh the seventeen twenties seventy seventy seven. Today's episode does not concern his many many innovations and his scientific pursuits. It concerns something much more noir can I also point out that in his day he was a dead sexy s o B a sexual no way, He's like some of a Morrissey figure, a less problematic Morrissey figure. It's it's not too controversial to say that a lot of people are less problematic, uh than Morrissey, Right, I think that's very fair. So he did. He did, by all accounts, die a virgins, So maybe it's unfair to give him that term a sexual or ace, but he did die virgin. I put forth that he just didn't have time for that kind of shenanigans. He was occupying his time with more important pursuits, celestial pursuits and terrestrial pursuits. Yeah, it's it's true. Maybe he was just busy, sort of a tesla figure. We often hear about Isaac Newton in relation to his many many scientific pursuits as well as some of his more spiritual or esoteric pursuits. But what many of us may not know, I'll come clean what I did not know before we began researching this episode. He also Uh, he also worked as a lawman of sorts. Yeah. Now, not only allowment like a like a sleuth, like like a Batman level detective. Yeah. Yeah, that's where you put it. He took his scientific acumen and his cognitive prowess and he applied it to the problem of crime. Journey with us back to sixteen nine five, England's Royal Mint found out that they had a very very alarming problem. They had a bunch of currency in circulation, right, A large portion of that currency was fake. It was counterfeit, it was phony, and this is not a good look for the Royal meant it's not a good look for the economy at large. And the counterfeiting operations were growing increasingly sophisticated, sort of like in the Terminator franchise, when the original robots are easily distinguishable from humans, but then they get better and better and better and increasingly difficult to identify, unless we forget to mention that the man who discovered this problem of counterfeit coin was Isaac Newton himself after he was made the Warden of the Royal Mint. Not to be confused with like the Warden of the North or something, but it really does carry quite a weighty aura the term warden, you know. Yeah, yeah, oh, And we just got new business cards, and I'm kicking myself. We could have chosen some times. Do you think they would have led us to supervising warden of production? Sounds very Yeah. When I first got business cards here way way back in the day. Because I've been here forever. They allowed me to choose my own job title. Casey, you remember this because I was I was pulling everybody, and I got very close to changing my job title to a life coach or the experience like the Edge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but good. His guitar tone is very influential. I just think meeting someone and having to call them the Edge, it's a it's a preposterous expectation. He also seems like a pretty boring dude, does he just does? He's got like he is this lizz whole look. He just doesn't seem I could be wrong. I'm sure he's a great guy, but he seems like the least edgy type of dude, especially when you go by the name of the Edge. You know, nicknames are weird. And he's not hurt in anyone. I'm glad he's happy. I hope he's happy with the name. I hope he doesn't feel trapped in that Moniker. Well, I'll tell you who wasn't happy. It was Warden of the Royal Mint, Sir Isaac Newton, in the year of six when he made that shocking discovery that twenty percent of the coins that the mint was circulating were in fact at counterfeits, and he decided to set out on a fact finding expedition. Dare we say an investigation? Yes, yes we dare, because you see Newton. It turns out was quite talented as warden of the Mint, and he was able to catch quite a few counterfeiters. Yet there was one fellow very high in the world of forgery and counterfeiting, a man named William Chaloner, who kept escaping Newton's grasped time after time. William Chaloner is someone who could be the subject of Gosh, a multiple episode series all his own, and much like our friend Mr Fritz Dufkine in the previous episode, this gentleman was also something of a villainous figure um a villainous renaissance man if you will, yeah yeah, A grifter. Will Iam Challoner was born sometime in sixteen fifty to a poor family in Warwickshire, but he eventually attained great financial success through his career in counterfeiting and through his career in con artistry. He started by forging Birmingham Groats that was a English and Irish silver coin that was worth four pence, or it could also be a Scottish coin originally worth fourpence. And from that point he moved on to creating counterfeit Guinea's crowns, half crowns, bank notes, even lottery tickets. There there's one side note that we we have to get out of the way. He didn't just uh make counterfeit currency for a time. Uh, he also made and sold uh sexual aids. I'm sorry, sexual coming aids. Can we say it on the show? Come a third time? Can we say it on the show? You think dildos here? Dildos? Yeah? See, dildo was such a funny word because to too many it would be considered a swear. But it is such a silly, silly word. Yeah, it's you know, it's still somehow sounds less dirty than the phrase dongle, dongles way worse. It's so bad. But yeah, am a false thallus. Yes, there we go, Yes, a counterfeit phallus. You know what we got there. We talked about this off air, we did, and it's totally true. So he was counter Not only was he counterfeiting money, he was also a counterfeiting penis. So this is this is a funny episode for us because we had intended to record it earlier before we had to before I had to leave town for a second. And when we got back together after I came back, we had an extensive, I think what over over an hour and a half kind of quest to figure out if we had recorded this episode or not. And I think it was because of the false fallace discussion, because we talked about it so much off air that we were like, I think we maybe did do it, you know, oh yeah that And then Casey, you know, on the case to the rescue, Uh, let let us know, to our delight in fact, that we had not recorded this yet. And this is what you hear before your very ears. It was. It was hilarious because, as we do so often, Uh, the two of us couldn't figure out what we were supposed to be doing, and so we basically flamed Casey, say, please tell us what we have or have not done in Casey, by the way, thank you so much for keeping the ship on course my pleasure. Casey always on the case, always perpetually on the case. So here we are, uh. William Challenger. He is described as a willful youth with dishonest tendencies. He is originally apprenticed as a nail maker before he begins working in the thriving counterfeit industry of London. In the sixteen seventies, he purchased a largest state in the country so he could move his minting process away from the heat, away from the heat of London's law enforcement, and he had a pretty good workflow set down. He would hire middlemen who would pass the fake coins into circulation, and those guys had the tough gig in his operation because the middlemen were the ones who were often caught, and when they were caught, they were hanged yikes, yikes. Indeed, and because this was such a risky business, he garnered a reputation um sort of a Moriarty of finance, you know, shadowy kingpin. Holy crap, No, you're you're you're dead on because there is like this kind of Batman and Joker or Sherlock and Moriarty relationship between these two men. He's sort of like the one that got away the white whale, you know, for um our buddy Isaac Newton, who this guy was a thorn in his side because, like you said, he did a pretty good job of cleaning up the counterfeit scene. Um, but this this gentleman continued to slip through his fingers. Yeah. And a big part of this comes about because in the sixteen nineties English currency was moving away from purely coin based stuff two notes, bank notes and paper money. And Chaloner, although he had a lot of close calls for a long time, he avoided the law or the punishment for his crimes because the development of paper money was in advance of the laws. Cree aided to ban forging paper money. Which sounds a little bit word sality. A better way to say it is that technology will typically outpaced legislation. We're running into it in, will be running into it in the year three thousands, totally six nineties, no different, because the wheels of justice grind ever so slowly, while the wheels of commerce and progress tend to be a little more lightning quick. Yeah. And his success became his undoing because he got squarely in the crosshairs of Sir Isaac the Warden himself and Chaloner. Although he had escaped jail for numerous years and had never had to serve time, he had not escaped unscathed. He had a long paper trail of arrest and accusations, and this helped paint a picture of a guy who spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the law, and he was also a rat. Did you hear about this? No? I No, I didn't, But nobody likes a rat. Yeah. He He managed to get out of legal trouble multiple times by selling out other counterfeiters, and so of the counterfeiters that he had sold out who had been imprisoned or punished and not killed or not executed, Sir Isaac was able to question these guys and gather many people who would say, yeah, I'll go to court. I will point out that dirty rat Billy Chaloner because I want my revenge, to which Isaac said, all right, let's make it, let's make it official, let's do it. Let's make a deal. Um. He may have slipped the noose spend, but he did not slip the clink because Um Newton was able to amass enough evidence and these witness testimonies to get him locked up. But it didn't really eight could did it? No? No, he bribed the prosecution star witness, paid the witness enough money to flee to Scotland and then Chaloner was released and he accused Newton of framing an innocent man. We should step back for a second and say that Newton knows and despises Challenger at this point, because earlier Challenger had appeared before Parliamentary committee and he said that Newton was incompetent, terrible at his job, and that the ment employees were the ones responsible for the epidemic of counterfeit currency. So this is two strikes against the guy in Newton's mind, and this attack on his integrity enrages him. So he decides that he is going to play dirty as well as you would call it an old dirty pool. Uh. He began bribing crooks for information, He started making threats. He found not only challengers associates, but the wives and mistresses of his associates and started intimidating and threatening them. In short, as Judy Dutton says in an excellent article of mental Floss, Newton became the dirty Harry of his time. I don't understand that reference. Dirty Harry. Are you serious? What is he like? Isn't it? Is he a cop? I don't know what dirty Harry is, Casey, He's a cop that doesn't follow the rules. It doesn't like a lot of red tape, So he's sort of like a Serpico type figure. He asked punks if they're feeling lucky? Ye? Did? He had to be at a big giant gun, didn't Heah? Yeah? Okay, all right, casey on the case? Can we get Do you feel lucky? Punk? I know what you're thinking, Punk? You're thinking diddy fire? Six shots are only five? How to tell you the truth? If about myself and all this excitement, but being this is a forty four magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and we'll blow your head clean off? You could ask yourself question, do I feel lucky? Well? Do you? Punk? Perfect? So yes, the comparison does hold because he was operating outside of the law, and he spent two more years chasing down Chaloner and eventually his ethically questionable methods give him enough evidence to put Chaloner away for good. I picture Isaac Newton with his um, you know, very expertly quaffed ringlets, you know, and his uh kind of ruffle shirt, you know, and some sort of velvet what would you call that a doublet or something like that, like water boarding dudes, and background you know, ducking their heads and toilets and stuff like that, just to get to this guy Chaloner, you know, and who knows it could have happened just like that. This is so. But for some reason, I see you see a tildo with the intimidation tactics. Can we we should probably cut that? No, no, no, okay, let's let's let's get your mind out of the of the gutter. He clearly would have used it as more of a blackjack kind of That's what I'm thinking, because he can probably beat somebody with a tildo and it wouldn't leave a mark. I'm not like a sack of oranges. Yeah, I'm not. I mean, I'm not thinking of something sexual. I'm thinking of just an I know I was helping you out to thank you, thanks for the same. On March third, Challenger has found guilty of high treason and he is sentenced to hang the very next day. Before his sentence is carried out, several days before, Challenger has written Newton a long letter proclaiming his innocence, and we we have a little bit. We can read an excerpt, but we're not going to read the whole letter, because he writes him a series of letters that go on. And here's one example. I have been close prisoner in eleven weeks, and new friends suffered to come near me, but my little child, and I am not guilty of any crime. And why am I so strictly confined? I do not know. I doubt sir you are greatly displeased with me about the late business in parliament. But if you knew that truth, you would not be angry with me, for it was brought in by some persons against my desire. My favorite line ex or that was wonderful read Ben, is I am going to be method? It says m U r t h e r e D, but then later spells it correctly. I'm not sure this is a typo on this website, the Newton Project dot X dot a C dot UK, but I like to believe that he chose to spell murdered method. So he says I AM going to be method, although perhaps you may think not, but tis true. I shall be maddad, the worse of all murders, that is, in the face of justice with an eye. So it's like if and unless I am rescued by your merciful hands. Yes, yeah, one of the very last lines he has is braiser, consider that these persons, that those accused me, are those formerly convicted for crimes, and hope your worship nor the court will believe the suggestions of such evil persons against me. That's a very similar argument to what's going on right now. In the trial of drug kingpin el Chappo. Apparently, you know, the prosecution um had dozens and dozens of witnesses, and el Chappo's lawyer had I think, no witnesses, and el Chappo didn't even take the stand, and his lawyer's whole defense was, all of these witnesses are scum, and they're just trying to, you know, get out of their own problems. Right. The plea deals and he signs this letter. You're near murdered, humble servants, w Challoner. It's quite pitiful because he's literally begging this man for his life. He's been bested by his nemesis. Uh, and now he's behind bars awaiting the news. Yep, this did not work. No, Newton felt no pity. He even adding insult to injury. Did the ultimate snub. He did not attend the hanging. He stayed home. I guess he was busy. Maybe something was on the seventeenth century netflix. Maybe he was you know, it was probably the crown, it was probably the crowd. Maybe he was at home, uh, nursing his ego. But everybody knew his guilty. Quick correction. I said that he was supposed to be hanged the next day. He was sentenced the day after the trial, and he had a fortnight in which he wrote those letters. What is that two weeks time? Yeah, it's a period of two weeks. And over these two weeks, that's when he he writes these series of increasingly desperate letters, not just in Newton, but to Justin Railton, who is the supervising magistrate. And you can see the stages of grief. They are apparent in these letters. Of course, there are five stages. Uh. The first is denial, which he was he was obviously doing. Then there's anger, he was aggressive in these letters. Then there's bargaining, which he had done before by you know, saying he would name other people. Then there's depression, which was probably a personal thing for him, and acceptance, which I don't think he really reached. So Newton had written during Chaloner's first trial, the one where he got away that the counterfeiter had formed a quote confederacy against the warden, and Chaloner could have lived a long, honest life had he let the money and the government alone. After this is very interesting, and this is kind of sketchy. After Chaloner is executed, Newton takes all the records of his investigation and burns them. He destroys all records of his involvement in the investigation, and nowadays scholars believe that is solely to cover up the ways that he broke the law in pursuit of this counterfeitterez. So he definitely did some dirty cop tactics. He continues working in law enforcement until seventeen o three, when he turns in his badge figuratively speaking and becomes President of the Royal Society, returning to the world of academia. Yeah, live out his twilight years. But man, he had a stretch there for a while where he was something of a bad cop. Badass, wasn't he? Absolutely, And there ends the story of the counterfeit Kingpin William Chaloner, who was hanged on the twenty two March sixteen nine. The Physicist and the fat the physicist in the forger. That's wonderful. This also reminds me of a great book I would like to recommend, called The Professor and the Madman. Did we ever talk about this on on air? We had to. We did an episode related to this guy, The Oxford English Dictionary. Okay, it doesn't ring about Bennett. It's it's all a blur for me. It's it's the Professor and the Madman. Tale of murder, insanity and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Reminds me of the strange pairing we have here with Newton and Chalon Or and would you know what it inspires me to think about? Would be other stories of these great rivalries, you know what I mean, like the Untouchables and organized Crime. I wonder what other stories are out there. There's something so compelling, so um, there's a high drama to it, you know. I'd love to see a film adaptation of this rivalry. Who would play Newton? I'm going to say, Um, I don't know, maybe Benedict Cumberbatch, are you are you? Are you getting a Sherlock? I would be interested to see Steve Bushemy play either of these characters. I think he would make a fantastic Newton. I think you're right, but I honestly think he might do better as the weird, twitchy villain guy because of his eyes, uh, those Bouchemy eyes. Let us know what stories of personal crime rivalries have captured your attention, and don't just let us know. You can also let your fellow listeners know by finding us on Instagram, by finding us on Twitter, or by finding us on our Facebook community page. Ridiculous Historians. Big thanks to super producer Casey Pegram, to Alex Williams, who composed our theme, to Gabe are delightful and talented research associate, and to you Ridiculous Historians for checking out the show. Speaking of checking out, if you want to see our off air, sometimes non ridiculous history related adventures, you can follow us on our very own instagrams. I am in a burst of creativity at ben Bulan and I am at Embryonic Insider, which I don't think I've ever said this on aerror. I don't think i've said this to you in person ever. We've known each other for years, But I think that's a cool name. Thanks man. It's actually it was the name of a song in a band that I was in a kind of uh, a little bit embarrassing tidbit from my youth, kind of like a new metal type band that you cannot find anywhere, so don't even look around for We had a song called Embryonic Inside, and so I changed it to Ambryonic in that's the inside scoop. Peek behind the curtain for more inside scoops on the Ridiculous, Bizarre and hilarious Tales of Human History. Stay tuned for our upcoming episodes, and uh, swing by our website, Ridiculous History Show dot com. We're in the t shirt business, as I think we've mentioned before, and you know it's probably time for us to add some new T shirts and all. My favorite and our newest is casey on the Case. Does it exist? Yeah, yeah, it's there. It's really cool. PC. I don't think I didn't hear you slip in that other Casey on the case sound cute? No, seriously, man, you don't have to do it every time we say the phrase, but it's fine when he does. It's so good. See you next time. Fox