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TRIAL OF MARY BLANDY
Edited By
WILLIAM ROUGHEAD
Author of "Twelve Scots Trials," "The Riddle of the Ruthvens,"
"Glengarry's Way," &c.
ILLUSTRATED
1914
[Illustration: Miss Blandy in her cell in Oxford Castle.
(_From an unpublished Sepia Drawing in the Collection of Mr. Horace
Bleackley_.)]
TO LORD DUNSANY
THIS RECORD OF GRIM REALITY
IN EXCHANGE FOR
HIS BEAUTIFUL DREAMS
PREFACE
In undertaking to prepare an account of this celebrated trial, the
Editor at the outset fondly trusted that the conviction of "the
unfortunate Miss Blandy" might, upon due inquiry, be found to have
been, as the phrase is, a miscarriage of justice. To the entertainment
of this chivalrous if unlively hope he was moved as well by the youth,
the sex, and the traditional charms of that lady, as by the doubts
expressed by divers wiseacres concerning her guilt; but a more intimate
knowledge of the facts upon which the adverse verdict rested, speedily
disposed of his inconfident expectation.
Though the evidence sheds but a partial light upon the hidden springs
of the dark business in which she was engaged, and much that should be
known in order perfectly to appreciate her symbolic value remains
obscure, we can rest assured that Mary Blandy, whatever she may have
been, was no victim of judicial error. We watch, perforce, the tragedy
from the front; never, despite the excellence of the official "book,"
do we get a glimpse of what is going on behind the scenes, nor see
beneath the immobile and formal mask, the living face; but, when the
spectacle of _The Fair Parricide_ is over, we at least are satisfied
that justice, legal and poetic, has been done.
Few cases in our criminal annals have occasioned a literature so
extensive. The bibliography, compiled by Mr. Horace Bleackley in
connection with his striking study, "The Love Philtre" (_Some
Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold_, London, 1905),--which, by his
courteous permission, is reprinted in the Appendix, enumerates no fewer
than thirty contemporary tracts, while the references to the case by
later writers would of themselves form a considerable list.
To this substantial cairn a further stone or two are here contributed.
There will be found in the Appendix copies of original MSS. in the
British Museum and the Public Record Office, not hitherto published,
relating to the case. These comprise the correspondence of Lord
Chancellor Hardwicke, Mr. Secretary Newcastle, the Solicitor to the
Treasury, and other Government officials, regarding the conduct of the
prosecution and the steps taken for the apprehension of Miss Blandy's
accomplice, the Hon. William Henry Cranstoun; a petition of "The
Noblemen and Gentlemen in the Neighbourhood of Henley-upon-Thames" as
to the issuing of a proclamation for his arrest, with the opinion
thereon of the Attorney-General, Sir Dudley Ryder; and the deposition
of the person by whose means Cranstoun's flight from justice was
successfully effected. This deposition is important as disclosing the
true story of his escape, of which the published accounts are, as
appears, erroneous. Among other matter now printed for the first time
may be mentioned a letter from the War Office to the Paymaster-General,
directing Cranstoun's name to be struck off the half-pay list; and a
letter from John Riddell, the Scots genealogist, to James Maidment,
giving some account of the descendants of Cranstoun. For permission to
publish these documents the Editor is indebted to the courtesy of Mr.
A.M. Broadley and Mr. John A. Fairley, the respective owners.
The iconography of Mary Blandy has been made a feature of the present
volume, all the portraits of her known to the Editor being reproduced.
A description of the curious satirical print, "The Scotch Triumvirate,"
will be found in the Appendix.
Of special interest is the facsimile of Miss Blandy's last letter to
Captain Cranstoun, of which the interception, like that of Mrs.
Maybrick's letter to Brierley, was fraught with such fateful
consequences. The photograph is taken from the original letter in the
Record Office, where the papers connected with the memorable Assizes in
question have but recently been lodged.
For the account of the case contained in the Introduction, the Editor
has read practically all the contemporaneous pamphlets--a tedious and
often fruitless task--and has consulted such other sources of
information as are now available. He has, however, thought well
(esteeming the comfort of his readers above his own reputation for
research) to present the product as a plain narrative, unencumbered by
the frequent footnotes which citation of so many authorities would
otherwise require--the rather that any references not furnished by the
bibliography are sufficiently indicated in the text.
Finally, the Editor would express his gratitude to Mr. Horace Bleackley
and Mr. A.M. Broadley for their kindness in affording him access to
their collections of _Blandyana_, including rarities (to quote an old
title-page) "nowhere to be found but in the Closets of the Curious,"
greatly to the lightening of his labours and the enrichment of the
result.
W.R.
8 OXFORD TERRACE,
EDINBURGH, April, 1914.
CONTENTS.
Introduction
Table of Dates
The Trial--
TUESDAY, 3RD MARCH, 1752.
The Indictment
Opening Speeches for the Prosecution.
Hon. Mr. Bathurst
Mr. Serjeant Hayward
Evidence for the Prosecution.
1. Dr. Addington
2. Dr. Lewis
3. Dr. Addington (recalled)
4. Benjamin Norton
5. Mrs. Mary Mounteney
6. Susannah Gunnell
7. Elizabeth Binfield
8. Dr. Addington (recalled)
9. Alice Emmet
10. Robert Littleton
11. Robert Harmon
12. Richard Fisher
13. Mrs. Lane
14. Mr. Lane
The Prisoner's Defence
Evidence for the Defence.
1. Ann James
2. Elizabeth Binfield (recalled)
3. Mary Banks
4. Edward Herne
5. Thomas Cawley
6. Thomas Staverton
7. Mary Davis
8. Robert Stoke
Motion by Mr. Ford to call another witness refused
Hon. Mr. Bathurst's Closing Speech for the Prosecution
Statement by the Prisoner
Mr. Baron Legge's Charge to the Jury
The Verdict
The Sentence
APPENDICES.
I. Proceedings before the Coroner relative to the Death of Mr.
Francis Blandy
II. Copies of Original Letters in the British Museum and Public
Record Office, relating to the Case of Mary Blandy
III. A Letter from a Clergyman to Miss Mary Blandy, now a prisoner
in Oxford Castle, with her Answer thereto; as also Miss Blandy's own
narrative of the crime for which she is condemned to die
IV. Miss Mary Blandy's own account of the affair between her and
Mr. Cranstoun, from the commencement of their acquaintance in the
year 1746 to the death of her father in August, 1751, with all
the circumstances leading to that unhappy event
V. Letter from Miss Blandy to a Clergyman in Henley
VI. Contemporary Advertisement of a Love Philtre
VII. Contemporary Account of the Execution of Mary Blandy
VIII. Letter from the War Office to the Paymaster-General, striking
Cranstoun's name off the Half-Pay List
IX. The Confessions of Cranstoun--
1. Cranstoun's own version of the facts
2. Captain Cranstoun's account of the Poisoning of the late
Mr. Francis Blandy
X. Extract from a Letter from Dunkirk anent the death of
Cranstoun
XI. Letter from John Biddell, the Scots genealogist, to James
Maidment, regarding the descendants of Cranstoun
XII. Bibliography of the Blandy Case
XIII. Description of the satirical print "The Scotch Triumvirate"
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Miss Blandy in her Cell in Oxford Castle Frontispiece
_From an unpublished Sepia Drawing in the Collection of Mr. Horace
Bleackley._
Facsimile of the Intercepted Letter to Cranstoun written by Mary Blandy
_From the original MS. in the Public Record Office._
Miss Blandy
_From a Mezzotint by T. Ryley, after L. Wilson, in the Collection
of Mr. A.M. Broadley._
Miss Mary Blandy in Oxford Castle Gaol
_From an Engraving in the British Museum._
Captain Cranstoun and Miss Blandy
_From an Engraving in the British Museum._
Miss Mary Blandy
_From an Engraving by B. Cole, after a Drawing for which she sat in
Oxford Castle._
Miss Molly Blandy, taken from the life in Oxford Castle
_From an Engraving in the Collection of Mr. A.M. Broadley._
Miss Mary Blandy, with scene of her Execution
_From an Engraving by B. Cole, after an original Painting._
Captain William Henry Cranstoun, with his pompous funeral procession
in Flanders
_From an Engraving by B. Cole._
The Scotch Triumvirate
_From a satirical Print in the Collection of Mr. Horace Bleackley._
MARY BLANDY.
INTRODUCTION.
In the earlier half of the eighteenth century there lived in the
pleasant town of Henley-upon-Thames, in Oxfordshire, one Francis
Blandy, gentleman, attorney-at-law. His wife, née Mary Stevens,
sister to Mr. Serjeant Stevens of Culham Court, Henley, and of
Doctors' Commons, a lady described as "an emblem of chastity and
virtue; graceful in person, in mind elevated," had, it was thought,
transmitted these amiable qualities to the only child of the
marriage, a daughter Mary, baptised in the parish church of Henley
on 15th July, 1720. Mr. Blandy, as a man of old family and a busy
and prosperous practitioner, had become a person of some importance
in the county. His professional skill was much appreciated by a
large circle of clients, he acted as steward for most of the
neighbouring gentry, and he had held efficiently for many years the
office of town-clerk.
But above the public respect which his performance of these varied
duties had secured him, Mr. Blandy prized his reputation as a man of
wealth. The legend had grown with his practice and kept pace with
his social advancement. The Blandys' door was open to all; their
table, "whether filled with company or not, was every day
plenteously supplied"; and a profuse if somewhat ostentatious
hospitality was the "note" of the house, a comfortable mansion on
the London road, close to Henley Bridge. Burn, in his _History of
Henley_, describes it as "an old-fashioned house near the White
Hart, represented in the view of the town facing the title-page" of
his volume, and "now [1861] rebuilt." The White Hart still survives
in Hart Street, with its courtyard and gallery, where of yore the
town's folk were wont to watch the bear-baiting; one of those fine
old country inns which one naturally associates with Pickwickian
adventure.
In such surroundings the little Mary, idolised by her parents and
spoiled by their disinterested guests, passed her girlhood. She is
said to have been a clever, intelligent child, and of ways so
winning as to "rapture" all with whom she came in contact. She was
educated at home by her mother, who "instructed her in the
principles of religion and piety, according to the rites and
ceremonies of the Church of England." To what extent she benefited
by the good dame's teaching will appear later, but at any rate she
was fond of reading--a taste sufficiently remarkable in a girl of
her day. At fourteen, we learn, she was mistress of those
accomplishments which others of like station and opportunities
rarely achieve until they are twenty, "if at all"; but her
biographers, while exhausting their superlatives on her moral
beauties, are significantly silent regarding her physical
attractions. Like many a contemporary "toast," she had suffered the
indignity of the smallpox; yet her figure was fine, and her
brilliant black eyes and abundant hair redeemed a face otherwise
rather ordinary. When to such mental gifts and charm of manner was
added the prospect of a dower of ten thousand pounds--such was the
figure at which public opinion put it, and her father did not deny
that gossip for once spoke true--little wonder that Mary was
considered a "catch" as well by the "smarts" of the place as by the
military gentlemen who at that time were the high ornaments of
Henley society.
Mr. Blandy, business-like in all things, wanted full value for his
money; as none of Mary's local conquests appeared to promise him an
adequate return, he reluctantly quitted the pen and, with his wife
and daughter, spent a season at Bath, then the great market-place of
matrimonial bargains. "As for Bath," Thackeray writes of this
period, "all history went and bathed and drank there. George II. and
his Queen, Prince Frederick and his Court, scarce a character one
can mention of the early last century but was seen in that famous
Pump Room, where Beau Nash presided, and his picture hung between
the busts of Newton and Pope." Here was famous company indeed for an
ambitious little country attorney to rub shoulders with in his hunt
for a son-in-law. It is claimed for Miss Blandy by one of her
biographers that her vivacity, wit, and good nature were such as to
win for her an immediate social success; and she entered into all
the gaieties of the season with a heart unburdened by the "business"
which her father sought to combine with pleasures so expensive. She
is even said to have had the honour of dancing with the Prince of
Wales. Meanwhile, the old gentleman, appearing "genteel in dress"
and keeping a plentiful table, lay in wait for such eligible
visitors as should enter his parlour.
The first to do so with matrimonial intent was a thriving young
apothecary, but Mr. Blandy quickly made it plain that Mary and her
£10,000 were not to be had by any drug-compounding knave who might
make sheep's eyes at her, and the apothecary returned to his
gallipots for healing of his bruised affections. His place was taken
by Mr. H----, a gentleman grateful to the young lady and personally
desirable, but of means too limited to satisfy her parents' views, a
fact conveyed by them to the wooer "in a friendly and elegant
manner," which must have gone far to assuage his disappointment. The
next suitor for "this blooming virgin," as her biographer names her,
had the recommendation of being a soldier. Mr. T----, too, found
favour with the damsel. His fine address was much appreciated by her
mamma, who, being a devotee of fashion, heartily espoused his cause;
but again the course of true love was barred by the question of
settlements as broached by the old lawyer, and the man of war
"retired with some resentment." There was, however, no lack of
candidates for Mary's hand and dower. Captain D---- at once stepped
into the breach and gallantly laid siege to the fair fortress. At
last, it seemed Cupid's troublesome business was done; the captain's
suit was agreeable to all parties, and the couple became engaged.
Mary's walks with her lover in the fields of Henley gave her, we
read, such exquisite delight that she frequently thought herself in
heaven. But, alas, the stern summons of duty broke in upon her
temporary Eden: the captain was ordered abroad with his regiment on
active service, and the unlucky girl could but sit at home with her
parents and patiently abide the issue.
Among Mr. Blandy's grand acquaintances was General Lord Mark Kerr,
uncle of Lady Jane Douglas, the famous heroine of the great Douglas
Cause. His lordship had taken at Henley a place named "The
Paradise," probably through the agency of the obsequious attorney,
whose family appear to have had the _entrée_ to that patrician
abode. Dining with her parents at Lord Mark's house in the summer of
1746, Mary Blandy encountered her fate. That fate from the first
bore but a sinister aspect. Among the guests was one Captain the
Hon. William Henry Cranstoun, a soldier and a Scot, whose
appearance, according to a diurnal writer, was unprepossessing. "In
his person he is remarkably ordinary, his stature is low, his face
freckled and pitted with the smallpox, his eyes small and weak, his
eyebrows sandy, and his shape no ways genteel; his legs are clumsy,
and he has nothing in the least elegant in his manner." The moral
attributes of this ugly little fellow were only less attractive than
his physical imperfections. "He has a turn for gallantry, but Nature
has denied him the proper gifts; he is fond of play, but his cunning
always renders him suspected." He was at this time thirty-two years
of age, and, as the phrase goes, a man of pleasure, but his militant
prowess had hitherto been more conspicuous in the courts of Venus
than in the field of Mars. The man was typical of his day and
generation: should you desire his closer acquaintance you will find
a lively sketch of him in _Joseph Andrews_, under the name of Beau
Didapper.
If Mary was the Eve of this Henley "Paradise," the captain clearly
possessed many characteristics of the serpent. As First-Lieutenant
of Sir Andrew Agnew's regiment of marines, he had been "out"--on the
wrong side, for a Scot--in the '45, and the butcher Cumberland
having finally killed the cause at Culloden on 16th April, this
warrior was now in Henley beating up recruits to fill the vacancies
in the Hanoverian lines caused by the valour of the "rebels." Such a
figure was a commonplace of the time, and Mr. Blandy would not have
looked twice at him but for the fact that it appeared Lord Mark was
his grand-uncle. The old lawyer, following up this aristocratic
scent, found to his surprise and joy that the little lieutenant,
with his courtesy style of captain, was no less a person than the
fifth son of a Scots peer, William, fifth Lord Cranstoun, and his
wife, Lady Jane Kerr, eldest daughter of William, second Marquis of
Lothian. True, he learned the noble union had been blessed with
seven sons and five daughters; my Lord Cranstoun had died in 1727,
and his eldest son, James, reigned in his stead. The captain, a very
much "younger" son, probably had little more than his pay and a fine
assortment of debts; still, one cannot have everything. The rights
of absent Captain D---- were forgotten, now that there was a chance
to marry his daughter to a man who called the daughter of an Earl
grandmother, and could claim kinship with half the aristocracy of
Scotland; and Mr. Blandy frowned as he called to mind the
presumption of the Bath apothecary.
How far matters went at this time we do not know, for Cranstoun left
Henley in the autumn and did not revisit "The Paradise" till the
following summer. Meanwhile Captain D---- returned from abroad, but
unaccountably failed to communicate with the girl he had the year
before so reluctantly left behind him. Mary's uncles, "desirous of
renewing a courtship which they thought would turn much to the
honour and benefit of their niece," intervened; but Captain D----,
though "polite and candid," declined to renew his pretensions, and
the affair fell through. Whether or not he had heard anything of the
Cranstoun business does not appear.
According to Miss Blandy's _Own Account_, it was not until their
second meeting at Lord Mark Kerr's in the summer of 1747 that the
patrician but unattractive Cranstoun declared his passion. She also
states that in doing so he referred to an illicit entanglement with
a Scottish lady, falsely claiming to be his wedded wife, and that
she (Mary) accepted him provisionally, "till the invalidity of the
pretended marriage appeared to the whole world." But here, as we
shall presently see, the fair authoress rather antedates the fact.
Next day Cranstoun, formally proposing to the old folks for their
daughter's hand, was received by them literally with open arms,
henceforth to be treated as a son; and when, after a six weeks'
visit to Bath in company with his gouty kinsman, the captain
returned to Henley, it was as the guest of his future father-in-law,
of whose "pious fraud" in the matter of the £10,000 dowry; despite
his shrewdness, he was unaware. Though the sycophantic attorney
would probably as lief have housed a monkey of lineage so
distinguished, old Mrs. Blandy seems really to have adored the foxy
little captain for his _beaux yeux_. Doubtless he fooled the dame to
the top of her bent. For a time things went pleasantly enough in the
old house by the bridge. The town-clerk boasted of his noble quarry,
the mother enjoyed for the first time the company and conversation
of a man of fashion, and Mary renewed amid the Henley meadows those
paradisiacal experiences which formerly she had shared with
faithless Captain D----. But once more her happiness received an
unexpected check. Lord Mark Kerr, a soldier and a gentleman,
becoming aware of the footing upon which his graceless grand-nephew
was enjoying the Blandys' hospitality, wrote to the attorney the
amazing news that his daughter's lover already had a wife and child
living in Scotland.
The facts, so far as we know them, were these. On 22nd May, 1744,
William Henry Cranstoun was privately married at Edinburgh to Anne,
daughter of David Murray, merchant in Leith, a son of the late Sir
David Murray of Stanhope, Baronet. As the lady and her family were
Jacobite and Roman Catholic, the fact of the marriage was not
published at the time for fear of prejudicing the gallant
bridegroom's chances of promotion. The couple lived together "in a
private manner" for some months, and in November the bride returned
to her family, while the captain went to London to resume his
regimental duties. They corresponded regularly by letter. Cranstoun
wrote to his own and the lady's relatives, acknowledging that she
had been his wife since May, but insisting that the marriage should
still be kept secret; and on learning that he was likely to become a
father, he communicated this fact to my Lord, his brother. Lady
Cranstoun invited her daughter-in-law to Nether Crailing, the family
seat in Roxburghshire, there to await the interesting event, but the
young wife, fearing that Presbyterian influences would be brought to
bear upon her, unfortunately declined, which gave offence to Lady
Cranstoun and aroused some suspicion regarding the fact of the
marriage. At Edinburgh, on 19th February, 1745, Mrs. Cranstoun gave
birth to a daughter, who was baptised by a minister of the kirk in
Newbattle, according to one account, in presence of members of both
parents' families; and, by the father's request, one of his brothers
held her during the ceremony. In view of these facts it must have
required no common effrontery on the part of Cranstoun to disown his
wife and child, as he did in the following year. The country being
then in the throes of the last Jacobite rising, and his wife's
family having cast in their lot with Prince Charlie, our gallant
captain perceived in these circumstances a unique opportunity for
ridding himself of his marital ties. The lady was a niece of John
Murray of Broughton, the Prince's secretary who served the cause so
ill; her brother, the reigning baronet, was taken prisoner at
Culloden, tried at Carlisle, and sentenced to death, but owing to
his youth, was reprieved and transported instead; so Cranstoun
thought the course comparatively clear. His position was that Miss
Murray had been his mistress, and that although he had promised to
marry her if she would change her religion for his own purer
Presbyterian faith, and as the lady refused to do so, he was
entirely freed from his engagement. With cynical impudence he
explained his previous admission of the marriage as due to a desire
to "amuse" her relatives and save her honour. In October, 1746, his
wife, by the advice of her friends and in accordance with Scots
practice, raised in the Commissary Court at Edinburgh an action of
declarator of marriage against her perfidious spouse, and the case
was still pending before the Commissaries when Lord Mark Kerr, as we
have seen, "gave away" his grand-nephew to the Blandys.
The old attorney was justly incensed at the unworthy trick of which
he had been the victim. He had designed, indeed, on his own account,
a little surprise for his son-in-law in the matter of the mythical
dower, but that was another matter; so, in all the majesty of
outraged fatherhood, he sought an interview with his treacherous
guest. That gentleman, whose acquaintance with "tight corners" was,
doubtless, like Mr. Waller's knowledge of London, extensive and
peculiar, rose gallantly to the occasion. A firm believer in the
£10,000 _dot_, he could not, of course, fully appreciate the moral
beauty of Mr. Blandy's insistence on the unprofitableness of deceit;
but, taxed with being a married man, "As I have a soul to be saved,"
swore he, "I am not, nor ever was!" The lady had wilfully
misrepresented their equivocal relations, and the proceedings in the
Scottish Courts meant, vulgarly, blackmail. Both families knew the
true facts, and Lord Mark's interference was the result of an old
quarrel between them, long since by him buried in oblivion, but on
account of which his lordship, as appeared, still bore him a grudge.
The action would certainly be decided in his favour, when nothing
more would be heard of Miss Murray and her fraudulent claims. The
affair was, no doubt, annoying, but such incidents were not viewed
too seriously by people of fashion--here the captain would
delicately take a pinch, and offer his snuff-box (with the Cranstoun
arms: _gules_, three cranes _argent_) to the baffled attorney.
On the receipt of Lord Mark's letter, Mrs. Blandy, womanlike,
believed the worst: "her poor Polly was ruined." But her sympathies
were so far enlisted on behalf of the fascinating intended that she
eagerly clutched at any explanation, however lame, which would put
things upon the old footing. She proved a powerful advocate; and, in
the end, Mr. Blandy, accepting his guest's word, allowed the
engagement to continue in the meantime, until the result of the
legal proceedings should be known. He was as loath to forego the
chance of such an aristocratic connection as was his wife to part
from so "genteel" a friend; while Mary Blandy--well, the damsels of
her day were not morbidly nice in such matters, more than once had
the nuptial cup eluded her expectant lips, _enfin_, she was nearing
her thirtieth year: such an opportunity, as Mr. Bunthorne has it,
might not occur again. With the proverbial blindness of those
unwilling to see, the old man did nothing further in regard to Lord
Mark Kerr's communication; that nobleman, annoyed at the
indifference with which his well-meant warning had been received,
forbade his kinsman the house, and the Blandys were thus deprived of
their only means of knowledge as to the doings of their ambiguous
guest.
For the movements of that gentleman from this time until the first
"date" in the case, August, 1750, we must rely mainly upon the
narrative given by his fair fiancée in her _Own Account_, and,
unfortunately, after the manner of her sex, she is somewhat careless
of dates. This first visit of Cranstoun lasted "five or six
months"--from the autumn of 1747 till the spring of 1748--when he
went to London on the footing that Mary, with her father's
permission, should "stay for him" till the "unhappy affair" with his
_soi-disant_ spouse was legally determined. Pending this desired
result, the lovers maintained a vigorous correspondence.
Sometime after his departure, Mrs. Blandy and her daughter went on a
visit to Turville Court, the house of a friend named Mrs. Pocock, of
whom we shall hear again. While there, the old lady became suddenly,
and as was at first feared fatally, ill. Her constant cry, according
to Mary, was, "Let Cranstoun be sent for," and no sooner had that
insignificant warrior posted from Southampton to the sick-room than
the patient began to mend. She declared, now that he had come, she
would soon be well, and refused to take her medicines from any hand
but his. Mr. Blandy, also summoned in haste, was much out of humour
at "the great expense" incurred, and proposed forthwith to take his
wife home, where "neither the physician's fees nor the apothecary's
journeys could be so expensive"; and whenever the invalid was able
to travel, the whole party, including the indispensable captain,
returned to Henley. On the strength of the old lady's continued
illness, Cranstoun contrived to "put in" another six months' free
board and lodging under the Blandys' hospitable roof, until his
regiment was "broke" at Southampton, when he set out for London.
During this visit, says Mary, her father was sometimes "very rude"
to his guest, which, in the circumstances, is not surprising.
Meanwhile, on 1st March, 1748, the Commissary Court had decreed
William Henry Cranstoun and Anne Murray to be man and wife and the
child of the marriage to be their lawful issue, and had decerned the
captain to pay the lady an annuity of £40 sterling for her own
aliment and £10 for their daughter's, so long as she should be
maintained by her mother, and further had found him liable in
expenses, amounting to £100. The proceedings disclose a very ugly
incident. Shortly after leaving his wife, as before narrated,
Cranstoun wrote to her that his sole chance of promotion in the Army
depended on his appearing unmarried, and with much persuasion he at
length prevailed upon her to copy a letter, framed by him, to the
effect that she had never been his wife. Once possessed of this
document in her handwriting, the little scoundrel sent copies of it
to his own and his wife's relatives in Scotland, whereby she
suffered much obloquy and neglect, and when that unhappy lady raised
her action of declarator, with peculiar baseness he lodged the
letter in process. Fortunately, she had preserved the original
draft, together with her faithless husband's letters thereanent.
This judgment was, for the gallant defender, now on half-pay, a
veritable _débâcle_, and we may be sure that the confiding Blandys
would have heard no word of it from him; but Mrs. Cranstoun, having
learned something of the game her spouse was playing at Henley,
herself wrote to Mr. Blandy, announcing the decision of the
Commissaries and sending for his information a copy of the decree in
her favour. This, surely, should have opened the eyes even of a
provincial attorney, but Cranstoun, while admitting the fact,
induced him to believe, the wish being father to the thought, that
the Court of first instance, as was not unprecedented, had erred,
and that he was advised, with good hope of success, to appeal
against the judgment to the Court of Session. Finally to dispose of
the captain's legal business, it may now be said that the appeal was
in due course of time dismissed, and the decision of the
Commissaries affirmed. Thus the marriage was as valid as Scots law
could make it. True, as is pointed out by one of his biographers, he
might have appealed to the House of Lords, "but did not, as it
seldom happens that they reverse a decree of the Lords of Session!"
Nowadays, we may assume, Cranstoun would have taken the risk. The
result of this protracted litigation was never known to Mr. Blandy.
In the spring of 1749, "a few months" after Cranstoun's departure,
Miss Blandy and her mother went to London for the purpose of taking
medical advice as to the old lady's health, which was still
unsatisfactory. They lived while in town with Mrs. Blandy's brother,
Henry Stevens, the Serjeant, in Doctors' Commons. Cranstoun, with
whom Mary had been in constant correspondence, waited upon the
ladies the morning after their arrival, and came daily during their
visit. On one occasion, Mary states, he brought his elder brother,
the reigning baron, to call upon them. This gentleman was James,
sixth Lord Cranstoun, who had succeeded to the title on the death of
his father in 1727. What was his lordship's attitude regarding the
"perplexing affair" in Scotland she does not inform us; but Mr.
Serjeant Stevens refused to countenance the attentions of the
entangled captain. Mrs. Blandy wept because her brother would not
invite Cranstoun to dinner, and it was arranged that, to avoid
"affronts," she should receive the captain's visits in her own room.
But her friend Mrs. Pocock of Turville Court had a house in St.
James's Square. "Hither Mr. Cranstoun perpetually came," says Mary,
"when he understood that I was there;" so they were able to dispense
with the Serjeant's hospitality. One day she and her mother were
bidden to dine at Mrs. Pocock's, to meet my Lord Garnock (the future
Lord Crauford). Cranstoun and their hostess called for them in a
coach, and in the Strand whom should the party encounter but Mr.
Blandy, come to town on business. "For God's sake, Mrs. Pocock, what
do you with this rubbish?" cried the attorney, stopping the coach.
"Rubbish!" quoth the lady, "Your wife, your daughter, and one who
may be your son?" "Ay," replied the old man, "They are very well
matched; 'tis a pity they should ever be asunder!" "God grant they
never may," simpered the ugly lover; "don't you say amen, papa?" But
amen, as appears, stuck in Mr. Blandy's throat: he declined Mrs.
Pocock's invitation to join them, and shortly thereafter returned to
Henley.
During this visit to town Mary Blandy states that Cranstoun proposed
a secret marriage "according to the usage of the Church of
England"--apparently with the view of testing the relative strength
of the nuptial knot as tied by their respective Churches. Mary, with
hereditary caution, refused to make the experiment unless an opinion
of counsel were first obtained, and Cranstoun undertook to submit
the point to Mr. Murray, the Solicitor-General for Scotland.
Whatever view, if any, that learned authority expressed regarding so
remarkable an expedient, Mary heard no more of the matter; but in
Cranstoun's _Account_ the marriage is said to have taken place at
her own request, "lest he should prove ungrateful to her after so
material an intimacy." How "material" in fact was the intimacy
between them at this time we can only conjecture.
Mrs. Blandy seems to have made the most of her visit to the
metropolis, for, according to her daughter, she had contracted debts
amounting to forty pounds, and as she "durst not" inform Mr. Blandy,
she borrowed that sum from her obliging future son-in-law. By what
means the captain, in the then state of his finances, came by the
money Mary fails to explain. Being thus, in a pecuniary sense, once
more afloat, the ladies, taking grateful leave of Cranstoun, went
home to Henley.
We hear nothing further of their doings until some six months after
their return, when on Thursday, 28th September 1749, Mrs. Blandy
became seriously ill. Mr. Norton, the Henley apothecary who attended
the family, was sent for, and her brother, the Rev. John Stevens, of
Fawley, who, "with other country gentlemen meeting to bowl at the
Bell Inn," chanced then to be in the town, was also summoned. It was
at first hoped that the old lady would rally as on the former
occasion but she gradually grew worse, notwithstanding the
attentions of the eminent Dr. Addington, brought from Reading to
consult upon the case. Her husband, her daughter, and her two
brothers were with her until the end, which came on Saturday, 30th
September. To the last the dying woman clung to her belief in the
good faith of her noble captain: "Mary has set her heart upon
Cranstoun; when I am gone, let no one set you against the match,"
were her last words to her husband. He replied that they must wait
till the "unhappy affair in Scotland" was decided. The complaint of
which Mrs. Blandy died was, as appears, intestinal inflammation,
but, as we shall see later, her daughter was popularly believed to
have poisoned her. However wicked Mary Blandy may have been, she
well knew that by her mother's death she and Cranstoun lost their
best friend. An old acquaintance and neighbour of Mrs. Blandy, one
Mrs. Mounteney, of whom we shall hear again, came upon a visit to
the bereaved family. Mrs. Blandy, on her deathbed, had commended
this lady to her husband, in case he should "discover an inclination
to marry her"--she already was Mary's godmother; but Mrs. Mounteney
was destined to play another part in the subsequent drama.
Miss Blandy broke the sad news by letter to her lover in London, and
pressed him to come immediately to Henley; but the gallant officer
replied that he was confined to the house for fear of the bailiffs,
and suggested the propriety of a remittance from the mistress of his
heart. Mary promptly borrowed forty pounds from Mrs. Mounteney,
fifteen of which she forwarded for the enlargement of the captain,
who, on regaining his freedom, came to Henley, where he remained
some weeks. Francis Blandy was much affected by the loss of his
wife. At first he seems to have raised no objection to Cranstoun's
visit, but soon Mary had to complain of the "unkind things" which
her father said both to her lover and herself. There was still no
word from Scotland, except a "very civil" letter of condolence from
my Lady Cranstoun, accompanied by a present of kippered
salmon--apparently intended as an antidote to grief; but though the
old man was gratified by such polite attentions, his mind was far
from easy. He was fast losing all faith in the vision of that
splendid alliance by which he had been so long deluded, and did not
care to conceal his disappointment from the person mainly
responsible.
On this visit mention was first made by Cranstoun of the fatal
powder of which we shall hear so much. Miss Blandy states that,
_apropos_ to her father's unpropitious attitude, her lover
"acquainted her of the great skill of the famous Mrs. Morgan," a
cunning woman known to him in Scotland, from whom he had received a
certain powder, "which she called love-powders"--being, as appears,
the Scottish equivalent to the _poculum amatorium_ or love philtre
of the Romans. Mary said she had no faith in such things, but
Cranstoun assured her of its efficacy, having once taken some
himself, and immediately forgiven a friend to whom he had intended
never to speak again. "If I had any of these powders," said he, "I
would put them into something Mr. Blandy should drink." Such is
Mary's account of the inception of the design upon her father's
love--or life. There for the time matters rested.
"Before he left Henley for the last time," writes Lady Russell, to
whose interesting account we shall later refer, "Captain Cranstoun
made an assignation with Miss Blandy to meet her in the grounds of
Park Place, which had long been their trysting-place; and here it
was that in a walk which still goes by the name of 'Blandy's Walk,'
he first broached his diabolical plan." Park Place, according to the
same authority, had shortly before been purchased by General Conway
and Lady Ailesbury from Mr. Blandy, as "trustee" of the property.
A "dunning" letter following the impecunious captain to his peaceful
retreat alarmed the lovers, for the appearance of a bailiff in the
respectable house in Hart Street would, for Mr. Blandy, have been,
as the phrase goes, the last straw. Fortunately, Mary had retained
against such a contingency the balance of Mrs. Mounteney's loan; and
with another fifteen pounds of that lady's in his pocket, the
captain left for London to liquidate his debt.
From that time till August, 1750, the shadow of his sinister guest
did not darken the attorney's door. On the first of that month
Cranstoun wrote that he proposed to wait upon him. "He must come, I
suppose," sighed the old man, and allowed Mary to write that the
visitor would be received. Doubtless, he faintly hoped that the
Scottish difficulty was at last removed. But the captain, when he
came, brought nothing better than the old empty assurances, and his
host did not conceal how little weight he now attached to such
professions. The visit was an unpleasant one for all parties, and
the situation was rapidly becoming impossible. Mary "seldom rose
from the table without tears." Her father spent his evenings at "the
coffee-house," that he might see as little as possible of the
unwelcome guest.
One morning, Mary states, Cranstoun put some of the magic powder in
the old gentleman's tea, when, _mirabile dictu_, Mr. Blandy, who at
breakfast had been very cross, appeared at dinner in the best of
humours, and continued so "all the time Mr. Cranstoun stayed with
him"! After this, who could doubt the beneficent efficacy of the
wise woman's drug?
During one of their daily walks this singular lover informed his
betrothed that he had a secret to communicate, to wit, that over and
above the Scottish complication, "he had a daughter by one Miss
Capel" a year before he met the present object of his desires. Miss
Blandy, with much philosophy, replied that she hoped he now saw his
follies and would not repeat them. "If I do," said Cranstoun, "I
must be a villain; you alone can make me happy in this world; and by
following your example, I hope I shall be happy in the next." A day
or two afterwards, when Cranstoun was abroad, Mary, so far
anticipating her wifely duties, entered his room in order to look
out his things for the wash. She found more "dirty linen" than she
expected. In an unlocked trunk was a letter of recent date,
addressed to the gallant captain by a lady then enjoying his
protection in town. Even Miss Blandy's robust affection was not, for
the moment, able to overlook a treachery so base. She locked the
trunk, put the key in her pocket, and at the first opportunity
handed it to Cranstoun, with the remark that he should in future be
more careful of his private correspondence. A disgusting scene
ensued. For two hours the wretched little captain wept and raved,
imploring her forgiveness. On his knees, clinging to the skirts of
her gown, he swore he would not live till night unless she pardoned
his offence. Mary asked him to leave Henley at once; she would not
expose him, and their engagement "might seem to go off by degrees."
But the miserable creature conjured her by her mother's dying words
not to give him up, vowing never to repeat "the same provocations."
In the end Mary foolishly yielded; one wonders at the strength of
that abnormal passion by which she was driven to accept a position
so impossible for a decent and intelligent girl.
Soon after this incident Cranstoun was summoned to Scotland, where
his mother, Lady Cranstoun, was "extremely ill." "Good God!" cried
this admirable son, "what shall I do? I have no money to carry me
thither, and all my fortune is seized on but my half-pay!" For the
third time Miss Blandy came to the rescue, even giving him back a
miniature of his ugly countenance with which he had formerly
presented her. At six o'clock next morning he set out for the North
in a post-chaise. The old attorney rose early with good heart to
speed the parting guest, and furnished him with a half-pint bottle
of rum for the journey. Mary says they "all shed tears"; if so, hers
were the only genuine tokens of regret. As she waved good-bye to her
lover and watched the departing chaise till it was lost to view
along the London road, she little thought that, although his
sinister influence would remain with her to the end, his graceless
person had passed from her sight for ever.
It was the month of November, 1750, when Cranstoun took final leave
of Henley. In October, a year after Mrs. Blandy's death, divers
curious phenomena had been observed in the old house by the bridge.
Cranstoun professed that he could get no sleep o' nights, in his
room "over the great parlour," by reason of unearthly music sounding
through the chamber after midnight, for two hours at a time. On his
informing his host of the circumstance, Mr. Blandy caustically
observed, "It was Scotch music, I suppose?" from which Miss Blandy
inferred that he was not in a good humour--though the inference
seems somewhat strained. This manifestation was varied by rappings,
rustlings, banging of doors, footfalls on the stairs, and other
eerie sounds, "which greatly terrified Mr. Cranstoun." The old man
was plainly annoyed by these stories, though he merely expressed the
opinion that his guest was "light-headed." But when Cranstoun one
morning announced that he had been visited in the night, as the
clock struck two, by the old gentleman's wraith, "with his white
stockings, his coat on, and a cap on his head," Mr. Blandy "did not
seem pleased with the discourse," and the subject was dropped. But
Mary, mentioning these strange matters to the maids, expressed the
fear that such happenings boded no good to her father, and told how
Mr. Cranstoun had learned from a cunning woman in Scotland that they
were the messengers of death, and that her father would die within
the year.
Whatever weight might attach to these gloomy prognostications of the
mysterious Mrs. Morgan, it became obvious that from about that date
Francis Blandy's health began to fail. He was in the sixty-second
year of his age, and he suffered the combined assault of gout,
gravel, and heartburn. The state of irritation and suspense
consequent upon his daughter's relations with her lover must greatly
have aggravated his troubles. It was assumed by the prosecution, on
the ground of Mr. Blandy losing his teeth through decay, that he had
begun to manifest the effects of poison soon after Cranstoun left
Henley in November, 1750, but from the evidence given at the trial
it seems improbable that anything injurious was administered to him
until the receipt in the following April of that deadly present from
Scotland, "The powder to clean the pebbles with." Mr. Norton, the
medical man who attended him for several years, stated that the last
illness Mr. Blandy had before the fatal one of August, 1751, was in
July, 1750. The stuff that Cranstoun had put into the old
gentleman's tea in August could, therefore, have no reference to the
illness of the previous month, and certainly was not the genuine
preparation of Mrs. Morgan. If Mary Blandy were not in fact his
accomplice later, it may have been sifted sugar or something equally
simple, to induce her to believe the magic powder harmless.
Having at length got his would-be son-in-law out of the house, Mr.
Blandy determined to be fooled no further; he ordered Mary to write
to Cranstoun telling him on no account to show his face again at
Henley until his matrimonial difficulties were "quite decided."
Tears and entreaties were of no avail; like all weak characters, Mr.
Blandy, having for once put down his foot, was obdurate. This
ultimatum she duly communicated to her lover in the North; if we
could know in what terms and how replied to by him, we should solve
the riddle. Hitherto they seem to have trusted to time and the old
man's continued credulity to effect their respective ends, but now,
if Miss Blandy were to secure a "husband" and Cranstoun lay hands
upon her £10,000, some definite step must be taken. Both knew, what
was as yet unknown to Mr. Blandy, that the appeal had long since
been dismissed, and that while his wife lived Cranstoun could never
marry Mary. At any moment her father might learn the truth and
alter, by the stroke of a pen, the disposition of his fortune. That
they openly agreed to remove by murder the obstacle to their mutual
desires is unlikely. Cranstoun, as appears from all the
circumstances, was the instigator, as he continued throughout the
guiding spirit, of the plot; probably nothing more definite was said
between them than that the "love powder" would counteract the old
man's opposition; but from her subsequent conduct, as proved by the
evidence, it is incredible that Mary acted in ignorance of the true
purpose of the wise woman's prescription.