with regard to the question whether, on the assumption of his guilt,
Mary Blandy was the intelligent agent of Cranstoun or his innocent
dupe, no one who has studied the evidence against her can entertain
a reasonable doubt. Apart from the threatening and abusive language
which she applied to her father, her whole attitude towards his last
illness shows how false were her subsequent professions of
affection. She herself has disposed of the suggestion that she
really believed in the love-compelling properties of the magic
powder, though such a belief was not inconceivable, as appears from
the contemporary advertisement of a "Love Philtre," of which a copy
is printed in the Appendix. She told her dying father that if he
were injured by the powder, she was not to blame, as "it was given
her with another intent." What that "intent" was she did not then
explain, but later she informed Dr. Addington that it was to "make
him [her father] kind" to Cranstoun and herself. In the speech which
she delivered in her own defence she said, "I gave it to procure his
love"; and again, on the conclusion of Bathurst's reply, "It is said
I gave it my father to make him fond of me: there was no occasion
for that--but to make him fond of Cranstoun." In her _Narrative_ she
repeats this statement; but in her _Own Account_, written and
revised by herself, she says, "I gave it to my poor father innocent
of the effects it afterwards produced, God knows; _not so stupid as
to believe it would have that desired, to make him kind to us_; but
in obedience to Mr. Cranstoun, who ever seemed superstitious to the
last degree." Here we have an entirely fresh (if no less false)
reason assigned for the exhibition of the wise woman's drug; only,
of course, another lie, but one which, disposes of her previous
defence. Of the true qualities of the powder she had ample proof;
she warned the maid that the gruel "might do for her," she saw its
virulent effects upon Gunnell and Emmet, as well as on her father
from its first administration, while her concealment of its use from
the physician, and her destruction of the remanent portion, are
equally incompatible with belief either in its innocence or her own.
Finally, her burning of Cranstoun's letters, which, if her story was
true, were her only means of confirming it, her attempts to bribe
the servants, and her statements to Fisher and the Lanes at the
Angel, afford, in Mr. Baron Legge's phrase, "a violent presumption"
of her guilt.
Cranstoun, even at the time, did not lack apologists, who held that
Miss Blandy, herself the solo criminal, cunningly sought to involve
her guileless lover in order to lessen her own guilt. This view has
been endorsed by later authorities. Anderson, in his _Scottish
Nation_, remarks, "There does not appear to have been any grounds
for supposing that the captain was in any way accessory to the
murder"; and Mr. T.F. Henderson, in his article on Cranstoun in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_, observes, "Apart from her [Mary
Blandy's] statement there was nothing to connect him with the
murder." These writers seem to have overlooked the following
important facts:--The letter written by Cranstoun to Mary, read by
Bathurst in his opening speech, the terms of which plainly prove the
writer's complicity; and the packet rescued from the fire, bearing
in his autograph the words, "The powder to clean the pebbles with,"
which, when we remember the nature of its contents, leaves small
doubt of the sender's guilt. "A supposition," says Mr. Bleackley,
"that does not explain [these] two damning circumstances must be
baseless." The nocturnal manifestations experienced by Cranstoun,
and interpreted by his friend Mrs. Morgan as presaging Mr. Blandy's
death, must also be explained. Further, it would be interesting to
know how the defenders of Cranstoun account for the warning given
him by Mary in the intercepted letter--"Lest any accident should
happen to your letters, _take care what you write_." That this was
part of a subtle scheme to inculpate her lover will, in the
circumstances, hardly be maintained. As Mr. Andrew Lang once
remarked of a hypothesis equally untenable, "That cock won't fight."
Would Cranstoun have fled as he did from justice, and gone into
voluntary exile for life, when, if innocent, he had only to produce
Mary's letters to him in proof of the blameless character of their
correspondence? and why, when on his death those letters passed into
Lord Cranstoun's custody, did not that nobleman publish them in
vindication of his brother's honour, as he was directly challenged
to do by a pamphleteer of the day? The Crown authorities, at any
rate, as we have seen, did not share the opinion expressed by the
writers above cited; and from what was said by Mr. Justice Buller,
in the case of _George Barrington_ (Mich. 30 Geo. III., reported
Term Rep. 499), it appears that Cranstoun, for his concern in the
murder of Mr. Blandy, was prosecuted to outlawry, the learned judge
observing with reference to the form adopted on that occasion, "It
was natural to suppose groat care had been taken in settling it,
because some of the most eminent gentlemen in the profession were
employed in it."
"Alas! the record of her page will tell
That one thus madden'd, lov'd, and guilty fell.
Who hath not heard of Blandy's fatal fame,
Deplor'd her fate, and sorrow'd o'er her shame?"
Thus the author of _Henley_: A Poem (Hickman & Stapledon, 1827);
and, indeed, the frequent references to the case in the "literary
remains" of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries bear witness to
the justice of that poetic observation.
The inimitable _Letters_ of Horace Walpole contain, as might be
expected, more than one mention of this _cause célèbre_. Writing on
23rd March, 1752, to Horace Mann, he says, "There are two wretched
women that just now are as much talked of [as the two Miss
Gunnings], a Miss Jefferies and a Miss Blandy; the one condemned for
murdering her uncle, the other her father. Both their stories have
horrid circumstances; the first having been debauched by her uncle;
the other had so tender a parent, that his whole concern while he
was expiring, and knew her for his murderess, was to save her life.
It is shocking to think what shambles this country is grown!
Seventeen were executed this morning, after having murdered the
turnkey on Friday night, and almost forced open Newgate. One is
forced to travel, even at noon, as if one was going to battle." And
again, on 13th May, "Miss Blandy died with a coolness of courage
that is astonishing, and denying the fact, which has made a kind of
party in her favour; as if a woman who would not stick at parricide
would scruple a lie! We have made a law for immediate execution on
conviction of murder: it will appear extraordinary to me if it has
any effect; for I can't help believing that the terrible part of
death must be the preparation for it." The "law" regarding summary
executions to which Walpole refers is the Act already mentioned. To
Henry Seymour Conway, on 23rd June, he writes, "Since the two Misses
[Blandy and Jefferies] were hanged, and the two Misses [the
beautiful Gunnings] were married, there is nothing at all talked
of." On 28th August he writes to George Montague, "I have since been
with Mr. Conway at Park Place, where I saw the individual Mr.
Cooper, a banker, and lord of the manor of Henley, who had those two
extraordinary forfeitures from the executions of the Misses Blandy
and Jefferies, two fields from the former, and a malthouse from the
latter. I had scarce credited the story, and was pleased to hear it
confirmed by the very person: though it was not quite so remarkable
as it was reported, for both forfeitures were in the same manor."
This circumstance is noted in the _Annual Register_ for 1768, in
connection with the death of Mr. Cooper, at the age of eighty. From
the following references it would appear that the empty old house in
Hart Street had acquired a sinister reputation. On 8th November
Walpole writes to Conway, "Have the Coopers seen Miss Blandy's
ghost, or have they made Mr. Cranston poison a dozen or two more
private gentlewomen?"--the allusion being to the deaths of Mrs.
Blandy and Mrs. Pocock; and again, on 4th August, 1753, to John
Chute. "The town of Henley has been extremely disturbed with an
engagement between the ghosts of Miss Blandy and her father, which
continued so violent, that some bold persons, to prevent further
bloodshed broke in, and found it was two jackasses which had got
into the kitchen."
[Illustration: Miss Mary Blandy in Oxford Castle Gaol
(_From an Engraving in the British Museum_.)]
Walpole barely exaggerates the wholesale legal butcheries by which
the streets of London were then disgraced. "Many cartloads of our
fellow-creatures are once in six weeks carried to slaughter," says
Henry Fielding, in his _Enquiry_ (1751); and well has Mr. Whibley
described the period as "Newgate's golden age." As for Tyburn Tree,
we read in its _Annals_, for example, "1752. July 13. Eleven
executed at Tyburn."
We can only glance at one or two further instances of the diffusion
of "Blandy's fatal fame." None of the varied forms of the _Newgate
Calendar_--that criminous _Who's Who?_--fails to accord her suitable
if inaccurate notice. With other letter-writers of the time than the
genial Horace the case forms a topical subject. James Granger
reports to a reverend correspondent that "the principal subject of
conversation in these parts is the tragical affair transacted at
Henley.... It is supposed, as there is no direct and absolute proof
that she was guilty, and her friends are rich and have great
interest, that she will escape punishment." To Mrs. Delany, writing
the day after the execution, the popular heroine "appeared very
guilty by her trial," but we learn that Lady Huntingdon had written
a letter to Miss Blandy after her conviction. On 22nd April, 1752,
Miss Talbot writes to Mrs. Carter, who thought Mary had been "too
severely judged," that "her hardiness in guilt" was shocking to
think of. "Let me tell you one fact that young Goosetree, the
lawyer, told to the Bishop of Gloucester," she writes, with
reference to Miss Blandy's repeated statement that she never
believed her father a rich man. "This Goosetree visited her in jail
as an old acquaintance. She expressed to him great amazement at her
father's being no richer, and said she had no notion but he must
have been worth £10,000. Mr. Goosetree prudently told her the less
she said about that the better, and she never said it afterwards,
but the contrary." Miss Talbot adds that certain letters in Lord
Macclesfield's hands "falsify others of her affirmations." By 5th
May, 1753, Mrs. Delany writes, "We are now very full of talk about
Eliza Canning."
As time goes on the tragedy of Henley, though gradually becoming a
tradition, is still susceptible of current allusion. John Wilkes,
writing from Bath to his daughter on 3rd January, 1779, regarding a
lady of their acquaintance who proposed to keep house for a certain
doctor, remarks "that he is sure it could not have lasted long, for
she would have poisoned him, as Miss Blandy did her father, and
forged a will in her own favour"; but Tate Wilkinson, in his
_Memoirs_, observes, "Elizabeth Canning, Mary Squires, the gipsy,
and Miss Blandy were such universal topics in 1752 that you would
have supposed it the business of mankind to talk only of them; yet
now, in 1790, ask a young man of twenty-five or thirty a question
relative to these extraordinary personages, and he will be puzzled
to answer, and will say, 'What mean you by enquiring? I do not
understand you,'" So quickly had the "smarts" of the new generation
forgotten the "fair Blandy" of their fathers' toasts. To make an end
of such quotations, which might indefinitely be multiplied, we shall
only refer the reader to Lady Russell's _Three Generations of
Fascinating Women_ (London: 1901), for good reading _passim_, and
with special reference to her account of the interest taken in the
case by Lady Ailesbury of Park Place, who "was related to the
instigator of the crime," and, believing in Mary's innocence, used
all her influence to obtain a pardon. To Mr. Horace Bleackley's
brilliant study of the case we have already in the Preface referred.
It may, in closing, be worth while to remind the student of such
matters that the year with which we have had so much concern was in
other respects an important one in the annals of crime. On 14th May,
1752, the "Red Fox," Glenure, fell by an assassin's bullet in the
wood of Lettermore, which fact resulted in the hanging of a
guiltless gentleman and, in after years, more happily inspired an
immortal tale; while on 1st January, 1753, occurred the
disappearance of Elizabeth Canning, that bewildering damsel whose
mission it was to baffle her contemporaries and to set at nought the
skill of subsequent inquirers.
Well, we have learned all that history and tradition has to tell us
about Mary Blandy; but what do we really know of that sombre soul
that sinned and suffered and passed to its appointed place so long
ago? A few "facts," some "circumstances"--which, if we may believe
the dictum of Mr. Baron Legge, cannot lie; and yet she remains for
us dark and inscrutable as in her portrait, where she sits calmly in
her cell, preparing her false _Account_ for the misleading of future
generations. Like her French "parallel," Marie-Madeleine de
Brinvilliers, like that other Madeleine of Scottish fame, she leaves
us but a catalogue of ambiguous acts; her secret is still her own.
If only she had been the creature of some great novelist's fancy,
how intimately should we then have known all that is hidden from us
now; imagine her made visible for us through the exquisite medium of
Mr. Henry James's incomparable art--the subtle individual threads
all cunningly combined, the pattern wondrously wrought, the colours
delicately and exactly shaded, until, in the rich texture of the
finished tapestry, the figure of the woman as she lived stood
perfectly revealed.
Leading Dates In the Blandy Case.
1744.
22 May--Marriage of Cranstoun and Anne Murray.
1745.
19 February--Birth of their daughter.
1746.
August--Cranstoun meets Mary Blandy at Lord Mark Kerr's.
October--Mrs. Cranstoun takes proceedings in Commissary Court.
1747.
August--Second meeting of Cranstoun and Mary. Cranstoun visits the
Blandys and stays six months.
1748.
January--Cranstoun returns to London.
1 March--Cranstoun's marriage upheld by the Commissary Court.
May--Mrs. Blandy's illness at Turville Court. Cranstoun pays a
second six-months' visit to the Blandys.
December--Cranstoun's regiment "broke" at Southampton. He returns
to London.
1749.
March--Mrs. Blandy and Mary visit Mr. Sergeant Stevens in Doctors'
Commons.
28 September--Mrs. Blandy taken ill after her return home.
30 September--Death of Mrs. Blandy.
1750.
August--Cranstoun returns to Henley. Puts powder in Mr. Blandy's tea.
October--Cranstoun professes to hear nocturnal music, &c.
November--Cranstoun leaves Henley for the last time.
1751.
April--Cranstoun writes from Scotland to Mary that he has seen Mrs.
Morgan and will send powder with pebbles.
June--Powder and pebbles received by Mary, with directions to put
the powder in tea. Mr. Blandy becomes unwell. Gunnell and Emmet
ill after drinking his tea.
18 July--Cranstoun writes to Mary suggesting she should put the
powder in gruel.
4 August--Gunnell makes gruel in pan by Mary's orders.
5 August--Mary seen stirring gruel in pantry. Mr. Blandy taken
seriously ill in the night.
6 August--Mr. Norton, the apothecary, called in. Gruel warmed
for Mr. Blandy's supper.
7 August--Emmet eats what was left the night before, and is taken
ill. Mary orders the remains of the gruel to be warmed. Gunnell
and Binfield notice white sediment in pan and lock it up.
8 August--Gunnell and Binfield take pan to Mrs. Mounteney, who
delivers it to Mr. Norton.
9 August--Mr. Stevens, of Fawley, arrives and hears suspicions.
10 August--Gunnell tells Mr. Blandy of suspicions. Mary burns
papers and packet. Dr. Addington called in.
11 August--Pan and packet given to Dr. Addington. He warns Mary.
Her letter to Cranstoun intercepted.
12 August--Last interview between Mary and her father.
13 August--Mr. Blandy worse. Dr. Lewis called in. Mary confined to
her room.
14 August--Death of Mr. Blandy. Mary attempts to bribe Harmon and
Binfield to effect her escape.
15 August--Flight of Mary. Coroner's inquest. Mary apprehended.
17 August--Mary removed to Oxford Castle.
4 September--Cranstoun escapes to Calais.
1752.
2 March--Grand Jury find a True Bill against Mary Blandy.
3 March--Trial at Oxford Assizes. Prisoner convicted and sentenced
to death.
6 March--Execution of Mary Blandy.
2 December--Death of Cranstoun.
THE TRIAL
AT THE ASSIZES HELD AT OXFORD FOR THE COUNTY OF OXFORD.
TUESDAY, 3RD MARCH, 1752.
_Judges_--
THE HONOURABLE HENEAGE LEGGE, ESQ., AND SIR SYDNEY STAFFORD SMYTHE,
KNT., Two of the Barons of His Majesty's Court of Exchequer.
_Counsel for the Crown_--
The Honourable Mr. BATHURST.
Mr. Serjeant HAYWARD.
The Honourable Mr. BARRINGTON.
Mr. HAYES.
Mr. NARES.
Mr. AMBLER.
_Counsel for the Prisoner_--
Mr. FORD.
Mr. MORTON.
Mr. ASTON.
The Indictment.
On Monday, the 2nd of March, 1752, a bill of indictment was found by
the grand inquest for the county of Oxford against Mary Blandy,
spinster, for the murder of Francis Blandy, late of the parish of
Henley-upon-Thames, in the said county, gentleman.
On Tuesday, the 3rd of March, 1752, the Court being met, the
prisoner Mary Blandy was set to the bar, when the Court proceeded
thus--
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--Mary Blandy, hold up thy hand. [Which she
did.] You stand indicted by the name of Mary Blandy, late of the
parish of Henley-upon-Thames, in the county of Oxford, spinster,
daughter of Francis Blandy, late of the same place, gentleman,
deceased, for that you, not having the fear of God before your eyes,
but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, and of
your malice aforethought, contriving and intending, him the said
Francis Blandy, your said late father, in his lifetime, to deprive
of his life, and him feloniously to kill and murder on the 10th day
of November, in the twenty-third year of the reign of our sovereign
lord George the Second, now King of Great Britain, and on divers
days and times between the said 10th day of November and the 5th day
of August, in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of His said
Majesty, with force and arms, at the parish of Henley-upon-Thames
aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did knowingly, wilfully, and
feloniously, and of your malice aforethought, mix and mingle certain
deadly poison, to wit, white arsenic, in certain tea, which had been
at divers times during the time above specified prepared for the use
of the said Francis Blandy to be drank by him; you, the said Mary,
then and there well knowing that the said tea, with which you did so
mix and mingle the said deadly poison as aforesaid, was then and
there prepared for the use of the said Francis Blandy, with intent
to be then and there administered to him for his drinking the same;
and the said tea with which the said poison was so mixed as
aforesaid, afterwards, to wit, on the said 10th day of November and
on the divers days and times aforesaid, at Henley-upon-Thames
aforesaid, was delivered to the said Francis, to be then and there
drank by him; and the said Francis Blandy, not knowing the said
poison to have been mixed with the said tea, did afterwards, to wit,
on the said 10th day of November and on the said divers days and
times aforesaid, there drink and swallow several quantities of the
said poison so mixed as aforesaid with the said tea; and that you
the said Mary Blandy might more speedily kill and murder the said
Francis Blandy, you the said Mary Blandy, on the said 5th day of
August and at divers other days and times between the said 5th day
of August and the 14th day of August, in the twenty-fifth year of
the reign of our said sovereign lord George the Second, now King of
Great Britain, &c., with force and arms, at the parish of
Henley-upon-Thames aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did
knowingly, wilfully, feloniously, and of your malice aforethought,
mix and mingle certain deadly poisons, to wit, white arsenic, with
certain water gruel, which had been made and prepared for the use of
your said then father, the said Francis Blandy, to be drank by him,
you the said Mary then and there well knowing that the said water
gruel, with which you did so mix and mingle the said deadly poison
as aforesaid, was then and there made for the use of the said
Francis Blandy, with intent to be then and there administered to him
for his drinking the same; and the same water gruel, with which the
said poison was so mixed as aforesaid, afterwards, to wit, on the
same day and year, at Henley-upon-Thames aforesaid, was delivered to
the said Francis, to be then and there drank by him; and the said
Francis Blandy, not knowing the said poison to have been mixed with
the said water gruel, did afterwards, to wit, on the said 5th day of
August and on the next day following, and on divers other days and
times afterwards, and before the said 14th day of August, there
drink and swallow several quantities of the said poison, so mixed as
aforesaid with the said water gruel, and the said Francis Blandy, of
the poison aforesaid and by the operation thereof, became sick and
greatly distempered in his body, and from the several times
aforesaid until the 14th day of the same month of August, in the
twenty-fifth year aforesaid, at the parish aforesaid, in the county
aforesaid, did languish, on which said 14th day of August, in the
twenty-fifth year aforesaid, the said Francis Blandy, at the parish
aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, of that poison died; and so you,
the said Mary Blandy, him the aforesaid Francis Blandy, at
Henley-upon-Thames aforesaid, in manner and form aforesaid,
feloniously, wilfully, and of your malice aforethought, did poison,
kill, and murder, against the peace of our said lord the King, his
crown and dignity.
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--How sayest thou, Mary Blandy, art thou guilty
of the felony and murder whereof thou standest indicted, or not
guilty?
PRISONER--Not guilty.
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--Culprit, how wilt thou be tried?
PRISONER--By God and my country.
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--God send thee a good deliverance.
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--Cryer, make a proclamation for silence.
CRYER--Oyez, oyez, oyez! My lords the King's justices strictly
charge and command all manner of persons to keep silence, upon pain
of imprisonment.
CRYER--Oyez! You good men, that are impanelled to try between our
sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, answer to your
names and save your fines.
The jury were called over and appeared.
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--You, the prisoner at the bar, these men which
were last called and do now appear are those who are to pass between
our sovereign lord the King and you upon the trial of your life and
death. If therefore you will challenge them, or any of them, you
must challenge them as they come to the book to be sworn, before
they are sworn; and you shall be heard.
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--Anthony Woodward.
CRYER--Anthony Woodward, look upon the prisoner. You shall well and
truly try and true deliverance make between our sovereign lord the
King and the prisoner at the bar, whom you shall have in charge, and
a true verdict give, according to the evidence. So help you God.
And the same oath was administered to the rest (which were sworn),
and their names are as follow:--
Anthony Woodward, sworn; Charles Harrison, sworn; Samuel George
Glaze, sworn; William Farebrother, sworn; William Haynes, sworn;
Thomas Crutch, sworn; Henry Swell, challenged; John Clarke, sworn;
William Read, challenged; Harford Dobson, challenged; William Stone,
challenged; William Hawkins, sworn; John Hayes, the elder, sworn;
Samuel Badger, sworn; Samuel Bradley, sworn; William Brooks,
challenged; Joseph Jagger, sworn.
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--Cryer, count these.
Jury--Anthony Woodward, Charles Harrison, Samuel George Glaze,
William Farebrother, William Haynes, Thomas Crutch, John Clarke,
William Hawkins, John Haynes, sen., Samuel Badger, Samuel Bradley,
Joseph Jagger.
CRYER--Gentlemen, are ye all sworn?
CLERK OF THE ARRAIGNS--Cryer, make proclamation.
CRYER--Oyez, oyez, oyez! If any one can inform my lords the King's
justices, the King's serjeant, the King's attorney-general, or this
inquest now to be taken of any treasons, murders, felonies, or
misdemeanours committed or done by the prisoner at the bar let him
come forth and he shall be heard, for the prisoner stands now at the
bar upon her deliverance; and all persons that are bound by
recognisance to give evidence against the prisoner at the bar let
them come forth and give their evidence, or they will forfeit their
recognisances.