Trial of Mary Blandy by William Roughead
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William Roughead >> Trial of Mary Blandy
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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(_From an unpublished Sepia Drawing in the Collection of Mr.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, nee 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
L10,000 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 _entree_ 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 L10,000 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
L10,000 _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.
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