Trial of Mary Blandy by William Roughead

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The last literary effort of Mary Blandy was an expansion of her
_Narrative_, re-written in more detail and at much greater length,
the revised version appearing on 18th April under the title of _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." This ingenious, rather
than ingenuous, compilation was, it is said, prepared with the
assistance of Parson Swinton, who had some previous experience of
pamphleteering on his own account in 1739. Mr. Horace Bleackley has
happily described it as "The most famous apologia in criminal
literature," and as such it is reprinted in the present volume. Even
this _tour de force_ failed to convince a sceptical world, and on
15th April was published _A Candid Appeal to the Publick_ concerning
her case, by "a Gentleman of Oxford," wherein "All the ridiculous
and false Assertions" contained in Miss Blandy's _Own Account_ "are
exploded, and the Whole of that Mysterious Affair set in a True
Light." But by this time the fair disputant was beyond the reach of
controversy, and the Oxford gentleman had it all his own way; though
the pamphleteers kept the discussion alive a year longer than its
subject.

An instructive feature of Mary's literary activities during her last
days is her correspondence with Elizabeth Jeffries. "That unsavoury
person" was, with her paramour, John Swan, convicted at Chelmsford
Assizes on 12th March, 1752, of the murder at Walthamstow, on 3rd
July, of one Joseph Jeffries, respectively uncle and master to his
slayers. Elizabeth induced John to kill the old gentleman, who,
aware of their intrigue, had threatened, as the Crown counsel neatly
phrased it, "to alter his will, if she did not alter her conduct."
This unpleasant case, as was, perhaps, in the circumstances,
natural, attracted the attention of Miss Blandy. She read with much
interest the report of the trial. "It is barbarous," was her
comment--for, in truth, the murder was a sordid business, and sadly
lacking in "style"--"but I am sorry for her, and hope she will have
a good divine to attend her in her last moments, if possible a
second Swinton, for, poor unhappy girl, I pity her." These
sentiments shocked a lady visitor then present, who, expressing the
opinion that all such inhuman wretches should suffer as they
deserved, withdrew in dudgeon. Mary smilingly remarked, "I can't
bear with these over-virtuous women. I believe if ever the devil
picks a bone, it is one of theirs!" But the murderess of Walthamstow
had somehow struck her fancy, and she wrote to her fellow-convict to
express her sympathy. That young lady suitably replied, and the
ensuing correspondence (7th January-19th March, 1752), published
under the title of _Genuine Letters between Miss Blandy and Miss
Jeffries_, if we may believe the description, is highly remarkable.
At first Elizabeth asserted her innocence as stoutly as did Mary
herself, but afterwards she acknowledged her guilt. Whereupon Mary,
more in sorrow than in anger, wrote to her on 16th March for the
last time. "Your deceiving of me was a small crime; it was deceiving
yourself: for no retreat, tho' ever so pleasant, no diversions, no
company, no, not Heaven itself, could have made you happy with those
crimes unrepented of in your breast." So, with the promise to be "a
suitor for her at the Throne of Mercy," Miss Blandy intimated that
the correspondence must close; and on the 28th Miss Jeffries duly
paid the penalty of her crime.

In _A Book of Scoundrels_, that improving and delightful work, Mr.
Charles Whibley has, well observed: "A stern test of artistry is the
gallows. Perfect behaviour at an enforced and public scrutiny may
properly be esteemed an effect of talent--an effect which has not
too often been rehearsed." This high standard, the hall-mark of the
artist in crime, Mary Blandy admittedly attained. The execution,
originally fixed for Saturday, 4th April, was postponed until
Monday, the 6th, by request of the University authorities, who
represented that to conduct such a ceremony during Holy Week "would
be improper and unprecedented." The night before her end the doomed
woman asked to see the scene of the morrow's tragedy, and looked out
from one of the upper windows upon the gibbet, "opposite the door of
the gaol, and made by laying a poll across upon the arms of two
trees"--in her case "the fatal tree" had a new and very real
significance; then she turned away, remarking only that it was "very
high." At nine o'clock on Monday morning, attended by Parson
Swinton, and "dress'd in a black crape sack, with her arms and hands
ty'd with black paduasoy ribbons," Mary Blandy was led out to her
death. About the two trees with, their ominous "poll" a crowd of
silent spectators was assembled on the Castle Green, to whom, in
accordance with the etiquette of the day, she made her "dying
declaration"--to wit, that she was guiltless of her father's blood,
though the innocent cause of his death, and that she did not "in the
least contribute" to that of her mother or of Mrs. Pocock. This she
swore upon her salvation; which only shows, says Lord Campbell, who
was convinced of her guilt, "the worthlessness of the dying
declarations of criminals, and the absurdity of the practice of
trying to induce them to confess." We shall not dwell upon the
shocking spectacle--the curious will find a contemporary account in
the Appendix--but one characteristic detail may be mentioned. As she
was climbing the fatal ladder, covered, for the occasion, with black
cloth, she stopped, and addressing the celebrants of that grim
ritual, "Gentlemen," said she, "do not hang me high, for the sake of
decency."

Mary Blandy was but just in time to make so "genteel" an end. That
very year (1752), owing to the alarming increase of murders, an Act
was passed (25 Geo. II. c. 37) "for better preventing the Horrid
Crime of Murder," whereby persons condemned therefor should be
executed on the next day but one after sentence, and their bodies be
given to the Surgeons' Company at their Hall with a view to
dissection, and also, in the discretion of the judge, be hanged in
chains. The first person to benefit by the provisions of the new Act
did so on 1st July. But although Mary Blandy's body escaped these
legal indignities, as neither coffin nor hearse had been prepared
for its reception, it was carried through the crowd on the shoulders
of one of the Sheriff's men, and deposited for some hours in his
house. There suitable arrangements were made, and at one o'clock in
the morning of Tuesday, 7th April, 1752, the body, by her own
request, was buried in the chancel of Henley Parish Church, between
those of her father and mother, when, notwithstanding the untimely
hour, "there was assembled the greatest concourse of people ever
known upon such an occasion." Henley Church has been "restored"
since Mary's day, and there is now no indication of the grave,
which, as the present rector courteously informs the Editor, is
believed to be beneath the organ, in the north choir aisle.

_Apropos_ to Mary Blandy's death, "Elia" has a quaint anecdote of
Samuel Salt, one of the "Old Benchers of the Inner Temple." This
gentleman, notable for his maladroit remarks, was bidden to dine
with a relative of hers (doubtless Mr. Serjeant Stevens) on the day
of the execution--not, one would think, a suitable occasion for
festivity. Salt was warned beforehand by his valet to avoid all
allusion to the subject, and promised to be specially careful.
During the pause preliminary to the announcing of dinner, however,
"he got up, looked out of window, and pulling down his ruffles--an
ordinary motion with him--observed, 'it was a gloomy day,' and
added, 'I suppose Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time.'"

The reader may care to know what became of Cranstoun. That "unspeakable
Scot," it has regretfully to be recorded, was never made amenable to
earthly justice. He was, indeed, the subject of at least four
biographies, but human retribution followed him no further. Extracts
from one of these "Lives" are, for what they are worth, printed in the
Appendix, together with his posthumous _Account of the Poisoning of
the late Mr. Francis Blandy_, a counterblast to Mary's masterpiece.
This tract includes the text of three letters, alleged to have been
written by her to her lover, and dated respectively 30th June, 16th
July, and 1st August, 1751; but as, after his death, all his papers
were, by order of Lord Cranstoun, sealed up and sent to his lordship
in Scotland, who, in the circumstances, was little likely to part with
them, it does not appear how these particular manuscripts came into
the "editor's" possession. But, in that age of literary marvels,
nothing need surprise us: a publisher actually issued as genuine the
_Original Letters to and from Miss Blandy and C---- C----_, though the
fact that Cranstoun's half of the correspondence had been destroyed by
Mary Blandy was then a matter of common knowledge. In all these
pamphlets, Cranstoun, while admitting his complicity in her crime,
with, characteristic gallantry casts most of the blame upon his dead
mistress. For the rest, he seems to have passed the brief remainder of
his days in cheating as many of his fellow-sinners as, in the short
time at his disposal, could reasonably be expected.

A hitherto unpublished letter from Henry Fox at the War Office, to
Mr. Pitt, then Paymaster General, dated 14th March, 1752, is, by
kind permission of Mr. A.M. Broadley, printed in the Appendix.
After referring to Mary's conviction, the writer intimates that
Cranstoun, "a reduc'd first Lieut. of Sir Andrew Agnew's late Regt.
of Marines, now on the British Establishment of Half-Pay, was
charged with contriving the manner of sd. Miss Blandy's Poisoning
her Father and being an Abettor therein; and he having absconded
from the time of her being comitted for the above Fact, I am
commanded to signify to you it is His Majesty's Pleasure that the
sd. Lieutenant Wm. Henry Cranstoune be struck off the sd.
Establishment of Half-Pay, and that you do not issue any Moneys
remaining in your Hands due to the sd. Lieut. Cranstoune." This
shows the view taken by the Government of the part played by
Cranstoun in the tragedy of Henley.

There will also be found in the Appendix an extract from, a letter
from Dunkirk, published in the _London Magazine_ for February, 1753,
containing what appears to be a reliable account of the last days of
Mary Blandy's lover; the particulars given are in general agreement
with those contained in the various "Lives" above mentioned. Obliged
to fly from France, where he had been harboured by one Mrs. Ross,
his kinswoman, whose maiden name of Dunbar he had prudently assumed,
he sought refuge in Flanders. Furnes, "a town belonging to the Queen
of Hungary," had the dubious distinction of being selected by him as
an asylum. There, on 2nd December, 1752, "at the sign of the
Burgundy Cross," after a short illness, accompanied, it is
satisfactory to note, with "great agonies," the Hon. William Henry
Cranstoun finally ceased from troubling in the thirty-ninth year of
his age. His personal belongings, "consisting chiefly of Laced and
Embroidered Waistcoats," were sold to pay his debts. On his deathbed
he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. The occasion of so
notable a conversion was fittingly marked by the magnificence of his
obsequies. "He was buried," we read, "in great solemnity, the
Corporation attending the funeral; and a grand Mass was said over
the corpse in the Cathedral Church, which, was finely illuminated."
The impressive ceremonial would have gratified vainglorious Mr.
Blandy had circumstances permitted his presence.

Some account of the descendants of Cranstoun is given in a letter by
John Riddell, the Scots genealogist, hitherto unpublished, which is
printed in the Appendix. George Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse,
Cranstoun's nephew, was afterwards an eminent Scottish judge.

A word as to the guilt of Mary Blandy and her accomplice, which, in
the opinion of some writers, is not beyond dispute. The question of
motive in such cases is generally a puzzling one, and in the
commission of many murders the end to be gained, always inadequate,
often remains obscure. Barely does the motive--unlike the punishment
which it was the sublime object of Mr. Gilbert's "Mikado" equitably
to adjust--"fit the crime." Mary was well aware that she could not
be Cranstoun's lawful wife, but hers was not a nature to shrink from
the less regular union. Her passion for him was irresistible; she
had ample proof of his chronic infidelity, but, in her blind
infatuation, such "spots" upon the sun of her affection, were
disregarded. She knew that, but for the L10,000 bait, her crafty
lover would surely play her false; her father was sick of the whole
affair, and if she went off with the captain, would doubtless
disinherit her. As for that "honourable" gentleman himself, the
inducement to get possession of her L10,000, the beginning and end
of his connection with the Blandys, sufficiently explains his
purpose. Was not the spirit of his family motto, "Thou shalt want
ere I want," ever his guiding light and principle, and would such a
man so circumstanced hesitate to resort to a crime which he could
induce another to commit and, if necessary, suffer for, while he
himself reaped the benefit in safety? Had he succeeded in securing
both his mistress and her fortune, Mary's last state would, not
improbably, have been worse than her first.

So much for the "motive," which presents little difficulty. Then,
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 celebre_. 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 L10,000. 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.

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