The favourite powder of the professional poisoner, arsenic, was known to crowned heads in the fourteenth century; and there has come down to us a curious document, drawn out by Charles le Mauvais, King of Navarre. It is a commission of murder, given to a certain Woudreton, to poison Charles VI., the Duke of Valois, brother of the king, and his uncles, the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon:—
“Go thou to Paris; thou canst do great service if thou wilt: do what I tell thee; I will reward thee well. Thou shalt do thus: There is a thing which is called sublimed arsenic; if a man eat a bit the size of a pea he will never survive. Thou wilt find it in Pampeluna, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and in all the good towns through which thou wilt pass, at the apothecaries’ shops. Take it and powder it; and when thou shalt be in the house of the king, of the Count de Valois, his brother, the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon, draw near, and betake thyself to the kitchen, to the larder, to the cellar, or any other place where thy point can be best gained, and put the powder in the soups, meats, or wines, provided that thou canst do it secretly. Otherwise, do it not.” Woudreton was detected, and executed in 1384.[6]
[6] Trésor de Chartes. Charles de Navarre. P. Mortonval, vol. ii. p. 384.
A chapter might be written entitled “royal poisoners.” King Charles IX. even figures as an experimentalist.[7] An unfortunate cook has stolen two silver spoons, and, since there was a question whether “Bezoar” was an antidote or not, the king administers to the cook a lethal dose of corrosive sublimate, and follows it up with the antidote; but the man dies in seven hours, although Paré also gives him oil. Truly a grim business!
[7] Œuvres de Paré, 2nd ed., liv. xx. Des Vennes, chap. xliv. p. 507.
The subtle method of removing troublesome subjects has been more often practised on the Continent than in England, yet the English throne in olden time is not quite free from this stain.[8] The use of poison is wholly opposed to the Anglo-Saxon method of thought. To what anger the people were wrought on detecting poisoners, is seen in the fact that, in 1542, a young woman was boiled alive in Smithfield for poisoning three households.[9]