Mr. Rooker imagined that the daughter could not be rendered amenable to the law, as she performed her share in the murders by the direction of her mother, and he wrote to the overseers of the parish of Tottenham, acquainting them with what he had learned. The elder Metyard was in consequence taken into custody; and the evidence against her being conclusive, she was fully committed for trial. Some circumstances, however, having come out which served to criminate her daughter, she also was secured, and with her mother was sent to Newgate to abide her trial.
When arraigned upon the indictment preferred against them at the ensuing Old Bailey Sessions, they bitterly reproached one another with the part each had taken in the affair; and if any evidence of their guilt had been wanting, their own declarations at this time would have been sufficient to secure their conviction. The jury immediately found them guilty, and they were sentenced to undergo the severest penalty of the law. The younger prisoner pleaded that she was pregnant, on being called up to receive judgment; but a jury of matrons being assembled, they declared her plea false, and she was sentenced immediately.
On the day fixed for their execution, the elder prisoner was found to be in a state of utter insensibility, and in that condition she was carried to the scaffold, and, all efforts to restore her having failed, was turned off. Her daughter prayed for a few minutes with the ordinary who attended her, but was in almost as melancholy a condition as her mother.
They were executed at Tyburn on the 19th July 1768, and their bodies were afterwards dissected at Surgeons’ Hall.
FREDERIC, LORD BALTIMORE; ELIZABETH GRIFFENBURG; AND ANNE HARVEY.
TRIED FOR THE COMMISSION OF A RAPE, THE FEMALES AS ACCESSORIES BEFORE THE FACT.
ALTHOUGH the trial of these persons was not followed by a conviction, the extraordinary nature of the transactions described by the prosecutrix in the case renders it our duty to state the facts alleged as they appeared at the trial.
The title which was inherited by Lord Baltimore, who was a peer of Ireland, was originally granted by James I. to Mr. Calvert, from whom he was lineally descended, together with a large tract of land in America, now called Maryland. His lordship is related to have exhibited a taste for knowledge in early life, and was sent from Epsom, where he was born, to Eton, where he soon gained a considerable acquaintance with the classics. His father dying before he was of age, left him an ample fortune; and he is said to have shown at this time the existence of that passion which subsequently brought him into the difficulty from which he was compelled to extricate himself before a jury of his country.
In obedience to the custom of the times, the young lord proceeded to perform the grand tour; and it is reported that having sailed from Naples to Constantinople, he there imbibed so great an admiration for the manners of the Turks, that on his return to England in 1766, he caused a portion of his family mansion to be taken down, and to be rebuilt in the form of a harem. His lordship was not long in completing his new establishment; and, like the persons whose customs he imitated, he gave to its inmates certain rules, by which he directed that their conduct and demeanour should be regulated.
The disgusting passions of his lordship, however, knew no bounds; and agents were employed in London, whose duty it was to select new objects for the gratification of his lustful desires. Amongst others who were thus engaged in this degrading office were the women Griffenburg, who was a native of Germany, and the wife of a Dr. Griffenburg, and Harvey, whose names appear at the head of this article. They were both women of low education, and their duty was to discover and point out persons who might be deemed worthy of the attentions of their employer, and in case of necessity to aid him in securing the end which he had in view. In the course of their brutal and inhuman searches in this occupation, they unfortunately discovered a young woman of considerable personal attractions, and of some respectability, named Woodcock, who kept a milliner’s shop on Tower-hill; and Mrs. Harvey acquainting his lordship with her residence, in November 1767, he directly proceeded to the spot for the purpose of pursuing his diabolical designs. Calling at Miss Woodcock’s shop, he purchased some articles of trifling value, with a view of making an acquaintance with her; and then having succeeded in opening a conversation with her, he invited her to accompany him to the theatre. Miss Woodcock declined the offer, saying that her religious opinions taught her to believe that theatrical entertainments were incompatible with the due exercise of the worship of the Almighty; and his lordship finding all his efforts to attain his object vain, retired, but only to put his agent, Mrs Harvey, to work.