The six weeks intervening before my trial were very terrible. The mental strain was incessant, and I suffered much from insomnia. The stress and confinement were telling on my health, as was the separation from my children. I insert here two extracts from letters, written by me, from Walton Jail. One is to my mother, dated the 21st of July, 1889, a few days before my trial:
“I am not feeling very well. This fearful strain and the necessity for continued self-control is beginning to tell upon me. But I am not in the least afraid. I shall show composure, dignity and fortitude to the last.”
The following is an extract from a letter I wrote to a friend on June 27, before my trial on July 31:
“I have made my peace with God. I have forgiven unreservedly all those who have ruined and forsaken me. To-morrow I partake of the Holy Communion with a clear conscience, and I place my faith in God’s mercy.
“God give me strength is my constant prayer. I feel so lonely—as if every hand were against me. To think that for three or four days I must be unveiled before all those uncharitable eyes. You can not think how awful it appears to me. So far the ordeal has been all anticipation; then it will be stern reality—which always braces the nerves and courage.
“I have seen in the Liverpool Post the judge’s address on the prosecution to the jury, and it is enough to appal the stoutest heart. I hear the police are untiring and getting up the case against me regardless of expense.
“Pray for me, my friend, for the darkest days of my life are now to be lived through. I trust in God’s justice, whatever I may be in the sight of man.”
Lord Russell’s Opinion
I received many visits from my lawyers, the Messrs. Cleaver, and just before the trial one from my leading counsel, Sir Charles Russell, later Lord Russell of Killowen, Lord Chief Justice of England. The following statement made by him relative to this visit may interest my readers:
“I will make no public statement of what my personal belief is as to Mrs. Maybrick’s guilt or innocence, but I will tell you, who have stood by her all these years, that, perplexed with the instructions in the brief, I took what was an unusual step: I went to see her in prison before her trial, and questioned her there to the best of my ability for the purpose of getting the truth out of her. During the whole seven days of her trial I made careful observation of her demeanor, and since her imprisonment I have availed myself of my judicial right to visit her at Aylesbury Prison; and, making the best use of such opportunities of arriving at a just conclusion about her own self-consciousness, I decided in my own mind that it never for a moment entered her mind to do any bodily injury to her husband. On the last occasion that I saw her I told her so, as I felt it would and did give the poor woman some comfort.”