Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd at the Bar of the Old Bailey
Published dec.r 15.th 1775 according to Act of Parliament
Confident that her long struggle had not been futile, since this breach of faith must shock the public mind, the beautiful prisoner prepared to face her terrible ordeal. In a letter from Strawberry Hill we catch a glimpse of her on the eve of her trial. “... She sent her lawyer a brief of which he could not make head nor tail. He went to her for one more clear. ‘And do you imagine’ said she, ‘that I will trust you or any attorney in England with the truth of my story? Take your brief: meet me in the Old Bailey, and I will ask you the necessary questions.’ ...” And when the time came she kept her promise to help him through.
On Friday, the 8th of December, she was placed in the dock at the Old Bailey. During her long imprisonment the popular sympathy had come over to her side, and a friendly crowd filled the galleries before daybreak. With much tenderness Judge Aston explained to her the reason that she was put to the bar, his chief argument being the elusive one that she had not spoken the whole truth before the magistrates. No woman could have been more dignified or composed. An air of melancholy rested on her beautiful face, which appeared more pale in contrast to her garb of mourning. A silk polonese cloak, lined with white persian, was thrown round her shoulders. Beneath, her gown was black satin, appliquée with wreaths of broad silken ribbons, her skirt draped upon the small hoop worn with an evening toilet. Above the tall head-dress demanded by fashion, a white gauze cap, dotted with small knots of black, rested lightly upon her powdered curls. It was almost the same costume that she had worn before the three judges.
Only for a short time were the spectators in doubt as to the result of the trial. None of the evidence was convincing; each witness seemed more feeble than his predecessor. Serjeant Davy, rough and ready, tore their statements to tatters. To the jury Mrs Robert Perreau seemed eager to swear aught that might save the life of her unhappy husband. Admiral Frankland, in the face of his petticoat theft, appeared to have pressed the prosecution out of greed and for the sake of revenge. John Moody, a footman discharged by the prisoner, must have been regarded, very properly, as a barefaced liar. The famous Christian Hart, another old servant with a grudge, who was answered on all points by the evidence of the indefatigable Bailey, could prove nothing concerning the forgery cited in the indictment.
All the while Mrs Rudd kept on passing notes to her counsel—more than fifty in number—suggesting questions to baffle the hostile witnesses. The trial lasted for nearly twelve hours. When the jury returned into court, after an absence of thirty minutes, Henry Angelo, the fencing-master, saw the gay auctioneer who was the foreman throw a meaning smile towards the beautiful prisoner. “Not guilty according to the evidence before us!” declared the jury, while the court thundered with applause. At last her bitter ordeal was over, and Margaret Rudd, smiling through her tears, stepped gaily into a coach that was waiting at the door of Old Bailey. Then she was driven, post haste, to her new home with the wicked Lord Lyttelton. Certainly this charming and clever woman was far from being too good to live.
Naturally, the acquittal of Mrs Rudd determined the fate of the unfortunate twins, who had been kept alive all this time pending the result of her trial. Only in one way could Robert, deemed the less guilty, have been spared. Had Daniel confessed that he was the forger, exonerating his brother, probably a pardon would have been granted. Not being built, however, after the fashion of martyrs, he continued to make frantic protests of innocence, thereby sealing the doom of both. For arguments that were incredible merely in the case of the apothecary became preposterous when applied to Daniel. Yet the loyalty of Robert was admirable, as although he knew that his one hope was to be dissociated from his brother, he would not pretend that he had been his dupe. Desperate efforts were made to save the unhappy men. A petition, signed by more than seventy bankers and influential men of business, was presented to the King. Mrs Robert Perreau with her three children, all in deep mourning, flung herself at the feet of the Queen. But good King George III. was a stranger to mercy, and Justice Mansfield was not the sort of person to make the introduction.
On Wednesday, the 17th of January 1776—a bitter morning, with keen frost in the air and deep snow on the ground—the two poor brothers were led out to die. When they were brought from the chapel into the day-room within the Press Yard, to await the coming of the hangmen, they found only a few faithful friends who wished to say farewell. For, to prevent an unseemly crowd, good Keeper Akerman stood himself at the gate of the fatal quadrangle, denying entrance even to his own acquaintances. Daniel Perreau, apparently unmoved, gave a bow to his friends, and then sought the warmth of the fire. Robert, less resolute than his brother, was unmanned for an instant by the sight of the cords and halters upon the table. In a few moments their steps were ringing across the flags of the courtyard, as with bound arms they followed the Sheriffs towards the gate. Those who gazed upon these poor victims of a merciless law testify that their tread was firm and their faces hopeful and serene. For, save in that first base betrayal of a woman, no one can accuse Daniel and Robert Perreau of cowardice. Five others bore them company to the grave.
Shortly after nine o’clock the City Marshals, attended by the full panoply of sheriffdom, started the procession. Next came an open cart, covered with black baize, where sat three of the convicts, and then a hurdle, dragged by four horses, on which rested a pair of wretches condemned for coining. And last, there followed the sombre mourning-coach—a special privilege—with the unhappy brothers. All around lay a winding sheet of snow, crusted thick on the housetops, piled in deep billows against the walls. A piercing east wind shot down the Old Bailey, while the prison gleamed in the frosty mist like a monument of hard black ice.
Beyond Newgate Street the bell in St Sepulchre’s high steeple rang fiercely over the frozen roofs, as though pealing forth a pæan of exultation upon the procession of death. Here there came a halt in the march, while from the steps of the church, in time-honoured fashion, the sexton delivered his solemn exhortation to the condemned prisoners:—