There has been much idle gossip concerning the conduct of Mary of Buttermere after her betrayer was condemned to die. Some have said that she was overwhelmed with grief, that she supplied him with money to make his prison life more comfortable, and that she was dissuaded with difficulty from coming to see him. Without accepting the alternative suggested, among others, by De Quincey, that she was quite indifferent to his fate, there are reasons for rejecting the other suppositions. It is impossible that the most amiable of women would continue to love a man who had shown so little affection towards her, and whose hard heart did not shrink from crowning her betrayal by the ruin of her parents. The story of the gift of money, also, seems unlikely, as her father had been impoverished by the swindler, and the fund for his relief, raised by a subscription in London—which did not receive too generous support—had not yet been sent to Buttermere. And, finally—alas! for romance—since the moral code even of the dawn of the nineteenth century did not allow Mary Robinson to usurp the duties, more than the name, of wife to the prisoner, it is incredible that a modest woman would wish to renew the memories of her unhallowed union by an interview with the man whose association with her had brought only dishonour.
The execution of John Hadfield took place on Saturday, the 3rd of September. Rising at six, he spent half an hour in the prison chapel. At ten o’clock his fetters were removed, and he was occupied most of the morning in prayer with the two clergymen, who, we are told, drank coffee with him. The authorities do not seem to have had any fear that he would attempt his life, for they allowed him the use of a razor. About the hour of three he made a hearty meal, at which his gaoler kept him company. In those times there was a tradition in Carlisle that a reprieve had once arrived in the afternoon for a criminal who was hanged in the morning. Thus, nearly three weeks had been allowed to elapse between Hadfield’s trial and execution—in order that there might be plenty of time for a communication from London—and even on the last day the fatal hour was postponed until the mail from the south was delivered.
Although it had been the opinion of the town that he would not suffer the extreme penalty, the Saturday post, which arrived early in the afternoon, brought no pardon. At half-past three he was taken to the turnkey’s lodge, where he was pinioned, his bonds being tied loosely at his request. Here he showed a great desire to see the executioner—who, oddly enough, hailed from Dumfries, the town which the real Colonel Hope had represented in Parliament—and gave him half a crown, the only money he possessed. It was four o’clock when the procession started from the prison, in the midst of an immense concourse of spectators. Hadfield occupied a post-chaise, ordered from a local inn, and a body of yeomanry surrounded the carriage. Without avail he petitioned for the windows to be closed. The gallows—two posts fixed in the ground, about six feet apart, with a bar laid across them—had been erected during the previous night on an island, known locally as the Sands, formed by the river Eden on the south side of the town beyond the Scotch gate, and between the two bridges. A small dung-cart, boarded over, stood beneath the cross-bar, Tyburn fashion, in lieu of the new drop. As soon as it met his eyes, the condemned man asked if this was where he was to die, and upon being answered in the affirmative, he exclaimed, “Oh, happy sight! I see it with pleasure!”
John Hadfield met his fate with the heroism which great criminals invariably exhibit. Aged since his arrest, for he had been in prison nearly ten months, he looked at least fifty. In every respect he had become very different from the sprightly ‘Colonel Hope’ of the previous summer. When he alighted from the carriage at the shambles he seemed faint and exhausted, but this weakness was due to physical infirmity and not to fear. A feeble and piteous smile occasionally played over his white face. Yet none of the arrogance of pseudo-martyrdom marked his bearing, but his quiet resignation and reverent aspect won the pity of the vast crowd, bitterly hostile to him a short while before. It was remarked that he had still an air of distinction, and was neatly dressed; his jacket and silk waistcoat were black, and he wore fustian breeches and white thread stockings. Just before he was turned off he was heard to murmur, “My spirit is strong, though my body is weak.” We are told that he seemed to die in a moment without any struggle, and did not even raise his hands. An hour and a half later he was lying in a grave in St Mary’s Churchyard, for his request that he should be buried at Burgh-on-Sands was disregarded out of consideration for the pious memory of Edward I.
Were it not for his dastardly treatment of the women who gave him their love, the fate of John Hadfield would seem hard. He was not hanged for swindling John Crump out of £50—which indeed the value of his carriage and its contents, left behind at Keswick, would have more than cancelled—but for attempting to swindle him under the fictitious name of Colonel Hope. Thus by assuming the character of another man he became entangled in one of the fine-spun meshes of the law, and was held guilty of an intention to defraud. Our great-grandfathers, who, with the assistance of Sir Alexander Thomson, could hang an old woman for stealing a few potatoes in a bread riot, thought it expedient also to kill a man who obtained £50 by telling a lie.
There is much truth in the proposition, which has been stated with such inaccuracy by De Quincey, that, but for his heartless conduct to Mary of Buttermere, John Hadfield might have escaped the gallows. It is probable that Mr Crump would have been loth to advertise himself as a credulous dupe, unless he had thought that it was his duty to give evidence against a heartless seducer. Parson Nicholson, also, would have had no reason to depart from the attitude he had taken up before he was aware that he had officiated at a bigamous marriage.
Mary of Buttermere.
Sketched from Life July 1800
Notwithstanding that his career was marked by so many villainies, John Hadfield is in many respects an admirable rascal. Setting aside his behaviour towards women—if that is possible even for a moment—he played a part which required infinite tact and magnificent courage. Although occasionally he robbed a man who was not rich, yet until the crime of Buttermere such an occurrence was in the nature of an accident, and was rather the fault of the wronged one for putting himself in the path. Like Claude Duval, the Keswick impostor was in the main merciful towards the impecunious; not indeed for conscience sake, but because he believed that his rightful place was among the wealthy. A hunter of big game, dukes, members of Parliament, and prosperous merchants were his proper prey! And the man who could maintain a decent social position for twenty years, in spite of the heavy handicaps of poverty and lowly birth, and could compel those whom one of his class should have met only as a lackey to receive him on equal terms, was more than a common trickster. An insatiable love of pleasure robbed him of all foresight and prudence, or such a consummate liar might have climbed high. Even as he was—had an earl been his father—he might have gone down to posterity as one of the greatest diplomats the world has ever seen.