Trial of Mary Blandy

by Unknown

In A Book of Scoundrels, that improving and delightful work, Mr. Charles Whibley has, well observed: "A stern test of artistry is the gallows. Perfect behaviour at an enforced and public scrutiny may properly be esteemed an effect of talent—an effect which has not too often been rehearsed." This high standard, the hall-mark of the artist in crime, Mary Blandy admittedly attained. The execution, originally fixed for Saturday, 4th April, was postponed until Monday, the 6th, by request of the University authorities, who represented that to conduct such a ceremony during Holy Week "would be improper and unprecedented." The night before her end the doomed woman asked to see the scene of the morrow's tragedy, and looked out from one of the upper windows upon the gibbet, "opposite the door of the gaol, and made by laying a poll across upon the arms of two trees"—in her case "the fatal tree" had a new and very real significance; then she turned away, remarking only that it was "very high." At nine o'clock on Monday morning, attended by Parson Swinton, and "dress'd in a black crape sack, with her arms and hands ty'd with black paduasoy ribbons," Mary Blandy was led out to her death. About the two trees with, their ominous "poll" a crowd of silent spectators was assembled on the Castle Green, to whom, in accordance with the etiquette of the day, she made her "dying declaration"—to wit, that she was guiltless of her father's blood, though the innocent cause of his death, and that she did not "in the least contribute" to that of her mother or of Mrs. Pocock. This she swore upon her salvation; which only shows, says Lord Campbell, who was convinced of her guilt, "the worthlessness of the dying declarations of criminals, and the absurdity of the practice of trying to induce them to confess." We shall not dwell upon the shocking spectacle—the curious will find a contemporary account in the Appendix—but one characteristic detail may be mentioned. As she was climbing the fatal ladder, covered, for the occasion, with black cloth, she stopped, and addressing the celebrants of that grim ritual, "Gentlemen," said she, "do not hang me high, for the sake of decency."

Mary Blandy was but just in time to make so "genteel" an end. That very year (1752), owing to the alarming increase of murders, an Act was passed (25 Geo. II. c. 37) "for better preventing the Horrid Crime of Murder," whereby persons condemned therefor should be executed on the next day but one after sentence, and their bodies be given to the Surgeons' Company at their Hall with a view to dissection, and also, in the discretion of the judge, be hanged in chains. The first person to benefit by the provisions of the new Act did so on 1st July. But although Mary Blandy's body escaped these legal indignities, as neither coffin nor hearse had been prepared for its reception, it was carried through the crowd on the shoulders of one of the Sheriff's men, and deposited for some hours in his house. There suitable arrangements were made, and at one o'clock in the morning of Tuesday, 7th April, 1752, the body, by her own request, was buried in the chancel of Henley Parish Church, between those of her father and mother, when, notwithstanding the untimely hour, "there was assembled the greatest concourse of people ever known upon such an occasion." Henley Church has been "restored" since Mary's day, and there is now no indication of the grave, which, as the present rector courteously informs the Editor, is believed to be beneath the organ, in the north choir aisle.

Apropos to Mary Blandy's death, "Elia" has a quaint anecdote of Samuel Salt, one of the "Old Benchers of the Inner Temple." This gentleman, notable for his maladroit remarks, was bidden to dine with a relative of hers (doubtless Mr. Serjeant Stevens) on the day of the execution—not, one would think, a suitable occasion for festivity. Salt was warned beforehand by his valet to avoid all allusion to the subject, and promised to be specially careful. During the pause preliminary to the announcing of dinner, however, "he got up, looked out of window, and pulling down his ruffles—an ordinary motion with him—observed, 'it was a gloomy day,' and added, 'I suppose Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time.'"

The reader may care to know what became of Cranstoun. That "unspeakable Scot," it has regretfully to be recorded, was never made amenable to earthly justice. He was, indeed, the subject of at least four biographies, but human retribution followed him no further. Extracts from one of these "Lives" are, for what they are worth, printed in the Appendix, together with his posthumous Account of the Poisoning of the late Mr. Francis Blandy, a counterblast to Mary's masterpiece. This tract includes the text of three letters, alleged to have been written by her to her lover, and dated respectively 30th June, 16th July, and 1st August, 1751; but as, after his death, all his papers were, by order of Lord Cranstoun, sealed up and sent to his lordship in Scotland, who, in the circumstances, was little likely to part with them, it does not appear how these particular manuscripts came into the "editor's" possession. But, in that age of literary marvels, nothing need surprise us: a publisher actually issued as genuine the Original Letters to and from Miss Blandy and C—— C——, though the fact that Cranstoun's half of the correspondence had been destroyed by Mary Blandy was then a matter of common knowledge. In all these pamphlets, Cranstoun, while admitting his complicity in her crime, with, characteristic gallantry casts most of the blame upon his dead mistress. For the rest, he seems to have passed the brief remainder of his days in cheating as many of his fellow-sinners as, in the short time at his disposal, could reasonably be expected.

A hitherto unpublished letter from Henry Fox at the War Office, to Mr. Pitt, then Paymaster General, dated 14th March, 1752, is, by kind permission of Mr. A.M. Broadley, printed in the Appendix. After referring to Mary's conviction, the writer intimates that Cranstoun, "a reduc'd first Lieut. of Sir Andrew Agnew's late Regt. of Marines, now on the British Establishment of Half-Pay, was charged with contriving the manner of sd. Miss Blandy's Poisoning her Father and being an Abettor therein; and he having absconded from the time of her being comitted for the above Fact, I am commanded to signify to you it is His Majesty's Pleasure that the sd. Lieutenant Wm. Henry Cranstoune be struck off the sd. Establishment of Half-Pay, and that you do not issue any Moneys remaining in your Hands due to the sd. Lieut. Cranstoune." This shows the view taken by the Government of the part played by Cranstoun in the tragedy of Henley.

There will also be found in the Appendix an extract from, a letter from Dunkirk, published in the London Magazine for February, 1753, containing what appears to be a reliable account of the last days of Mary Blandy's lover; the particulars given are in general agreement with those contained in the various "Lives" above mentioned. Obliged to fly from France, where he had been harboured by one Mrs. Ross, his kinswoman, whose maiden name of Dunbar he had prudently assumed, he sought refuge in Flanders. Furnes, "a town belonging to the Queen of Hungary," had the dubious distinction of being selected by him as an asylum. There, on 2nd December, 1752, "at the sign of the Burgundy Cross," after a short illness, accompanied, it is satisfactory to note, with "great agonies," the Hon. William Henry Cranstoun finally ceased from troubling in the thirty-ninth year of his age. His personal belongings, "consisting chiefly of Laced and Embroidered Waistcoats," were sold to pay his debts. On his deathbed he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. The occasion of so notable a conversion was fittingly marked by the magnificence of his obsequies. "He was buried," we read, "in great solemnity, the Corporation attending the funeral; and a grand Mass was said over the corpse in the Cathedral Church, which, was finely illuminated." The impressive ceremonial would have gratified vainglorious Mr. Blandy had circumstances permitted his presence.

Some account of the descendants of Cranstoun is given in a letter by John Riddell, the Scots genealogist, hitherto unpublished, which is printed in the Appendix. George Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse, Cranstoun's nephew, was afterwards an eminent Scottish judge.

A word as to the guilt of Mary Blandy and her accomplice, which, in the opinion of some writers, is not beyond dispute. The question of motive in such cases is generally a puzzling one, and in the commission of many murders the end to be gained, always inadequate, often remains obscure. Barely does the motive—unlike the punishment which it was the sublime object of Mr. Gilbert's "Mikado" equitably to adjust—"fit the crime." Mary was well aware that she could not be Cranstoun's lawful wife, but hers was not a nature to shrink from the less regular union. Her passion for him was irresistible; she had ample proof of his chronic infidelity, but, in her blind infatuation, such "spots" upon the sun of her affection, were disregarded. She knew that, but for the £10,000 bait, her crafty lover would surely play her false; her father was sick of the whole affair, and if she went off with the captain, would doubtless disinherit her. As for that "honourable" gentleman himself, the inducement to get possession of her £10,000, the beginning and end of his connection with the Blandys, sufficiently explains his purpose. Was not the spirit of his family motto, "Thou shalt want ere I want," ever his guiding light and principle, and would such a man so circumstanced hesitate to resort to a crime which he could induce another to commit and, if necessary, suffer for, while he himself reaped the benefit in safety? Had he succeeded in securing both his mistress and her fortune, Mary's last state would, not improbably, have been worse than her first.

So much for the "motive," which presents little difficulty. Then, with regard to the question whether, on the assumption of his guilt, Mary Blandy was the intelligent agent of Cranstoun or his innocent dupe, no one who has studied the evidence against her can entertain a reasonable doubt. Apart from the threatening and abusive language which she applied to her father, her whole attitude towards his last illness shows how false were her subsequent professions of affection. She herself has disposed of the suggestion that she really believed in the love-compelling properties of the magic powder, though such a belief was not inconceivable, as appears from the contemporary advertisement of a "Love Philtre," of which a copy is printed in the Appendix. She told her dying father that if he were injured by the powder, she was not to blame, as "it was given her with another intent." What that "intent" was she did not then explain, but later she informed Dr. Addington that it was to "make him [her father] kind" to Cranstoun and herself. In the speech which she delivered in her own defence she said, "I gave it to procure his love"; and again, on the conclusion of Bathurst's reply, "It is said I gave it my father to make him fond of me: there was no occasion for that—but to make him fond of Cranstoun." In her Narrative she repeats this statement; but in her Own Account, written and revised by herself, she says, "I gave it to my poor father innocent of the effects it afterwards produced, God knows; not so stupid as to believe it would have that desired, to make him kind to us; but in obedience to Mr. Cranstoun, who ever seemed superstitious to the last degree." Here we have an entirely fresh (if no less false) reason assigned for the exhibition of the wise woman's drug; only, of course, another lie, but one which, disposes of her previous defence. Of the true qualities of the powder she had ample proof; she warned the maid that the gruel "might do for her," she saw its virulent effects upon Gunnell and Emmet, as well as on her father from its first administration, while her concealment of its use from the physician, and her destruction of the remanent portion, are equally incompatible with belief either in its innocence or her own. Finally, her burning of Cranstoun's letters, which, if her story was true, were her only means of confirming it, her attempts to bribe the servants, and her statements to Fisher and the Lanes at the Angel, afford, in Mr. Baron Legge's phrase, "a violent presumption" of her guilt.

Cranstoun, even at the time, did not lack apologists, who held that Miss Blandy, herself the solo criminal, cunningly sought to involve her guileless lover in order to lessen her own guilt. This view has been endorsed by later authorities. Anderson, in his Scottish Nation, remarks, "There does not appear to have been any grounds for supposing that the captain was in any way accessory to the murder"; and Mr. T.F. Henderson, in his article on Cranstoun in the Dictionary of National Biography, observes, "Apart from her [Mary Blandy's] statement there was nothing to connect him with the murder." These writers seem to have overlooked the following important facts:—The letter written by Cranstoun to Mary, read by Bathurst in his opening speech, the terms of which plainly prove the writer's complicity; and the packet rescued from the fire, bearing in his autograph the words, "The powder to clean the pebbles with," which, when we remember the nature of its contents, leaves small doubt of the sender's guilt. "A supposition," says Mr. Bleackley, "that does not explain [these] two damning circumstances must be baseless." The nocturnal manifestations experienced by Cranstoun, and interpreted by his friend Mrs. Morgan as presaging Mr. Blandy's death, must also be explained. Further, it would be interesting to know how the defenders of Cranstoun account for the warning given him by Mary in the intercepted letter—"Lest any accident should happen to your letters, take care what you write." That this was part of a subtle scheme to inculpate her lover will, in the circumstances, hardly be maintained. As Mr. Andrew Lang once remarked of a hypothesis equally untenable, "That cock won't fight." Would Cranstoun have fled as he did from justice, and gone into voluntary exile for life, when, if innocent, he had only to produce Mary's letters to him in proof of the blameless character of their correspondence? and why, when on his death those letters passed into Lord Cranstoun's custody, did not that nobleman publish them in vindication of his brother's honour, as he was directly challenged to do by a pamphleteer of the day? The Crown authorities, at any rate, as we have seen, did not share the opinion expressed by the writers above cited; and from what was said by Mr. Justice Buller, in the case of George Barrington (Mich. 30 Geo. III., reported Term Rep. 499), it appears that Cranstoun, for his concern in the murder of Mr. Blandy, was prosecuted to outlawry, the learned judge observing with reference to the form adopted on that occasion, "It was natural to suppose groat care had been taken in settling it, because some of the most eminent gentlemen in the profession were employed in it."