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n Miss Mary Blandy spent the early days of hernincarceration in something more like a withdrawal from the world than thennormal imprisonment that a suspected murderess might expect in the eighteenthncentury. She took her Hyson tea, played a hand of whist, walked in thenOxfordshire sunshine.
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| Miss Mary Blandy in Oxford Castle |
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nBut the genteel façade began to be chipped away. Newsnreached her that her father had died without making a will, unusual for anlawyer maybe, and she was the sole heiress to his fortune which, to her shock,namounted to something less than four thousand pounds. The promised dowry of tennthousand pounds, which had so attracted her Scottish nobleman, was a figment ofnthe sycophantic attorney’s imagination.
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| The Tryal of Mary Blandy – 1752 |
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nThe Secretary of State heard whispersnthat there was a plot being prepared tonfree the parricide and he sent orders to Oxford that a more careful watchnshould be placed on her. The garden walks came to a sudden end and shacklesnwere riveted around her slender ankles. The tea-drinking and card games werensubstituted by chapel services and her only visitor was the prison chaplain.
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| The Tryal of Mary Blandy – Two Shilling Folio edition |
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nRumours and speculations abounded – she had also poisoned her mother, she hadnpoisoned Mrs Pocock, a family friend, she had spent her fortune bribingnofficials, she was still in correspondence with Cranstoun, she was secretlynmarried to the keeper’s son, witnesses against her were ‘being taken care of’,nshe was a drunkard, she was an habitual user of profanities, she never attendednchurch services, even that she had escaped.
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nConcerns were aired that the servants, Gunnelnand Emmet, might possibly succumb to the same fate as their former master, andnan early trial was recommended. The town hall at Oxford was undergoingnrefurbishment and the University refused the use of Sheldonian Theatre, so thentrial began in the hall of the Divinity School at eight o’clock in the morningnof Tuesday March 3rd 1752.
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| Hall of the Divinity School, Oxford |
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nThe indictment charged the prisoner withnthe wilful murder of Francis Blandy by administering to him white arsenic atndivers times during 1751. The trial was remarkable as it was the first one ofnwhich there is any detailed record, in which convincing scientific proof ofnpoisoning was given. The Crown case opened with the medical evidence from DrsnAddington and Lewis, and Norton the apothecary, who presented proof that thenarsenic was the cause of death, arsenic was in the gruel pot, and arsenic wasnin the packet that the witness had attempted to burn.
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nThe servants were callednand gave evidence that they had heard Miss Blandy wish her father dead and thatnshe had referred to him in less than daughterly terms. Her hurried,nintercepted, note to Cranstoun was produced and read, witnesses from the Angelntavern were called and the Crown closed its case.
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| Miss Mary Blandy |
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nThen Mary Blandy took thenstand but gave little evidence other than stating that she thought the powdern‘an inoffensive thing’ that she had given to her father to procure his love.nThe defence called its own witnesses, former servants who said that they hadnnever heard Miss Blandy speak a word against her father. Edward Herne, theninattentive sentry and old flame, told how he had visited the house at leastnfour times a week and had always found Mary to be a exemplary, attentivendaughter.
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nAfter thirteen hours in the courtroom, the jury consulted for fivenminutes without even withdrawing, and immediately returned a guilty verdict. Mr Baron Leggenpronounced the death sentence on Miss Mary Blandy, who was then returned tonOxford Castle, stepping “… into the Coach with as little Concern as if shenhad been going to a Ball.”
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| Miss Mary Blandy’s Own Account – 1752 |
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nA flurry of pamphlets appeared, stating thentruth of both sides, and Mary produced her own ‘True Account’ of whatnhad happened. None of it made any difference. The date of the execution wasnfixed for Saturday April 6th but the University authorities objectednthat it was an unseemly thing for Holy Week, so the date was moved to thenfollowing Monday.
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| Account of the Life of Miss Mary Blandy |
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nAt nine in the morning, Mary Blandy was led from her cellnand, dressed in black crepe and with her arms tied with black paduasoy ribbons,ncarrying a prayerbook and two guineas for the hangman, she walked to the CastlenGreen. Before a silent, respectful crowd of over five thousand, she made anmodest speech admitting her guilt and denying any involvement in any otherndeaths. She began to climb the ladder but stopped when five steps up and asked ‘fornmodesty’s sake’ not to be hanged high. She went up two more steps andnstopped again, fearing that she might fall, a handkerchief was placed over hernface and, with the prayerbook still in her hand, she was turned off the ladder.
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| The Execution of Miss Blandy |
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nAfter half an hour, she was taken down but no hearse or coffin had beennbrought, so the body was thrown over the shoulder of one of the sheriff’s mennand carried away, immodestly exposing her legs to the gaze of the onlookers.nShe was laid in the sheriff’s house during the afternoon and then taken tonHenley, where at one o’clock in the morning she was buried in the same grave asnher mother and father in the chancel of Henley Parish Church.
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| A Candid Appeal to the Publick – 1752 |
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nHer genteelndeparture came just in time, as a new law was passed later in the same year wherebynthose condemned for murder where to be hanged the next day but one afternsentence was passed and then their body passed on to the surgeons forndissection or, at the judge’s discretion, hanged in chains. The case of MarynBlandy was followed greatly at the time although she almost forgotten now.
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| Capt. William Henry Cranston |
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nAndnwhat, you may ask, became of the Honourable William Henry Cranstoun? Well, whennnews of the arrest of his intended reached his ears, this officer and gentlemannfled to Scotland and when a writ for his arrest was issued, he ran for thencontinent as quickly as his scrawny little legs could carry him. He soughtnrefuge with a kinswoman in France and assumed her maiden name, Dunbar, but hisnarrival became known to officers in the French service who were related to hisnwife and when they vowed revenge for his shabby treatment of her, he scamperednoff to Furnes, a town in Flanders owned by the Queen of Hungary.
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nThere, in latenNovember 1752, he fell ill with a mystery illness and on December 2ndnhe died, in great agonies, you may be pleased to hear. His goods, including hisnembroidered waistcoats, were sold off to pay his debts. On his deathbed, henconverted to the Roman Catholic Church, and the death of so prominent a convertnimpelled the local clergy to arrange a magnificent ceremonial funeral in thenCathedral, with a procession and high requiem mass, all attended by monks,nfriars and the magistrates of the town. We can only assume that they werenunaware of the true identity of their latest celebrity.
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| Commodore Howe – or is it? Compare with the above portrait of Cranstoun. |
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nIn an interestingnaside, in 1760, John Fuller published a three volume edition of The NavalnChronicle; or, Voyages, Travels, Expeditions. Volume Three includednaccounts of various prominent naval officers, illustrated with woodcuts ofnthese eminent gentlemen, but when it came to Commodore Lord Richard Howe, who laternbecame First Lord of the Admiralty, Fuller must not have had a portrait of Howenavailable, as he had a portrait of Cranstoun reworked and presented in his booknas the image of the naval hero.
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nQuite what ‘Black Dick’ Howe thought ofnhis portrait when he was confronted with Fuller’s presentation of the odiousnCranstoun as his own likeness has not made its way down to us. I do not expect that it wasnone of enthusiastic approval.
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