Trial of Mary Blandy | Page 4

her biographer names her, had the
recommendation of being a soldier. Mr. T----, too, found favour with
the damsel. His fine address was much appreciated by her mamma,
who, being a devotee of fashion, heartily espoused his cause; but again
the course of true love was barred by the question of settlements as
broached by the old lawyer, and the man of war "retired with some
resentment." There was, however, no lack of candidates for Mary's
hand and dower. Captain D---- at once stepped into the breach and
gallantly laid siege to the fair fortress. At last, it seemed Cupid's
troublesome business was done; the captain's suit was agreeable to all
parties, and the couple became engaged. Mary's walks with her lover in
the fields of Henley gave her, we read, such exquisite delight that she
frequently thought herself in heaven. But, alas, the stern summons of
duty broke in upon her temporary Eden: the captain was ordered abroad
with his regiment on active service, and the unlucky girl could but sit at
home with her parents and patiently abide the issue.
Among Mr. Blandy's grand acquaintances was General Lord Mark Kerr,
uncle of Lady Jane Douglas, the famous heroine of the great Douglas
Cause. His lordship had taken at Henley a place named "The Paradise,"
probably through the agency of the obsequious attorney, whose family
appear to have had the _entrée_ to that patrician abode. Dining with her
parents at Lord Mark's house in the summer of 1746, Mary Blandy
encountered her fate. That fate from the first bore but a sinister aspect.

Among the guests was one Captain the Hon. William Henry Cranstoun,
a soldier and a Scot, whose appearance, according to a diurnal writer,
was unprepossessing. "In his person he is remarkably ordinary, his
stature is low, his face freckled and pitted with the smallpox, his eyes
small and weak, his eyebrows sandy, and his shape no ways genteel;
his legs are clumsy, and he has nothing in the least elegant in his
manner." The moral attributes of this ugly little fellow were only less
attractive than his physical imperfections. "He has a turn for gallantry,
but Nature has denied him the proper gifts; he is fond of play, but his
cunning always renders him suspected." He was at this time thirty-two
years of age, and, as the phrase goes, a man of pleasure, but his militant
prowess had hitherto been more conspicuous in the courts of Venus
than in the field of Mars. The man was typical of his day and
generation: should you desire his closer acquaintance you will find a
lively sketch of him in Joseph Andrews, under the name of Beau
Didapper.
If Mary was the Eve of this Henley "Paradise," the captain clearly
possessed many characteristics of the serpent. As First-Lieutenant of
Sir Andrew Agnew's regiment of marines, he had been "out"--on the
wrong side, for a Scot--in the '45, and the butcher Cumberland having
finally killed the cause at Culloden on 16th April, this warrior was now
in Henley beating up recruits to fill the vacancies in the Hanoverian
lines caused by the valour of the "rebels." Such a figure was a
commonplace of the time, and Mr. Blandy would not have looked
twice at him but for the fact that it appeared Lord Mark was his
grand-uncle. The old lawyer, following up this aristocratic scent, found
to his surprise and joy that the little lieutenant, with his courtesy style
of captain, was no less a person than the fifth son of a Scots peer,
William, fifth Lord Cranstoun, and his wife, Lady Jane Kerr, eldest
daughter of William, second Marquis of Lothian. True, he learned the
noble union had been blessed with seven sons and five daughters; my
Lord Cranstoun had died in 1727, and his eldest son, James, reigned in
his stead. The captain, a very much "younger" son, probably had little
more than his pay and a fine assortment of debts; still, one cannot have
everything. The rights of absent Captain D---- were forgotten, now that
there was a chance to marry his daughter to a man who called the

daughter of an Earl grandmother, and could claim kinship with half the
aristocracy of Scotland; and Mr. Blandy frowned as he called to mind
the presumption of the Bath apothecary.
How far matters went at this time we do not know, for Cranstoun left
Henley in the autumn and did not revisit "The Paradise" till the
following summer. Meanwhile Captain D---- returned from abroad, but
unaccountably failed to communicate with the girl he had the year
before so reluctantly left behind him. Mary's uncles, "desirous of
renewing a courtship which they thought would turn much to the
honour and benefit of their niece," intervened; but Captain D----,
though "polite and