Trial of Mary Blandy | Page 8

shortly thereafter returned to Henley.
During this visit to town Mary Blandy states that Cranstoun proposed a
secret marriage "according to the usage of the Church of
England"--apparently with the view of testing the relative strength of
the nuptial knot as tied by their respective Churches. Mary, with
hereditary caution, refused to make the experiment unless an opinion of
counsel were first obtained, and Cranstoun undertook to submit the
point to Mr. Murray, the Solicitor-General for Scotland. Whatever view,
if any, that learned authority expressed regarding so remarkable an
expedient, Mary heard no more of the matter; but in Cranstoun's
Account the marriage is said to have taken place at her own request,
"lest he should prove ungrateful to her after so material an intimacy."
How "material" in fact was the intimacy between them at this time we
can only conjecture.
Mrs. Blandy seems to have made the most of her visit to the metropolis,
for, according to her daughter, she had contracted debts amounting to
forty pounds, and as she "durst not" inform Mr. Blandy, she borrowed
that sum from her obliging future son-in-law. By what means the
captain, in the then state of his finances, came by the money Mary fails
to explain. Being thus, in a pecuniary sense, once more afloat, the
ladies, taking grateful leave of Cranstoun, went home to Henley.
We hear nothing further of their doings until some six months after
their return, when on Thursday, 28th September 1749, Mrs. Blandy
became seriously ill. Mr. Norton, the Henley apothecary who attended
the family, was sent for, and her brother, the Rev. John Stevens, of
Fawley, who, "with other country gentlemen meeting to bowl at the
Bell Inn," chanced then to be in the town, was also summoned. It was

at first hoped that the old lady would rally as on the former occasion
but she gradually grew worse, notwithstanding the attentions of the
eminent Dr. Addington, brought from Reading to consult upon the case.
Her husband, her daughter, and her two brothers were with her until the
end, which came on Saturday, 30th September. To the last the dying
woman clung to her belief in the good faith of her noble captain: "Mary
has set her heart upon Cranstoun; when I am gone, let no one set you
against the match," were her last words to her husband. He replied that
they must wait till the "unhappy affair in Scotland" was decided. The
complaint of which Mrs. Blandy died was, as appears, intestinal
inflammation, but, as we shall see later, her daughter was popularly
believed to have poisoned her. However wicked Mary Blandy may
have been, she well knew that by her mother's death she and Cranstoun
lost their best friend. An old acquaintance and neighbour of Mrs.
Blandy, one Mrs. Mounteney, of whom we shall hear again, came upon
a visit to the bereaved family. Mrs. Blandy, on her deathbed, had
commended this lady to her husband, in case he should "discover an
inclination to marry her"--she already was Mary's godmother; but Mrs.
Mounteney was destined to play another part in the subsequent drama.
Miss Blandy broke the sad news by letter to her lover in London, and
pressed him to come immediately to Henley; but the gallant officer
replied that he was confined to the house for fear of the bailiffs, and
suggested the propriety of a remittance from the mistress of his heart.
Mary promptly borrowed forty pounds from Mrs. Mounteney, fifteen
of which she forwarded for the enlargement of the captain, who, on
regaining his freedom, came to Henley, where he remained some weeks.
Francis Blandy was much affected by the loss of his wife. At first he
seems to have raised no objection to Cranstoun's visit, but soon Mary
had to complain of the "unkind things" which her father said both to her
lover and herself. There was still no word from Scotland, except a
"very civil" letter of condolence from my Lady Cranstoun,
accompanied by a present of kippered salmon--apparently intended as
an antidote to grief; but though the old man was gratified by such polite
attentions, his mind was far from easy. He was fast losing all faith in
the vision of that splendid alliance by which he had been so long
deluded, and did not care to conceal his disappointment from the

person mainly responsible.
On this visit mention was first made by Cranstoun of the fatal powder
of which we shall hear so much. Miss Blandy states that, apropos to
her father's unpropitious attitude, her lover "acquainted her of the great
skill of the famous Mrs. Morgan," a cunning woman known to him in
Scotland, from whom he had received a certain powder, "which she
called love-powders"--being, as appears, the Scottish equivalent to the
poculum amatorium or