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tea and it really seemed to have the effect that William Cranstoun predicted. For some days afterwards, her father was in a better temper. Cranstoun sent her some more powder, and because of the earlier success Mary did not hesitate to put this in his tea as well.
    Poor Mary Blandy. She was trying to overlook the lies William Cranstoun had told her about the mistress or wife he had left behind in Scotland, when now it emerged that he had another mistress in London. Even at this point she did not relinquish him. She forgave him. She does seem to have been a very simple and gullible person. When one of the servants drank some of her father’s ‘powdered’ tea and became ill immediately afterwards, she still did not realise what Cranstoun was trying to do. She added Cranstoun’s powder to her father’s soup. He became ill straight away. The maid, Susan, had a taste of the soup and she was sick for two days as a result. The maid realised what was happening and took the soup to a chemist. The chemist analyzed it and as a result the maid warned Mr Blandy that he was being poisoned.
    Francis Blandy loved his daughter and just wanted her to stop poisoning him. He hinted heavily to Mary that he knew what was going on. She was frightened by this into throwing the rest of the powder onto the fire. But as Mary left the kitchen, the maid pulled out what was left of the powder and took that off to the chemist. The chemist confirmed that the powder was arsenic.
    Mary then wrote a fateful letter to her lover, telling him to be careful. The letter turned out to be deeply incriminating at her trial. She gave the letter to a clerk to post, but the clerk opened it and gave it to the chemist for safe-keeping.
    On 14 August 1751 Francis Blandy finally died. Before he died he told Mary that he believed she had poisoned him and he forgave her for it. When William Cranstoun heard Mr Blandy was dead, instead of rushing to her side he fled to France, leaving Mary to face trial alone.
    The trial was an interesting one for its time, because it leant heavily on forensic evidence. Mary depended for her defence on her belief that that the powder was a love potion that would sweeten her father’s disposition and make him change his mind about William Cranstoun. From today’s vantage point, this would seem to be true. Mary made no attempt to get rid of the remains of the incriminating poisoned soup and tea. If she had known they contained arsenic she would surely have seen to it that no trace remained. But the jury did not believe her and she was found guilty of murder.
    Mary asked the hangman not to hang her too high, ‘for the sake of decency’. She did not want the crowd looking up her skirt. William Cranstoun died in poverty only half a year later.
    While Mary was in prison she heard about another woman in the same plight, Elizabeth Jefferies. Elizabeth had plotted with her lover to murder her uncle. The motive behind the murder was that the uncle had had sex with the niece. Mary opened a sympathetic correspondence with Elizabeth. Just before her execution, Elizabeth confessed to her part in the murder. Mary was evidently shocked and sent her a letter reproaching her. This suggests very strongly that she had assumed until that point that what they had in common was their innocence. It is fairly clear now that Mary Blandy was rather simple-minded, trusting, obedient to her menfolk, and probably innocent of any intent to murder. It was the untried and unpunished Captain William Cranstoun who was the real murderer.

John Williamson
    ‘and the tortured wife’

     
     
     
    John Williamson was a child of a poor family in mid-eighteenth century London. When he was old enough, he was apprentice to a shoemaker. He completed his apprenticeship and pursued his trade earnestly and conscientiously. He married a sensible and sober young woman, by whom he had three children.
    Then things started to go wrong. Mrs Williamson died. For a time Williamson kept