with her legs exposed very indecently for several hundred yards, and then deposited in the Sheriff’s man’s house, ’till about half an hour past five o’clock, when the body was put in a hearse, and carried to Henley, where she was interred about one o’clock the next morning in the church, between her father and mother, where was assembled the greatest concourse of people ever known upon such an occasion.  The funeral service was performed by the same clergyman as wrote the letter, dated the 7th of March (as before inserted)[29] to whom, among seven guineas which she left for seven rings, she bequeathed one of them.

APPENDIX VIII.

LETTER FROM THE WAR OFFICE TO THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL, STRIKING CRANSTOUN’S NAME OFF THE HALF PAY LIST.

(From the original MS. in the possession of Mr. A.M.  Broadley.)

  War Office, 14th March, 1752.

Sir,—­On Tuesday the 3d instant came on at Oxford, before the Honble.  Mr. Baron Legge & Mr. Baron Smythe, the Tryal of Miss Mary Blandy for Poisoning her late Father; when first Lieutenant Wm. Henry Cranstoune, a reduc’d first Lieut. of Sir Andrew Agnew’s late Regt. of Marines, now on the British Establishment of Half-Pay, was charg’d 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 comanded 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.—­I am,

  Sr. your most obedient & most humble Servant,

  H. FOX

  Rt.  Honble.  Mr. Pitt, Paymaster-General.

[Endorsed] War Office, 14th March, 1752.  Mr. Fox to Mr. Pitt directing the Half Pay of Lieut.  Willm.  Henry Cranstoun to be Stopt.  Ent.  No. 1 W.P.  Fo. 11.

APPENDIX IX.

THE CONFESSIONS OF CRANSTOUN.

I.—­Cranstoun’s Own Version of the Facts.

(From No. 19 of Bibliography, Appendix XII.)

Let us now return to Capt.  Cranstoun, who as soon as he heard Miss was committed to Oxford Jail, secreted himself from the Publick, so that when Messengers were dispatched with Warrants to apprehend him, he was not to be found.  In this concealment (either in Scotland, or the North of England) he lay for six months, that is from the middle of August, till a few days before Miss’s Trial, which, came on the 2nd of March, when being well informed of the dangerous Situation she was in, and that his own Fate depended upon hers, his thought it high time to take care of himself; which he did by transporting himself to Bologn in France.

[Illustration:  Captain William Henry Cranstoun, with his pompous funeral procession in Flanders (From an Engraving by B. Cole.)]