That day a post-mortem examination of Mr. Blandy’s remains was made by Dr. Addington and others, and in the afternoon “at the house of John Gale, Richard Miles, Gent., Mayor and Coroner of the said town,” opened his inquiry into the cause of death.  An account of the proceedings at the inquest is printed in the Appendix.  The medical witnesses examined were Drs. Addington and Lewis; Mr. Nicholson, surgeon in Henley; and the apothecary, Mr. Norton, who severally spoke to the symptoms exhibited by the deceased during life, the appearances presented by his body, and the result of the analysis of the powder.  They were of opinion that Mr. Blandy died of poison, and that the powder was a poison capable of causing his death.  The maids, Gunnell and Binfield, Harman the footman, and Mary’s old flame, Ned Herne, were the other witnesses whose depositions were taken.  Having heard the evidence, the jury found that Francis Blandy was poisoned, and that Mary Blandy “did poison and murder” him; and on Friday, 16th August, the mayor and coroner issued to the constables his warrant to convey the prisoner to the county gaol of Oxford, there to be detained until discharged by due course of law.  That night Mr. Blandy’s body was buried in the parish church at Henley.  None of his relatives were present, Norton, his apothecary; Littleton, his clerk; and Harman, his footman, being the only mourners.

Miss Blandy was not removed to Oxford Castle till the following day, to enable her to make the arrangements necessary for a lengthy visit.  By her request, one Mrs. Dean, a former servant of the family, accompanied her as her maid.  Her tea caddy—­“the cannisters were all most full of fine Hyson”—­was not forgotten.  At four o’clock on Saturday morning the ladies, attended by two constables, set out “very privately” in a landau and four, and, eluding the attention of the mob, reached Oxford about eleven.  Mary’s first question on arriving at the gaol was, “Am I to be fettered?” and, learning that she would not be put in irons so long as she behaved well, she remarked, “I have wore them all this morning in my mind in the coach.”  At first, we are told, “her imprisonment was indeed rather like a retirement from the world than the confinement of a criminal.”  She had her maid to attend her, the best, apartments in the keeper’s house were placed at her disposal, she drank tea—­her favourite Hyson—­twice a day, walked at her pleasure in the keeper’s garden, and of an evening enjoyed her game of cards.  Her privacy was strictly respected; no one was allowed to “see her without her consent,” though very extraordinary sums were daily offered for that purpose.  What treatment more considerate could a sensitive gentlewoman desire?  But the rude breath of the outer world was not so easily excluded.  One day the interesting prisoner learned from a visitor the startling news that her father’s fortune, of which, as he had left no will, she was sole heiress, had been found to amount to less than four thousand