On Monday, 2nd March, 1752, the grand jury for the county of Oxford found a true bill against Mary Blandy.  The Town Hall, where the Assizes were usually held, was “then rebuilding,” and as the University authorities had refused the use of the Sheldonian Theatre, the trial was appointed to take place next morning in the beautiful hall of the Divinity School.  Owing to the insertion overnight—­by a mischievous undergraduate or other sympathiser with the day’s heroine—­of some obstacle in the keyhole, the door could not be opened, and the lock had to be forced, which delayed the proceedings for an hour.  The judges meanwhile returned to their lodgings.  This initial difficulty surmounted, at eight o’clock on Tuesday, 3rd March, Mary Blandy was placed at the bar to answer the grave charges made against her.  There appeared for the Crown the Hon. Mr. Bathurst and Mr. Serjeant Hayward, assisted by the Hon. Mr. Barrington and Messrs. Hayes, Nares, and Ambler.  The prisoner was defended by Mr. Ford, with whom were Messrs. Morton and Aston.  The judges were the Hon. Heneage Legge and Sir Sidney Stafford Smythe, two of the Barons of His Majesty’s Court of Exchequer.

As the following pages contain a verbatim reprint of the official report of the trial, published by permission of the judges, it is only necessary here briefly to refer to the proceedings.  The trial lasted thirteen hours.  It is, says Mr. Ainsworth Mitchell, in his Science and the Criminal, “remarkable as being the first one of which there is any detailed record, in which convincing scientific proof of poisoning was given.”  The indictment charged the prisoner with the wilful murder of Francis Blandy by administering to him white arsenic at divers times (1) between 10th November, 1750, and 5th August, 1751, in tea, and (2) between 5th and 14th August, 1751, in water gruel.  The prisoner pleaded not guilty, a jury was duly sworn, and the indictment having been opened by Mr. Barrington, Bathurst began his address for the Crown.  Though promoted later to the highest judicial office, he has been described as “the least efficient Lord Chancellor of the eighteenth century.”  Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, says that Bathurst’s address was much praised for its eloquence, and “as it certainly contains proof of good feeling, if not of high talent and refined taste,” his lordship transcribes for the benefit of his readers certain of its purpler passages.  It was deemed worthy, at the time, of publication in separate form, with highly eulogistic notes, wherein we read that by its eloquent appeal both judges and counsel “were moved to mourn, nay, to weep like tenderest infants.”  The prisoner, however, heard it dry-eyed, nor will its effect be more melting for the modern reader.  At the outset the learned counsel observed, with reference to the heinous nature of the crime, that he was not surprised “at this vast concourse of people collected together,” from which it appears there