It was nine o’clock at night; for thirteen mortal hours Mary Blandy had watched unflinchingly the “interesting game played by counsel with her life for stakes”; the “game” was over, and hers was the losing side; yet no sign of fear or agitation was manifested by that strange woman as she rose for the last time to address her judge.  “My lord,” said she, “as your lordship has been so good to show so much candour and impartiality in the course of my trial, I have one favour more to beg; which is, that your lordship would please to allow me a little time till I can settle my affairs and make my peace with God”; to which Mr. Baron Legge feelingly replied, “To be sure, you shall have a proper time allowed you.”  So, amid the tense stillness of the crowded “house,” the curtain fell upon the great fourth act of the tragedy of “The Fair Parricide.”

On leaving the hall to be taken back to prison, Mary Blandy, we read, “stepped into the Coach with as little Concern as if she had been going to a Ball”—­the eighteenth century reporter anticipating by a hundred years his journalistic successor’s phrase as to the demeanour of Madeleine Smith in similar trying circumstances.  The result of the trial had preceded her to Oxford Castle, where she found the keeper’s family “in some Disorder, the Children being all in Tears” at the fatal news.  “Don’t mind it,” said their indomitable guest, “What does it signify?  I am very hungry; pray, let me have something for supper as speedily as possible”; and our reporter proceeds to spoil his admirable picture by condescending upon “Mutton Chops and an Apple Pye.”

The six weeks allowed her to prepare for death were all too short for the correspondence and literary labours in which she presently became involved.  On 7th March “a Reverend Divine of Henley-upon-Thames,” probably, from other evidence, the Rev. William Stockwood, rector of the parish, addressed to her a letter, exhorting her to confession and repentance.  To this Miss Blandy replied on the 9th, maintaining that she had acted innocently.  “There is an Account,” she tells him, “as well as I was able to write, which I sent to my Uncle in London, that I here send you.”  Copies of these letters, and of the narrative referred to, are printed in the Appendix.  She sends her “tenderest wishes” to her god-mother, Mrs. Mounteney, and trusts that she will be able to “serve” her with the Bishop of Winchester, apparently in the matter of a reprieve, of which Mary is said to have had good hope, by reason that she had once the honour of dancing with the late Prince of Wales—­“Fred, who was alive and is dead.”  “Pray comfort poor Ned Herne,” she writes, “and tell him I have the same friendship for him as ever.”  She asks that her letter and its enclosure be returned, as, being in her own handwriting, they may be of service to her character after her death.  The object of this request was speedily apparent; on 20th March the whole documents were published under the title