morrow’s tragedy, and looked out from one of the upper windows upon the gibbet, “opposite the door of the gaol, and made by laying a poll across upon the arms of two trees”—­in her case “the fatal tree” had a new and very real significance; then she turned away, remarking only that it was “very high.”  At nine o’clock on Monday morning, attended by Parson Swinton, and “dress’d in a black crape sack, with her arms and hands ty’d with black paduasoy ribbons,” Mary Blandy was led out to her death.  About the two trees with, their ominous “poll” a crowd of silent spectators was assembled on the Castle Green, to whom, in accordance with the etiquette of the day, she made her “dying declaration”—­to wit, that she was guiltless of her father’s blood, though the innocent cause of his death, and that she did not “in the least contribute” to that of her mother or of Mrs. Pocock.  This she swore upon her salvation; which only shows, says Lord Campbell, who was convinced of her guilt, “the worthlessness of the dying declarations of criminals, and the absurdity of the practice of trying to induce them to confess.”  We shall not dwell upon the shocking spectacle—­the curious will find a contemporary account in the Appendix—­but one characteristic detail may be mentioned.  As she was climbing the fatal ladder, covered, for the occasion, with black cloth, she stopped, and addressing the celebrants of that grim ritual, “Gentlemen,” said she, “do not hang me high, for the sake of decency.”

Mary Blandy was but just in time to make so “genteel” an end.  That very year (1752), owing to the alarming increase of murders, an Act was passed (25 Geo. II. c. 37) “for better preventing the Horrid Crime of Murder,” whereby persons condemned therefor should be executed on the next day but one after sentence, and their bodies be given to the Surgeons’ Company at their Hall with a view to dissection, and also, in the discretion of the judge, be hanged in chains.  The first person to benefit by the provisions of the new Act did so on 1st July.  But although Mary Blandy’s body escaped these legal indignities, as neither coffin nor hearse had been prepared for its reception, it was carried through the crowd on the shoulders of one of the Sheriff’s men, and deposited for some hours in his house.  There suitable arrangements were made, and at one o’clock in the morning of Tuesday, 7th April, 1752, the body, by her own request, was buried in the chancel of Henley Parish Church, between those of her father and mother, when, notwithstanding the untimely hour, “there was assembled the greatest concourse of people ever known upon such an occasion.”  Henley Church has been “restored” since Mary’s day, and there is now no indication of the grave, which, as the present rector courteously informs the Editor, is believed to be beneath the organ, in the north choir aisle.