‘Weigh not so much what men assert, as what they prove.’
Philip Sidney
HOWARTH OPENED THE QUESTIONING of Anna Maria Boughton in a simple manner: what was Theodosius’s age, and his expected fortune? Who would inherit the money if he died before he reached his majority? How long had Donellan lived at Lawford Hall, and for how much of that time had Theodosius also lived there?
Anna Maria answered the questions accurately, although she did not say that Donellan and Theodosia had come to live at Lawford at her invitation. She estimated Theodosius’s fortune at £2,000 (£125,000) a year. What she omitted to add – and was not asked about – was that there was a mortgage on the estate of some £7,000 (£440,000). This is footnoted in Donellan’s published Defence by his solicitors. They added that John Donellan was in full expectation of the livings of Newbold and Great Harborough, for which he had been studying theology for the past two years, and which were worth £500 (£31,400) a year, and were in the gift of Theodosius. They added, ‘the estate … was not actually worth as much as the livings.’
A letter from Theodosia’s grandson, Edward Allesley Boughton Ward-Boughton-Leigh, to Sir Charles Rouse-Boughton in 1882 confirms this picture. Having described the estate, he concludes: ‘I have mentioned this subject to show that there was not more than trifling pecuniary inducements to commit murder on Donellan’s part as Donellan might – and probably would have been – very comfortably circumstanced on the death of Lady Boughton.’ Edward was not, however, in court to speak up for Donellan. His defence came a hundred years too late.
Anna Maria was not asked about the exact nature of the estate in cross-examination by Donellan’s lawyers. This information would have removed the primary motive attributed to Donellan by Howarth in his opening statement – that he had committed the crime to obtain his share in an ‘opulent’ and ‘considerable’ fortune. And it would have drawn attention to the point that, if Donellan had killed Theodosius, he would have murdered the very person who could have provided him with a comfortable income once he came of age.
Anna Maria was then asked if she had spoken to Donellan about her son’s health; she replied that she had, and that Donellan had warned her against leaving Lawford Hall because ‘something or other may happen; he is in a very bad state of health’.
Questioning then passed on to the visit of Fonnereau, Theodosius’s friend. Anna Maria confirmed that he had arrived at Lawford after Theodosius died, but that the original plan had been for him to stay for a week and then for him and Theodosius to go back to Northampton.
Q: Was he going to stay a long or short time there?
A: He did not say how long.
This answer contradicts Howarth’s opening speech, in which he suggested that Donellan had to poison Theodosius quickly before the boy went to stay with Fonnereau, because he was going to be away for eleven months: ‘Sir Theodosius … proposing to stay with him until he came of age called for immediate execution of the prisoner’s plan.’
In his Defence, Donellan has something to say about this misrepresentation of time:
It has been said, and spread about the country, that Sir Theodosius wanted no more than a month or two of being of age, and that Mr Donellan had suspicions of his marrying a Miss Fonnereau, and that as he, Sir Theodosius, had invited the young lady’s brother to Lawford the week of Sir Theodosius’s death, and was to return with him when he went back, he perpetrated the horrid deed ascribed to him under the idea that he should have no opportunity of doing it while Mr Fonnereau was at Lawford and that if Sir Theodosius returned with him, he would be of age, and would marry Miss Fonnereau before he came back, and then that the chance of his possessing his estate would be quite gone … The fact was, that he wanted eleven months [of being of ageLondon; and in regard to the other matter of his marrying Miss Fonnereau, no one except Lady Boughton ever entertained the least suspicion of the kind.
And he could not resist adding:
Her ladyship indeed frequently expressed apprehensions of it (as she did of almost every young lady he had the least acquaintance with).
The prosecution brief notes that ‘Fonnereau had a sister who Captain Donellan seemed apprehensive Sir Theodosius should think of marrying.’ So both sides wanted to bring this unnamed woman into the frame as a motive, but neither could furnish direct proof of Fonnereau’s sister being any kind of real marriage prospect.
Next Anna Maria explained that Powell had supplied a bottle of physic, that Donellan knew of this, and that he had encouraged Theodosius to keep it in an unlocked outer room.
She was then asked how many menservants had accompanied Theodosius fishing on the night before he died, to which she replied, ‘Samuel Frost was the only one.’ Again this is a direct contradiction of her own lawyer’s opening speech: Howarth had said that ‘About five o’clock that evening, Sir Theodosius, taking with him most of the menservants, went to the river fishing.’ It is also a contradiction of the notes in the prosecution brief, which claimed, ‘Sir Theodosius had two or three servants with him at the time.’
Howarth added, ‘Where the prisoner was at that time I believe cannot be explained to you.’
In fact, Donellan did provide a very detailed explanation of where he had been that evening, but had not put it in his prepared statement for the court: it only came to light later in the Defence. That afternoon, Donellan claimed to have walked for some time in the fields beyond the garden with his daughter and then returned to see Anna Maria in the garden, where he helped her pick fruit. At about five o’clock, they saw Theodosius ride past to go fishing. Donellan left the garden only briefly to ask Samuel Frost to bring a ladder to help them reach the higher fruit on the trees; he was gone a very short space of time, during which the servants had sight of his movements.
Afterwards Donellan said that he walked to Hewitt’s mill to discuss repair work with a carpenter called Matthews. He arranged for Anna Maria to meet Matthews, with himself, at the Hall at six o’clock; Sarah Blundell had come into the garden to say that the visitors, Matthew and a Mr Dand, were there; and both Donellan and Anna Maria had walked into the Hall and discussed various business with them for about ten minutes. Afterwards, Donellan went to the mill with Matthews and walked to the flood gates with him, and did not return until just after nine o’clock in the evening.
Donellan’s lawyers did not call either Dand or Matthews to give evidence. A footnote in Donellan’s posthumous account says: ‘Dand and Matthews were subpoenaed; but Mr Newnham thought it would be impossible to account for Mr Donellan’s time’ – surely a most peculiar decision by a defending lawyer? It was left open for Anna Maria’s team to be able to say, ‘Where the prisoner was I believe cannot be explained to you’ – the implication being that Donellan was in Theodosius’s bedroom pouring laurel water into his physic. It should be noted that it was never proved that the bottle of physic was actually in the bedroom at this time, however. Samuel Frost testified that he had given the medicine directly into Theodosius’s hands in the company of Mrs Donellan, and that Theodosius had put it into his pocket.
In her replies to the next few questions, Anna Maria denied seeing Donellan for over two hours after about five o’clock. She said that Donellan had come back to the house at about seven and told her that he had seen Theodosius fishing, and had tried to persuade him to come home in case he caught cold. (The prosecution brief said that ‘after walking in the garden some time they all came in together’.) Anna Maria then testified that her son came back about nine o’clock, ‘seemed very well’, asked if he could use a servant to go on an errand for him the next day and went straight to bed.
This contradicts the notes in the prosecution brief gleaned from Anna Maria previously, which state: ‘He went fishing about 4 o’clock and returned about 8.’
In her cross-examination by Mr Newnham, Anna Maria said that Donellan had already gone to bed by the time Theodosius returned at about nine o’clock. In his Defence Donellan emphasises the crucial nature of the timing and the geography of the house to show that he could not have had access to Theodosius’s room to tamper with the medicine. He accounted for his time until 9 p.m. He then said that he went into the parlour and spoke to Anna Maria. She said that she was angry with her son for staying out so late because it meant that she would have to light candles, but ‘expressed no other concern’.
Donellan’s and Theodosia’s bedrooms were directly above the parlour; Theodosius’s and his mother’s were in the other wing of the house. Donellan made the case that if he had returned downstairs Anna Maria would have seen or heard him from the parlour; he would then have walked down an 80-yard passage and up another staircase to Theodosius’s bedroom. In order to do this, he would have needed a candle; the light would have been seen.
This ended Anna Maria’s evidence on the events of 29 August.
The next questions concerned the following morning, the morning of Theodosius’s death.
Q: At what time did you see him [your sonLondon the next morning?
A: About seven o’clock.
Q: At that time of the morning, how did he appear in his health?
A: He appeared then to be very well. [Anna Maria had been asked this three times out of the last seven questions. She answered each question in exactly the same words, as if by rote.]
Q: Did you go into his room at that time?
A: He had desired me … to give him his physic … I asked him where the bottle was; he said, ‘It stood there upon the shelf.’ First of all, he desired me to get him a bit of cheese in order to take the taste out of his mouth … he desired me to read the label … there was written upon it, ‘Purging draught for Sir Theodosius Boughton’ … as he was taking it, he observed that it smelt and tasted very nauseous, upon which I said, ‘I think it smells very strongly like bitter almonds’ … he laid down.
Anna Maria here omits what she had told her lawyers for their brief: that the bottle had stood next to an empty bottle that contained the medicine which Theodosius had taken on Monday.
An absolutely vital difference that the prosecution did not reveal here was that, for the brief, Anna Maria had said that the mixture had the colour and smell of rhubarb as well as bitter almonds. The conclusion is that, if laurel water had been given, it had been added to the rhubarb medicine. Therefore it was not a neat mixture. Testimonies in court implied that Anna Maria unwittingly handed her son a phial of laurel water, nothing else; whereas, in fact, it had enough of the original mixture in it both to colour it and give it a rhubarb taste.
In court now, Anna Maria was given two bottles to smell: the first contained a draught of the mixture which Powell said he had prepared; the second contained laurel water. She identified the smell of the second as ‘very like the smell of the medicine which I gave him’.
In the prosecution brief, but not mentioned at the trial, great attention was paid to the fact that Powell had said that ‘he pushed in the cork very tight’ of the medicine bottle, but Anna Maria had said that she ‘took out the cork, which came out very loose’. Perhaps this omission at the trial was because it could be argued that Theodosius himself had opened the bottle already.
Q: What was the first observation your ladyship made of any appearance upon Sir Theodosius after taking the medicine?
A: In two minutes he struggled very much; it appeared to me as if it was to keep it down, and made a prodigious rattling in his stomach, and guggling; and he appeared to me to make very great efforts to keep it down.
It is at this point, interestingly, that the court transcript notes that the following questions were asked not by Anna Maria’s lawyer, but by ‘Court’ – presumably Sir Justice Buller. (Such an interruption, sometimes stopping or manipulating evidence, would have been accepted practice at that time; fifty years beforehand, a judge would have asked every question, as lawyers did not routinely come to court.)
COURT: How long did you observe these symptoms continue?
A: About ten minutes; he then seemed as if he was going to sleep, or inclined to doze. Perceiving him composed, I went out of the room.
This places Anna Maria’s departure from the room at about 7.15 a.m. or 7.20 a.m.
I returned in about five minutes after … I found him with his eyes fixed upwards, his teeth clenched, and froth running out of each corner of his mouth … I ran downstairs, and told the servant to take the first horse he could get, and go immediately for Mr Powell.
The timings are a little awry compared to the prosecution brief, which said that the convulsions ceased after six or seven minutes and that Anna Maria returned after six or eight minutes. This differs from the trial evidence by five to eight minutes.
On cross-examination, the defence counsel Newnham asked Anna Maria if she had planned to go riding with Donellan that morning. She agreed that she had; they were to go to ‘the wells’ that is, Newnham Wells, approximately three-quarters of a mile away. Newnham then asked if she had seen Donellan before he came up to Theodosius’s bedroom. She said that she had: he had been standing waiting in the yard –she had seen him from a window – and she had called down to him that she was going to put her riding things on and would be ready in fifteen minutes.
Q: This was after you left your son’s room, when you thought he was going to sleep?
A: Yes.
Q: How happened it, after your son had had these convulsive appearances, and had frightened your ladyship so much, that you did not disclose to Mr Donellan that he was in that condition, and you could not ride out?
A: I thought he appeared as if he was going to sleep …
We therefore have Anna Maria returning to Theodosius’s room at about 7.20 a.m. in her first testimony and calling for Powell to be brought at the same time; under cross-examination she says that she was getting ready to ride. Did she return, then, after five minutes or fifteen minutes, or later still? Donellan was standing in the courtyard with the horses ready; but had anyone else gone into Theodosius’s room while Anna Maria was getting ready or, alternatively, in the five minutes’ absence that she first testified to? Neither question was asked.
We return to Anna Maria’s questioning by the ‘Court’.
COURT: When did you first see Mr Donellan after that [i.e. after she had run downstairs and sent a servant for Powell]?
A: I saw him in less than five minutes [that is, about 7.25 a.m.]. He came up to the bedchamber and asked me, ‘What do you want?’
Here, Donellan’s posthumous account and Anna Maria’s differ enormously, particularly as regards timing.
Donellan wrote that he had risen at 6 a.m., because Anna Maria had wanted to ride out to visit ‘a person’s house to make some enquiries respecting a servant girl’. He waited ‘a considerable time’, walking about the yard and the garden, but when his mother-in-law did not appear he stood under her window and called her. For a while she did not reply; then she appeared at ‘a window at the stair-head between Sir Theodosius’s room and her Ladyship’s’ and told him that she would not be ready for some time. So far this agrees with Anna Maria’s version: the conversation was the one she reported to have happened at 7.20 a.m., although in her evidence she had said that she would be ready in fifteen minutes.
Donellan then wrote that, growing impatient, he:
… thought he might take a ride to Newnham Wells, distant about three-quarters of a mile from Lawford Hall, to take the waters there [which he usually did] … observing William Frost, the coachman, standing in the yard with the horses, he went to him, and, taking the little bay mare out of his hand, bade him put Lady Boughton’s horse in the stable … William Frost swears that he desired him to pull out his watch, which is a matter so absurd … Mr Donellan returned in less than three-quarters of an hour and was met by William Frost … Sir Theodosius was taken ill and he was going for Mr Powell, and said that Lady Boughton desired him to take the mare as she would go fastest …
So, if we are to take Anna Maria’s testimony and Donellan’s word together, Donellan returned at about eight o’clock from Newnham Wells, not 7.20, when he met the servant who had just been told to fetch Powell. This also ties in with Powell’s testimony: if William Frost left at 8 a.m., he would have returned with Powell about 9 a.m. – the timing is much more believable.
This either means that Anna Maria gave Theodosius his medicine at about 7.45 a.m., not 7 a.m.; or that she did indeed give him his medicine at seven, but had been absent from his room from 7.15 a.m. until just before eight o’clock. If the first is correct, why did she swear that it was earlier? If the second is correct, she had left her son for far longer than ‘five minutes’. The only logical explanation, if what Donellan says is true, is that Anna Maria gave Theodosius the medicine at 7.15 a.m., left the room, saw Donellan and told him that she would be some time, and only went back to the room just before eight, having got ready for her morning ride.
In that case, she checked on Theodosius after three-quarters of an hour, not the five minutes she testified to. Why did she not say so? Did it seem careless to leave the boy for so long after he had complained at the medicine? Was she trying to show how stringently she had looked after him, by checking again after only five minutes? How could she be so sure that Powell’s testified timescale would not contradict her?
This subject is returned to later in Anna Maria’s testimony by her own counsel.
When asked by Howarth what happened after Theodosius died, she says that some time afterwards she was in the downstairs parlour and Donellan returned to the subject of the bottles.
Q: What passed further on that?
A: I turned away from him to the window and made no answer upon it; upon which he repeated the same.
Q: What happened then?
A: He desir’d his wife to ring the bell to call up a servant. When the servant came, he ordered the servant to send in Will, the coachman.
Q: Relate what happened between Mr Donellan and the coachman.
A: When the coachman came, Mr Donellan said, ‘Will, don’t you remember that I set out this morning about seven o’clock?’ ‘yes sir,’ said he. ‘You remember that, don’t you?’ ‘yes sir.’ ‘And that was the first time of my going out. I have never been on the other side of the house this morning. You remember that I set out there at seven o’clock this morning, and asked for a horse to go to the Wells?’ ‘yes sir.’ Mr Donellan said, ‘Then you are my evidence.’
Donellan was already anxious about Anna Maria’s attitude: the significance of her objecting to his washing out the bottles had not been lost on him. He asked for ‘evidence’ that he was out of the house when Theodosius took his physic.
But it is to be noted that Donellan rode away at, or near to, seven o’clock. If he did so, then he had already had his conversation with Anna Maria at the open window. Yet Anna Maria testified that this was after she had given Theodosius his medicine. So if Donellan is correct, and William Frost is correct, and we compare their versions to Anna Maria’s testimony that she gave the physic to her son before speaking to Donellan, then Anna Maria administered the medicine fifteen minutes before 7 a.m., at 6.45 a.m. However, just to complicate matters, Donellan’s account contradicts this. He wrote that ‘Lady Boughton hastily told him that soon after she spoke to him out of the window, she gave Sir Theodosius his physic.’
Why did Anna Maria say this if she had in fact, as she testified in court, given the physic before speaking to Donellan? (A: I said, ‘I shall be ready in about a quarter of an hour, I am going to put my things on …’ Q: That is after you left your son’s room, when you thought he was going to sleep? A: Yes.) Did Donellan get it wrong? Was Anna Maria simply confused as to which came first? Or was she trying to obscure the fact that a whole hour had passed when Theodosius had been left alone, dying on his bed?
Now came the really damning part of Anna Maria’s testimony.
She was asked what happened when Donellan came into Theodosius’s bedroom.
A: I said, I wanted to inform him what a terrible thing had happened; that it was an unaccountable thing in the doctor to send such a medicine, for, if it had been taken by a dog, it would have killed him; and I did not think my son would live. Then he asked me where the physic bottle was. I showed him the two draughts. He took up one of the bottles … poured some water out of the water bottle, which was just by, into the phial, shook it, and then emptied it out into some dirty water which was in a washhand basin.
Q: Did you make any observation upon that conduct?
A: After he had thrown the contents of the first bottle into the washhand basin of dirty water, I observed that he ought not to do that. I said, ‘What are you at? You should not meddle with the bottle.’ Upon that, he snatched up the other bottle, and poured water into it, and shook it; then he put his finger to it and tasted it …
Q: Had he tasted the first bottle?
A: No.
Compare this to Anna Maria’s depositions to the coroner. In her first deposition, she had said that Donellan had put water into the bottle and poured the contents out and tasted it. In her second deposition, she said that he put water into the bottle, swilled it around and threw it on the ground; he then did the same with another bottle.
Donellan’s counsel took up the theme in his cross-examination.
Q: Did your ladyship ever mention, when examined by the Coroner, this fact, that Mr Donellan said, ‘I should not have known what I should have done, if I had not thought of saying that I did it to put my finger in to taste?’
A: I did mention this before the Coroner …
Q: I asked your ladyship whether you disclosed before the Coroner that Mr Donellan told Mrs Donellan in your hearing that if he had not thought of saying that he did it to put his finger in to taste, he should not have known what to have done. Did you mention that circumstance before the Coroner?
A: Yes.
Q: And swear it?
A: Yes.
Q: I believe you was examined a second time; was it upon the first or second examination?
A: I am not certain.
Q: Was your examination read over to you before you signed it?
A: Yes.
Q: I wish to ask your ladyship again whether this circumstance was disclosed in your evidence?
A: I said he told me that he did it to taste.
Q: Your examination was read. There is no such thing as that contained in it.
Newnham was right. There was no such thing in Anna Maria’s second deposition. But he failed to follow this up. He also failed to emphasise that, as well as Donellan’s tasting the mixture not being mentioned, an extra damning piece of information was added – that Donellan ‘threw the medicine and water upon the ground’. Tasting the mixture is the action of an innocent man who does not know what it contains. Throwing the mixture on the ground is the action of a guilty man who knows very well what it contains and is anxious to dispose of it.
But Newnham did not make this point to the jury. Instead, he went on to question Anna Maria about which horse was taken to Powell – but again without picking up on the disparity of reported timings.
Anna Maria was also asked if a servant was in Theodosius’s bedroom when Donellan was there. Yes, she replied, Sarah Blundell, and added that Donellan had told Sarah to take away ‘the basin, the dirty things, and the bottles’ and that he put the bottles into her hand. However, Anna Maria had objected, and taken the bottles from Sarah and told her to leave everything alone.
Sarah Blundell had died in the winter of 1780–81, within a fortnight of giving birth to an illegitimate child, so the following evidence was based on the word of Anna Maria alone (as indeed it was for everything that occurred when Theodosius took the physic).
A: He then desired that the room be cleaned and the clothes thrown into an inner room. I opened the door of the inner room … while my back was turned [he] put the bottles into her hand again, and bid her take them down; and was angry she had not done it at first.
The questioning determines that Anna Maria did not see the bottles actually being taken out; in fact, she was not certain if they had been taken out before she herself left the room after Theodosius died.
It is extraordinary to note that, according to his mother, all this conversation was going on while Theodosius was dying. Anna Maria was not at his bedside comforting him; she testifies that a maid was wiping the froth from his mouth. Catharine Amos later testified that she was the maid in question; that Theodosius was ‘motionless’ but that ‘the stomach heaved very much’ and ‘he gurgled at the throat’; and that after she had wiped Theodosius’s mouth four or five times she left the room because ‘my work lay below stairs’. As Catharine was giving evidence, Mr Newnham, Donellan’s counsel, suddenly asked Anna Maria a question. Did Sir Theodosius speak after he had taken the medicine? ‘Not at all,’ she replied.
It was an inappropriate moment: Catharine Amos was answering on another topic at the time. Why did he interrupt her? Did Newnham think that Theodosius had spoken? If so, was it on the subject that Catharine was being questioned about: which still was Donellan supposed to have distilled the laurel water in? Was this something that Theodosius had, in fact, known something about? Did he refer to it as he lay dying? Had he used it himself to distil something? Did he confess as much? Anna Maria’s reply was short – ‘No, not at all’ – but Newnham’s interruption is so unusual that it should be noted.
But let us return to Anna Maria’s contention that Theodosius was still alive when the argument about the bottles took place. To recap:
Q: When all this happened, the washing the bottles and removing the clothes, was Sir Theodosius dead?
A: He was nearly dead.
Compare this to Donellan’s account:
On entering his room he found Sir Theodosius in the agonies of death, his eyes being fix’d, his teeth set, and foaming at the mouth. He looked upon the sad spectacle with horror and amazement for some little time, and then Sir Theodosius went off.
Presumably, this means that Theodosius died; and he died, according to Donellan, before the bottles were washed.
Donellan’s account of what happened directly after is as follows:
Mr Donellan took the bottle from the chimney-piece, and held it up to the window in order to see more fully whether there were any dregs or not, and which he found then to be quite clean and dry; but thinking that it was perhaps probable, by putting a little water into the bottle, he might be able to get something off the sides and by that means discover what the medicine was, he put about a teaspoon of water into the first phial bottle and after rinsing it well poured the same out into a small white basin on the table, and dipping his finger in it, tasted the same several times, after which he told Lady Boughton that he could not … taste exactly what the medicine was, but that what little he could taste of it, was, he thought, rather nauseous.
He also addressed the issue of the bottles being cleared away. Contradicting Anna Maria, Donellan said that she began to clear the room, putting Theodosius’s belongings into an adjoining one. ‘He thought it was intended that there would be a general clearing of the room,’ he went on, ‘and therefore desired Sarah Blundell to help her ladyship … seeing Sarah coming to take away the bottles, he put some of them into her apron, which was all the assistance he gave …’
As for the bottle itself, in contrast to Anna Maria’s evidence that the bottle was not seen again, and that she did not know when it was removed or where to, Donellan writes:
Mr Caldecott, the solicitor, enquired for it … Mr Donellan immediately enquired of Sarah Blundell, who showed where she had put the bottles away (into a hole in the kitchen sometimes used for stewing) upon which he found one he thought might be it … shewed the same to Samuel Frost … took the bottle into the parlour, and put it upon the harpsichord ready to be produced when required.
But Donellan’s lawyer never asked Samuel Frost to testify to this; the bottle was thought, after Anna Maria’s testimony, to be lost. And so the burden of doubt fell on Donellan that he had somehow disposed of or destroyed it.
The prosecution brief was quite clear as to the fate of the bottles, however: it noted that Sarah Blundell had said that ‘the basin was soon after washed and the two bottles flung into the stove hole, where they were seen the next day broken and the labels torn off’. However, this was not referred to at the trial.
One further poignant story remains concerning Sarah Blundell. In her testimony, Anna Maria was asked by her own counsel what had become of the girl. Anna Maria replied shortly, ‘She is dead.’ Donellan himself had little positive to say about the servant, either, writing in his Defence:
Sarah Blundell is since dead … she was a woman of known bad character, and died in childbirth of a bastard; a matter which she so artfully concealed that nobody suspected anything of the kind till she was taken in labour, and even then did not confess what was the matter with her …
However, he went on:
During the time this woman was in labour, she was so extremely ill, that it was expected she should die before a delivery; and, as Mrs Donellan was particularly humane to her, she told her, in the presence of Sukey Sparrow, Mrs Donellan’s maid, that she knew no harm of her husband, and that she told Mr B— [Balguy, one of the prosecuting counsel?] every time he sent for her, she knew nothing against him. This was spoke at a time when she thought of dying every moment, but she lingered upwards of a fortnight afterwards, and, during that time, every unfair advantage was taken to extort things from her, and Mr Caldecott, the solicitor in this prosecution, was with her the day of her death, but she was speechless that day and the day preceeding … notwithstanding, Lady Boughton had a coach and chaise, she sent this woman away from Lawford, at the time she was so ill, in a cart.
If Theodosia was still at Lawford, showing humanity to Sarah Blundell while the girl was in labour, then this puts Sarah’s delivery of her child and her subsequent illness some time before Christmas 1780, as Theodosia had left, according to Caldecott, by December.
Anna Maria was evidently not disposed to show Sarah Blundell – who after all had supported her second deposition to the coroner – any such humanity. One wonders at her callousness in sending Sarah away in an open cart in the depths of winter.
Who was the father of the ‘bastard child’? The prosecution brief notes that Sarah Blundell’s ‘sweetheart’ was the footman John Yateman; but Yateman, despite being in the house at the time and having some relevant details about Donellan, was never called. In fact, all that we know about him is taken from a few sketchy references in the brief. Anna Maria never talks of him.
Why did Yateman not come forward at the trial to support Anna Maria’s case? Did he bear her a grudge about Sarah’s treatment? Or was his lack of support because he had realised that Sarah’s child was not his?
The later questions to Anna Maria by her own lawyer concerned a comment that Sir Theodosius’s stockings, which he had worn the night before, were wet; and that perhaps he had caught a cold and it was this which had occasioned his death. She said that the stockings were dry.
We return to the closing questions of Anna Maria’s own lawyers.
Q: Do you remember Mr Donellan receiving a letter from Sir William Wheler, and when was the first letter he received from Sir William?
A: He received a letter from Sir William Wheler desiring that the body might be opened.
Q: Do you remember being shown the answer to that letter? A: Yes, I do.
Q: Who showed it you?
A: Mr Donellan.
Q: Do you recollect having made any observation upon his answer which he sent Sir William Wheler after Dr Rattray and Mr Wilmer had been there?
A: I remember he read the letter; I thought it of no use; that it would be unnecessary to send it.
Q: Did you state any reason why the letter was to be objected to?
A: I did not; I said, ‘He had better let it alone, and not send such a letter as that.’
Q: You disliked the letter, but the reason of your dislike you did not explain to him?
A: No; but he said it was necessary to send an answer, and he would send it.
Howarth refers here to ‘the first letter he received’ and its answer. The first letter that Donellan received from Sir William, dated 2 September, was merely an acknowledgement of the news. Presumably Howarth is referring here to Wheler’s second letter, in which he asked for an autopsy because he had heard rumours of poison. Donellan’s reply was that ‘we most cheerfully wish to have the body of Sir Theodosius opened’. Howarth is establishing that Lady Boughton knew an autopsy would be carried out.
The letter which Anna Maria says Donellan read out to her after Rattray and Wilmer’s visit was dated 5 September; in this, he confirmed that they had been to Lawford (‘they proceeded accordingly’) and then went on to describe the seriousness of Theodosius’s venereal infection. Howarth did not pursue specifically why Anna Maria objected to the letter. Why he raised it, with its references to Theodosius’s repeated infections and lack of regard for his mother’s wishes, is a puzzle. Perhaps he wished to show that Donellan did not care for Anna Maria’s feelings in the matter.
Newnham, in his cross-examination, however, took up the issue of Theodosius’s health.
Q: When did you hear Captain Donellan say that your son was in a bad state of health, how long before his death?
A: He often talked about it for three weeks or a month before his time of death.
Q: That was only after he had been attended by Mr Powell for a recent complaint, but before that you was pleased to say Mr Donellan often expressed to you that Sir Theo was in a bad state of health?
A: I had said that my son had been ill of a particular disorder.
Q: Had you not written to Bath in the year 1777 and 1778 that his fine complexion was gone and he was in a very bad way?
A: I said I was afraid he was in a bad way, for his complexion was altered.
Q: I quote your words, ‘His fine complexion was gone’?
A: Yes.
At least Newnham took the opportunity this time to follow up on a crucial issue. Theodosius was not ‘possessed of a good constitution, affected by no indisposition that could at all endanger his life’, as Howarth had described in his opening speech. Nor indeed did he have ‘a slight venereal disorder’. But Howarth had compounded the misinformation in his opening speech by adding that when Samuel Frost saw Theodosius on the morning of his death, ‘he appeared in perfect good health, that he leaped out of bed for the purpose of getting something’.
Newnham’s cross-examination attempted to show that Anna Maria knew very well that Theodosius had been unwell for some time; the loss of his ‘complexion’ was a telling side-effect of prolonged illness – contemporary drawings and cartoons show the drained appearance and the rotted skin of prostitutes and their customers. As early as 1667 the notorious Earl of Rochester had written a pamphlet describing the ‘Shankers (chancres, venereal ulcers) or Cordes or Buboes dire’ of what was called ‘the great pox’ and which was traditionally treated with mercury. ‘A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury’ was a popular saying.
It is to be presumed that the men of the jury knew all too well what both Howarth and Newnham were referring to, and perhaps the subject was not pursued out of deference to the delicacy of Anna Maria’s feelings. But a little more detail from Newnham would have given credence to Donellan’s contention that Theodosius’s illness was well established and he was in far from ‘perfect health’.
Newnham also covered the issue of Theodosius regularly buying poison, which he used to lay in dead fish in order to poison rats:
Q: Whether you don’t know that Sir Theodosius did amuse himself in laying poison for fish?
A: Sir Theodosius did sometimes amuse himself in laying poison for fish.
Q: Where did he put those things that he used to amuse himself with?
A: I won’t mince the matter.
Q: Don’t you know of his buying large quantities of arsenic?
A: He went for a pound, and after his death a quantity of arsenic was found in his closet.
Q: Where did he use to keep that?
A: In his inner closet.
Q: Which was sometimes locked?
A: Mostly.
Newnham next tried to show that Donellan had on several occasions tried to prevent or resolve various quarrels and fights in which Theodosius was involved:
Q: Do you recollect a quarrel that happened between Sir Theodosius and a gentleman at Bath?
A: Yes, and Mr Donellan interfered to prevent anything happening.
Q: Does not your ladyship recollect a quarrel your son had at Rugby?
A: Yes.
Q: Pray, who was sent for on that occasion?
A: Mr Donellan.
Q: Did not your ladyship go to Mr Donellan’s room door and early in the morning press him to go over immediately?
A: Yes.
Q: Did not you put the letter under the door?
A: I wrote a letter, and had it put under the door, desiring him to go to Rugby, on account of a quarrel that happened there.
Q: Did Mr Donellan interfere and prevent any mischief happening there?
A: He told me that he did.
Q: Now, as to a third quarrel; whether he had another quarrel with a gentleman at Daventry?
A: They were both at Rugby.
Q: With a Mr Wildgoose of Daventry, at Rugby?
A: Yes.
Q: Was there a quarrel with Mr Chartres?
A: Yes, at that time I believe, but I am not certain.
But Anna Maria began to resist ‘recollecting’ any more about Theodosius’s continually bad behaviour and Donellan’s role in rescuing him from harm. When the subject of Donellan preventing serious injury to Theodosius when the boy insisted on climbing the church tower at Newbold came up, Anna Maria answered that she did not remember any danger or accident; and that Theodosius did not mention the matter in the coach as they returned home.
Towards the end of the cross-examination, the prosecuting counsel, Howarth, interrupted:
Q: You have been asked of instances of friendship shown by Mr Donellan to your son; what was Mr Donellan’s general behaviour for some months before he died? Did he treat Sir Theodosius with respect, friendship, and tenderness, or otherwise?
A: About a fortnight before my son’s death I heard –
At this point Anna Maria was stopped by Justice Buller.
COURT: Have you heard your son say anything about Mr Donellan’s behaviour when he gave you the relation mentioned by Mr Newnham [i.e. the instances of Donellan resolving quarrels]?
A: They used to have words, to be angry with each other; they did not in general live in friendship and intimacy.
Newnham regained the questioning.
Q: I presume that they had the sort of words that occasionally happen in all families, more or less?
A: I paid no great attention to it.
Buller interrupted again. He asked about the conversation in the parlour after Theodosius’s death about the washing of the bottles, but the questioning ended on Donellan’s mood.
COURT: Was that spoken in a passion or resentment, or how?
A: Rather in a way of resentment.
The above exchange, coming as it did right at the end of Anna Maria’s testimony, was a case of outright manipulation. Prosecuting counsel, evidently to Buller’s disapproval, mentioned ‘respect, friendship and tenderness’; as Anna Maria answered, Buller stopped her, framing his question in a way that encouraged her to say that Theodosius resented Donellan’s interference. Newnham tried to repair the damage – ‘the sort of words that occasionally happen in all families …?’. But directly after Anna Maria’s noncommittal reply, Buller interrupted again.
And, with his prompting, Anna Maria’s evidence ended with one word summing up Donellan’s behaviour: resentment.
But there was one last issue not touched upon in court.
It was an accusation made by Donellan, and, as such, was purely Donellan’s word against Anna Maria’s. In his Defence, Donellan described the morning that Theodosius died and Anna Maria’s behaviour just minutes – and hours – later:
In about an hour after Sir Theodosius died, Lady Boughton sent for different people from Rugby, to give them directions about his funeral; and before ten o’clock that morning, being Wednesday the 30th of August last, they all of them attended and received their instructions from Lady Boughton while she was at breakfast.
This is quite astonishing, if true. Less than two hours after her son has died, Anna Maria was, supposedly, eating breakfast and instructing the funeral directors; an unenviable task which anyone closely related to the deceased would have found harrowing enough even the next day. The funeral directors were there by ten o’clock; Rugby, as noted, was about four miles away. The journey would not have been as excruciatingly urgent as it had been when William Frost rode out to fetch Powell, and therefore would have taken longer. To ride four miles at an orderly pace might have taken half an hour – with the return journey, an hour; therefore Anna Maria’s instructions were sent within an hour of Theodosius dying.
Her son died; she argued with her son-in-law; she sent servants for the funeral directors (the names of which presumably took some research and discussion, unless she had a pre-prepared list to hand); and she sat down to breakfast. All within two hours. Also ‘some time that morning’ she disputed the issue of the bottles again with Donellan in front of Theodosia.
This does not read like a woman prostrated by grief.
According to Donellan, there was more to come, however. Anna Maria took the time after breakfast to consider another matter:
She also, some time the same morning, unlocked the great parlour door, and calling Mr Donellan into the same, said, that as Sir Theodosius was then dead, he (Mr Donellan) might consent to let her (Lady Boughton) have a particular farm, rented by one Thomas Parsons, which Mr Donellan’s wife came into possession of on Sir Theodosius’s death, adding at the same time, that his wife would consent to anything he might agree to. She also told him, that he might consent to let her relation, Mr Rye, a young clergyman, have the reversion of the living of Newbold, if he pleased; and further said, that if he would consent to those things, she would have his life put into his Marriage Settlement. She also said, that she had proposed these things long before Sir Theodosius’s death, and that she had absolutely spoken to a Mr Smith, an attorney of Northampton, about altering the settlement, and that he had drawn a draft of deed for the purpose; and also that she had mentioned it to Sir William Wheler.
This account shows extraordinary calm on Anna Maria’s part. With her son lying dead in his bedroom, within three hours she had not only organised a funeral and eaten breakfast but had turned her mind to the family fortune. Whether she wanted Parsons’ farm for its income, or to live in herself, is not clear; but she was certainly trying to obtain something for her brother’s son, Robert Rye, from the estate.
Sitting in the great parlour, she must have considered her options. If her later testimony is to be believed, then less than three hours after she had remonstrated with her son-in-law over washing out a bottle which she suspected to contain the poison that had caused her son’s death, she was negotiating with him for financial favours. What was her state of mind or motive to negotiate with someone who had acted so suspiciously? Had she considered the events, and thought she had overreacted? Or, despite reservations about Donellan’s role, had she decided that murder could never be proved, and so she was prepared to wrestle more than she might ordinarily be expected to receive from Theodosius’s estate?
Alternatively, perhaps she was demonstrating an unnatural calm at this stage because Theodosius’s death had not been a shock to her. If Donellan is to be believed, Anna Maria had been considering the topic for some time, and had been talking to an attorney about it. Had she already envisaged Theodosius’s death and made plans to safeguard her financial future should Theodosia inherit? Why would this be necessary if Theodosius was in the state of ‘perfect health’ that her own lawyers described?
Donellan claimed not to have responded to Anna Maria’s suggestions. ‘Mr Donellan was astonished at these suggestions,’ his Defence continues, ‘and making no other reply than that of telling her Ladyship he was no more than guardian to his children, and therefore would never do anything to their prejudice, left her.’
The prosecution had noted down something even more amazing, however, when they talked to John Derbyshire in Warwick Gaol: ‘Captain Donellan had said that Lady Boughton proposed that, if he would give up his interest in Sir Theodosius’s property, and a farm of about £200 a year, she would ask no more and all should be well.’
Not surprisingly, the prosecution thought it best not to trespass too far into this territory. Anna Maria’s supposed attempt at blackmailing Donellan was never mentioned.
Whatever Anna Maria’s reasons for discussing the estate at this unusual moment, Donellan himself said that he was not prepared to engage in such a conversation. Stressing that his only concern was for his children – his Defence adopted something of a morally offended tone – he left the room.
Perhaps this refusal to consider Anna Maria’s financial future was far more damaging than Donellan ever imagined.