of their consultations,
untactfully expressing astonishment that she should have got herself
into trouble over such "a mean-looking little ugly fellow" as
Cranstoun, his client took umbrage at this observation as reflecting
upon her taste in lovers, dispensed with his further services, and
employed in his stead one Mr. Rivers of Woodstock. From the day of
her arrest all sorts of rumours had been rife regarding so
sensational a case. She had poisoned her mother; she had poisoned
her friend Mrs. Pocock--how and when that lady in fact died we do
not know; she was still in correspondence with Cranstoun; she was
secretly married to the keeper's son, a step to which the
circumstances of their acquaintance left her no alternative; her
fortune was being employed to bribe the authorities; the principal
witnesses against her had been got out of the way; she had
(repeatedly and in divers ways) escaped; finally, as she herself,
with reference to these reports, complained--"It has been said that
I am a wretched drunkard, a prophane swearer, that I never went to
chapel, contemned all holy ordinances, and in short gave myself up
to all kinds of immorality." The depositions of the witnesses before
the coroner were published "by some of the Friends and Relations of
the Family, in order to prevent the Publick from being any longer
imposed on with fictitious Stories," but both Miss Blandy and Mr.
Ford, her counsel, took great exception to this at the trial.
Pamphlets, as we shall presently see, poured from the press, and
even before she appeared at the bar the first instalments of a
formidable library of _Blandyana_, had come into being.

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. T