– showed something of nobility, she had no mercy for her confederates after they had played her false. While confessing once more that she had forged the bond which the Drummonds had rejected, she declared that her keeper Daniel had forced her to do so by standing over her with an open knife, threatening to cut her throat unless she obeyed. An incredible story, but no more improbable than the other! With the exception of this compulsory forgery, Mrs Rudd avowed that she was innocent. Amidst all this publicity it is likely that poor Mr James Adair, who had been very much the lady’s friend in former days, would have an unpleasant time with Mrs James Adair, and with his son, young Mr Serjeant James, M.P., the rising barrister!
Such an entertainment was a novel and delightful experience for the British public. Since the wonderful time (fourteen summers ago) when mad Earl Ferrers had made his exit at Tyburn in a gorgeous wedding dress, and amidst funereal pomp, the triple tree seldom had been graced by the appearance of gentlefolk. Broker Rice, whose shady tricks at the Alley made him the victim of Jack Ketch three years after his lordship, was almost the only respectable criminal who had been hanged for more than a decade. Indeed, except Mother Brownrigg and Jack of the Sixteen Strings, no criminal of note had dangled from a London scaffold since the days of Theodore Gardelle. Yet a glorious era was dawning for the metropolitan mob, when, in quick succession, Dodd, Hackman, and Ryland were to journey down the Oxford Road – the golden age of the gallows, when George III. was king!
On Friday, the Ist of June, Robert Perreau was put to the bar at the Old Bailey. Owing to ill-health he had been allowed to remain in the Clerkenwell prison, and was not taken to Newgate until the morning of his trial – a privilege shared also by his brother. The President of the Court was Sir Richard Aston, who, as a junior of the Oxford circuit, had helped to defend the unfortunate Miss Blandy. By his side sat the Right Honourable John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London, a quite tame City patriot now almost ready for the royal embraces, very different from the Wilkes winged by pistol-practising Martin, M.P., and hounded by renegade Jemmy Twitcher. This same City patriot – if we may credit one of Dame Rumour’s quite credible stories – whispered into the ear of the judge the most important words spoken during the trial: – “My lord, you can convict these men without the woman’s evidence… It is a shocking thing that she should escape unpunished, as she must if you call her as a witness!” Which advice – if the lady had been as kind to ‘squinting Jacky’ as the world believed – shows that he was rising on stepping stones of Medmenham Abbey to higher things. At all events, instead of summoning Mrs Rudd into the box, the judge startled the world by ordering her to be detained in Newgate.
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