Female Executions: Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen

by Abbott, Geoffrey

  One of the constables has been arrested and others absconded, but I question if any of them will suffer death; there is no tyranny the police do not exercise, no villainy they do not partake. These same men broke into a bagnio [a house of ill-repute] in Covent Garden and arrested a number of men, among them Lord George Graham, and would have also thrust them into the lock-up with the poor women, if they had not had more than eighteen pence on them!

  Brinvillers, Marie Madelaine de (France)

  If you want someone’s money, poison them! If you don’t like someone, poison them! If you simply want to ascertain whether certain poison works, try it out on anyone! That principle governed Marie’s whole life. Having an aristocratic background – her father, Dreux d’Aubray, was a wealthy State Councillor – in 1615 she married the Baron Antoine de Brinvilliers, an Army officer, but neither of them wasted much time in gambling away the immense dowry that was settled on her at the time of her marriage. At the gaming tables Marie happened to meet Gaudin de St-Croix, a man with a roving eye for pretty women, and they started a liaison. The Baron, no slouch himself when it came to extra-marital affairs, turned a blind eye, but the couple were so blatant in their behaviour that word reached Marie’s father, who used his influence with the Paris authorities to have St-Croix confined in the Bastille. It was an event which was ultimately to result in the deaths of scores of innocent people, for one of St-Croix’s fellow prisoners was an expert on poisoning and taught his companion virtually all he knew about the craft. When released, St-Croix passed on to his lover, Marie, all that he had learned. Both were short of money; he had little love for her father, who had had him gaoled, she would inherit her father’s wealth if he died, and they both knew lots about poisons – so what were they waiting for?

  Marie set to work, making acquaintance with a chemist from whom she cajoled some poison but, not wanting to take the risk of it being detected in her father’s body during an autopsy, set out to confirm that, despite the chemist’s assurances, it would leave no trace in the body. The obvious place to try it out was the Hotel Dieu, the public hospital in Paris, and so under the pretext of being a gracious, upper-class do-gooder sympathetic to the sick and infirm, she visited the patients, bearing gifts of fruit and delicacies to which she had added varying proportions of the poison. Time went by, and by 1666 many of her ‘guinea pig’ patients had died (some estimates put the number at as many as fifty). Autopsies were of course carried out, but the finger of blame failed to point at anyone. Marie was now ready to go into action.

  First her father became ill and so, as a devoted daughter, she nursed him – until he died. But there was even more wealth in the family simply begging to enrich her lifestyle even further, but unfortunately it belonged to her two brothers. Needing help, she enlisted the aid of another poisoner, La Chausee, and their combined efforts resulted in the tragic deaths of her siblings, the autopsies finding nothing suspicious.

  Despite her increased wealth, Marie still needed every franc she could lay her hands on, for she was being blackmailed not only by her confederate La Chausee, but also by her lover, St-Croix, who had several incriminating letters that she had written to him in the past. Despite his attitude towards her, she still longed to marry him, but in order to do so she had to dispose of her husband the Baron. St-Croix, however, perhaps wisely, had no intention of joining her in holy matrimony, and as fast as she administered poison to her husband, he, St-Croix, administered the antidote! But when, in 1672, Gaudin de St-Croix died – of genuine natural causes – his widow, whom he had deserted decades earlier, found the damning letters among his effects and handed them over to the authorities. For Marie and La Chausee, the game was up.

  Her accomplice was apprehended, and, after being tortured, was executed by being broken on the wheel, limb after limb being shattered. Marie sought refuge in England but when the French started extradition proceedings she returned to the Continent and entered a convent in Liège, which at that time was in neutral territory. However, in March 1676 a French detective, Desgrez, disguised himself as a trendy young abbé‚ and obtained an introduction to her in the convent. Always susceptible to flattery, she succumbed to his flirtatious approaches and did not demur when later he suggested a stroll by the river, nor did she pay much attention to a coach which had stopped nearby – until she was suddenly seized and dragged inside: she had been caught at last.

  In police custody she attempted to commit suicide, once by swallowing a pin, another time by smashing a tumbler and trying to swallow the fragments. Put on trial, so overwhelming was the evidence produced against her that she was found guilty. Her sentence was read out to her; ‘Marie Madelaine d’Aubray, wife of the Marquis de Brinvilliers, is declared duly accused and convicted of having poisoned Maître Dreux d’Aubray, her father; Antoine d’Aubray, master of requests and civil lieutenant of the county of Paris; and Monsieur d’Aubray, councillor of the court, these being her two brothers; and also attempting the life of the late Thérèse d’Aubray, her sister. In reparation she is condemned to make the amende honorable before the principal door of the cathedral church in Paris, where she will be taken in a tumbril, with naked feet, a rope around her neck and holding in her hands a lighted torch weighing two pounds. There, being on her knees, she will declare that wickedly, and from motives of vengeance, and in order to possess their property, she has poisoned her father and her two brothers and attempted the life of her sister. From thence she will be conducted to the Place de Grève, to have her head cut off upon the scaffold. Her body will then be burnt and the ashes thrown to the wind. Before execution she will be applied to the Question Ordinary and Extraordinary [tortured], in order to compel her to reveal the names of her accomplices.’

  It was reported that she was then taken to the torture chamber and for seven hours put to the Question. Having been tied hand and foot to a wooden frame, a trestle about two and a half feet high was placed under the small of her back so that her body was strained into an arch. A leather funnel with a metal ring at its narrow end was strapped to her mouth (the water torture) and the Question began. Four jars of water, each containing two pints, were poured into the funnel at intervals and between each the clerk interrogated her. When she had first entered the room she had smiled at the array of jars. ‘Do you wish to drown me?’ she had asked. ‘I am too small to swallow all that.’ But by now her face was mottled and her hands and feet bruised where the ropes had constricted them. She refused to say anything, so the trestle was removed and replaced by another which was three and a half feet high, so that her body was distended so tightly that the cords cut into her limbs. ‘You are tearing me to pieces!’ she cried. ‘Good Lord have mercy on me!’ Four more jars were then administered, causing her to sink into unconsciousness.

  She was placed on a mattress in front of a large fire and revived with eggs and wine, and after a little while she was clothed in a white gown and hood for the amende honorable. Accompanied by the executioner, his assistant and her confessor, she was taken by tumbril from the Conciergerie Prison to the porch of the Notre Dame, a dense crowd swarming about the vehicle screaming abuse. Through swollen lips she uttered the words of the amende: ‘I admit that wickedly and for vengeance I poisoned my father and my brothers, and attempted to poison my sisterin-law, in order to possess myself of their property. For which I ask pardon of God, of the King and of Justice.’

  She was then taken to the execution site, the Place de Grève where she had to kneel for half an hour amid the execrations of the crowd, while the executioner, with deliberate and inhumane slowness, cut away the thick swathes of her hair. While her confessor intoned the Salve Regina, her eyes were bandaged; the abbé’s voice fell silent – and the last sound she heard was the terrifying hiss of the headsman’s sword.

  A murder case which was the talk of the town, indeed of the whole of Scotland in 1857, was that of Madeleine Hamilton Smith who was arraigned on three charges of administering at least thirty grains of arsenic to her erstwhile lover Pierr
e Emile L’Angelier. A member of Glasgow’s upper classes, Madeleine, according to a journalist who was present in court, ‘entered the dock with the air of a belle entering the ballroom or a box at the opera. Her steps were buoyant and she carried a silver-topped bottle of smelling salts. She was stylishly dressed and wore a pair of lavender gloves.’

  As the lengthy trial went on, the young lady remained calm and composed, showing little reaction when the jury brought in the verdicts on the three charges: ‘not guilty’ on the first charge and ‘not proven’ on the other two, so Madeleine went free. Some years later it was reported that a member of her family, dining with them on the day of Pierre’s death, noticed that although Madeleine usually made no effort to hide her long and slender hands, she seemed to be keeping them out of sight as much as possible on this occasion. However, he happened to catch a glimpse of them and casually noticed that they were stained a bluish colour. And it was not until the trial ended that he discovered the rat poison used to kill Pierre L’Angelier was impregnated with a bluish compound to signify its toxicity and he realised the truth – too late.

  Britland, Mary Ann (England)

  In his book My Experiences as an Executioner, published shortly before his resignation in 1892, James Berry expressed the opinion that those murderers who are most brutal and cold-blooded while committing the act for which they had been condemned to death, were the most cowardly when they had to face the consequences. This was most certainly the case with Mary Ann Britland, whom he hanged at Strangeways Prison, Manchester, on 9 August 1886.

  Mary Ann, her husband and daughter lived in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, in the house of a Mr and Mrs Dixon. It might have been that Mary Ann feared her daughter had discovered the fixation she had for Mr Dixon which impelled her to poison the girl, and then remove, by the same means, the next obstacle to her desires – her husband. But not until Mrs Mary Dixon had also been removed would the way be clear, and so out came the poison bottle again.

  At the trial, no evidence whatsoever was produced to show that Mr Dixon ever responded to any of Mary Ann’s approaches, and he was acquitted. But she was found guilty, and when asked whether she had anything to say regarding why sentence should not be passed, not only did she burst into a flood of tears, but also continued to scream for mercy when the death sentence was pronounced. While being taken down to the cells, her cries still reverberated around the crowded courtroom and were even heard by those outside the building.

  In the condemned cell Mary Ann maintained that she was innocent and expected a sudden reprieve, but it was not to be, and as the customary three weeks dragged by she was reduced to a shadow of her former self, hardly eating or sleeping. On the morning of her execution hangman James Berry entered the cell to find her almost in a state of collapse, the two female warders having to support her while he pinioned her, ready for the ordeal. As he did so she continued to moan, the only coherent words from her being ‘I must have been mad!’

  As the procession made its way to the scaffold, the wardresses almost having to carry her, Mary Ann sobbed piteously, a reporter describing how, when Berry pulled the white hood over her head, ‘she uttered cries such as one might expect at the very separation of body and spirit through mortal terror’. Holding the woman on the drop while the hangman placed the noose in position about her neck, the two wardresses were then replaced by two male warders, who watched Berry intently for the signal. On him giving it, they instantly released their hold on their prisoner and stepped off the drop – simultaneously the hangman operated the lever and before Mary Ann could even buckle at the knees, the trapdoors opened and down she went into the pit.

  Paula Angel might have had an innocuous sounding surname but her behaviour on the scaffold in 1861 certainly belied it, for as the sheriff dropped the noose about her neck she suddenly realised that he had neglected to bind her wrists, so she reached up and grabbed the rope above her. Instinctively the officer seized her around the waist and added his weight to hers in order to tighten the noose and render her at least unconscious, but somehow she wriggled free from his grasp. In the frantic struggle that ensued, the sheriff managed to secure her arms and ankles, and then continued with the execution. By now the crowd, horrified at the woman’s desperate efforts to stay alive, threatened to rush the makeshift scaffold and it was not until the officer had threatened to shoot the first person who tried to rescue her that the noose finally tightened around Paula Angel’s neck, plunging her into eternity.

  Broadingham, Elizabeth (England)

  Taking advantage of her husband John’s temporary imprisonment in York Castle, Elizabeth enjoyed an intimate relationship with a younger man, Thomas Aikney, and when John was released, she, having tasted the fruits of illicit love, left him and went off to set up house with Thomas. Why she did not just leave matters as they were is not known; perhaps she wanted marriage, rather than just cohabitation with Thomas. Whatever the reason, over the next few weeks she slyly suggested to Thomas that John be removed – permanently. The man vehemently refused to have anything to do with the idea, but Elizabeth was nothing if not determined to get her way, and one night she plied her lover with liquor before turning on the pressure again. Intoxicated both with the drink and her, he finally agreed to help her.

  Elizabeth’s next move was to ingratiate herself with her husband, a simple and decent man who longed for his wife to return to their family home. Within days she had moved back in with him, and then contacted Thomas. He tried to persuade her to abandon the murderous scheme, to elope with him, but without success, and on the night of 8 February 1776 she woke her husband up and told him that someone was knocking at the door. Half asleep, John made his way downstairs and opened the door – to be attacked by Thomas, who proceeded to stab him in the thighs and body, finally leaving the knife inserted in the husband’s stomach before fleeing. The badly wounded man staggered out into the street, calling for help, and the neighbours who rushed out ‘found him holding the bloody knife in one hand and the other supporting his bowels, which were dropping to the ground’. He died the next day.

  Thomas was captured, Elizabeth arrested, both confessing their guilt. On 20 March 1776 Thomas Aikney was hanged at York, his body subsequently being sent to the Leeds Infirmary as a surgical specimen to be used in the training of students. Petit treason having been committed by Elizabeth by instigating the murder of her husband, she was tied to the stake, and after the executioner had strangled her she was burned, her ashes being collected by some of the onlookers as souvenirs (in egg-timers, perhaps?).

  John Howard, the famous prison reformer, visited gaols across the Continent in the 1770s. In his report on prisons in Stockholm, he noted that Swedish executions are by the axe, and that women are decapitated on a scaffold, that structure afterwards being set alight at its four corners and consumed by the flames, together with the victim’s body.

  Brownrigg, Elizabeth (England)

  Hangman Thomas Turlis had a rewarding task, and the vast crowd were in full agreement with his actions, for once not abusing him too obscenely, when, on 14 September 1767, he executed Elizabeth Brownrigg, a lady assuredly receiving everything she deserved!

  Originally a servant, Elizabeth had married James Brownrigg and they lived in Fetter Lane, near Fleet Street in London. Elizabeth became a midwife and, needing to have assistance in the house, contacted the local Foundling Hospital for some apprentices. Two of the girls were thus employed as servants, Mary Mitchell and Mary Jones, but soon found that they had left the frying pan only to end up in the fire, for Mrs Brownrigg was a cruel and violent woman who did not hesitate to beat them. Mary Mitchell endured the hardships for a year and then managed to escape, only to be captured by the son of the family, who brought her back to his mother’s tender mercies.

  Not long afterwards, the Marys were joined by yet another Mary, 14-year-old Mary Clifford, who was particularly ill-treated by her mistress. For the most trifling offence she would be tied up naked and beaten with a cane, a hor
sewhip, a broom handle or anything else that came to hand; made to lie in the cold, damp cellar on sacking; and was fed only on bread and water. Later she was confined in the yard, a chain around her neck securing her to the door, her hands being tied behind her.

  Mrs Brownrigg’s cruelty knew no bounds, but retribution was in sight when, on 13 July 1767, she stripped Mary Clifford naked and hung her up by her arms to a staple in the ceiling, then whipped her already severely scarred body until the blood flowed across the kitchen floor. But the brutal treatment was witnessed by a neighbour, who sent for the police. On arrival, although they released Mary Clifford from her bonds, ‘her body being one continual ulcer, ready to mortify’, Elizabeth Brownrigg and her son had escaped. The badly injured Mary Clifford died in St Bartholomew’s Hospital a few days later; the Brownriggs, mother and son, were now wanted on murder charges.

  Elizabeth Brownrigg flogging Mary Clifford

  The couple had rented rooms in Wandsworth in a house owned by a Mr Dunbar, and he happened to see a wanted poster that included a detailed description of his two lodgers. He promptly informed the police and both were arrested. On 12 September they appeared in the Old Bailey; Master Brownrigg received a prison sentence but, after a trial lasting eleven hours, during which every lurid detail of the injuries sustained by the victim was described, Elizabeth Brownrigg was sentenced to death.

  On 14 September, en route to Tyburn scaffold, she was accompanied in the horse-drawn cart by the Ordinary, the Reverend Mr James, and a prison missionary, Silas Told, who afterwards described how the two men sat, one each side of her, continuing: