Cambridgeshire Murders Read Online Free PDF Page B

the appearance of a large pistol ball having entered. On examining his pulse, I found he was quite dead. I then passed a probe to ascertain the direction of the ball, and found it had passed obliquely downwards and inwards in the direction of the heart. The wound was at least 3 in deep, and I have no doubt that it caused his death.
    Bellingham was taken to Newgate Prison and at 10 a.m. on Tuesday 12 May an inquest was opened in the Rose & Crown public house. On the same day Bellingham sent the following letter to his landlady:
    Dear Madam,
    Yesterday midnight I was escorted to this neighbourhood by a noble troop of Light Horse, and delivered into the care of Mr. Newman (by Mr. Taylor the Magistrate and MP) as a state prisoner of the first class. For eight years I have never found my mind so tranquil as since this melancholy but necessary catastrophe, as the merits or demerits of my peculiar case must be regularly unfolded in a criminal court of justice, to ascertain the guilty party, by a jury of my country.
    I have to request the favour of you to send me three or four shirts, some cravats, handkerchiefs, night-caps, stockings, etc, out of my drawers, together with comb, soap, toothbrush, with any other trifle which presents itself which you may think I may have occasion for, and enclose them in my leather trunk, and the key, please to send sealed per bearer; also my great-coat, flannel gown, and black waistcoat, which will much oblige.
    Dear madam, your obedient servant, John Bellingham.
    To the above please to add the Prayer Book.
    On Friday 15 May Bellingham appeared at the Old Bailey before the Lord Mayor and the judges, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, Baron Graham and Sir Nash Grose. He was refused the option of putting in a plea of insanity and instead pleaded ‘not guilty’.
    At the trial, despite the several lengthy statements he made in his defence, he was found guilty. Until the time of his execution he was allowed only bread and water, and all means by which he may have been able to attempt suicide were eliminated. What most distressed him, however, was being unable to shave and so appearing ungentlemanly.
    The execution took place at Newgate on 18 May, at 8 a.m. An hour later his body was transported to the morgue of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he was dissected ‘in the furtherance of medical science’. He left behind three sons; Spencer Perceval twelve children.
    Bellingham left the following letter for his wife:
    M Y B LESSED M ARY
    It rejoiced me beyond measure to hear you are likely to be well provided for. I am sure the public at large will participate in, and mitigate, your sorrows; I assure you, my love, my sincerest endeavours have ever been directed to your welfare. As we shall not meet any more in this world, I sincerely hope we shall do so in the world to come. My blessing to the boys, with kind remembrance to Miss Stephens, for whom I have the greatest regard, in consequence of her uniform affection for them. With the purest intentions, it has always been my misfortune to be thwarted, misrepresented and ill-used in life; but however, we feel a happy prospect of compensation in a speedy translation to life eternal. It’s not possible to be more calm or placid than I feel, and nine hours more will waft me to those happy shores where bliss is without alloy.
    Yours ever affectionate,
    J OHN B ELLINGHAM .
    The assassination of Spencer Perceval was surrounded by some quirky stories. On 11 May Perceval told his wife that he had dreamt a man in the House of Commons had shot him. John Williams, a wealthy mining engineer, dreamt of the exact details of the assassination. This vision came to him after the event but well before the news could have reached him in Cornwall. At the other end of the country, in a village near Gretna Green, the news of the assassination was passed to the Dumfries and Galloway Courier on 10 May, before the assassination had taken place. In the General Election