The Damnation of John Donellan (19 page)

Shown into a room to see the corpse, the doctors ‘declined doing any such thing' (i.e. opening the body) because it was in such a state of putrefaction. There would be ‘danger to themselves if they attempted to open it'. They left the house without Donellan asking them about the cause of death, and once again Howarth makes a great show of the men being ‘suffered to depart'. There is no suggestion that the doctors had failed in the duty that had been asked of them. Howarth himself, however, had already said that the doctors had seen a letter from Sir William expressing ‘his satisfaction that the family were disposed to have the body opened'. So there was no doubt of what they were expected to do, and no doubt that a failure to open the body was their own decision, not Donellan's.

Howarth grew a little heated about the doctors and the letters. He claimed that Donellan only showed the second letter to Sir William, the one in which he said of the doctors that ‘they fully satisfied us'. ‘Good God!' Howarth declaimed. ‘In what does this satisfaction consist? In my apprehension, were there no other fact in this case but that single letter, it speaks as strongly as a thousand witnesses testifying to the actual commission of the crime.' In other words, this one letter was more convincing than a thousand witnesses claiming to have seen Donellan put poison into a bottle and make Theodosius drink the contents.

A reminder of this letter's contents:

Dear Sir,

Give me leave to express the heartfelt satisfaction … observing your advice in all respects. I sent for Dr Rattray and Dr Wilmer; they brought another gentleman with them; Mr Powell gave them the meeting, and upon receipt of your last letter, I gave it to them to peruse and act as it directed.

In the letter that Donellan refers to here Sir William had said that he wished to have the body opened and that it would be ‘very improper' to have himself or any other person present while it was being inspected. Poison was not mentioned. Donellan goes on:

The four gentlemen proceeded accordingly and I am happy to inform you that they fully satisfied us; and I would wish that you hear from them the state they found the body in, as it will be an additional satisfaction for me that you should hear this account from themselves. Sir Theodosius made a very free use of an ointment and other things to repel a large boil which he had in his groin. So he used to do at Eaton, and Mr Jones told me often. I repeatedly advised him to consult Dr Rattray or Mr Carr; but as you know Sir Theodosius, you will not wonder at his going his own way, which he would not be put out of. I cannot help thinking but that Mr Powell acted to the best of his judgement for Sir Theodosius in this and the last case, which was but a short time finished before the latter appeared. Lady Boughton expressed her wishes to Sir Theodosius that he would take proper advice for his complaint; but he treated hers as he did mine.

She and my wife join in best respects,

John Donellan.

The defence counsel, Mr Newnham, asked that this letter be read to the court. He must have been convinced that there was nothing in it that could harm his client.

Howarth maintained that the letter was designed to mislead Sir William and make him believe that an autopsy had been carried out, despite the fact that Donellan had asked Rattray and Wilmer to give their findings directly to Sir William. By the time that this letter had reached its addressee, though, it would have been reasonable to assume that the doctors had told Sir William that this had not been done, and that this was entirely their own decision.

By now, the jurors would have been cross-eyed trying to work out who wrote what and when. They certainly were not given the
impression that Wheler was curiously slow to act in the first place, or in any way to blame for not turning up at Lawford Hall himself to see what was going on. Nor was any blame for not establishing the cause of death attached to the doctors who could not bear to touch the body, or even turn down the shroud so that they could see below the neck, despite knowing that their instructions were to carry out an autopsy. The accusation from Howarth, instead, was crystal clear: Donellan had managed events so that no one but himself had the full story.

Howarth then explained the to-ings and fro-ings of Dr Bucknill and the events of the day of the funeral, although he did not say that Bucknill and Snow missed each other, or that it was Snow who gave the order for the body to be buried and that Bucknill decided to visit a dying patient instead of waiting at the Hall.

Howarth laboured on for some time about the fact that Donellan made ‘a specious show' of offering to defer the funeral. Why? he demanded. So that Rattray and Wilmer, ‘who could give no information upon the subject', could come back. He did not mention that Donellan sent servants to find Rattray and Wilmer, or that Sir William himself, who should have made the final decision, had chosen not to attend the funeral.

Howarth continued by describing the ‘wonderful alarm in the minds of all the people' that Theodosius had been buried, the ‘gentlemen' who had called in the coroner, and the open-air dissection of Theodosius.

Finally, he turned to describing the coroner's court itself, in which Donellan had been seen tugging on Lady Boughton's sleeve to prevent her saying something. He claimed that, when Lady Boughton and Donellan returned to Lawford Hall, he chided her ‘for meddling in it' and told her to answer just the questions put to her. Most significantly, though, he changed his story. Theodosius had no longer died of cold or a disease; he had been poisoned. And in prison Donellan had confided to Derbyshire that this was the case, and that Powell, or the servants, or Anna Maria herself were to blame.

Howarth became quite inflamed in his closing sentences. ‘For
the purpose of removing suspicion from himself, he now dares to lay a charge where suspicion has never fallen!' he exclaimed with high drama. The transcript does not relate whether he chose to point to Anna Maria at this juncture, or if indeed she was sitting in court, but the outrage is clear. A mother was being accused of killing her own son; an aristocratic woman, a lonely and respected widow whose only son represented the sole chance her branch of the family had of retaining the baronetcy. It would have sent a ripple of horror around the court. With a flourish Howarth concluded: ‘Justice demands the punishment of the murderer; it remains only for your verdict to determine the guilt, and to consign the criminal to his fate.'

Of course, that was not precisely accurate.

It was not the jury's verdict that would determine guilt. The jury was certainly capable of consigning Donellan to his fate, but the determination of guilt lay in the veracity – or not – of the evidence that was to come.

The first witness to be called was Thomas Powell, the apothecary. It was Powell, more than anyone else, who had the means and opportunity to carry out the crime of poisoning; yet never a hint of suspicion was cast on him other than Sir William Wheler's oblique reference in his letter of 4 September to John Donellan, in which he stresses that Powell needs to ‘clear his name'.

Powell was questioned by Mr Wheeler.

After establishing Powell's identity and residence and the date of Theodosius's death, Wheeler moved on to the victim's health.

Q: In what state of health was he when you first attended him?

A: He had got a venereal complaint upon him.

Q: To what degree?

A: Not very high; rather slight. A fresh complaint … I gave him a cooling physic for about three weeks … and an embrocation to wash himself with.

Q: Did you then cease to give him physic?

A: Yes … for about a fortnight. [I repeated] the medicines because he had a swelling in his groin.

Q: How long before you sent Sir Theodosius this last draught?

A: On Tuesday afternoon, the same day I sent the last draught, I saw him … he told that [these draughts] he took on the Saturday last made him sick.

Q: In what state of health did he then appear?

A: In great spirits and good health.

Powell was then asked to produce a phial of the same mixture that he sent to Theodosius. He did so, and described it: rhubarb and jalop, spirits of lavender, nutmeg water and simple syrup. He also produced another mixture, exactly the same, but with laurel water substituted for the syrup. (These had been brought to help Anna Maria when she gave her evidence later.)

He was then asked to describe the events of 30 August.

Q: Was you then sent for to Lawford Hall?

A: I was.

Q: At what time?

A: About eight or nine o'clock … [William Frost] said that Sir Theodosius was very ill, and that he was sent by Lady Boughton to fetch me; I went immediately … I met Captain Donellan in the courtyard; he went along with me into the room … some servant was there, I cannot tell which …

Q: In what situation did you find Sir Theodosius Boughton?

A: I saw no distortion.

Q: What did you see?

A: Nothing particular.

Q: Was he alive or dead?

A: He had been dead near an hour.

This puts the death at shortly after eight o'clock. But it raises another question. Powell lived in Rugby, about four miles away.
Anna Maria said that she rushed downstairs and sent for Powell at about 7.20 a.m. Powell testified that he set out as soon as the servant arrived from Lawford Hall. Even taking the lowest speed of a cantering horse (about 10 m.p.h.), the servant would have arrived at Powell's by 7.50 a.m. at the latest. And even allowing Powell ten minutes to get ready, and to take a slower pace back, the latest time for his arrival would have been about 8.40 a.m.

Twenty minutes – and in all probability more – are missing. In reality, taking an average speed between a cantering and a galloping horse (and the servant was a young man who would have pressed the horse hard, having been told there was an emergency), more like forty-five minutes or an hour are missing.

There is only one conclusion.

Anna Maria did not send for Powell at 7.20 a.m.

Q: Did Mr Donellan ask you any question?

A: He asked me no question.

Q: Did you say anything to him?

A: I asked him how he died; Captain Donellan told me in convulsions.

Q: Did you see anything of the bottles you had sent?

A: I saw nothing of them; they were never mentioned.

Q: Do you remember having any other conversation with Mr Donellan about Sir Theodosius?

A: His general intent was to make me believe that Sir Theodosius Boughton had taken cold.

Aside from Powell being allowed to speculate on Donellan's ‘intent', which he could not have known for sure, it is what has been left out of the questioning that is so striking. Why did Powell not ask to see the bottle? Would he not have wanted to check that Theodosius had drunk from the bottle that he had sent, rather than another one? Didn't his reputation rest on this bottle? Would he not have wanted to reassure himself that Theodosius had not drunk from some other source? Some time later, one of the doctors would testify that the supposed poison, laurel water, had an acrid smell. Why did Powell not
notice such a smell so soon after the death? If he did notice the smell, why did he not remark on it to Donellan or Anna Maria?

Powell was then cross-examined by Donellan's lawyer, Newnham. But instead of asking Powell any of the above questions, he simply requested the exact measurements of the ingredients. During his brief replies Powell began to say that he saw Lady Boughton soon after he saw Donellan, and that she confirmed that her son ‘was convulsed soon after he took the medicine'. At this point, after a cross-examination of less than five minutes, Newnham sat down, and Powell left the stand.

Powell was not asked about why Theodosius would have been sick after taking his prescription of the previous Saturday; he was not asked his opinion of the ‘swelling in the groin' and whether that tallied with ‘a slight complaint'. Nor was he asked if the embrocation he prescribed contained mercury, and how often Powell had prescribed mercury, or what Theodosius's history of venereal disease was. Indeed, he was not asked any question that might establish a long-running illness: how many times Theodosius had been infected, for instance; or what Lady Boughton had said to him about Theodosius's health when she first consulted him. Nothing at all, in fact, to establish that this was not a young man ‘in great spirits and good health'.

A shocking omission on the part of the defence, but it was understandable that the prosecution would not ask. Because the prosecution brief itself revealed just how sick Theodosius had really been, and how much medication Powell had given him.

Under the heading ‘Evidence' in the prosecution brief, Powell had told the prosecution team that in June he had prescribed Theodosius ‘three mercurial bolus' (pills) for a new venereal infection, along with ‘electuaries' (laxatives) and doses of ‘cooling physic'. These appeared to have cured Theodosius by the beginning of August. A fortnight afterwards, the boy discovered a swelling in his groin, and for this Powell prescribed potassium bitartrate, another electuary, rhubarb and jalop and an embrocation of ‘strong Gulard wash'. Powell also told the team that Theodosius had admitted to using mercurial ointment.

Therefore, in the eight weeks before his death, Theodosius had been given three mercury pills (a bolus was usually a fairly large size), a great deal of laxative and a Gulard wash. Gulard was a very expensive treatment made from an aromatic wood; less toxic than mercury, it was used to treat skin inflammations. But taken in excess, Gulard could cause seizures and heart failure. In addition, Theodosius had used a mercurial ointment of his own. The prosecution team also had a letter from Theodosius to Powell dated 29 August, the day before he died. The letter was never produced in court, and Donellan's team did not know of its existence. In it, Theodosius complained that the swelling in his groin had not gone down: ‘The swelling is nearly the same as it was before,' he complains. ‘I have used the greatest part of the embrocation. If it is possible for me to have any more you will please send it … I have taken the electuary according to your order every night and morning.'