ISBN: 0-9542301-8-3
Bingham Press Ltd will be publishing a book titled "The Noose Around the Wrong Neck", this will deal with an expose of Captain Willy Cranstoun, Royal Marines and his true role in the murder. Like the charge of the Light Brigade, in those days similar to Lord Lucan's regiment known as 'Bingham's Dandies' for their expensive and peacock-like dress sense. (Dressed up for a ball, not for a battle, military personnel like Cranstoun hid behind draconian military courts and procedures and Miss Blandy was thrown to the civil mob of rabble-rousers).
Bingham Press Ltd. referred to the case of
Mary Blandy. St. Mary the Virgin Hart Street Henley-On-Thames Oxon RG9 2AU
to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to seek a posthumous pardon for Mary Blandy and to sum it up, it was a cry from the heart, from beyond the grave (cri de Coeur). The local newspaper The Henley Standard and others are backing this appeal; indeed the newspaper has carried an article recently reporting the apparent sighting in a Henley hotel of her troubled spirit.
On 6th April, 1752 Mary Blandy, aged 32, was hanged for the parricide of her father…
After the trial, Mary had seemed distant, cold. It was generally agreed that old Mr Blandy had never mistreated Mary. The murderess herself admitted that she was well loved and cared for. And yet, she had poisoned the old man. Why?
Mary Blandy became infamous. Malicious stories about her were sold on street corners. It was said that she indulged in riotous living even while imprisoned awaiting trial. But few people knew the truth about Mary Blandy. As they walked her to the gallows, Mary’s head was full of remembered ecstasy and tragic disappointment such as her accusers could never imagine…
Mr. Horace Walpole commented: “Miss Blandy died with a coolness of courage that is astounding, and denying the fact which has made a kind of party in her favour. As though a woman who would not stick at parricide would scruple a lie!” ‘Memory Lane’ will also contain chapters relative to the sad case of Mary Blandy.
The Blandy case is per se analogous to the Bentley case when, finally in 1998, after disgraceful delays from the State, Derek William Bentley was pardoned. Although the Criminal Cases Review Commission could not have saved him from the infamous Albert Pierrepoint, justice on this earth, at last, reached an end.
The presiding judge in charge of the Bentley appeal was Lord Chief Justice Thomas Bingham of Cornhill and he took an unprecedented approach to the case whereby he criticised and condemned Lord Chief Justice Goddard for wearing the executioner’s cap long before the trial commenced. In essence, they demanded a hanging so they got a hanging and this is very similar to the case of Mary Blandy.