|
Ann (Margaret) Beddingfield -1763. |
Background.
Margaret Beddingfield, who went by the name of Ann, was a
The murder.
The first
plan to dispose of John was by poisoning him. Richard tried to persuade one of
the maids to put poison in John’s drink which she refused to do. Plan B was to
strangle John in his bed while he slept and this was put into effect by Richard
on the night of Tuesday the 27th of July. Earlier that day, John had taken
Richard to help him move some cows he was selling and afterwards they went for
a drink together. John returned home to find Ann in bed with one of the maids
whose purpose, she claimed, was to act as a bed warmer! John did not seem over
happy with this arrangement and asked Ann to come to the marital bed which
apparently she refused to do. John then went to bed alone, with his wife and
the servant in the next door bedroom.
Later that
night Richard entered his master’s bedroom and strangled him with a cord after
a brief struggle during which they both fell from the bed. Having killed John,
Richard went into Ann’s room and told her (and the maid) that the deed was
done. The maid went to John’s room and found him lying dead on the floor. The
following conversation is reported to have taken place :
Richard : "I have done for him". Ann :
"Then I am easy". The maid cried out: "Master!" - supposing
in the dark that John was alive. Ann told her to be quiet and Richard asked Ann
if anyone else was aware of what had taken place besides her and the maid. At
this the maid asked, “How came you here, Richard?” He replied, “I was forced to
it”. He now returned to his own room
while Ann swore the maid to secrecy. She then told her to go and call Richard
and when he returned, told him to go into John’s bedroom because she feared he
was ill. Richard feigned an inspection and came back to tell Ann and the maid
that John was dead. The second maid had been woken by the commotion and also
went to look at her master. She found him lying face down and noted that his
shirt collar was torn off, and that his neck was bruised and swollen.
An inquest
was held the next day but none of the servants were called to give evidence. It
amazingly, after a very short inquiry, bought in a verdict of accidental death
- John had strangled himself with his bedclothes during a nightmare! So at this
point, there was no official record of a murder having been committed and both
parties may have thought that they had got away with it. However, the events of
the Tuesday night had begun to sour the relationship between Ann and Richard
and the affair cooled rapidly. It is probable that the realisation had dawned
on Richard of the danger he had been placed in by Ann. He is quoted as saying
that he thought of himself as a dead man from that fateful Tuesday night.
Arrest and trial.
The maid,
no doubt troubled by what she had witnessed but with a firm eye on her own
situation, waited until she had been paid her quarter’s wages and then reported
the murder, initially to her parents, who then involved the constable. Ann
tried to bribe the maid’s mother but she wouldn’t accept this, not a piece of
evidence that played well later in court. Ann was arrested two days later,
having tried to escape while Richard was arrested at the Bedingfield
house having made no effort to evade capture. The pair came to trial at the
Ipswich Lent Assizes which opened on
The court heard
evidence from the servants and also from the surgeon who had examined John’s
body, who told the jury that he had noticed the marks of strangulation on the
body. When asked why he had reported a natural death to the coroner he,
amazingly, replied that he “did not think much about it.” (it
is normally very obvious that a person has been strangled from the ligature
marks on the neck, blueness of the lips and ears and petchiae
on the face). Quite why he would have thought John’s injuries were self inflicted
during a nightmare is unclear.
Ann
maintained her innocence during the trial while Richard, after hearing the
servants’ evidence, confessed his guilt. The jury found both guilty of Petty
Treason. The mandatory sentences for this crime were that Ann be drawn to the
place of execution and there burnt at the stake, and that Richard be similarly
drawn to the place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until dead and
that afterwards his body be anatomised. The execution of both was set for
Execution.
On the
Friday morning each prisoner was tied to a sledge in Ipswich prison and then
drawn by a horse to Rushmore, then a village just to the north of Ipswich,
where the gallows stood and a stake had been set up for Ann. Richard addressed
the huge crowd who had come to watch, warning them to avoid the snares of
wicked women and to consider chastity as a virtue. Ann was meanwhile tied to
the stake with an iron chain and a rope halter placed around her neck, with the
free rope passing through a hole bored in the stake. When all was ready,
Richard was turned off from the gallows and Ann was strangled by the hangman.
When Ann ceased to show signs of life, bundles of faggots were piled round her
and lit, the fire reducing her body to ashes. Richard was dissected after death
in accordance with the Murder Act of 1752.
Conclusion.
Lust, greed
and incredible stupidity characterise this crime. The love affair was hardly
discreet, the murder even less so. One appreciates that in the 1760’s it was
far more difficult for Ann to simply run away with Richard and that financially
she would have had lost everything by so doing. Only by John dying would she be
able to keep the farm and the house. Clearly her thinking was that with John
dead she could have it all with Richard as a bonus. As is often the case in
this type of murder, the attraction to the partner in crime wanes very soon
after its commission.
Ann had
brought suspicion on herself by being so indiscreet. It was alleged in court
that as she was dressing herself one morning, she said to her maid, : "Help me to put on my ear-rings; but I shall not
wear them much longer, for I shall have new black ones. It will not be long
before somebody in the house dies, and I believe it will be your master."
The actual murder could hardly have been less secret with the maid in bed with
Ann while it was carried out in the next room. One might ask why Ann needed a “bed
warmer” in late July. Not surprisingly, the other servants were extremely
suspicious when John was found dead.
Richard’s
behaviour was just as stupid. Everyone in the house, other than John, seemed to
know what was going on between him and Ann and he did nothing to hide it. He is
alleged to have told one of the maids that he would be her constant friend if
she would mix the poison he had bought with some rum and milk that her master
drank in the morning. She refused to do this but only reported the incident
after the murder. Every aspect of their conduct before, during and after the
killing increased the suspicion and evidence against them. Unless one believes
the surgeons original conclusion that John killed himself, no conclusion other
than wilful murder by Richard and Ann is open to one. There was no evidence of
an intruder or pretence that there had been one and that John had been murdered
in the course of a robbery that had gone wrong.
Tragically three
young lives were ended by this affair - ironically all by strangulation. At the
time of their deaths, Ann was 21 years old, John was 28 and Richard 20.
It is said
in some accounts, that Ann Beddingfield was the last
woman to be burnt for the murder of her husband. However, this is not the case
- that distinction goes to Mary Bailey who was executed on the 8th of March
1784 at Winchester.
Back
to contents page. Burning
at the stake. The female executed 1735
- 1799