WEBVTT - An Earl, a Priest, and Martha Ray 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio, and Grim 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.760 and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Listener discretion advised. The evening 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:19.520 of April seventh, seventeen seventy nine was playing out just 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:24.000 like any other typical night in Covent Garden. The post 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:29.040 theater crowd was filled with London socialites, there to see 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.920 and be seen, and maybe taken a little entertainment along 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.400 the way. There had been a benefit that evening at 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.680 the Royal Opera House that included a performance of Love 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:45.400 in a Village, a comic opera about mistaken identities and 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.279 the follies of young love. A lovely woman in her 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.120 mid thirties was there, dressed in a fine silk gown 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.280 and adorned with jewels. In the bustling crowd, the woman 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.920 and her friend chatted with acquaintance. This is while they 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.080 searched for the woman's carriage to take them home. Suddenly, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:10.319 an agitated young man appeared. He approached the woman, grabbing 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.319 at her. Before anyone could understand what was happening, the 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.400 young man raised a gun to the woman's head and 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:22.080 delivered a fatal shot. He raised a second gun to 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.360 his head and tried to take his own life, but 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:30.800 the gun missed. A would be murder suicide turned into 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:37.520 regular old murder. The man was a lovesick soldier turned priest. 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.520 And what about the woman whose night at the theater 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:46.760 had just taken a deadly turn. She was Martha Ray, 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.960 a skilled performer in her own right, as well as 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.160 a kept woman who had been through plenty of romantic 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.600 drama of her own. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:10.000 noble blood for Martha Ray. Life began and ended in 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:14.919 Covent Garden, the vibrant London neighborhood where art and commerce 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:19.200 intersected and where people from all classes rubbed elbows on 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:23.200 a daily basis. In between her humble beginnings and her 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:29.400 untimely end, Martha scaled the social ladder, gaining access to 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.600 upper class life and to creative outlets that would not 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:38.320 normally have been available to the daughter of working class parents. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:43.280 She was beloved and respected by the upper classes, if 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:48.079 never quite accepted as one of their own. One admirer 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.720 in particular found her to be quote a lady of 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:57.359 elegant person, great sweetness of manners, and a remarkable judgment 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:02.480 and execution in vocal and instruments mental music. That same 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.560 admirer would be the one to later end her life, 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:11.200 setting off a media frenzy that capitalized on the era's 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:17.840 obsession with criminality and sentimentality in equal measure. Not much 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.720 is known about Martha's young life. She was born around 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.639 seventeen forty two, although some sources say it was as 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:31.320 late as seventeen forty five. Her father made stays for corsets, 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.600 her mother was a servant in a noble household. Around 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:40.080 the age of fourteen, Martha began to apprentice as a cloakmaker, 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.280 setting her up for a working class life in a 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:47.080 respectable if humble profession. That would have set her up 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:52.080 well for a respectable marriage and decent life. After all, 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.560 she was smart, charming, and a gifted singer. No doubt 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.760 one of her father's patrons would take her for a wife, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.520 But once a certain noblemen took notice of her, no 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:10.200 one else stood a chance. John Montague was ten years 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:14.559 old when he became the fourth Earl of Sandwich, inheriting 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:19.400 the title but little else from his grandfather. He was 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:24.080 worldly and well educated, and he spun his title and 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:29.760 background into a long, albeit rocky career in political life. 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.960 He was generally well liked, with a taste for the 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.800 finer things and a fondness for beautiful women. The time 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:43.600 of his meeting Martha Ray is estimated at around seventeen sixty, 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.880 when Martha would have been eighteen, and the Earl of 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.600 Sandwich around forty two. For clarity's sake, let's call him 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.120 Sandwich going forward, because how often do we get to 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:01.039 do that. Sandwich was instantly taken with more and with 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:05.240 her father's blessing, he took the young woman as his mistress. 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.080 By this point, Sandwich had been separated from his wife, 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:14.000 Dorothy for several years. Dorothy suffered from poor mental health 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.279 and was later declared a word of the state in 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:22.400 seventeen sixty seven. Was it possible her condition was exacerbated 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.960 by watching her husband build a new life with a teenager. 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.719 We'll never know, but I can't imagine it helped things. 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.680 Noblemen taking young mistresses was far from a rare occurrence, 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:39.920 but the relationship between Sandwich and Martha Ray was notable 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.120 for both its tenure and depth of quality. They had 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.600 nine children together, five of whom survived to adulthood, and 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.520 the two of them pretty much conducted themselves as husband 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.920 and wife. Sandwich loved their children and cared for them 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.760 as if they had been quote legitimately and in public, 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:06.000 he treated Martha as his legal partner. He also made 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:10.920 sure she received a full education, including musical training by 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:16.600 top tier instructors. Sandwich gave Martha her own residence in London, 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:21.200 and she was also welcomed into hinchingbrook House, the Sandwich 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:26.320 family country estate, as its rightful mistress. There they threw 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:31.560 epic concerts every Christmas, drawing on their shared obsession with music. 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:37.760 Thanks to Sandwich's expert tutelage, Martha developed into an outstanding 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:42.200 singer and entertained the elite guests that flocked each year 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:47.159 to Sandwich's estate with her soaring soprano solos, often with 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:51.240 her lover playing drums off to the side. But even 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:56.039 though the pair was well matched emotionally, Martha's humble roots 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.760 and lack of security began to place a strain on 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:05.400 the relationship. Sandwich was still married and Martha had no 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:10.640 legal ties to his title or money. Such a precarious 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:16.360 setup was bound to fall apart. Eventually fall apart, it did, 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.280 but probably not in the way either of them would 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:26.240 have expected. For nearly eighteen years, Martha Ray and the 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:31.480 Earl of Sandwich lived an unconventional version of common law domesticity. 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:36.320 She hosted grand parties at his country estate, accompanied him 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:40.640 to London social events, and traveled with him to naval 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.280 ceremonies that Sandwich had to attend thanks to his tenure 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.000 as the head of the Admiralty, the government department in 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.320 charge of the British Royal Navy. To the untrained eye, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:58.160 they behaved like any other aristocratic couple, But beneath the surface, 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:05.120 cracks were beginning to show. Martha's position as Sandwich's long 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:09.160 term mistress put her in a kind of social limbo. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.560 She could play hostess at hinchingbrook House, but it was 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:18.480 never truly her home. She could perform at private concerts 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.960 and local churches, but the grand stages of London's opera 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.200 houses remained out of her reach. At the end of 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.640 the day, she could act as Sandwich's wife in every 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:33.880 way that mattered, but with his wife still alive and 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.600 banished to a mental hospital, Martha could never actually become 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:45.120 Sandwich's wife. Inevitably, as she grew older, the situation began 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:50.160 to take its toll. Martha was trapped between two worlds, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:55.079 too elevated for her working class origins but never fully 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:59.640 accepted by the aristocracy. She had given Sandwich the best 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:03.400 year of her life and five children, yet she had 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:08.080 no legal claim to his fortune nor any protections for 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.920 her future. For his part, the Earl had a long 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.280 habit of living beyond his means, racking up debts while 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:20.960 refusing to give up his lavish lifestyle. Despite his clear 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:26.960 affection for Martha, he consistently rejected her pleas for financial security, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.840 unwilling to tie up his assets in any formal settlement. 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:37.800 Tensions between Martha and Sandwich continued to rise. They argued 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:43.000 constantly about money, hashing out each other's spending habits, from 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.679 household expenses to luxury goods to beer. Anything could become 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.880 a new source of friction. Martha claimed that Sandwich did 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.640 not give her a big enough housekeeping allowance, which forced 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:59.880 her to dip into her own personal funds. At one point, 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.720 Sandwich discovered that Martha had made an attempt to secure 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:08.760 some public singing engagements. He was furious and felt betrayed 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:13.079 by her deception. Martha fired back in a letter asking 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.520 the earl how exactly she was supposed to secure her future. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.760 She had been told repeatedly that she had the talent 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.880 for a career on the stage. Was she supposed to 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.319 stay trapped in domestic o limbo forever? As she wrote 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.480 to him, I am not a slave, nor will I 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.600 suffer myself to be treated as such, though of late 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.199 not much better. In her letters to Sandwich, Martha alternated 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.920 between declarations of love and outright resentment, but she never 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.840 forgot that he held the ultimate position of power in 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:52.680 the relationship. Their pattern of explosive fighting followed by reconciliation 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.679 continued for years. They were the eighteenth century version of 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.440 that couple in the friend group you wish would just 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.320 go ahead and break up already. After a few years 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:09.040 of this back and forth, this toxic relationship got just 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:13.560 the thing to liven things up, a hot new bombshell 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:19.720 in the form of a young officer named James Hackman. Sandwich, 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:25.120 who enjoyed entertaining military men at Hitchinbrook, invited Hackman as 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:30.600 part of a recruiting party sometime around seventeen seventy five. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:36.679 The twenty somethingter lieutenant was everything Sandwich was not young 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:43.000 passionate and singularly focused on Martha. There was an immediate 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:47.360 attraction between Martha and Hackman, and before long they found 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.120 themselves in the throes of an affair. He was smitten 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.000 by her beauty and musical talent, while she no doubt 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:59.720 enjoyed his intense devotion for the young soldier. It wasn't 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:04.959 just a casual romance. It was an all consuming obsession. 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:10.400 He proposed marriage many times, and each time Martha turned 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:15.160 him down. It's unclear whether Martha was ever genuinely in 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.880 love with Hackman or she was simply enjoying the all 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.520 consuming attention of a younger man. The only thing we 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.320 can say with certainty is that Martha found herself in 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:32.400 an impossible situation. As volatile as things were with Sandwich, 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.960 he was the most stable presence in Martha's life. Leaving 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.960 Sandwich would mean not just abandoning what financial security she had, 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.920 but it might also threaten her relationship with their children. 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.559 The affair with Hackman was at best a fun ego 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:54.960 boost and at worst an ill fated love connection. But 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.400 either way, there simply wasn't a scenario where Martha could 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:04.920 leave Sandwich feelings aside. Hackman had neither the wealth nor 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:08.840 the social standing to support Martha in the manner to 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:14.040 which she had become accustomed. When Hackman's regiment received orders 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:18.040 to deploy to Ireland in early seventeen seventy six, he 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:24.280 made one final desperate marriage proposal. Martha's answer didn't change. 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:28.240 Did his refusal to take no for an answer finally 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:32.080 give Martha the ick? Was she trying to make a 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:36.040 clean break to protect her own heart? Did she worry 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.800 that Sandwich would catch them and kick her out? Will 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.800 never know why exactly, but whatever her reasons, Martha ended 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:50.240 the affair and distance herself from Hackman. The rejection sent 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:55.280 Hackman into a spiral. Not content with a recent promotion 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:00.200 to lieutenant, he opted instead for a total career change, 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:05.360 leaving the military and entering the clergy. By February of 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:09.120 seventeen seventy nine, he had been ordained as a priest 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.040 in the Church of England and had been given a 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.240 parish in Norfolk. But rather than settle into life as 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.840 a country priest and try to start a new chapter, 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:26.720 Hackman returned to London with renewed determination to win Martha back. 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.080 It's possible that Hackman thought that his new career had 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:35.760 transformed him into a more suitable husband, or it's possible 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:41.000 he was just a deranged stalker incapable of letting her go. 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.720 Either way, Martha wanted nothing to do with him, and 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:50.680 Hackman could not handle it. He grew paranoid and became 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:55.120 convinced Martha had taken a new lover. Martha had started 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.640 rejecting his letters and sent him one of her own, 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:03.440 asking him to to end his mad pursuit. Soon after, 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:07.160 Hackman did put an end to the affair, but certainly 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:11.720 not in the way Martha had hoped. On the evening 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.880 of April seventh, seventeen seventy nine, Martha attended the theater 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.560 with a woman named Katerina Golly, a close friend and 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:24.600 fellow singer. Earlier that evening, Hackman had approached Martha at 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:28.080 her home. When she refused to tell him where she 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.120 was going, he decided to follow her. At the theater, 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:37.520 Hackman spotted Martha in conversation with Lord Coloring, a wealthy 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:41.440 Irish nobleman. Whether or not there was ever anything that 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.120 ever happened between the two is unknown, but for Hackman, 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.960 seeing the two of them together was all of the 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.040 proof he needed. He stormed out of the Covent Garden theater, 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.640 picked up two pistols, and made his way to a 0:15:55.720 --> 0:16:00.800 nearby coffeehouse. He sat there for hours, writing he believed 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.560 would be his final letter, a suicide note addressed to 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:08.080 his brother in law, Frederick Booth. In the letter, he 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:12.280 poured out his anguish. I have strove against it as 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.240 long as possible, but it now overpowers me. My having, 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.320 by some means or other, lost her affections, has driven 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:27.000 me to madness. As the performance ended, theatergoers congregated outside 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.920 in the night air, Martha and Katerina among them. In 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.680 that bustling post theater scene, no one could have predicted 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:41.320 the horror about to unfold. Suddenly, Hackman emerged from the crowd. 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.920 He grabbed Martha's cloak and spun her around to face him. 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.160 Before anyone could react, he raised one of his pistols 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:55.240 to her forehead and fired. Martha Ray collapsed dead by 0:16:55.240 --> 0:17:00.800 her former lover's hand. The crowd erupted in chaos and screams, 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:05.240 but Hackman wasn't finished. He raised his second pistol to 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.200 his own head and pulled the trigger, but the shot 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:14.080 went wide. Only grazing his skull. Frantic and bleeding, Hackman 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:20.200 began beating himself with both pistols until horrified bystanders managed 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:25.760 to restrain him. Within minutes, both Martha's body and Hackman 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:31.479 were carried to the nearby Shakespeare Tavern. Hackman asked to 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:36.880 see Martha, apparently not realizing that she was dead. When 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:42.600 officers searched his pockets, they found two letters, the suicide 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:47.120 note to Frederick Booth and a desperate final plea to 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:52.920 Martha that she had rejected just days before. The letter 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:57.159 to Martha revealed the depth of his delusion. He was 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.800 convinced they had agreed to Mary, that she was simply 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.720 being stubborn, that he could win her back still if 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:08.760 he could just make her understand his devotion. But it's 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.600 a line from the letter to Frederick Booth that hints 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:17.160 at the sinister events that were about to unfold. May 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:22.600 Heaven protect my beloved woman, and forgive this act, which 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.639 alone could relieve me from a world of misery I 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:31.520 have long endured. Hackman had come prepared not just to kill, 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.680 but to die. This was meant to be the ultimate 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:40.280 romantic gesture. If he couldn't have Martha in life they 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:45.200 would be united in death. But when his own suicide failed, 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:51.119 his dreams of becoming Romeo and Juliet devolved into plain, 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:56.119 old fashioned, gruesome murder, and for that he would have 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:02.040 to answer to the hangman. Just nine days after murdering Martha, 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:07.359 Ray James Hackman found himself standing trial. His initial plan 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:11.760 was to plead guilty, after all, dozens of witnesses had 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:15.680 seen him shoot Martha in the head outside Covent Garden Theater. 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.119 But when the moment came, something made him change his mind. 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.520 Perhaps it was a final flicker of self preservation, or 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.600 maybe his legal counsel convinced him that he had nothing 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.800 to lose. Whatever the reason, Hackman entered a plea of 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:38.200 not guilty. His defense strategy was ambitious but desperate, an 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:44.440 insanity plea. His lawyers argued that the killing was completely unpremeditated, 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:50.160 the product of a mind unhinged by obsessive love. They 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:54.040 pointed to the letters found on his person, filled with 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.879 desperate declarations and threats of suicide. Surely this was the 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.760 work of a man man, not a calculated killer. But 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:09.080 Justice Blackstone, presiding over the trial, wasn't buying it. He 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.879 pointed to Hackman's letter to his brother in law Frederick Booth, 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:18.200 written hours before the killing. The letter's tone, Blackstone observed, 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:23.399 showed quote a coolness and deliberation which no ways accorded 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:29.320 with the ideas of insanity. The jury agreed after deliberating, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:34.400 they returned a verdict of guilty, and Hackman was sentenced 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:40.800 to hang. On April nineteenth, seventeen seventy nine, just twelve 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.920 days after the incident, James Hackman was hanged for the 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:49.800 murder of Martha Ray. Witnesses reported that Hackman faced his 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:55.919 execution with remarkable fortitude, showing no signs of fear, completely 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.840 resigned to his fate. But the real story of this 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:06.000 case wasn't confined to the courtroom. As historian John Brewer 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:10.960 explores in his fascinating book A Sentimental Murder, Love and 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:15.280 Madness in the eighteenth Century, the murder ignited a media 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:20.840 sensation that revealed as much about eighteenth century culture as 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:25.280 it did about the crime itself. Despite pressing news about 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:30.159 the failing war with American colonists and political battles at home, 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:35.040 London newspapers devoted enormous amounts of space to the killing. 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.040 And its aftermath. Between the night of Martha's murder and 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:45.800 Hackman's execution, daily coverage appeared in many newspapers, quickly escalating 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:50.439 the situation into a cultural phenomenon that tapped into the 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:57.160 era's obsession with sentiment and sensibility. Sentimental literature was everywhere 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.760 filled with stories of virtue and distrust, lovelorn youth, and 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:07.440 tragic passion. As Brewer notes, it wasn't difficult to present 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.560 the tragedy of Hackman and Ray as a sentimental story 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:18.879 designed to provoke sympathy from readers. This cultural context helps 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:24.520 explain why James Hackman attracted far more public sympathy than 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:29.200 Martha Ray. He could easily be cast as a romantic 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:35.280 hero destroyed by unrequited love. Martha was mostly cast in 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.560 a sympathetic light, but she was often seen as the 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:42.600 architect of her own downfall, a woman whose refusal to 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:48.560 return Hackman's devotion had driven him to madness. Behind the scenes, 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:53.040 there was a deliberate effort to shape public opinion. Both 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:58.680 Sandwich's allies and Hackman's supporters worked to present versions of 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:03.320 events that cast the respective figures in the most favorable light. 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:08.359 The Earl's circle wanted to downplay the financial tensions and 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:13.280 quarrels that had marked his relationship with Martha, while Hackman's 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:17.560 defenders promoted the image of a gentle clergyman driven to 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:23.480 temporary insanity by overwhelming passion in death as in life. 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:28.000 Despite being at the center of this triad, Martha had 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.080 the least agency of it all. The Earl of Sandwich 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:36.720 was shattered by Martha's murder. Though he continued in public 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.720 life for a few more years, he was never the same. 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:45.680 His political career, already marked by accusations of incompetence and corruption, 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:52.400 fizzled out unceremoniously. Contemporaries often said of him, seldom has 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:56.520 any man held so many offices and accomplished so little. 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:01.040 He lived until seventeen ninety two, out lived by his 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:05.040 erstwhile wife, Dorothy, who was still living as a ward 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:10.679 of the state. Ironically, Sandwich's most enduring legacy has nothing 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:15.400 to do with his naval administration or political maneuvering, or 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:21.680 even the scandalous murder of his longtime mistress. The modern Sandwich, 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:28.400 that humble workhourse of meals, bears his name a lasting legacy. Indeed, 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:32.720 although it's unclear whether he invented it because he was 0:24:32.760 --> 0:24:36.639 too busy working or gambling to step away for a 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:43.560 proper meal. Allegedly, over the centuries, each generation has rewritten 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:49.239 Martha's story to reflect their own values and anxieties. In 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:53.200 seventeen eighty, just a year after the murder, a young 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:57.399 writer named Herbert Croft rushed out in a pistolary novel 0:24:57.520 --> 0:25:02.320 called Love and Madness, at first first claiming erroneously that 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:06.280 it was based on actual letters between Martha and James Hackman, 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:11.119 then later admitting he invented it whole cloth. The book 0:25:11.480 --> 0:25:16.080 was a sensation, proving that as a species, we've always 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:20.959 had a taste for some juicy true crime. The victorians 0:25:21.119 --> 0:25:26.520 turned Martha Ray into a cautionary tale about aristocratic decadence 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:32.000 and the dangers of living outside conventional morality. By the 0:25:32.080 --> 0:25:36.200 nineteen twenties, she had been reimagined as a chaste victim 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:41.639 of male dominance and privilege. Modern historians, like Brewer have 0:25:41.800 --> 0:25:47.120 tried to rescue Martha from these competing mythologies, recognizing her 0:25:47.240 --> 0:25:52.400 as a woman trapped by circumstances largely beyond her control, 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:58.480 but still a human woman. Nonetheless a full, three dimensional person. 0:25:59.440 --> 0:26:02.920 Mar was buried in a vault beneath Saint Nicholas Church 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:06.840 in the village of Elstree. In eighteen twenty four, during 0:26:07.040 --> 0:26:12.000 church renovations, her remains were moved to an unmarked grave 0:26:12.119 --> 0:26:17.400 in the churchyard. It wasn't until nineteen twenty that George Montague, 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:22.080 the ninth Earl of Sandwich, had a proper tombstone erected 0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:26.600 over her grave. It was a final, belated gesture of 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:31.000 respect for a woman who lived a life dictated by 0:26:31.080 --> 0:26:35.040 the men who surrounded her, sometimes for better, but in 0:26:35.080 --> 0:26:42.560 the end for far worse. That's the story of Martha 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:46.280 Ray and her murder. But keep listening after a brief 0:26:46.400 --> 0:26:49.600 sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her 0:26:49.760 --> 0:27:03.480 theatrical legacy. Martha Ray was a poor, working class woman 0:27:03.520 --> 0:27:08.000 from Covent Garden whose life was completely transformed when she 0:27:08.080 --> 0:27:10.840 caught the eye of an older gentleman from a higher 0:27:10.880 --> 0:27:15.600 social class. He educated her, refined her, and molded her 0:27:15.640 --> 0:27:18.879 into a cultured lady who could hold her own in 0:27:19.000 --> 0:27:23.680 aristocratic society. Another man fell desperately in love with her 0:27:23.760 --> 0:27:27.920 and wanted to take her away, but she refused, choosing 0:27:28.000 --> 0:27:31.720 to stay with the complicated nobleman who had changed her 0:27:31.760 --> 0:27:37.240 life sound a little familiar. Over a century before George 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:42.879 Bernard Shaw would write Pigmalion, a much darker version was 0:27:42.960 --> 0:27:47.359 playing out in the very same London neighborhood where Martha 0:27:47.440 --> 0:27:51.760 met her end, and when Lerner and Lowe eventually adapted 0:27:51.800 --> 0:27:56.480 it into the hit musical My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle 0:27:56.720 --> 0:28:01.600 was given a lilting soprano singing voice. Ironically, it's a 0:28:01.640 --> 0:28:07.119 part that Martha Ray would have sung beautifully.