Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio, and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Listener discretion advised. The evening
Speaker 1: of April seventh, seventeen seventy nine was playing out just
Speaker 1: like any other typical night in Covent Garden. The post
Speaker 1: theater crowd was filled with London socialites, there to see
Speaker 1: and be seen, and maybe taken a little entertainment along
Speaker 1: the way. There had been a benefit that evening at
Speaker 1: the Royal Opera House that included a performance of Love
Speaker 1: in a Village, a comic opera about mistaken identities and
Speaker 1: the follies of young love. A lovely woman in her
Speaker 1: mid thirties was there, dressed in a fine silk gown
Speaker 1: and adorned with jewels. In the bustling crowd, the woman
Speaker 1: and her friend chatted with acquaintance. This is while they
Speaker 1: searched for the woman's carriage to take them home. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: an agitated young man appeared. He approached the woman, grabbing
Speaker 1: at her. Before anyone could understand what was happening, the
Speaker 1: young man raised a gun to the woman's head and
Speaker 1: delivered a fatal shot. He raised a second gun to
Speaker 1: his head and tried to take his own life, but
Speaker 1: the gun missed. A would be murder suicide turned into
Speaker 1: regular old murder. The man was a lovesick soldier turned priest.
Speaker 1: And what about the woman whose night at the theater
Speaker 1: had just taken a deadly turn. She was Martha Ray,
Speaker 1: a skilled performer in her own right, as well as
Speaker 1: a kept woman who had been through plenty of romantic
Speaker 1: drama of her own. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is
Speaker 1: noble blood for Martha Ray. Life began and ended in
Speaker 1: Covent Garden, the vibrant London neighborhood where art and commerce
Speaker 1: intersected and where people from all classes rubbed elbows on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. In between her humble beginnings and her
Speaker 1: untimely end, Martha scaled the social ladder, gaining access to
Speaker 1: upper class life and to creative outlets that would not
Speaker 1: normally have been available to the daughter of working class parents.
Speaker 1: She was beloved and respected by the upper classes, if
Speaker 1: never quite accepted as one of their own. One admirer
Speaker 1: in particular found her to be quote a lady of
Speaker 1: elegant person, great sweetness of manners, and a remarkable judgment
Speaker 1: and execution in vocal and instruments mental music. That same
Speaker 1: admirer would be the one to later end her life,
Speaker 1: setting off a media frenzy that capitalized on the era's
Speaker 1: obsession with criminality and sentimentality in equal measure. Not much
Speaker 1: is known about Martha's young life. She was born around
Speaker 1: seventeen forty two, although some sources say it was as
Speaker 1: late as seventeen forty five. Her father made stays for corsets,
Speaker 1: her mother was a servant in a noble household. Around
Speaker 1: the age of fourteen, Martha began to apprentice as a cloakmaker,
Speaker 1: setting her up for a working class life in a
Speaker 1: respectable if humble profession. That would have set her up
Speaker 1: well for a respectable marriage and decent life. After all,
Speaker 1: she was smart, charming, and a gifted singer. No doubt
Speaker 1: one of her father's patrons would take her for a wife,
Speaker 1: But once a certain noblemen took notice of her, no
Speaker 1: one else stood a chance. John Montague was ten years
Speaker 1: old when he became the fourth Earl of Sandwich, inheriting
Speaker 1: the title but little else from his grandfather. He was
Speaker 1: worldly and well educated, and he spun his title and
Speaker 1: background into a long, albeit rocky career in political life.
Speaker 1: He was generally well liked, with a taste for the
Speaker 1: finer things and a fondness for beautiful women. The time
Speaker 1: of his meeting Martha Ray is estimated at around seventeen sixty,
Speaker 1: when Martha would have been eighteen, and the Earl of
Speaker 1: Sandwich around forty two. For clarity's sake, let's call him
Speaker 1: Sandwich going forward, because how often do we get to
Speaker 1: do that. Sandwich was instantly taken with more and with
Speaker 1: her father's blessing, he took the young woman as his mistress.
Speaker 1: By this point, Sandwich had been separated from his wife,
Speaker 1: Dorothy for several years. Dorothy suffered from poor mental health
Speaker 1: and was later declared a word of the state in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty seven. Was it possible her condition was exacerbated
Speaker 1: by watching her husband build a new life with a teenager.
Speaker 1: We'll never know, but I can't imagine it helped things.
Speaker 1: Noblemen taking young mistresses was far from a rare occurrence,
Speaker 1: but the relationship between Sandwich and Martha Ray was notable
Speaker 1: for both its tenure and depth of quality. They had
Speaker 1: nine children together, five of whom survived to adulthood, and
Speaker 1: the two of them pretty much conducted themselves as husband
Speaker 1: and wife. Sandwich loved their children and cared for them
Speaker 1: as if they had been quote legitimately and in public,
Speaker 1: he treated Martha as his legal partner. He also made
Speaker 1: sure she received a full education, including musical training by
Speaker 1: top tier instructors. Sandwich gave Martha her own residence in London,
Speaker 1: and she was also welcomed into hinchingbrook House, the Sandwich
Speaker 1: family country estate, as its rightful mistress. There they threw
Speaker 1: epic concerts every Christmas, drawing on their shared obsession with music.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Sandwich's expert tutelage, Martha developed into an outstanding
Speaker 1: singer and entertained the elite guests that flocked each year
Speaker 1: to Sandwich's estate with her soaring soprano solos, often with
Speaker 1: her lover playing drums off to the side. But even
Speaker 1: though the pair was well matched emotionally, Martha's humble roots
Speaker 1: and lack of security began to place a strain on
Speaker 1: the relationship. Sandwich was still married and Martha had no
Speaker 1: legal ties to his title or money. Such a precarious
Speaker 1: setup was bound to fall apart. Eventually fall apart, it did,
Speaker 1: but probably not in the way either of them would
Speaker 1: have expected. For nearly eighteen years, Martha Ray and the
Speaker 1: Earl of Sandwich lived an unconventional version of common law domesticity.
Speaker 1: She hosted grand parties at his country estate, accompanied him
Speaker 1: to London social events, and traveled with him to naval
Speaker 1: ceremonies that Sandwich had to attend thanks to his tenure
Speaker 1: as the head of the Admiralty, the government department in
Speaker 1: charge of the British Royal Navy. To the untrained eye,
Speaker 1: they behaved like any other aristocratic couple, But beneath the surface,
Speaker 1: cracks were beginning to show. Martha's position as Sandwich's long
Speaker 1: term mistress put her in a kind of social limbo.
Speaker 1: She could play hostess at hinchingbrook House, but it was
Speaker 1: never truly her home. She could perform at private concerts
Speaker 1: and local churches, but the grand stages of London's opera
Speaker 1: houses remained out of her reach. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, she could act as Sandwich's wife in every
Speaker 1: way that mattered, but with his wife still alive and
Speaker 1: banished to a mental hospital, Martha could never actually become
Speaker 1: Sandwich's wife. Inevitably, as she grew older, the situation began
Speaker 1: to take its toll. Martha was trapped between two worlds,
Speaker 1: too elevated for her working class origins but never fully
Speaker 1: accepted by the aristocracy. She had given Sandwich the best
Speaker 1: year of her life and five children, yet she had
Speaker 1: no legal claim to his fortune nor any protections for
Speaker 1: her future. For his part, the Earl had a long
Speaker 1: habit of living beyond his means, racking up debts while
Speaker 1: refusing to give up his lavish lifestyle. Despite his clear
Speaker 1: affection for Martha, he consistently rejected her pleas for financial security,
Speaker 1: unwilling to tie up his assets in any formal settlement.
Speaker 1: Tensions between Martha and Sandwich continued to rise. They argued
Speaker 1: constantly about money, hashing out each other's spending habits, from
Speaker 1: household expenses to luxury goods to beer. Anything could become
Speaker 1: a new source of friction. Martha claimed that Sandwich did
Speaker 1: not give her a big enough housekeeping allowance, which forced
Speaker 1: her to dip into her own personal funds. At one point,
Speaker 1: Sandwich discovered that Martha had made an attempt to secure
Speaker 1: some public singing engagements. He was furious and felt betrayed
Speaker 1: by her deception. Martha fired back in a letter asking
Speaker 1: the earl how exactly she was supposed to secure her future.
Speaker 1: She had been told repeatedly that she had the talent
Speaker 1: for a career on the stage. Was she supposed to
Speaker 1: stay trapped in domestic o limbo forever? As she wrote
Speaker 1: to him, I am not a slave, nor will I
Speaker 1: suffer myself to be treated as such, though of late
Speaker 1: not much better. In her letters to Sandwich, Martha alternated
Speaker 1: between declarations of love and outright resentment, but she never
Speaker 1: forgot that he held the ultimate position of power in
Speaker 1: the relationship. Their pattern of explosive fighting followed by reconciliation
Speaker 1: continued for years. They were the eighteenth century version of
Speaker 1: that couple in the friend group you wish would just
Speaker 1: go ahead and break up already. After a few years
Speaker 1: of this back and forth, this toxic relationship got just
Speaker 1: the thing to liven things up, a hot new bombshell
Speaker 1: in the form of a young officer named James Hackman. Sandwich,
Speaker 1: who enjoyed entertaining military men at Hitchinbrook, invited Hackman as
Speaker 1: part of a recruiting party sometime around seventeen seventy five.
Speaker 1: The twenty somethingter lieutenant was everything Sandwich was not young
Speaker 1: passionate and singularly focused on Martha. There was an immediate
Speaker 1: attraction between Martha and Hackman, and before long they found
Speaker 1: themselves in the throes of an affair. He was smitten
Speaker 1: by her beauty and musical talent, while she no doubt
Speaker 1: enjoyed his intense devotion for the young soldier. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just a casual romance. It was an all consuming obsession.
Speaker 1: He proposed marriage many times, and each time Martha turned
Speaker 1: him down. It's unclear whether Martha was ever genuinely in
Speaker 1: love with Hackman or she was simply enjoying the all
Speaker 1: consuming attention of a younger man. The only thing we
Speaker 1: can say with certainty is that Martha found herself in
Speaker 1: an impossible situation. As volatile as things were with Sandwich,
Speaker 1: he was the most stable presence in Martha's life. Leaving
Speaker 1: Sandwich would mean not just abandoning what financial security she had,
Speaker 1: but it might also threaten her relationship with their children.
Speaker 1: The affair with Hackman was at best a fun ego
Speaker 1: boost and at worst an ill fated love connection. But
Speaker 1: either way, there simply wasn't a scenario where Martha could
Speaker 1: leave Sandwich feelings aside. Hackman had neither the wealth nor
Speaker 1: the social standing to support Martha in the manner to
Speaker 1: which she had become accustomed. When Hackman's regiment received orders
Speaker 1: to deploy to Ireland in early seventeen seventy six, he
Speaker 1: made one final desperate marriage proposal. Martha's answer didn't change.
Speaker 1: Did his refusal to take no for an answer finally
Speaker 1: give Martha the ick? Was she trying to make a
Speaker 1: clean break to protect her own heart? Did she worry
Speaker 1: that Sandwich would catch them and kick her out? Will
Speaker 1: never know why exactly, but whatever her reasons, Martha ended
Speaker 1: the affair and distance herself from Hackman. The rejection sent
Speaker 1: Hackman into a spiral. Not content with a recent promotion
Speaker 1: to lieutenant, he opted instead for a total career change,
Speaker 1: leaving the military and entering the clergy. By February of
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy nine, he had been ordained as a priest
Speaker 1: in the Church of England and had been given a
Speaker 1: parish in Norfolk. But rather than settle into life as
Speaker 1: a country priest and try to start a new chapter,
Speaker 1: Hackman returned to London with renewed determination to win Martha back.
Speaker 1: It's possible that Hackman thought that his new career had
Speaker 1: transformed him into a more suitable husband, or it's possible
Speaker 1: he was just a deranged stalker incapable of letting her go.
Speaker 1: Either way, Martha wanted nothing to do with him, and
Speaker 1: Hackman could not handle it. He grew paranoid and became
Speaker 1: convinced Martha had taken a new lover. Martha had started
Speaker 1: rejecting his letters and sent him one of her own,
Speaker 1: asking him to to end his mad pursuit. Soon after,
Speaker 1: Hackman did put an end to the affair, but certainly
Speaker 1: not in the way Martha had hoped. On the evening
Speaker 1: of April seventh, seventeen seventy nine, Martha attended the theater
Speaker 1: with a woman named Katerina Golly, a close friend and
Speaker 1: fellow singer. Earlier that evening, Hackman had approached Martha at
Speaker 1: her home. When she refused to tell him where she
Speaker 1: was going, he decided to follow her. At the theater,
Speaker 1: Hackman spotted Martha in conversation with Lord Coloring, a wealthy
Speaker 1: Irish nobleman. Whether or not there was ever anything that
Speaker 1: ever happened between the two is unknown, but for Hackman,
Speaker 1: seeing the two of them together was all of the
Speaker 1: proof he needed. He stormed out of the Covent Garden theater,
Speaker 1: picked up two pistols, and made his way to a
Speaker 1: nearby coffeehouse. He sat there for hours, writing he believed
Speaker 1: would be his final letter, a suicide note addressed to
Speaker 1: his brother in law, Frederick Booth. In the letter, he
Speaker 1: poured out his anguish. I have strove against it as
Speaker 1: long as possible, but it now overpowers me. My having,
Speaker 1: by some means or other, lost her affections, has driven
Speaker 1: me to madness. As the performance ended, theatergoers congregated outside
Speaker 1: in the night air, Martha and Katerina among them. In
Speaker 1: that bustling post theater scene, no one could have predicted
Speaker 1: the horror about to unfold. Suddenly, Hackman emerged from the crowd.
Speaker 1: He grabbed Martha's cloak and spun her around to face him.
Speaker 1: Before anyone could react, he raised one of his pistols
Speaker 1: to her forehead and fired. Martha Ray collapsed dead by
Speaker 1: her former lover's hand. The crowd erupted in chaos and screams,
Speaker 1: but Hackman wasn't finished. He raised his second pistol to
Speaker 1: his own head and pulled the trigger, but the shot
Speaker 1: went wide. Only grazing his skull. Frantic and bleeding, Hackman
Speaker 1: began beating himself with both pistols until horrified bystanders managed
Speaker 1: to restrain him. Within minutes, both Martha's body and Hackman
Speaker 1: were carried to the nearby Shakespeare Tavern. Hackman asked to
Speaker 1: see Martha, apparently not realizing that she was dead. When
Speaker 1: officers searched his pockets, they found two letters, the suicide
Speaker 1: note to Frederick Booth and a desperate final plea to
Speaker 1: Martha that she had rejected just days before. The letter
Speaker 1: to Martha revealed the depth of his delusion. He was
Speaker 1: convinced they had agreed to Mary, that she was simply
Speaker 1: being stubborn, that he could win her back still if
Speaker 1: he could just make her understand his devotion. But it's
Speaker 1: a line from the letter to Frederick Booth that hints
Speaker 1: at the sinister events that were about to unfold. May
Speaker 1: Heaven protect my beloved woman, and forgive this act, which
Speaker 1: alone could relieve me from a world of misery I
Speaker 1: have long endured. Hackman had come prepared not just to kill,
Speaker 1: but to die. This was meant to be the ultimate
Speaker 1: romantic gesture. If he couldn't have Martha in life they
Speaker 1: would be united in death. But when his own suicide failed,
Speaker 1: his dreams of becoming Romeo and Juliet devolved into plain,
Speaker 1: old fashioned, gruesome murder, and for that he would have
Speaker 1: to answer to the hangman. Just nine days after murdering Martha,
Speaker 1: Ray James Hackman found himself standing trial. His initial plan
Speaker 1: was to plead guilty, after all, dozens of witnesses had
Speaker 1: seen him shoot Martha in the head outside Covent Garden Theater.
Speaker 1: But when the moment came, something made him change his mind.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was a final flicker of self preservation, or
Speaker 1: maybe his legal counsel convinced him that he had nothing
Speaker 1: to lose. Whatever the reason, Hackman entered a plea of
Speaker 1: not guilty. His defense strategy was ambitious but desperate, an
Speaker 1: insanity plea. His lawyers argued that the killing was completely unpremeditated,
Speaker 1: the product of a mind unhinged by obsessive love. They
Speaker 1: pointed to the letters found on his person, filled with
Speaker 1: desperate declarations and threats of suicide. Surely this was the
Speaker 1: work of a man man, not a calculated killer. But
Speaker 1: Justice Blackstone, presiding over the trial, wasn't buying it. He
Speaker 1: pointed to Hackman's letter to his brother in law Frederick Booth,
Speaker 1: written hours before the killing. The letter's tone, Blackstone observed,
Speaker 1: showed quote a coolness and deliberation which no ways accorded
Speaker 1: with the ideas of insanity. The jury agreed after deliberating,
Speaker 1: they returned a verdict of guilty, and Hackman was sentenced
Speaker 1: to hang. On April nineteenth, seventeen seventy nine, just twelve
Speaker 1: days after the incident, James Hackman was hanged for the
Speaker 1: murder of Martha Ray. Witnesses reported that Hackman faced his
Speaker 1: execution with remarkable fortitude, showing no signs of fear, completely
Speaker 1: resigned to his fate. But the real story of this
Speaker 1: case wasn't confined to the courtroom. As historian John Brewer
Speaker 1: explores in his fascinating book A Sentimental Murder, Love and
Speaker 1: Madness in the eighteenth Century, the murder ignited a media
Speaker 1: sensation that revealed as much about eighteenth century culture as
Speaker 1: it did about the crime itself. Despite pressing news about
Speaker 1: the failing war with American colonists and political battles at home,
Speaker 1: London newspapers devoted enormous amounts of space to the killing.
Speaker 1: And its aftermath. Between the night of Martha's murder and
Speaker 1: Hackman's execution, daily coverage appeared in many newspapers, quickly escalating
Speaker 1: the situation into a cultural phenomenon that tapped into the
Speaker 1: era's obsession with sentiment and sensibility. Sentimental literature was everywhere
Speaker 1: filled with stories of virtue and distrust, lovelorn youth, and
Speaker 1: tragic passion. As Brewer notes, it wasn't difficult to present
Speaker 1: the tragedy of Hackman and Ray as a sentimental story
Speaker 1: designed to provoke sympathy from readers. This cultural context helps
Speaker 1: explain why James Hackman attracted far more public sympathy than
Speaker 1: Martha Ray. He could easily be cast as a romantic
Speaker 1: hero destroyed by unrequited love. Martha was mostly cast in
Speaker 1: a sympathetic light, but she was often seen as the
Speaker 1: architect of her own downfall, a woman whose refusal to
Speaker 1: return Hackman's devotion had driven him to madness. Behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: there was a deliberate effort to shape public opinion. Both
Speaker 1: Sandwich's allies and Hackman's supporters worked to present versions of
Speaker 1: events that cast the respective figures in the most favorable light.
Speaker 1: The Earl's circle wanted to downplay the financial tensions and
Speaker 1: quarrels that had marked his relationship with Martha, while Hackman's
Speaker 1: defenders promoted the image of a gentle clergyman driven to
Speaker 1: temporary insanity by overwhelming passion in death as in life.
Speaker 1: Despite being at the center of this triad, Martha had
Speaker 1: the least agency of it all. The Earl of Sandwich
Speaker 1: was shattered by Martha's murder. Though he continued in public
Speaker 1: life for a few more years, he was never the same.
Speaker 1: His political career, already marked by accusations of incompetence and corruption,
Speaker 1: fizzled out unceremoniously. Contemporaries often said of him, seldom has
Speaker 1: any man held so many offices and accomplished so little.
Speaker 1: He lived until seventeen ninety two, out lived by his
Speaker 1: erstwhile wife, Dorothy, who was still living as a ward
Speaker 1: of the state. Ironically, Sandwich's most enduring legacy has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with his naval administration or political maneuvering, or
Speaker 1: even the scandalous murder of his longtime mistress. The modern Sandwich,
Speaker 1: that humble workhourse of meals, bears his name a lasting legacy. Indeed,
Speaker 1: although it's unclear whether he invented it because he was
Speaker 1: too busy working or gambling to step away for a
Speaker 1: proper meal. Allegedly, over the centuries, each generation has rewritten
Speaker 1: Martha's story to reflect their own values and anxieties. In
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty, just a year after the murder, a young
Speaker 1: writer named Herbert Croft rushed out in a pistolary novel
Speaker 1: called Love and Madness, at first first claiming erroneously that
Speaker 1: it was based on actual letters between Martha and James Hackman,
Speaker 1: then later admitting he invented it whole cloth. The book
Speaker 1: was a sensation, proving that as a species, we've always
Speaker 1: had a taste for some juicy true crime. The victorians
Speaker 1: turned Martha Ray into a cautionary tale about aristocratic decadence
Speaker 1: and the dangers of living outside conventional morality. By the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, she had been reimagined as a chaste victim
Speaker 1: of male dominance and privilege. Modern historians, like Brewer have
Speaker 1: tried to rescue Martha from these competing mythologies, recognizing her
Speaker 1: as a woman trapped by circumstances largely beyond her control,
Speaker 1: but still a human woman. Nonetheless a full, three dimensional person.
Speaker 1: Mar was buried in a vault beneath Saint Nicholas Church
Speaker 1: in the village of Elstree. In eighteen twenty four, during
Speaker 1: church renovations, her remains were moved to an unmarked grave
Speaker 1: in the churchyard. It wasn't until nineteen twenty that George Montague,
Speaker 1: the ninth Earl of Sandwich, had a proper tombstone erected
Speaker 1: over her grave. It was a final, belated gesture of
Speaker 1: respect for a woman who lived a life dictated by
Speaker 1: the men who surrounded her, sometimes for better, but in
Speaker 1: the end for far worse. That's the story of Martha
Speaker 1: Ray and her murder. But keep listening after a brief
Speaker 1: sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her
Speaker 1: theatrical legacy. Martha Ray was a poor, working class woman
Speaker 1: from Covent Garden whose life was completely transformed when she
Speaker 1: caught the eye of an older gentleman from a higher
Speaker 1: social class. He educated her, refined her, and molded her
Speaker 1: into a cultured lady who could hold her own in
Speaker 1: aristocratic society. Another man fell desperately in love with her
Speaker 1: and wanted to take her away, but she refused, choosing
Speaker 1: to stay with the complicated nobleman who had changed her
Speaker 1: life sound a little familiar. Over a century before George
Speaker 1: Bernard Shaw would write Pigmalion, a much darker version was
Speaker 1: playing out in the very same London neighborhood where Martha
Speaker 1: met her end, and when Lerner and Lowe eventually adapted
Speaker 1: it into the hit musical My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle
Speaker 1: was given a lilting soprano singing voice. Ironically, it's a
Speaker 1: part that Martha Ray would have sung beautifully.