9 April (1779): Horace Walpole to Anne Liddell

Horace Walpole made his literary reputation with The Castle of Otranto, a progenitor of Gothic fiction (the novel was panned for its supernatural excesses, but won the critics over with its “great dramatic powers”). But Walpole’s primary arena was that of politics; he served as a parliamentary representative in the House of Commons from 1741-1768. Below, he writes to his friend Anne Liddell, Countess of Upper Ossory, speculating on the motivation underlying the recent assassination of Martha Wray (the mistress to the Earl of Sandwich). The year being 1779, and Walpole a staunch supporter of the British interests, he assumed the murderer had been encouraged by conspiring American forces. In a previous letter to the Countess on this subject, he stated: “I do not doubt but it will be found that the assassin was a Dissenter, and instigated by the Americans to give such a blow to the state.” Here he fills in even more of the lurid details surrounding the incident. To Walpole’s disappointment, his story remained nothing more than a politically inflamed conjecture; the murder was never tied to the revolutionary cause.

To the Countess of Upper Ossory

9 April 1779

I gave David this letter yesterday, and had forgotten to seal it which he did not perceive till I was gone out for the evening. Instead of sealing it he kept it for me till this morning after I had written my second. I send both to show I have been punctual, though all the novelty is evaporated, and my intelligence is not worth a farthing more than the newspaper.

Ladies, said a certain philosopher, always tell their minds in the postscript. As that is the habitation of truth, I send you, Madam, a little more truth than there was in my narrative of yesterday, which was warm from the first breath of rumour: yet though this is only a postscript I will not answer for its perfect veracity. It is the most authentic account I have yet been able to collect of so strange a story, of which no doubt you are curious to know more.

The assassin’s name is Hackman; he is brother to a reputable tradesmen in Cheapside, and is of a very pleasing figure himself, and most engaging behaviour. About five years ago he was an officer in the 66th Regiment, and being quartered at Huntingdon, pleased so much as to be invited to the oratorios at Hinchinbrook, and was much caressed there. Struck with Miss Wray’s charms he proposed marriage, but she told him she did not choose to carry a knapsack. He went to Ireland, and there changed the colour of his cloth, and at his return, I think not long ago, renewed his suit, hoping a cassock would be more tempting than a gorget; but in vain. Miss Wray, it seems, has been out of order, and abroad but twice all the winter. She went to the play on Wednesday night for the second time with Galli the singer. During the play the desperate lover was at the Bedford Coffee House, and behaved with great calmness, and drank a glass of capillaire. Towards the conclusion, he sallied into the piazza, waiting till he saw his victim handed by Mr Macnamara. He came behind her, pulled her by the gown, and on her turning round, clapped the pistol to her forehead, and shot her through the head. With another pistol he then attempted to shoot himself, but the ball only grazing his brow, he tried to dash out his own brains with the pistol, and is more wounded by those blows than by the ball.

Lord Sandwich was at home expecting her to supper at half an hour after ten. On her not returning an hour later, he said something must have happened: however, being tired, he went to bed at half an hour after eleven, and was scarce in bed before one of his servants came in and said Miss Wray was shot. He stared, and could not comprehend what the fellow meant; nay, lay still, which is full as odd a part of the story as any. At twelve came a letter from the surgeon to confirm the account; and then he was extremely afflicted.

Now, upon the whole, Madam, is not the story full as strange as ever it was? Miss Wray has six children, the eldest son is fifteen, and she as at least three times as much. To bear a hopeless passion for five years, and then murder one’s mistress—I don’t understand it! If the story clears up at all your Ladyship shall have a sequel. These circumstances I received from Lord Hertford, who heard them at court yesterday from the Lords of the Admiralty. I forgot that the Galli swooned away on the spot.

I do not love tragic events en pure perte. If they do happen, I would have them historic. This is only of kin to history, and tends to nothing. It is very impertinent in one Hackman, to rival Herod, and shoot Mariamne—and that Mariamne a kept mistress! and yet it just sets curiosity agog, because she belongs to Lord Sandwich, at a critical moment—and yet he might as well have killed any other inhabitant of Covent Garden.

From Letters of Horace Walpole, edited by Charles Duke Yonge, New York, G.P. Putnam Sons, 1890.

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