The Damnation of John Donellan Read Online Free

land), ‘forty gardens, two dovehouses, one thousand acres of land, two hundred acres of meadow and fifty acres of pasture’, and it had been added to since then.
    Donellan wrote:
    Dear Sir,
    I am sorry to be the communicator of Sir Theodosius’s death to you, which happened this morning; he has been for some time past under the care of Mr Powell of Rugby, for a similar complaint to that which he had at Eton. Lady Boughton and my wife are inconsolable. They join me in best respects to Lady Wheler, yourself, and Mr & Mrs Sitwell.
    I am, dear sir, with the greatest esteem, your most obedient servant, J.D.
    Lawford Hall, August 30th, 1780.
    At the time, Wheler and his wife were staying with their friends the Sitwells, who had been recently bereaved, at Leamington (now Royal Leamington Spa). No mention had been made of how Theodosius had died. No reply was received that day.
    â€˜Some time afterwards’, according to Lady Boughton, Donellan, Theodosia and herself were in the downstairs parlour. Donellan raised the subject of the medicine bottles.
    Anna Maria later testified that ‘Donellan in her presence had said to his wife that her mother [meaning herself] had been pleased to take notice of his washing the bottles out; and that he did not know what he should have done if he had not thought of sayinghe put the water into it to put his finger to it to taste’. Donellan’s words and actions – if Anna Maria’s version is accurate – smack of self-defence. Anna Maria testified later that she could not trust herself to reply; she turned away from him to the window. In the face of his mother-in-law’s rebuff, Donellan repeated what he had just said. Still getting no reply from her, he asked Theodosia to call a servant, who was asked to go and fetch William Frost.
    Now came one of the major – but by no means only – divergences between Donellan’s account and Anna Maria’s later testimony. In her deposition to the coroner on 14 September, Anna Maria made no mention whatsoever of having seen Donellan in the house prior to his entering Theodosius’s bedroom at approximately half past seven. Donellan’s version was quite different.
    According to Donellan’s later published
Defence
, he and Lady Boughton had made an arrangement the previous day that they would ride out together that morning to take the waters at Newnham Wells, a little way across the fields. Donellan had gone downstairs and was waiting in the yard with the horses when at some time between seven and seven fifteen he glimpsed Anna Maria through a window. He had called to her, asking if she was ready to leave; she had replied that she was about to change her clothes. When she did not appear after some minutes, Donellan had ridden out alone, returning at about ten minutes to eight.
    Next, according to both Anna Maria’s trial testimony and Donellan’s
Defence
, William Frost was called into the parlour to verify this.
    Donellan asked the coachman, ‘Will, don’t you remember that I set out of these iron gates this morning about seven o’clock?’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ Will replied.
    â€˜You remember that, don’t you?’ Donellan persisted.
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜And that was the first time of my going out. I have never been on the other side of the house this morning.’ Donellan was careful to drive the point home, repeating, ‘You remember that I set out there at seven o’clock this morning, and asked for a horse to go to the Wells?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜Then,’ Donellan replied, ‘you are my evidence.’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ Frost answered.
    It was the first time that the word ‘evidence’ – to play such a major part in the months to come – was uttered.
    Nothing else is recorded of the events or the emotions of that day or of the following one, 31 August, in Anna Maria’s testimony other than that she