Poison mysteries in history, romance and crime / by C. J. S. Thompson.

  • Charles Thompson
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Poison mysteries in history, romance and crime / by C. J. S. Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    111/440 (page 101)
    CHAPTER VIII ROYAL AND HISTORIC POISONERS POISON appears to have been employed as a political agent from an early period of history, and manjr stories, probably more legendary than correct, have been handed down of royal personages who used this secret and deadly method of ridding themselves of troublesome indi¬ viduals and removing enemies from their path. In the same way, they themselves sometimes became the victims of jealous rivals by similar nefarious means. The greatest craft and cunning were exerted in order to introduce poison into the human body, and there are many stories concerning the curious and subtle methods said to have been employed. There are but few authenticated records of the use of poison in England for the purpose of taking life until the sixteenth century, although according to tradition King John is said to have compassed the death of the unfortunate Maud Fitz- Walter by means of a poisoned egg. The story is a romantic one, and is related by Hepworth Dixon in Her Majesty’s Tower. In the reign of King John the White Tower received one of the first and fairest of a long line of female victims, in the person of Maud FitzWalter, who was known to the singers of her time as Maud the Fair. The father of this beautiful girl was Robert, Lord FitzWalter, of Castle Baynard on the Thames, one of John’s most powerful and greatest barons. The King, it is said, during a fit of violence or temper with the Queen, fell madly in love with the fair Maud. As neither the lady herself nor her father would listen to his disgraceful suit, the King is said to have seized her by force at Dunmow and brought her to the Tower. FitzWalter raised an outcry, on which the King sent troops into Castle Baynard and his other houses, and