Hannah Brinsden spoke no more after the blow was struck. Her husband maintained before the magistrates that the wound was accidental, averring that she had cast herself against the blade; their eldest daughter, however, related an entirely different scene. She declared that he had barred her mother from the door, thrown her down, and struck her with the very knife he held to cut the bread. The jury credited the child’s deposition and found Matthias Brinsden guilty of murder. Confined to his cell prior to execution, the father besought this same daughter to forgive him for having deprived her of her mother.
The Brinsdens had several children and lived in circumstances that the chronicler deemed respectable. Yet the pair had long subsided into perpetual bickering. Hannah was fond of company and given to strong drink, as the relation states. Her husband deemed that she squandered his means while he had a numerous family to maintain. The neighborhood frequently heard their domestic altercations, which occasionally degenerated into open affrays. The author depicts both as possessing fiery tempers, yet such a characterization does not render their responsibilities equal: he records as well the repeated outrages that Matthias had committed against his wife.
During an earlier dispute, he had burned her arms with a heated iron. About a week prior to her death, he had thrust a large pair of shears into her head. Hannah bled profusely, and those who saw her initially believed she would not survive. Having received medical care, she regained consciousness and recovered. Matthias had fled during this interval; repeated assurances that her life was out of danger at length induced him to return. He is said to have promised then that he would never again allow his passion to transport him to such violent extremes. The chronicle juxtaposes this pledge with the fatal thrust that followed hard upon it.
The final dispute arose after Hannah had been drinking with certain visitors in their home. These guests having departed, she inquired of her husband what they were to have for supper. He replied that there was bread and cheese. She reminded him that she had already eaten of it at noon, and refused to partake of it again. Matthias answered that she should fare no better than the rest of the household, save for their eldest daughter, for whom he had provided a pie. He declared that he favored this child because she tended her brothers and sisters and ordered the house; malicious tongues, the source remarks, insinuated that his partiality proceeded from an illicit cause.
Hannah then announced her intention of supping with her companions at the huckster’s shop where they had lately assembled. Matthias placed himself between her and the door, the dinner knife still in his hand. As she struggled vehemently to pass, he threw her down with one hand and struck her with the other, according to their daughter’s deposition at the trial. Brinsden contested this sequence of events: he maintained that she fell only after the blow, whereupon he gently laid her upon the bed. He contended further that the wound had occurred entirely by accident as she pressed violently against him. Hannah never spoke another word after receiving the stroke.
Amidst the ensuing tumult, Matthias sent for basilicon ointment and sugar to dress the wound, hoping, as the chronicle suggests, that his wife might survive and testify that there was no malice aforethought between them. He then availed himself of the confusion to take refuge at the house of a Mr. Kegg, at Shadwell Dock. There he remained concealed for a time. The chronicler observes that the dread of capture weighed more heavily upon him than any of the hardships he subsequently endured. He was at last apprehended and committed to stand his trial.
At the Old Bailey, Brinsden maintained a resolute demeanor. He trusted that common report would not prejudice the jurors against him, insisting repeatedly that he had harbored no premeditated design to kill. The surgeon who had examined Hannah’s body deposed that the wound was six inches in depth. Brinsden disputed this measurement, pointing out that the knife produced in court was of lesser length. He pleaded further the ungovernable temper of his wife, declaring that she would yield to nothing short of blows. The direct testimony of their daughter, corroborated by the attendant evidence, proved decisive. After a brief deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty.
Under sentence of death, Matthias had little commerce with his fellow convicts. He ate his meals, dozed upon his bed, and kept aloof from the common thieves and highwaymen imprisoned alongside him, as though kneeling with them in prayer were a degradation. The daughter who had testified against him came to the chapel and begged his forgiveness for having spoken the truth. On the first day, he turned from her in indignation. On the following day, after their mutual friends had labored to soften his heart, he at length granted her a pardon, spoken in little more than a whisper.
She came a third time, beseeching him to kiss her. He refused at first, then turned toward her and burst into tears. Gathering her into his arms, he begged her, according to the chronicle, to forgive him for having made her motherless. He exhorted her to shun theft, to govern her passions, and to respect the mistress who was henceforth to be a father and a mother to her. He charged her also to pray for his soul and to preserve the best memory she could of her father. Thus was the very child whose word had sealed his fate entrusted with his dying counsels.
On July 16, 1722, at Tyburn, Brinsden remained absorbed in silent meditation while the other malefactors tossed books and handkerchiefs to their acquaintances. When the prayers commenced, he stood up and followed the devotions with great attention. He then requested the Ordinary of Newgate to repeat a paper that he dictated word for word. In this declaration, he recounted that he had been born of tender parents and apprenticed to a fine-drawer. He acknowledged that he and Hannah had often quarrelled and fought, but protested that he had borne her no malice and had not contemplated her death two minutes before the blow was struck. He intended, he said, merely to enforce obedience. Such was the convict’s final justification, set against the testimony of his child.
Brinsden addressed himself as well to the slander that imputed to his connection with his eldest daughter an incestuous guilt and the birth of a child. In his dying speech, he solemnly denied the accusation. He recalled that he had often taken the girl in his arms, and had occasionally bestowed upon her a cake or a pie when she had performed more work than the other children. His denial does not transform the rumor into an established fact; it demonstrates rather that malicious gossip pursued the family even unto the gallows. He concluded by confessing that his sins were manifold, submitting to his sentence, and declaring that he relied far more upon the mercies of God than upon any merits of his own.
The chronicle records that he was turned off immediately following this declaration. In his final hours, Brinsden sought his daughter’s pardon and admonished her to restrain the anger he himself had failed to master. He protested that he had not intended to slay Hannah, but merely to reduce her to compliance; yet his daughter had described a scene in which he threw her mother to the floor and stabbed her with the knife. The jury accepted the child’s deposition and pronounced him guilty. Hannah had perished of the wound.