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The murder of Earl Belriven excited considerable interest as well on account of his lordship's ancient lineage as of the high respect in which the accused persons, Nigel Lording and Mary Worthington, were held by the people of Devon.

It was not denied that Mary Worthington paid a visit to the Manor on the fatal afternoon of the Earl's murder, nor was it denied that he had been done to death by means of a stiletto which had been the property of Nigel Lording and on which was engraved his name. On these facts alone, the police deemed it prudent to take Nigel Lording and Mary Worthington into custody. Certain other facts were adduced in evidence against them upon their various examinations before the magistrates; but strong as were the suspicions excited against the accused, it was felt that there was still good reason to believe that they would escape conviction, notwithstanding that the Coroner's jury had returned a verdict of wilful murder, and when it was taken into consideration that experienced counsel in the person of Mr. Flower, a well known criminal advocate, was engaged to conduct their defence. On the other hand, a Mr. Hart, one of the ablest criminal barristers in England, was briefed on behalf of the prosecution.

Owing to the vast amount of local feeling, the two prisoners were removed from Plymouth under the Habeas Corpus Act, and placed at the bar of the Central Criminal Court, and arraigned upon the indictment found against them—Nigel Lording for the wilful murder of the deceased, and Mary Worthington for being an accessory in that she consorted, aided, and abetted her fellow prisoner.

Lord Chief Justice Denman, Mr. Justice Coleridge, and Mr. Justice Coltham were the judges. The court was crowded in every corner.

To the indictment, the prisoners pleaded not guilty.

Mr. Hart opened the case to the jury and in the course of his address said:

"The prisoners at the bar are a young man and a young woman—aged respectively 25 and 18 years, both natives of Devon. Hitherto, it may be said in their favour, they have enjoyed unblemished records; but it will be proved by the evidence that they were lovers. The male prisoner was particularly obnoxious to the deceased, and a feeling of enmity existed between them. This enmity had its origin in the fact that he had openly thrashed a great personal friend of the deceased, one Captain Lannigan, on Tavistock green, because the said Captain has chastised a vagrant for stealing wood from the demesne of Grassmere, and because he conspired with the female prisoner to resist the deceased's legal and customary right on the death of the father, the late tenant of Pentecost, to claim for heriot a particular horse. You are probably aware, gentlemen of the jury, that hate engenders hate, and it would, moreover, appear that the male prisoner was insanely jealous of the deceased nobleman because he had expressed openly his admiration for the female prisoner, an admiration which the male prisoner deeply resented.

"It will also appear by the evidence that the male prisoner instilled sentiments of loathing in the mind of the female prisoner against the deceased and warned her against him. In fact, he went so far as to give her a Spanish stiletto with his name engraved on the handle (handed in as an exhibit in the case) to use against the person of the deceased if he attempted to molest her in any way. But, gentlemen of the jury, no evidence whatever has been adduced to prove that the sentiments of the deceased towards the female prisoner were anything but honourable. It is admitted that the deceased claimed for heriot, according to the ancient custom of copyhold tenure, a certain horse on the death of the late tenant, Stephen Worthington, and it is in evidence that the female prisoner bitterly resented such claim on the grounds that the said horse was her personal property, and not the property of the estate of her late father; but, gentlemen, no documentary evidence has been submitted to prove that the said horse was the property of the female prisoner and not the property of her late father.

"I desire to impress upon you, gentlemen, that, notwithstanding the attempts of the male prisoner to insidiously poison the mind of the female prisoner against the deceased, she, without any escort and apparently without any fear, went of her own accord to interview the deceased on the fatal day of his death in order to influence him by a personal appeal to the noble nature of the deceased to forgo his customary claim to heriot. And I desire further to impress this upon you: Had she feared the deceased, if she had been at all apprehensive of his conduct towards her, she would have undoubtedly requested the male prisoner to accompany her for her better protection. But no, she did not do this. Instead, she asked him to meet her at a certain time, calculated on the length of the proposed interview, in order to be with him when the interview had ended. What transpired at that interview we do not know from independent evidence. We have only the uncorroborated statement of the female prisoner herself. But that statement you must disregard. It is too preposterous to entertain for a single moment. If you do give credence to it, you are invited to believe the impossible. You are asked to believe that the deceased attempted to criminally assault her, and in the struggle that ensued, she drew a stiletto from her person, but accidentally dropped it near the door of the library when she fainted, but when she regained her senses, she found the deceased lying upon her, dead, with the stiletto buried to the hilt below his left shoulder blade. An impossible story, truly!

"Gentlemen of the jury, it is in evidence that there was none of the deceased's family or household present at the manor on that fatal afternoon, yet, you will be asked to believe that the prisoners at the bar are guiltless of the crime for which they have been indicted. But, gentlemen (and learned counsel became vehement) the male prisoner was at the manor on that fatal afternoon, and both prisoners were seen by the lodge-keeper to leave the premises in a state of terror and extreme agitation with evidence of the crime—the blood of the murdered noble lord—upon them. Is it not, therefore, reasonable to assume that the male prisoner, with his intimate knowledge of the circumstances, went into the hall, and hearing voices in the library, opened the door, which was not locked, became possessed of the stiletto, and stabbed the deceased in an ungovernable fit of jealous rage?

"Gentlemen, what would a guilty man do in such a situation? With no one as a witness to prove otherwise, would he not act in such a way as to avert suspicion? It would be a very simple matter to endeavour to hoodwink the stern majesty of justice, by tearing the female prisoner's clothing to give semblance of an attempted outrage, and to smear her with the blood of the deceased. With this strong presumption before you, gentlemen, will you say whether there is any reasonable doubt of their guilt? It appears to me, having regard to all of the facts, that there can be no reasonable doubt whatever. I have a duty to discharge to the Crown, to the country, and to the public; and I must say that, so far as I have yet learned, there is no reason whatever to believe that the prisoners are innocent."

With a look of pleased satisfaction on his face, counsel resumed his seat at the bar table.

The evidence for the prosecution was then gone through in corroboration of the statements of the learned counsel for the prosecution, but none of it tended materially to incriminate the prisoners.

Mr. Flower then addressed the Jury for the defence:

"Gentlemen of the jury," he commenced, "you have heard my learned friend, counsel for the prosecution, admit that the prisoners have had hitherto an unblemished record, but he has adduced no direct evidence to shatter that admitted unblemished record, or to prove in any way that the prisoners are guilty of the shocking crime of which they have been accused and for which they now stand at the bar. On the contrary, he supports the case upon the most specious arguments and buttresses his indictment entirely upon circumstantial evidence. In certain cases that might be the best evidence as it was certainly the most difficult to fabricate; but in the case before you, gentlemen, you must disregard all evidence that is not supported by actual facts. Has any witness been called to prove that the deceased was struck the fatal blow by either of the prisoners? No. Did any one, I ask you, see that blow struck? Again I say No! You have been told the reason that induced the female prisoner to visit the Manor of Grassmere on that fatal Sunday afternoon; but you have not been told that the deceased was a libertine, a sexual pervert, a man of violent and ungovernable temper. It is well known that he did not hold sacred the person of any young and beautiful maiden. Unlike his noble father, the former Earl Belriven, who was esteemed everywhere for his kindly benevolence, his son, the deceased, for some unaccountable reason, was a degenerate in whose veins ran the blood of the infamous Elfrida, a ninth century ancestress; but centuries of time have not apparently eradicated the strain, though its recrudescence has been, happily, rare. Indeed, I merely mention this, gentlemen, to prove to you what manner of man the deceased commonly known as 'The Falcon' was, and I now say that a suppositious case only has been made out and placed before you by my learned friend. But I ask you, is it not reasonable to assume that the deceased (when we learn what his infamous character was) had an ulterior motive in luring the female prisoner to the manor in order, not to obtain possession of her horse as a heriot, but to violate her? Is it not just as reasonable, nay, more reasonable to assume—if the weight of the argument of my learned friend is to rest upon assumption—that the female prisoner, whose character he admits has hitherto been unimpeachable, fought desperately to guard her person, and to keep her honour inviolate from the lecherous fury of a sexual maniac? It is admitted that she was possessed of a stiletto which she carried on her person as an instrument of defence, and that the name of the male prisoner was engraved upon its handle. But what does that suggest, if not prove? Would it not suggest that in the dreadful situation in which she found herself placed, she would use the stiletto as her only means of defence of the weak against the strong? If the story of the female prisoner is to be believed, she attempted to do precisely that which I have suggested; but, unfortunately (and I say unfortunately advisedly, because if the deceased had attempted to violate her, she would have been justified in killing him in defence of her honour) the stiletto dropped out of her hand in her endeavour to save herself from falling, and fell near the door of the library leading to the hall. At this point, my learned friend has built up a case against the male prisoner and asks you to believe that he appeared on the scene at the identical moment that the stiletto dropped from the female prisoner's hand, entered the library, picked up the weapon, and stabbed the deceased to his death. Such an assumption is preposterous.

"I know what is in your minds, gentlemen. Someone must have entered the library at that particular juncture and stabbed the deceased! But who? Gentlemen of the jury, that is for the officers of the law to find out. It is very easy for the Crown to indict the prisoners on any assumption raised by its officers, as an easy way to punish a crime. But it is not assumption that we want. It is facts. You are trying an honourable young man and a brave and virtuous maiden for their lives, and what evidence, I repeat, has been submitted to you to satisfy you of their guilt, especially of the guilt of the male prisoner? None whatever. The ends of justice cannot be satisfied by circumstantial evidence, therefore, I submit, gentlemen of the jury, that your verdict must be—not guilty."

The Lord Chief Justice summed up on the evidence at the end of the second day's trial, and in doing so, stressed the circumstantial nature of it. There is no doubt whatever, that from the tenor of the summing up, had the fate of the prisoners been left to the Bench and not to the jury, the verdict would have been different. After consulting together for some time, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.

Nigel Lording was sentenced to death and Mary Worthington to be transported for the rest of her natural life.

Not only the county of Devon, but all England was deeply shocked at the verdict, and the savage nature of the sentences which were in keeping with the Draconian nature of the laws of that period. The life of a nobleman was regarded as sacrosanct, no matter how rotten and forbidden such a life might be; but someone must be made to suffer, some scapegoat must be sacrificed to atone for the taking of it in such a violent and summary manner. So Nigel Lording, young, brave, handsome, was condemned to die, and Mary Worthington, one of the fairest flowers of England's maidenhood, branded for ever as a felon. Henceforth, she must bear to the full all the pangs of her terrible sentence.