To this the prisoner replied in a low voice, which only the Attorney-General heard, "I can much aggravate, but cannot extenuate my fault. I desire mercy and that the lords will intercede for me to the king." An officer of the Crown then presented the white staff to the Lord High Steward, and sentence of death was passed. The Lord High Steward (Chancellor Ellesmere) now addressed the weeping prisoner in the following words: "Since the lords have heard with what humility and grief you have confessed the fact, I do not doubt they will signify so much to the king, and mediate for his grace towards you." The next day the Earl was tried and was found guilty, but both he and the Countess received only nominal punishment. It was alleged that this leniency to the Earl and Countess was due to King James himself having been cognisant of the plot to kill Overbury. The trial of Mary Blandy, in 1752, at the Oxford Assizes for the murder of her father is remarkable as being the first one of which there is any detailed record, in which convincing scientific proof of poisoning was given. Mr. Blandy, who was an attorney at Henley-on-Thames, was extremely fond of Mary, his only daughter, and according to the story told by the prosecuting counsel at the trial, "had pretended that he could give her £10,000 for her marriage portion in hopes that neighbouring gentlemen would pay their addresses. But this pious fraud, which was intended for her promotion, proved his death and her destruction." A Captain Cranstoun, who was recruiting at Henley, hearing she was to have £10,000 fell in love, not with her, but with her fortune, and concealed from her the fact that he already had a wife. The father having heard rumours of the bad character of Cranstoun, refused to let his daughter have anything to do with him. She continued to see him, however, and listened to his proposal to get the father out of the way as soon as possible, so that he might get possession of the £10,000 of which the poor man had unfortunately said he was possessed. In August, 1750, Mary Blandy began to prepare people for the death of her father by giving out that she had heard music in the house, this being looked upon as a certain portent of death. Then Captain Cranstoun sent her a present of Scotch pebbles and enclosed with them a packet of a white powder which she was to put into her father's food. She gave him some of this, which made him very ill, but as he recovered, Captain Cranstoun sent her more powder, and some of this she put into his gruel with the result that he again became violently ill, and died with symptoms suggestive of arsenical poisoning. Before his death he was told that Mary had been putting poison into his food, and only said, "Poor love-sick girl. What won't a girl do for a man she loves? I forgive her: I always thought there was mischief in these cursed Scotch pebbles!"