'Ten Handy Ways to Poison your Spouse - Part 3' by Karen Maitland

Poisoning of Queen Bona of Poland (1528-1572)

Artist: Jan Matejko (1838-1893)

The queen was murdered by her trusted officer

on the orders of King Philip II of Spain.

We are now in the Dog-days of summer, when the dog-star, Sirius, rises with the sun and was once thought to increase the sun’s heat “making dogs mad, women wanton and men commit foul crimes.” So, this seems a good month to add another Top Ten to my list of ‘Ways to Poison your Spouse.’ (8 June 2016). This month we look the bizarre means by which murderers in history have attempted to introduce the poison to their victims.

Poisoning your victim’s food or drink is most obvious method, but you have to have access to the food intended for the victim, which is not easy if you are attempting regicide. And what if the victim can’t be relied upon to eat that cake you sent them, without offering a first slice to someone else?

1) Poisoned Chalice – Rather than poison the food or drink, why not make the goblet or trencher itself poisonous, so that any innocuous food or liquid served in it becomes lethal. That was the goal of François Belot, a member of the French King’s bodyguard in the 17th century. He claimed to have devised a method that would make a silver vessel permanently lethal so that no matter how many times it was washed or how many victims drank from it, it would still kill. His method involved stuffing arsenic into a live toad, then crushing the toad in the vessel, while reciting spells. Unlikely as it seems, he was believed and acquired a great reputation for procuring the means of murder. Even the Commissioners of the Chambre Ardent or Chamber of Poisons, thought him guilty, and in 1679, sentenced him to be executed by being broken on the wheel. Though by then Belot was protesting he’d merely done it as a means of obtaining silver cups and trenchers.

2) Poisoned Flower – This was a medieval fiction, which in later centuries was not thought possible, except that there have been two cases which might make it seem more credible. In 1909 in Austria, suspicions were aroused when a ‘pious’ prisoner kept demanding flowers to put on an altar he’d made in his cell. It transpired that he had instructed his wife to obtain atropine or hyoscyamine, put it in a quill and insert the quill into the calyx of a carnation, binding it with thread as a florist would do. The poison did reach him by this method.

In the 1930’s, a London lavender seller was found to be hallucinating and taken to hospital where he died. His pocket contained a bottle of oil of mirbane (nitrobenzene) which he had sprinkled on the lavender he was selling to increase the perfume. It was thought that he’d inhaled the toxic vapours given off and poisoned himself.

Catherine of Medici (1519-1589)

Artist: Workshop of Frances Clouet (1510-1572)

Musee Carnavalet

3) Poisoned Dagger – Obviously the simplest method is simply to coat the blade in poison, thereby ensuring that even a flesh wound is fatal. But more subtle were the knives made in the late 16th and 17th century, designed to murder the user of the knife. The knives had a mechanism concealed inside the handle. When pressure was exerted on the cutting edge, three sharp spikes sprang out of the handle and pricked the hand or fingers of the person holding the knife. The moment the pressure was relaxed or the knife dropped, the spikes vanished. If the murderer was lucky, the spikes might even inject the poison straight into a vein.

4) Poisoned Bed – In 1908, Mary Kelliher went on trial in Boston, charged with the murder by poison of her husband, three children, sister and sister-in-law over a period of three years. After the death of her daughter, all the other family members were exhumed and found to have died of arsenic poisoning. No one knew how it had been administered until the bed was examined in which all the victims had at some time slept. The mattress was found stuffed with hair impregnated with arsenic which, the prosecution claimed, had been deliberately put there by Mary, so that her victims would absorb it while they slept. But the jury weren’t convinced and Mary was acquitted, though only after she been held for 15 long months.

Hercules poisoned by the Shirt of Nessus

Painting 1413-1415

5) Poisoned Marriage – According to an Indian legend, the Queen of Ganore murdered Rajah Bukht by impregnating his marriage robes with poison, which, when he sweated in the intense heat, caused severe and fatal burns. There are many legends of poisoned robe murders in India, which are probably more allegorical than literal, similar to the classical tale of Hercules and the shirt of Nessus. Nevertheless, forensic researchers in India have shown than impregnating cloth with cantharidin, which in India is extracted from the telini fly, can cause severe blistering, excruciating pain and necrosis resulting in death from shock.

6) Poisoned Glove Box – In 16th century France, the fear of poisoning had reached epidemic proportions. It was suspected in almost any death where the cause was not immediately obvious, and while most stories were unfounded, they do reveal that the rich and noble were almost afraid to touch anything in case it might prove fatal. For example, when Jeanne d’Albret, mother of Henry IV of France, died after a four-day illness, rumour spread that she had been murdered by Catherine de’ Medici who sent her a pair of gloves in a box with a false bottom containing belladonna, henbane, opium and a few other nasties, which not only poisoned the gloves, but released a fatal vapour while poor Jeanne slept. But an autopsy revealed Jeanne died of natural causes.

Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre (1528-1572)

Portail des collections des musees de France.

7) Poisoned Gold – Cardinal of Lorraine was another supposed poison victim of Catherine de’ Medici. He was rumoured to have sicken and died after handling gold coins on which nicotine had been smeared, though more likely he died of respiratory illness brought on by walking barefoot in a procession.

8) Poisoned Candle – Pope Clement VII is said to have been poisoned by an arsenic-impregnated torch or candle carried in front of him in the procession. This has long since been discredited, but in 1810, Michel Eugene Chevreul invented a process for making cheap composition candles. In 1835/36 these were very popular in England, until a Professor Everitt, working late one night, noticed a strong garlic odour from the candles, indicative of heated arsenic, which subsequent testing proved to one of the ingredients. Not healthy to breathe in, though amount it released probably wouldn’t kill you. But perhaps inspired by this, Edgar Allan Poe, in The Imp of the Perverse (1845) had the narrator murder his victim with the fumes from a poisoned candle.

9) Poisoned Shoe – Legend has it that John, King of Castile, died after wearing a pair of boots impregnated by poison by a Turk. This is undoubtedly pure fiction, but more recently a man did accidently poison himself with his footwear. In 1904, a young man became unconscious and died four hours after going to a dance. It was found he’d been poisoned but no knew how, until bottle of shoe blacking was discovered in his room. He had cleaned his shoes and as he danced, the blacking had soaked onto his socks and been absorbed into his skin via his feet and ankles. The blacking had contained nitrobenzene, which had passed rapidly through hot, sweaty skin.

The Wanstead or Welbeck Portrait of Elizabeth I

C.1580-1585

Artist: Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder 

10) Poisoned Saddle – Edward Squire, a scrivener from Greenwich, was persuaded by a Jesuit, Richard Walpole, to try to kill Queen Elizabeth I. Squire was instructed to take a bladder of poison concealed in his gloved hand, prick it and press it down on the pommel of the Queen’s saddle, where she would be sure to rest her hands and afterwards would transfer the poison to her mouth and nose by touching her face. He did as instructed, but the plot failed, because the queen didn’t arrive at the stables. Having inveigled his way aboard a ship with Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, Squire then smeared the rest of the poison on the wooden arms of the dinning chair used by the Earl in an attempt to murder him, only to find it had no effect. Nevertheless, he was denounced, and hanged, drawn and quartered for his attempts.

'Medieval Murder -Ten Handy Ways to Poison Your Spouse' by Karen Maitland

Throughout the Middle Ages people were terrified of being poisoned and with good reason. Writing in 1470, Peter of Abano, identified 70 different substances that were deadly poisons, and this did not include the venomous animals or their body parts. Wealthy men employed tasters who would try every dish before their master ate it, even pressing their masters’ napkins to their lips before they were used, in case the cloth had been soaked in poison. With so many interesting lethal substances to choose from, who can blame them for being nervous. Here are ten poisons that they most feared -

Monkshood growing wild in Devon. Photographer: Tom Jolliffe

1. Monkshood or Aconite (Aconitum napellus) – This plant was originally called Odin’s helm or Tyr’s helm after the northern gods. It was also known as wolf’s bane. It was dedicated to Hecate, the moon goddess of the witches and together with deadly nightshade was one of the ingredients in the flying ointment, a powerful hallucinogen. It was such a lethal poison that growing it in Roman times was punishable by death. The juice was frequently used in warfare to poison the wells and the sources of drinking water of the enemy. It was favored by the lower classes as a means of dispatching troublesome spouses, or other family members. But the nobility preferred hemlock.



Hemlock

2. Hemlock (Conium maculatum) – known as devil’s blossom, bad man’s oatmeal, scabby hands or kex, it is in fact a member of the carrot family. It causes extreme dizziness, numbness then death. In Greek and Roman times one of the methods of execution was to force the condemned to drink hemlock and this is how Socrates died in prison. It is so much associated with witchcraft and the devil that the plant symbolizes death by poisoning.

3. Cantharides also known as Spanish Fly – is made from an emerald green blister beetle, Lytta vesicatoria. It was an early and powerful Viagra for both men and women, and often used to spike drinks, causing the victim to become highly sexual aroused. But too much could be fatal. The Marquis de Sade was tried for accidently killing prostitutes at an orgy, by feeding them aniseed-flavored Spanish fly pastels.

The favorite poison of the Medicis was Aqua toffana, a mixture of arsenic and Spanish fly and as little as four drops in water or wine could prove fatal. Aqua toffana had the convenience of being both undetectable in food and taking several hours to kill, giving the poisoner ample time to escape.

If death from Spanish fly was suspected, the victim’s organs were ground up in oil and smeared on the shaved skin of a rabbit. If the victim had died from Spanish Fly poisoning, the rabbit’s skin would blister.



Deadly Nightshade

 4. Deadly Nightshade (Atropa belladonna) which Chaucer called dwale, was a well-known sleeping draught. It is believed to have been the poison added to the water-wells during the Parthian Wars which killed Marcus Antonius’ troops. According to folklore, in the 11th century the Scots who had signed a truce with Sueno the Dane, were able to take advantage of the truce to add the juice of Deadly Nightshade to the Danish army’s provisions. It didn’t kill the Danes, but made them so drowsy that the Scots were able to attack and slaughter them. Most modern historians now argue that this battle never took place, but it lingers on in legend.

 5. The Composition of Death – This was a poison recipe found in a medieval book of spells, known as Grand Grimoire. Those who wanted to prepare it were told to use a new, glazed pot and add – red copper, nitric acid, verdigris, arsenic, oak bark, rose water and black soot. It took a long time to prepare as you had to boil the mixture for about an hour after each new ingredient was added.

 6. Fly agaric (amanita muscaria) – a fungi with a red top studded with white spots that looks like the classic pixie toadstool. It first produces a sensation of being drunk, then delirium, with death usually occurring in twenty-four hours. Deadly fungi were popular poisons in the Middle Ages because they were so easy to obtain without anyone knowing, and simple to slice up and add to stews and soups. Fly agaric, steeped in milk was used to kill flies, so it was often found in homes and kitchens. It was only one of twenty-five poisonous fungi and the symptoms generally produced by consuming any of these deadly mushrooms or toadstools included stomach cramps, vomiting, diarrhoea, delirium and convulsions. In the Middle Ages, these symptoms could easily be mistaken for fevers such as dysentery or from eating bad meat, so many poisoners must have escaped justice if they used this poison.

Fly Agaric. Photographer - H.Krisp

 7. Pig’s Blood and Salvia – Normally fresh pig’s blood was harmless and used to make blood puddings, but the medieval Italian poisoners, who were experts in the art, had perfected a poison made by allowing a pig carcass to decompose then mixing its blood and saliva with arsenic to create an exquisite poison combining both the mineral poison and those toxins produced from putrefaction.

 8. Toads – In the Middle Ages it was widely held but erroneous belief that the fluid excreted through the skin of a toad was poisonous. Indeed a rumour which circulated after his death suggested that King John had been murdered by a member of the Knights Templar or a friar who had squeezed a toad inside the king’s goblet. The fluid dried, creating an invisible coating inside the goblet, before the King unwitting added the wine to produce a lethal combination. In fact, King John probably died of dysentery, but such was the belief in poison conspiracies in those days, that the toad story was much more widely believed.

European Toad Bufo bufo. Photographer - Thomas Brown

 European toads do excrete two poisonous substances through the skin which have a numbing and mild hallucinogenic effect, though they are nowhere near as toxic as toads and frogs of South America.

 9. Bacterial poisoning – Although virus and bacteria were not understood in past centuries, they did recognise that decaying corpses gave off a ‘poison’ which could be lethal to the living, so throughout the centuries since ancient times, armies have frequently poisoned their enemy’s water supplies by dumping rotting corpses of animals or people into wells or rivers upstream of where the camped army was taking its drinking water. Caltrops, spiked metal balls designed to pierce the feet of horses and men, were often dipped in the fluids of rotting animal carcasses or festering wounds to poison the blood of any who stepped on them.


A ancient caltrop. Photographer: Gunnar Creutz

 10. Arsenic - No poisoner’s tool kit would be complete without arsenic. Although the symptoms of slow arsenic poisoning were not recognised until the 1700s, yellow arsenic trisulphide called orpiment was known as a medicine as early as 5th Century BCE and the alchemists believed it to be a key ingredient of the Philosopher’s Stone. Nero may have used yellow arsenic to murder his stepbrother, Britannicus, so as he could become Emperor of Rome. But it was in 8th Century that the Arabic alchemist, Jábir ibn Háyyan, became the first in Europe to produce white arsenic (arsenic trioxide) by roasting orpiment and inadvertently produced the poisoner’s dream, the first reliable and lethal poison that was odourless, tasteless and colourless and would work in powder, solution or gaseous form.

If all this talk of poisons is making you nervous, in my next blog I will let you into the secret of the favourite medieval antidotes.