Posted on 08/08/2020 7:30:04 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On a drizzly morning this date in 1856, Elizabeth Martha Brown (or Browne) was hanged for murder as a young and fascinated Thomas Hardy looked on.Brown was born Clark(e), but she took the name of a husband 20 years younger than she, which is how she got into this mess.
Said John Brown was rumored to have made the match for money, though his older wife sure seems to have held her own in the looks department. (More on that in a bit.)
In due time, John afflicted their already-tempestuous wedded life with an affair — courtesy of one Mary Davis, a young woman stuck in her own unhappy May-December marriage...
I just bookmarked this. I love history.
Thanks for posting this!
She certainly didn’t deserve a hanging under modern standards. Maybe a manslaughter charge at most.
She should have stuck with the “horse kicked him dead” story.
When I was 7-years old and got my first part-time job, I'd work all week both before, and after, school to save the 10-cents to get into the movie on Saturday afternoons...
They made a movie of it years and years ago, with Natasha Kinski as Tess, although, IIRC the theme was somewhat different.
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