5647. Robert Browning, Sr. to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 12–13.
[St. Enogat]
[ca. 20 October 1865] [1]
Dear Robert,
During the time whilst the examination of Constance Kent [2] lasted I felt the deepest interest, as to the result of it– I felt convinced that a girl of 16 could not have severed the head almost from the body of a child of 4 years old at one decisive stroke as described in the postmortem examination– And I felt equally sure that the crime could not have been committed by a single person, whether Man or Woman. I have read all the evidence produced throughout all the subsequent stages of that business—more than a hundred times—but was forced to leave the subject as much in the dark as ever: I feel convinced that when Constance surrendered herself into the hands of Justice—Her legal advisors never would have been so barbariously cruel, or so regardless of their proffessional [sic] character as to permit her to plead guilty had they not been thoroughly convinced in their own minds that she was so– That “Seal of Confession” mar’d the whole business– The public were still anxious to know how it was done– And to meet that anxiety .. out came Constance Kent’s confession: [3] When I read it it struck me as one complicated falsehood from beginning to end .. & so far from agreeing with the medical authority, that there was a probability of her becoming mad—I felt strong reasons for suspecting that she had arrived at that stage already– It appeared to me that it was not only at variance with the published evidence—but totally inconsistent with itself– I have only room to mention a few circumstances—“the razor—the candle—& the matches”—I look upon as pure fiction—one of the surgeons swore in the Coroner’s Inquest that it “could not have been done with a Razor”—(See the Parson’s evidence in Stapleton’s Work p. 123). [4] I pass on to—“I thought blood would never come”—this seems incredible, especially when we are told (p 60)—“that the night dress & under-flannel were profusely stained with blood”– –“She thrust the razor into the child’s side” that’s impossible—no razor could have done that—“it was evidently made” by a sharp long strong instrument—(p 123) (131) “a dagger-shaped knife like a carving knife”– I pass over some other discrepencies [sic] for want of room– “She burnt the night-dress in her own bedroom”—from the description of the room there would have been no fireplace in it—& if there had been, it is very improbable that any fire would have been in it, in the beginning of July– These are a few of the many inconsistencies: If you would compare her confession with the evidence you will discover many more which I am obliged to pass over– The Road Murder is still a mystery to me. It was impossible to have been committed in the manner C. Kent has described it: It is something like the pretended Confession of Hussey [5] after the murder of Mr Bird* which though it excited some suspicion, proved upon strict enquiry to have been totally false–
I am, Dear Robert, yr affectn father
R Browning–
(*Bird of Greenwich)
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Approximate dating based on RB, Sr.’s reference to “Constance Kent’s confession” (see note 3 below) and RB’s return to London on 9 October. Up until that date, he and his family were together following the newspaper publication of the confession. Further, RB, Sr. may not have seen the confession until his return to Paris from Brittany on 1 October.
2. Constance Emilie Kent (1844–1944), daughter of Samuel Savill Kent (1801–72) and his wife, Mary Ann (née Windus, 1809–52), had been a suspect in the grisly murder of her half-brother, four-year-old Savill Kent, at Road (now Rode), Somersetshire, in late June 1860. In 1865, after confessing to her priest, she confessed publicly. She was tried, convicted, and on 21 July sentenced to death, though a week later the sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. In 1885 she was released from prison and thereafter changed her name and emigrated to Australia. A few years earlier, for the benefit of RB, Sarianna, and Pen, RB, Sr. drew a “Plan of the Premises of Mr Kent at Road … to explain to us the mysteries of the murder there.” This plan, dated by RB 17 September 1861, sold as part of lot 128 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, J33).
3. Miss Kent’s confession appeared in The Times of 28 August 1865, p. 9.
4. Joseph Whitaker Stapleton (1814–96), The Great Crime of 1860 (1861).
5. On 3 August 1818, Charles Hussey was executed for the murders of George Bird, “a retired tallow-chandler, [aged 83] who lived at Greenwich, and his housekeeper, Mary Simmons, aged forty-four” (The Complete Newgate Calendar, Vol. 5, ed. G.T. Crook, 1926, p. 171). Hussey’s “confession” was published as The Official Confession of Charles Hussey: as Communicated to the Rev. J. Rudge in His Cell (1818).
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