Young man gets his girlfriend pregnant, then kills both her and the baby to avoid responsibility. One of many Bloody Miller/ Berkshire Tragedy variants - a combination of which eventually became Knoxville Girl.
The Broadside
The Silent Grove is my name for this untitled ballad, printed by W Johnson in Reading. The prose account accompanying the ballad dates the killing to May 1838, and ends with Thompson being sent to Reading Gaol to await trial at the next assizes.
The Ballad
Come all you wicked young men,
Give ear unto this tale,
It's of a dreadful murder,
The truth I will reveal,
Near Twyford Town in Berkshire,
This shocking deed was done,
The very thought of such a deed,
Would melt a heart of stone.
'Twas of young Henry Thompson,
A young man brisk and gay,
Likewise one Mary Stevenson,
Fair as the rose of May,
This young man and this maiden,
Did close together dwell,
And soon in love with this fair maid,
Young faithless Henry fell.
It was this young man's study,
Her heart for to beguile,
And soon to her misfortune,
By him she proved with child,
She being eight months gone with child,
These words to him did say,
'Henry, my dearest Henry,
When is our wedding day?'
He said 'My dearest Mary,
My joy and heart's delight,
The bans they shall be put up,
And all things shall be right.'
She said 'I think you slight your love,
And think no more of me,
But still you know the father of,
My baby you must be.'
It was upon last Wednesday night,
When he to her did say,
'Meet me tomorrow evening,
Just at the close of day,
And at the bottom of Longrove,
'Tis there we will agree,
Upon the day, dear Mary,
When you shall marry me.'
Then in the silent grove they met,
Where many an hour they passed,
But little did poor Mary think,
That night would be her last,
He from his pocket drew a knife,
It was both long and sharp,
He seized her breast and plunged it,
So deep into her heart.
All in the midst of fatal pain,
And sad extremity,
This damsel was delivered of,
Her murderer's baby,
He cut her lovely infant's throat,
As on the ground it lay,
Then left them bleeding in the grove,
A shocking sight to see.
Then to his mother's nearby house,
He went without delay,
'Oh tell me, dearest mother,
Has Mary been this way?
For I have searched all round for her,
And her I cannot find,
I fear some harm has come to her,
Which sadly grieves my mind.'
As near unto his mother,
This young man he did draw,
A quantity of crimson blood,
Upon his clothes she saw,
She said 'My dearest Henry,
My dear, my only child,
I fear you've murdered Mary,
The damsel you beguiled.'
And then before his mother,
On bended knees he fell,
He said 'The deed which I have done,
The truth to you I'll tell,
I've murdered dearest Mary,
Her tender babe also,
I know not where to wander,
Nor whither I should go'.
Now taken is the young man,
And bound in prison strong,
He knows that he must take his trial,
And that will not be long,
So all you men be constant,
Unto to the girl you love,
And then you may expect to find,
A blessing from above.
The Facts
Twyford is only about 28 miles from Wytham in Oxfordshire, where 1744's The Berkshire Tragedy sets its own very similar tale. Both songs describe a young man who knocks up his girlfriend, takes her out for a private walk to discuss their wedding arrangements, murders her, and is then discovered with blood on his clothes.
As we've seen elsewhere, it's songs like The Berkshire Tragedy and 1685's The Bloody Miller which eventually gave us Knoxville Girl. There were many, many variations on the true-life tale inspiring these songs, and it was frequently re-written and re-dated for a new audience. The Silent Grove - as I've called it - sticks pretty close to the template, but omits the other songs' trademark nosebleed.
There's no record of anyone called Henry Thompson being hanged in England in either 1838 or 1839, and I've found no trace of a murder victim called Mary Stevenson either. If anyone was going to be hanged for their crimes, you'd think a baby-killer would qualify, but it's possible that Thompson committed suicide in his cell or succumbed to disease before he could be executed.
Given the lack of any independent evidence supporting the song's account, the close proximity of Twyford to Wytham, the similarity with The Berkshire's Tragedy's plot and the extra little sensationalist touch of slitting the baby's throat, I think The Silent Grove is probably just one more example of spivish balladeers recycling a popular old song so they could sell it all over again. Whether they made up Henry and Mary's names from scratch, or imported them from another real murder is something I can't answer.
Notes
It's interesting that The Silent Grove has the killer confronted by his mother, rather than the servant which most other English versions of the song use.
The mother generally appears in American versions of the song, where its US audience of subsistence farmers would have found the servant an unimaginable luxury. If The Silent Grove's composer was working from an earlier English ballad with Mum present, then it's evidence of an intriguing "missing link" between The Berkshire Tragedy and Knoxville Girl - a song which sets its tale in England but uses the American cast.
On the other hand, we know that early versions of Knoxville Girl using the killer's mother had already started to surface by 1838, and may have made their way back across the Atlantic to England. It's perfectly possible that The Silent Grove's composer was influenced by these, and that this is a case of the American song feeding back into history and changing its British "parent".
To hear Sean Breadin, of Rapunzel & Sedayne, performing The Silent Grove, visit his Fiddlesangs site here.
Sources
* The Silent Grove, printed by W. Johnson of Reading (1838)
* Capital Punishment UK
(http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/1837.html).
* Reading Gaol by Reading Town, by Peter Southerton (publisher unknown, 1993).