8 
POISONS : THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. 
[§ 6. 
to us a curious document, drawn out by Charles le Mauvais, King of 
Navarre. It is a commission of murder, given to a certain Woudreton, 
to poison Charles VI., the Duke of Valois, brother of the king, and his 
uncles, the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon :— 
“ Go thou to Paris ; thou canst do great service if thou wilt : do what 
I tell thee ; I will reward thee well. Thou shalt do thus : There is a 
thing which is called sublimed arsenic ; if a man eat a bit the size of 
a pea he will never survive. Thou wilt find it in Pampeluna, Bordeaux, 
Bayonne, and in all the good towns through which thou wilt pass, at 
the apothecaries’ shops. Take it and powder it; and when thou shalt 
be in the house of the king, of the Count de Valois, his brother, the 
Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon, draw near, and betake thyself 
to the kitchen, to the larder, to the cellar, or any other place where thy 
point can be best gained, and put the powder in the soups, meats, or 
wines, provided that thou canst do it secretly. Otherwise, do it not.” 
Woudreton was detected, and executed in 1384. 1 
A chapter might be written entitled “ Boyal Poisoners.” 2 King 
Charles IX. even figures as an experimentalist. 3 An unfortunate cook has 
stolen two silver spoons, and, since there was a question whether “ Bezoar” 
was an antidote or not, the king administers to the cook a lethal dose of 
corrosive sublimate, and follows it up with the antidote; but the man dies 
in seven hours, although Pare also gives him oil. Truly a grim business. 
The subtle method of removing troublesome subjects has been more 
often practised on the Continent than in England, yet the English throne 
in olden time is not quite free from this stain. 4 The use of poison is 
1 Tresor de Charles. Charles de Navarre. P. Mortonval, vol. ii. p. 384. 
2 Napoleon Bonaparte poisoned at Jaffa (1799) those of his soldiers who had 
plague and were too ill to be moved.— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, by F. de 
Bourrienne. 
3 CEuvres de Pare, 2nd ed., liv. xx. Des Venines, chap. xliv. p. 507. 
4 For example, King John is believed to have poisoned Maud Fite waiter by “ a 
poisoned egg.” 
“ In the reign of King John, the White Tower received one of the first and fairest 
of a long line of female victims in that Maud Fitzwalter who was known to the singers 
of her time as Maud the Fair. The father of this beautiful girl was Robert, Lord 
Fitzwalter, of Castle Baynard, on the Thames, one of John’s greatest barons. Yet 
the king, during a fit of violence with the queen, fell madly in love with this young 
girl. As neither the lady herself nor her powerful sire would listen to his disgraceful 
suit, the king is said to have seized her by force at Dunmow, and brought her to the 
Tower. Fitzwalter raised an outcry, on which the king sent troops into Castle Baynard 
and his other houses ; and when the baron protested against these wrongs, his master 
banished him from the realm. Fitzwalter fled to France with his wife and his other 
children, leaving his daughter Maud in the Tower, where she suffered a daily insult 
in the king’s unlawful suit. On her proud and scornful answer to his passion being 
heard, John carried her up to the roof, and locked her in the round turret, standing 
on the north-east angle of the keep. Maud’s cage was the highest, chilliest den in 
the Tower ; but neither cold, nor solitude, nor hunger could break her strength. In 
the rage of his disappointed love, the king sent one of his minions to her room with a 
poisoned egg, of which the brave girl ate and died.”— Her Majesty's Tower, by Hepworth 
Dixon (Lond., 1869), i. p. 46. 
