2 March – in London, a night watchman finds a severed head by the Thames; it is later recognized to be that of the husband of Catherine Hayes. She and an accomplice are executed the following year.[2]
20 November – the horse-post from Edinburgh to London vanishes after passing through Berwick-upon-Tweed; horse and rider are thought to have perished on tidal sands near Lindisfarne.[3]
^Bentley, G. E. Jr. (March 2009). "Blake's Murderesses: Visionary Heads of Wickedness". Huntington Library Quarterly. 72 (1). University of California Press: 69–105. JSTOR10.1525/hlq.2009.72.1.69. At Catherine's urging, "Billings went into the room with a hatchet, with which he struck Hayes so violently that he fractured his skull" but did not kill him. Wood, "taking the hatchet out of Billings's hand, gave the poor man two more blows, which effectually dispatched him." They were then faced with the problem of how to dispose of the body.
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