Mary Toft - Aftermath

Aftermath

Following the hoax the medical profession's gullibility became the target of a great deal of public mockery. William Hogarth published Cunicularii, or The Wise Men of Godliman in Consultation (1726), which portrays Toft in the throes of labour, surrounded by the tale's chief participants. Figure "F" is Toft, "E" is her husband. "A" is St. André, and "D" is Howard. In Dennis Todd's Three Characters in Hogarth's Cunicularii and Some Implications the author concludes that figure "G" is Mary Toft's sister-in-law, Margaret Toft. Toft's confession of 7 December demonstrates her insistence that her sister-in-law played no part in the hoax, but Manningham's 1726 An Exact Diary of what was observ'd during a Close Attendance upon Mary Toft, the pretended Rabbet-Breeder of Godalming in Surrey offers eyewitness testimony of her complicity. Hogarth's print was not the only image that ridiculed the affair—George Vertue published The Surrey-Wonder, and The Doctors in Labour, or a New Wim-Wam in Guildford (12 plates), a broadsheet published in 1727 which satirises St. André, was also popular at the time.

The timing of Toft's confession proved awkward for St. André, who on 3 December had published his forty-page pamphlet A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets. On this document the surgeon had staked his reputation, and although it offers a more empirical account of the Toft case than earlier more fanciful publications about reproduction in general, ultimately it was derided. Ahlers, his scepticism justified, published Some observations concerning the woman of Godlyman in Surrey, which details his account of events and his suspicion of the complicity of both St. André and Howard.

St. André recanted his views on 9 December 1726. In 1729, following the death of Samuel Molyneux from poisoning, he married Molyneux's widow, Elizabeth. This did little to impress his peers. Molyneux's cousin accused him of the poisoning, a charge that St. André defended by suing for defamation, but the careers of St. André and his wife were permanently damaged. Elizabeth lost her attendance on Queen Caroline, and St. André was publicly humiliated at court. Living on Elizabeth's considerable wealth, they retired to the country, where St. André died in 1776, aged 96. Manningham, desperate to exculpate himself, published a diary of his observations of Mary Toft, together with an account of her confession of the fraud, on 12 December. In it he suggested that Douglas had been fooled by Toft, and concerned with his image Douglas replied by publishing his own account. Using the pseudonym 'Lover of Truth and Learning', in 1727 Douglas also published The Sooterkin Dissected. A letter to Maubray, Douglas was scathingly critical of his Sooterkin theory, calling it "a mere fiction of your brain". The damage done to the medical profession was such that several doctors not connected with the tale felt compelled to print statements that they had not believed Toft's story. On 7 January 1727 John Howard and Toft appeared before the bench, where Howard was fined £800 (£94.8 thousand today). He returned to Surrey and continued his practice, and died in 1755.

Crowds reportedly mobbed Tothill Fields Bridewell for months, hoping to catch a glimpse of the now infamous Toft. By this time she had become quite ill, and while incarcerated had her portrait drawn by John Laguerre. She was ultimately discharged on 8 April 1727, as it was unclear as to what charge should have been made against her. The Toft family made no profit from the affair, and Mary Toft returned to Surrey. She had a daughter in February 1727, and reappeared briefly in 1740 when she was imprisoned for receiving stolen goods, but her death was reported in 1763.

The case was cited by Robert Walpole's opponents as symbolising the age, which they perceived as greedy, corrupt and deceitful. One author, writing to the Prince of Wales's mistress, suggested the story was a political portent of the approaching death of the prince's father. On 7 January 1727 Mist's Weekly Journal satirised the matter, making several allusions to political change, and comparing the affair to the events of 1641 when Parliament began its revolution against King Charles I of England. The scandal provided the writers of Grub Street with enough material to produce pamphlets, squibs, broadsides and ballads for several months. With publications such as St. André's Miscarriage (1727) and The anatomist dissected: or the man-midwife finely brought to bed (1727) satirists scorned the objectivity of men-midwives, and critics of Toft's attendants questioned their integrity, undermining their profession with sexual puns and allusions. The case raised questions about England's status as an "enlightened" nation—Voltaire used the case in his brief essay Singularités de la nature to describe how the Protestant English were still influenced by an ignorant Church.

Toft did not escape the ire of the satirists, who concentrated mainly on sexual innuendo. Some took advantage of a common 18th-century word for a rabbit track—prick—and others were scatological in nature. However, Much Ado about Nothing; or, A Plain Refutation of All that Has Been Written or Said Concerning the Rabbit-Woman of Godalming (1727) is one of the more cutting satires on Toft. The document supposes to be the confession of 'Merry Tuft', "... in her own Stile and Spelling". Poking fun at her illiteracy, it makes a number of obscene suggestions hinting at her promiscuity—"I wos a Wuman as had grate nattural parts, and a large Capassiti, and kapible of being kunserned in depe Kuntrivansis." The document also ridicules several of the physicians involved in the affair, and reflects the general view portrayed by the satirists that Toft was a weak woman and the least complicit of "the offenders" (regardless of her guilt). The notion contrasts with that expressed of her before the hoax was revealed and may indicate an overall strategy to disempower Toft completely. This is reflected in one of the most notable satires of the affair, Alexander Pope and William Pulteney's anonymous satirical ballad The Discovery; or, The Squire Turn'd Ferret. Published in 1726 and aimed at Samuel Molyneux, it rhymes "hare" with "hair", and "coney" with "cunny". The ballad opens with the following verse:

Most true it is, I dare to say,
E'er since the Days of Eve,
The weakest Woman sometimes may
The wisest Man deceive.