第12章 A FAIR NECK FOR THE MAIDEN(4)

And Jean Livingstone did die a good death.

The Memorial which I have mentioned is upon Jean's `conversion' in prison.It is written by one who was both a seer and hearer of what was spoken.'' The editor of the Pitcairn Trials believes, from internal evidence, that it was written by Mr James Balfour, colleague of Mr Robert Bruce, that minister of the Kirk who was so contumacious about preaching what was practically a plea of the King's innocence in the matter of the Gowrie mystery.It tells how Jean, from being completely apathetic and callous with regard to religion or to the dreadful situation in which she found herself through her crime, under the patient and tender ministrations of her spiritual advisers, arrived at complete resignation to her fate and genuine repentance for her misdeeds.

The Memorial is fully entitled: A Worthy and Notable Memorial of the Great Work of Mercy which God wrought in the Conversion of Jean Livingstone Lady Warristoun, who was apprehended for the Vile and Horrible Murder of her own Husband, John Kincaid, committed on Tuesday, July 1, 1600, for which she was execute on Saturday following; Containing an Account of her Obstinacy, Earnest Repentance, and her Turning to God; of the Odd Speeches she used during her Imprisonment; of her Great and Marvellous Constancy; and of her Behaviour and Manner of Death: Observed by One who was both a Seer and Hearer of what was spoken.

Her confession, as filleted from the Memorial by the Pitcairn Trials, is as follows:

I think I shall hear presently the pitiful and fearful cries which he gave when he was strangled! And that vile sin which I committed in murdering my own husband is yet before me.When that horrible and fearful sin was done I desired the unhappy man who did it (for my own part, the Lord knoweth I laid never my hands upon him to do him evil; but as soon as that man gripped him and began his evil turn, so soon as my husband cried so fearfully, I leapt out over my bed and went to the Hall, where I sat all the time, till that unhappy man came to me and reportedthat mine husband was dead), I desired him, I say, to take me away with him; for I feared trial; albeit flesh and blood made me think my father's moen at Court would have saved me!

Well, we know what the Laird of Dunipace did about it.

As to these women who was challenged with me,'' the confession goes on,I will also tell my mind concerning them.God forgive the nurse, for she helped me too well in mine evil purpose; for when I told her I was minded to do so she consented to the doing of it; and upon Tuesday, when the turn was done, when I sent her to seek the man who would do it, she said, I shall go and seek him; and if I get him not I shall seek another! And if I get none I shall do it myself!''

Here the writer of the Memorial interpolates the remark, This the nurse also confessed, being asked of it before her death.'' It is a misfortune, equalling that of the lack of information regarding the character of Jean's husband, that there is so little about the character of the nurse.She was, it is to be presumed, an older woman than her mistress, probably nurse to Jean in her infancy.One can imagine her (the stupid creature!) up in arms against Kincaid for his treatment of her bonny lamb,'' without the sense to see whither she was urging her young mistress; blind to the consequences, but nursing her wrath'' and striding purposefully from Warriston to Holyroodhouse on her strong plebeian legs, not once but several times, in search of Weir! What is known in Scotland as a `limmer,' obviously.

As for the two other women,'' Jean continues,I request that you neither put them to death nor any torture, because I testify they are both innocent, and knew nothing of this deed before it was done, and the mean time of doing it; and that they knew they durst not tell, for fear; for I compelled them to dissemble.As for mine own part, I thank my God a thousand times that I am so touched with the sense of that sin now: for I confess this also to you, that when that horrible murder was committed first, that I might seem to be innocent, I laboured to counterfeit weeping; but, do what I could, I could not find a tear.

Of the whole confession that last is the most revealing touch.It ishardly just to fall into pity for Jean simply because she was young and lovely.Her crime was a bad one, much more deliberate than many that, in the same age, took women of lower rank in life than Jean to the crueller end of the stake.In the several days during which she was sending for Weir, but failing to have speech with him, she had time to review her intention of having her husband murdered.If the nurse was the prime mover in the plot Jean was an unrelenting abettor.It may have been in her calculations before, as well as after, the deed itself that the interest of her father and family at Court would save her, should the deed have come to light as murder.Even in these days, when justice is so much more seasoned with mercy to women murderers, a woman in Jean's case, with such strong evidence of premeditation against her, would only narrowly escape the hangman, if she escaped him at all.But that confession of trying to pretend weeping and being unable to find tears is a revelation.I can think of nothing more indicative of terror and misery in a woman than that she should want to cry and be unable to.Your genuinely hypocritical murderer, male as well as female, can always work up self-pity easily and induce the streaming eye.