12 SCOTS TRIALS
KATHARINE NAIRN
Paolo and Francesca in Angus.--ANDREW LANG.
WHEN douce Mr. Thomas Ogilvy brought his young bride
home to Glenisla his mother doubtless hailed the event as of
happy augury for the house of Eastmiln. Hitherto fortune
had frowned upon her family. Her eldest son "grew delirious
and hanged himself in '48 in a sheepcot." As the length of
the drop was insufficient, "he came down and delved below
his feet to make it proper for him," which showed considerable
force of character. His brother William "went on board a
man-of-war carpenter, and was crushed to death 'twixt two
ships." Her husband, who under his chief, Lord Ogilvy,
had been out in the Forty-five as a captain of the
Prince's army, after the defeat of Culloden was confined in
Edinburgh Castle, and, having lain a prisoner in that fortress
until 1751, fractured his skull in attempting to escape over
the walls "by a net tied to an iron ring." Thomas, the third
son, prudently eschewing politics, became by virtue of these
calamities laird of the paternal acres. Of her remaining sons,
Patrick, sometime lieutenant of the 89th Regiment of Foot,
was but newly invalided home from the East Indies, his
career eclipsed, while the youngest, Alexander, then pro-
secuting at Edinburgh his studies in depravity and physic,
had just redeemed a nominal celibacy by marriage with a
woman of the lowest rank. When therefore, Thomas, at the
responsible age of forty, wooed and won Miss Katharine Nairn,
a damsel of nineteen, the beautiful daughter of Sir Thomas
Nairn of Dunsinnan, old Mrs. Ogilvy (by Scots courtesy
Lady Eastmiln) may have believed herself entitled to sing
[106]
KATHARINE NAIRN
From an engraving in the British Museum
the Song of Simeon. How far she was justified in the event
the following tale will show:--
The marriage, which took place on 30th January
1765,
would seem to have been on both sides one of affection. The
bride, of a family more rich in ancestry than in money, was
better born than her husband, who was but a "bonnet laird."
Marrying against the wish of her relatives she brought him
at least youth and beauty, whereas Eastmiln (so named by
Scottish custom) was a man of small means who had, more-
over, anticipated the modern malady--too old at forty. His
health, as we shall see, was bad; he was somewhat of a
valetudinarian. Mr. Spalding of Glenkilry, the husband of
Katharine's sister Bethia, at whose house Thomas Ogilvy
probably met his future bride, quaintly described him as
wearing "a plaiden jacket and a belt round his middle, much
broader than ever he saw another wear, with lappets of
leather hanging down his haunches, and a striped woollen
nightcap upon his breast, the lower end of which reached
near his breaches." His change of state must have proved
beneficial, for Mr. Spalding adds, "upon his marriage he
took off these happings."
At this time the inmates of the house of Eastmiln
were
the dowager, her son and his young wife, Patrick the
lieutenant, and three female servants. From the date of
the marriage until the first of March ensuing all was
apparently well with the family. But on that day--
ominously enough a Friday--there arrived upon the scene
one who was to prove the evil genius of the house and the
harbinger of dishonour and death. This was Anne Clark,
"aged thirty and upwards," a cousin of the laird. Her
private character and professional pursuits, if known, would
necessarily have excluded her from decent society, while as
a guest she laboured under the further disadvantage of being
"a notorious liar and dissembler, a disturber of the peace of
families, and sower of dissension." Her relatives in Angus,
[107]
however, knew nothing of all this, and she was received by
them "without suspicion, and treated as an equal and a
gentlewoman." Miss Clark came ostensibly upon a visit of
reconciliation from Edinburgh, where she had been associated
with her cousin, Alexander Ogilvy, in the sowing of his wild
oats. Jealousy was not among her numerous failings, for
after his marriage she had lived with his wife's father. By
his alliance with "the daughter of a common porter" Alex-
ander had given great offence to his family, and Katharine
in particular had not concealed her opinion of his conduct.
Hence the appearance of Anne in her maiden role of peace-
maker. But it was later alleged that she was actuated by
a motive less lovely. Both Eastmiln and Patrick, his heir-
presumptive, were in ill health; on their death, should the
marriage of the elder prove childless, Alexander the needy
would reign in their stead. The first step towards the
attainment of this end was to effect an estrangement between
the newly-married pair. .If such was indeed her scheme
Anne had no time to lose. Her mission, genuine or not,
had failed. Alexander's entry in the family black books
was indelible.
Miss Clark must have had a winning way with
her,
inviting to confidence. She and young Mrs. Ogilvy had
never met before, yet within a fortnight of her coming
Katharine told her she disliked her husband, "and said if
she had a dose she would give it him." Nor was this a
mere isolated indiscretion, for Miss Clark states that there-
after "Mrs. Ogilvy did frequently signify she was resolved
to poison her husband." She even consulted Anne as to
the best means of procuring the requisite drug--whether
"from Mr. Robertson, a merchant in Perth, or Mrs. Eagle,
who keeps a seed shop in Edinburgh, upon pretence of
poisoning rats." Anne considered this classic formula open
to objection, as being apt to bring the purchaser "to an
untimely end," but she generously offered to go herself to
[108]
Edinburgh "and get her brother, who lived there, to buy
the poison." Although a woman with many pasts, Anne, as
the cousin of the proposed victim, seems at first sight an
unsuitable confidant, but such is her own version of the
facts. There for the time the matter rested.
Anne Clark had not been long established beneath
that
hospitable roof when an ugly rumour concerning Mrs. Ogilivy
and her young brother-in-law began to trouble the house of
Eastmiln. Anne charitably warned her hostess "to be upon
her guard as to her conduct and to abstain from the lieu-
tenant's company." Her well-meant hint, however, proved
ineffectual, for on Sunday, 19th May, according to her own
account, she obtained indisputable proof of a liaison between
them. Katharine, although at once apprised of the discovery
by her considerate kinswoman, continued in her evil course
with cynical, nay lunatic, effrontery. Anne would fain have
supported her story by the testimony of her aunt, but old
Lady Eastmiln, who enjoyed the same facilities for seeing and
hearing what Anne alleged to have occurred, noticed nothing,
despite the fact that her attention was specially called to
the matter by her niece at the time. She consented, however,
to communicate Anne's "suspicions" to Eastmiln.
It happened that at this time a dispute arose
between
the brothers "about the balance of a bond of provision
resting owing to Patrick Ogilvy," as to which the latter
considered himself aggrieved. On Thursday, 23rd May, in
the course of a discussion of this vexed question, the laird
lost his temper, referred to Anne's allegations, and ordered
his brother out of the house. Patrick, indignantly denying
the charge, left that afternoon and went to stay with a
friend at Little Forter, about three miles distant. That
Katharine, whether innocent or guilty, was in the circum-
stances considerably upset is not surprising. Eastmiln warned
his wife that she would injure her reputation "by inter-
meddling in the differences betwixt him and his brother,"
[109]
which hardly looks as if he took the matter seriously; but
the servants swore that they overheard him tell her "that
she was too great with Lieutenant Ogilvy, and that they
were as frequent together as the bell was to ring on Sunday."
Anne says that the laird proposed to leave his own house so
as to give the young people a clear field, and that she urged
Mrs. Ogilvy to agree, "as she saw little prospect of harmony
between them," which, so long as she remained their guest,
was no doubt likely enough. Be that as it may, Katharine,
with singular imprudence, wrote to the lieutenant begging
him to return, which he wisely declined to do. According to
Anne's story Mrs. Ogilvy, who had become impatient at her
delay in procuring the poison from Edinburgh as promised,
told her, after the lieutenant's departure, that "with much
difficulty" she had prevailed upon him to furnish it. That
same day Anne had an unexplained conversation with a
surgeon of Kirriemuir as to the properties and effects of
laudanum and the amount of a fatal dose. Whether she
shared Rosa Dartle's passion for information or made the
inquiry on behalf of Katharine, does not appear.
It is admitted that by the following day husband
and
wife were so far reconciled that Eastmiln himself wrote to
his brother asking him to come back. He sent the letter by
a neighbour, to whom he first read it, telling him of Anne
Clark's reports, "but that for his [Eastmiln's] part he did
not believe them." Patrick, however, still refused to return.
He visited various friends in the neighbourhood, and while
at Glenkilry, the house of Mr. Spalding, Katharine's brother-
in-law he received from her another letter, the contents of
which we do not know, unless it be the one produced later
at the trial.
On Friday, 31st May, Patrick entertained his
brother
officer, Lieutenant Campbell, and a friend, Dr. Carnegie, to
dinner at an inn in Brechin. He afterwards stated that
before he left Eastmiln, Katharine asked him to send her
[110]
for her own use some salts and laudanum, of which he told
her he had a quantity in his sea chest, then at Dundee.
Unfortunately for him, Dr. Carnegie proved that at this
dinner he delivered to Patrick at his request "a small phial
glass of laudanum and betwixt half an ounce and an ounce
of arsenic," which latter "he wrapt up in the form of a
pennyworth of snuff under three covers." Patrick's reason
for wanting the arsenic was, he said, "in order to destroy
some dogs that spoiled the game"--which was open to the
objection previously taken by Anne to Katharine's hypo-
thetical rats. After paying Dr. Carnegie a shilling for these
commodities, Patrick accompanied Lieutenant Campbell to
Finhaven as his guest for the week-end.
On Monday, 3rd June, Patrick rode to Alyth
to visit his
kinsman, Andrew Stewart, who had recently married his
sister, Martha Ogilvy. Mr. Stewart had brought the lieu-
tenant's sea chest from Dundee to his own house, and on
this occasion he saw Patrick "working among some salts" in
the chest. Next day Elizabeth Sturrock, one of the servants
at Eastmiln, came to Alyth upon some household matter, and
delivered to Patrick a letter from Katharine, to which he
returned an answer by her. Mr. Stewart having announced
his intention of visiting Eastmiln the following day, Patrick
gave him "a small phial glass, containing something liquid
which he said was laudanum, and also a small paper packet,
which he said contained salts," together with a letter for
Mrs. Ogilvy, all of which he requested his brother-in-law to
put into her own hands.
Meanwhile Miss Clark states that Katharine
told her she
had heard from Patrick, who "had got the poison the length
of Alyth," and would send it by Andrew Stewart next day.
Anne, ever zealous for the family honour, very properly
exhorted her to abandon her nefarious purpose, dwelt upon
the consequences likely to ensue "both in this world and
the next," and asked her reasons for " this strange resolution."
[111]
These were that Mrs. Ogilvy did not love her husband, and
that he had used the lieutenant ill upon her account. "How
happy," said she, " could they live at Eastmiln, if there were
none there but the lieutenant, she, and the deponent [Anne]!"
That experienced spinster at once pointed out that in no
circumstances could Katharine marry her brother-in-law, but
was met by the suggestion that they might live abroad.
Still, Anne thought it "a dreadful thing to crown all with
murder." Mrs. Ogilvy desired "to be let alone, for the
conversation was disagreeable to her." Now all this could
have been no news to Anne Clark in June, for on her own
showing she had known since the middle of March both the
nature of Katharine's feelings towards her husband, and her
fell design.
In the forenoon of Wednesday, 5th June, a
chapman
(hawker) called and demanded from Eastmiln the price of
some cambric, of which Anne was then making ruffles for
the lieutenant. As he had been told that Patrick himself
supplied the material, the laird was justifiably annoyed, and
repudiated liability for the account. Later in the day Andrew
Stewart arrived at the house of Eastmiln and privately handed
to Katharine the lieutenant's parcel, which she placed un-
opened in a drawer in the spare bedroom. But Anne was
on the alert, and waylaying him, asked if he had brought
anything from Patrick. Mr. Stewart, "because he considered
Miss Clark as a person given to raise dissension in families,"
at first denied that he had done so; but, being persistently
pressed by her, he finally admitted the fact. Whereupon
Anne said "they were black drugs," and that Mrs. Ogilvy
meant to poison her husband. Stewart, shocked at the sug-
gestion, was "very much displeased" with her, the more so
that she proposed to her aunt to warn Eastmiln of his
danger. But "the old lady said it would be improper,"
being, as appears, a stickler for etiquette.
That night the four relatives supped together--a
strange
[112]
party--at a public house in the Kirkton of Glenisla. East-
miln told his brother-in-law, Andrew Stewart, that he had
not been well for some time past, and was thinking of con-
sulting Dr. Ogilvy of Forfar. He further said that he was
seized with illness the day before, and "had swarfed [fainted]
on the hill," for which reason he could drink no ale. So he
called for a dram, "which he took, and thereafter seemed
hearty and in good spirits." But Miss Clark's conscience, a
tender plant, still troubled her, and she unobtrusively left
the board in quest of ghostly aid, or, in her own words,
"with a view of being advised by the minister what was fit
to be done in such a case." The minister of Glenisla was
from home, so she rejoined the supper-party without the
benefit .of clerical counsel, the nature of which, in a situation
so delicate, one would like to have known. On the way
home Stewart escorted his sister-in-law, the laird following
with Anne, who, availing herself of the opportunity, warned
him that his life was threatened by his own wife, and
begged him to leave home. Eastmiln said he was then too
busy to do so, but promised to take nothing from Katharine's
hands. It is probable that he was not much impressed by
his cousin's solicitude; that he disliked and distrusted her
is certain. Apparently the hour was favourable for con-
fidences; Katharine at the same time was telling her com-
panion that she lived a most unhappy life with her husband,
and "wished him dead, or, if that could not be, she wished
herself dead." This statement, chiming as it did with
Anne's suspicions, somewhat startled Mr. Stewart. When
they reached the house, and after Eastmiln and his wife had
gone to bed, he proposed to Anne Clark and the old lady
"that they should either take Mrs. Ogilvy's keys out of her
pocket or break open her drawers at the back," so as to see
what were the actual contents of the packet. To neither of
these practical suggestions could Anne by any means be
brought to agree, which is the more remarkable in view of
[113]
the urgent anxiety expressed by her earlier in the evening.
But when Lady Eastmiln, who had gone up to listen at the
door of the connubial chamber, reported "that there was
then more kindness between them than usual," Mr. Stewart
was confirmed in his opinion "that there was no foundation
for Miss Clark's fears."
Next morning, Thursday, 6th June, breakfast
was earlier
than common--"betwixt eight and nine"--as Mr. Stewart
was returning that day to Alyth. All the members of the
family were present except the laird, who, having been un-
well in the night, was still in bed. Katharine poured out a
bowl of tea from the teapot, put sugar and milk in it, and,
telling the old lady and Stewart that she was taking it up
to Eastmiln, left the room. While she was upstairs the
party was completed by the appearance of Anne, to whom
Katharine, on re-entering the parlour, remarked "that the
laird and Elizabeth Sturrock were well off that morning, for
they had got the first of the tea." Upon which, Anne says
she exclaimed in alarm, "What! has the laird got tea?
and on Mrs. Ogilvy answering that he had, the deponent
said nothing"--like the parrot in the tale. An hour and
a half afterwards, according to Mr. Stewart--Anne says half
an hour--Katherine announced that the laird "was taken
very ill." Anne ran upstairs to the bedroom, and on return-
ing significantly reported that "Eastmiln had got a bad
breakfast." Stewart then went up himself to see what was
the matter, and found his brother-in-law suffering from sick-
ness and other distressing symptoms. The laird expressively
said that "he was all wrong within." Mr. Stewart proposed
to Mrs. Ogilvy to send for Dr. Meik of Alyth, but she
would not consent, saying that "he [Eastmiln] would be
better; and she would not for any money that a surgeon
should be called, as the consequences would be to give her
a bad name from what Miss Clark had said of her."
Later, Mr. Stewart persuaded her to let him summon
[114]
Dr. Meik, "a discreet person," and thereafter set out for
Alyth.
Katherine's forecast was so far justified
that Eastmiln
presently rose "and went first to the stables to see his
horses fed, and then to the Shillinghill, where he conversed
with some of his tenants." On returning to the house he
became violently sick in the kitchen, and had to be helped
upstairs to bed. Katherine attended to her husband during
the forenoon, but from mid-day until his death Anne Clark
was in possession of the sickroom. She states that Mrs:
Ogilvy refused to remain there unless she (Anne) was dis-
missed, to which the laird would not agree. Anne and some
of the servants represent that Katherine tried to exclude
people from the room, but it is proved that, apart from
those in the house, Eastmiln was visited by at least five
persons, including his brother-in-law, Mr. Spalding, and the
local preceptor, who was summoned by Katherine to pray
with him. The symptoms exhibited by the dying man
were admittedly vomiting, purging, "a burning at his heart,"
pains in his legs, restlessness, and persistent thirst. Anne
gave him repeated draughts of water and of ale, none of
which he could retain; but on her trying him with "a glass
of wine and a piece of sugar in it," the sickness ceased
for about an hour. On cross-examination, she had to admit
that she got the wine from Mrs. Ogilvy. That the laird
had become convinced that his wife had poisoned him is
clear. When Anne Sampson, one of the maids, brought him
a drink of water in the same bowl in which Katherine had
given him the tea, he cried out, "Damn that bowl! for I
have got my death in it already." He said in the hearing
of Elizabeth Sturrock, another servant, "that he was poisoned,
and that woman [his wife] had done it." Lady Eastmiln
reproved him for saying so, to which he answered "that it
was very true, and his death lay at her [Katherine's]
door." Anne, on the other hand, says that the old lady
[115]
blamed him for taking anything from his wife, when he replied,
"It is too late now, mother; but she forced it on me." He
told Andrew Stewart that "he had what would do his
turn"; to his friend and neighbour, Mr. Millam, he re-
marked, "I am gone, James, with no less than rank poison ! "
At midnight the unhappy man was dead. It was but four
months since his wedding-day.
Dr. Meik arrived from Alyth two hours later;
it does not
appear when he received the summons. He had an interview
with the widow, who was apparently "in great grief and con-
cern." She made the remarkable request "that whatever he
might think to be the cause of her husband's death, he would
conceal it from the world." Patrick Ogilvy, sent for by Mr.
Spalding from Glenkilry, where he had been that gentleman's
guest, was then in the house, and conducted the doctor to the
death-chamber. He struck Dr. Meik as being, like Mrs. Ogilvy,
"in great grief and concern." After a brief examination the
doctor departed, having, as it appears, come to no conclusion,
regarding the cause of death.
That morning (Friday, 7th June) the servants,
probably
at the instigation of the thoughtful Anne, applied certain
scientific tests to the fatal bowl, in which they said they had
noticed "something greasy in the bottom." The results were
negative. They filled the bowl with broth, which was given
to a dog, "who eat it up, but was nothing the worse of it."
Anne Clark recounts a curious conversation had by her with
the lieutenant on his coming from Glenkilry. She told him
"she knew the whole affair of the poison," whereupon Patrick
admitted sending it to Katharine, but said "he did not think
she had so barbarous a heart as to give it."
The funeral was fixed to take place on Tuesday,
11th June,.
the lieutenant, as his brother's heir, remaining at Eastmiln to
make the requisite arrangements. Mr. Millam, the late laird's
friend, tells us that when "the mournings came home" Miss
Clark complained to him "for want of a mourning apron, adding
[116]
that she would make it as dear to them [Katharine and Patrick]
as if it was a gown! " This was short-sighted parsimony indeed;
Anne's silence was worth many aprons' purchase. On Monday,
the 10th, Mrs. Ogilvy dismissed her dangerous kinswoman,
giving her money in presence of Mr. Millam, both of which
facts Anne afterwards denied on oath, Anne further swore that
before she left the house she did not communicate to anyone,
"by letters or otherways," her belief that Eastmiln had been
poisoned. Yet early in the forenoon of Tuesday, the 11th,
her old flame Alexander Ogilvy arrived from Edinburgh, and
dramatically stopped the burial on the ground that his brother
had not died a natural death. The widow resented her brother-
in-law's action--reasonably enough in any view of her conduct
--and " behaved very ill, weeping and crying, and wringing
her hands and tearing herself." Mr. Millam, hearing what had
happened, strangely advised Patrick "to make his escape, if
guilty"; to which the lieutenant replied, "That God and his
own conscience knew that he was innocent." Next morning,
at the request of Alexander Ogilvy, Dr. Meik of Alyth and
Dr. Ramsay of Coupar-Angus arrived to make a post-mortem
examination of the corpse, Katharine and Patrick offering no objec-
tion. Alexander, however, refused to allow the body to be opened
until Dr. Ogilvy of Forfar, who had been desired by the Sheriff
to attend, was also present. The two surgeons, therefore, merely
inspected the corpse and left, refusing to wait for Dr. Ogilvy.
After they had gone the latter arrived, but declined to open the
body in the absence of the other surgeons, on the ground that
the autopsy might be attended with personal danger. He, in
his turn, made an inspection and departed. We shall see later
the result of their several observations.
On Friday, 14th June, Katharine and Patrick
were appre-
hended upon the signed information of Alexander Ogilvy, and,
having been examined before Mr. George Campbell, Sheriff-Sub-
stitute of the county, were consigned to Forfar gaol. That day
Miss Clark returned in triumph to Eastmiln,, to assist hex old
[117]
friend Alexander in taking possession. On the 17th, the erstwhile
medical student, confident in the assumption of his lairdship,
"rouped the stocking upon the farm," i.e. sold by auction the
cattle, etc., on the false pretence of an authority from Patrick,
and appropriated the proceeds of the sale.
On 21st June the prisoners, having been removed
to Edin-
burgh, were examined there before Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, Sheriff-
Substitute of Edinburgh--the kinsman of Stevenson's David
Balfour--and were committed to the Tolbooth to await their
trial. It is said that when they landed at Leith, Katharine was
with difficulty rescued from the fury of the populace, so strong
was the feeling against her by reason of the rumour of her
misdeeds.
It may be convenient here briefly to
consider the purport of
the prisoners' judicial examinations, so far as these relate to the
question of the poison. In her first declaration at Forfar Mrs.
Ogilvy deponed, "That before Patrick Ogilvy left his brother's
house she asked him, any time he was at Alyth, to buy for her
and send to Eastmiln two doses of salts and a little laudanum,
as she slept very ill .... That she took one of the doses of salts
on the Friday after her husband's death and the other on the
Saturday; and on the Sunday and the Monday nights she took
the laudanum each night, and as she did not use the whole
laudanum she delivered back the glass and the remainder of
laudanum to the said Patrick Ogilvy on his return to Eastmiln
after his brother's death"--which, as regards the laudanum, was
afterwards proved to be true. She admitted giving her husband
the bowl of tea, which "she carried straight from the low room,
where they were at breakfast, upstairs to her husband's room."
She further declared that Elizabeth Sturrock got the remainder
of the bowl of tea, as Eastmiln "did not drink it out." Patrick
Ogilvy the same day declared, "That the said laudanum and
salts he brought from the East Indies with him, as a remainder
of what he used when his health was bad there and on his
passage home . . . . That within these two weeks he was at
[118]
the town of Brechin, and in company with James Carnegie,
surgeon, of that place, but that he received from him no laudanum,
or any other medicine whatever." He corroborated Katharine's
account of her request for the drugs.
While in Forfar gaol, Patrick learned from
a friend that
Dr. Carnegie had disclosed the purchase of the laudanum and
arsenic, "upon which the lieutenant seemed to be under some
concern," and expressed a desire to see the Sheriff and amend
his declaration upon that point; but this could not be done.
When examined before Sheriff Balfour at Edinburgh
upon
lengthy interrogatories both prisoners, by advice of their
counsel, declined to answer the various leading questions put to
them, Katharine refusing even to sign her declaration.
On 1st July, Sheriff Campbell of Forfar proceeded to the
house of Eastmiln to search the repositories (which since the
laird's death had been locked up by the scrupulous Alex-
ander), and found two letters, obviously written by Katharine
to Eastmiln before their marriage, and later so described in the
indictment. These were produced at the trial as proof of her
handwriting, with reference to an unsigned, unaddressed letter
alleged to have been written by her to Patrick on an unknown
date, in the following terms:
DR CAPTIN,--I
was sorrie I missed you this day. I sat at the
water side a long time this forenoon ; I thought you
would have
comed up here. If you had as much mind of me as I have
of
you, you would have comed up, tho' you had but stayed
out-by, as
there was no use for that; there is more rooms in the
house then
one. God knows the heart that I have this day, and instead
of being
better its worse, and not in my power to help it. You
are not
minding the thing that I said to you or [before] you
went out here,
and what I wrote for. Meat I have not tasted since yesterday
dinner, nor wont or you come here; tho' I should never
eat any,
it lyes at your door. Your brother would give anything
you would
come, for God's sake come.
This letter was not recovered by Sheriff Campbell
on his search
of the premises, but was sent to him later by Alexander Ogilvy.
[119]
How it came into that gentleman's doubtful hands does not
appear. By a curious oversight, Hill Burton, in his narrative
of the case, assumes that all three letters were written by
Katharine "to her alleged paramour," and even quotes from
the two former as such.
The trial commenced before the High Court
of Justiciary at
Edinburgh upon the 5th of August 1765. The judges present
were the Lord Justice-Clerk (Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto), Lords
Auchinleck (Alexander Boswell, father of the immortal Bozzy),
Alemore (Andrew Pringle), Kames (Henry Home), Pitfour
(James Ferguson), and Coalston (George Brown). The Lord
Advocate (Thomas Miller of Barskimming, the pawky Sheriff
Miller of Catriona), the Solicitor-General (James Montgomery),
Sir David Dalrymple (the future Lord Hailes), and two juniors
conducted the prosecution. Alexander Lockhart (afterwards
Lord Covington) and the great Henry Dundas appeared for
Mrs. Ogilvy; David Rae (later the eccentric Lord Eskgrove)
and Andrew Crosbie (Scott's Counsellor Pleydell) represented
Lieutenant Patrick Ogilvy. The first day was occupied in the
usual debate upon the relevancy of the indictment, which was duly
found relevant to infer the pains of law. On the following day
there was presented to the Court a petition in the name of the
pannels regarding Anne Clark, then in custody in the Castle.
The movements of this exemplary female since we left her rein-
stated at Eastmiln are uncertain. Although in her private
capacity of friend and relative of the prisoners she had told
extra-judicially everything she could against them, and made
a formal statement before the Sheriff, she is said to have
shrunk from the painful necessity of swearing to her story
in the witness-box. She therefore disappeared from the ken
of the Lord Advocate until the eve of the trial, when she
communicated with his lordship as follows:--
LORD ADVOCATE,-Upon
my coming to town, I am informed
that you have been searching for me. It would never bread
in my
breest to keept out of the way had it not been for terror
of imprison-
[120]
ment; but houping you will be more favourable to me I
shall weat
upon you tomorrow morning at eight of the clock.
ANNE CLARK
.
Sunday evening, eight of the clock.
Despite her "houp," Miss Clark was lodged in
the Castle,
along with the three women servants from Eastmiln who were
to be witnesses in the case. The petition stated that "as she
was in a combination to ruin the pannels and, as far as she
could, to deprive them of their lives as well as their reputations,"
it was obviously unfair to them that she should have an oppor-
tunity of tampering with the other witnesses. It was accord-
ingly craved that she should be separated from them. This was
granted by the Court; but it afterwards appeared that Anne
was only removed for one night, and was then replaced in
the same room with them as before, by order of Lord George
Beauclerk, Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Scotland, who
considered "that the room in the gunner's house she was by
desire put into, was by no means a place to keep a prisoner
in safety."
At seven o'clock in the morning of Monday,
12th August,
a jury was empanelled, and the examination of witnesses
began. It was the practice of those times that after a jury was
once charged with a pannel the Court could not be adjourned
until the jury was inclosed, i.e. till they withdrew to consider
their verdict. The hardships thus entailed upon all concerned
where the case was of any length are evident. In the present
trial the proceedings up to that stage lasted for forty-three
consecutive hours, the jury not being inclosed until two o'clock
in the morning of Wednesday, 14th August.
The purport of most of the evidence adduced
for the Crown
has been given in the foregoing narration, but certain points
remain to be considered. With regard to the proof of a criminal
intrigue between the pannels, the prosecution relied mainly
upon the testimony of Anne Clark--"whose evidence," as Hill
Burton well observes, "is always suspicious "--corroborated to
[121]
some extent by that of the servants, Katharine Campbell;
Elizabeth Sturrock, and Anne Sampson. No doubt their
memories had been much refreshed by Anne's reminiscences
while in the Castle. To Campbell, the most damaging witness
of the three, it was objected that she had been dismissed
by her mistress for theft, which she practically admitted,
and had sworn revenge. The Court, however, allowed her
to be examined. When Anne Clark was called, Dundas,
for the defence, strongly objected to her admission on the
grounds of her infamous character and lurid past; that, in
confederacy with Alexander Ogilvy, she herself had propagated
the false reports which led to the pannels' arrest; and that she
had expressed deadly malice against them, and threatened to
bereave them of their lives. Sir David Dalrymple, in reply,
did not attempt to whitewash his fair witness, but contended
that general proof of character was incompetent; that the
crimes charged were occult crimes, only provable by witnesses
who lived in the family, "be their character what it will"; that
until the evidence was closed it could not be said whether the
reports spread by Miss Clark were false or not; and that the
pannels must prove the cause of her alleged ill-will. The Court
admitted the witness, reserving the question of malice. Anne
Clark's examination occupied eight hours. We cannot here
discuss the infragrant details of her evidence, though these
present many singular and suggestive features--the case was
heard with closed doors, from which let the gentle reader, like
the stranger admonished by Mrs. Sapsea's epitaph, "with a
blush retire"; but in reference to the proof upon this part of
the case it may be generally remarked that the behaviour of
the prisoners, as described by Anne Clark and her attesting
nymphs, exhibits a reckless disregard of consequences which
well-nigh passes belief, while the corroborative evidence of
undue intimacy is to a large extent discounted by what we
know of the coarseness of speech and manners pervading
Scottish society in those days. The acts of familiarity upon
[122]
which the prosecutor relied to support Anne's tale were said
to have occurred in public and before third parties, some even
in presence of the husband himself. The very limited capacity
of the house of Eastmiln has also to be borne in mind. It
appears from an unpublished sketch plan, prepared for the use
of Crown counsel, that the house consisted of two storeys; upon
the ground floor there were but two rooms, kitchen and parlour,
one on either side of the entrance hall or passage; on the flat
above were two bedrooms corresponding to the rooms below,
with a small closet between them over the lobby. A garret in
the roof was. used as a store-room. We learn from the evidence
that the servants slept in the kitchen, beneath the west bed-
room occupied by the laird and his wife; that the east bedroom,
above the parlour, was assigned to the lieutenant; and that
Anne Clark and old Lady Eastmiln shared a "box-bed " in the
parlour. So homely and primitive were then the habits of the
Scots gentry that a family of five persons and three servants
were thus "accommodated" in four small rooms. It is also in
evidence that the kitchen ceiling was unplastered, and that the
conversation of the laird and his wife in their bed in the room
above was clearly audible in the kitchen below. The partition
walls, too, were of lath and plaster, which enabled Anne Clark
to overhear from the staircase all that went on in the lieu-
tenant's room. Verily the house of Eastmiln was ill adapted
to purposes of stealthy intrigue. If Anne Clark's astonishing
tale be true the guilt of the pannels on this count must be
accepted; but one hesitates at which the more to marvel--
the baseness of Anne if forsworn, or Katharine's unblushing
impudence if guilty.
The proof of the murder is in a different
case. The ground
of the prosecution was that Eastmiln died of poison. This,
strange as it may seem, looking to the subsequent verdict, the
medical evidence entirely failed to establish. Dr Meik, who
first saw the body, found "the nails and a part of the breast
discoloured and his tongue swelled beyond its natural size and
[123]
cleaving to the roof of his mouth." He was "unacquainted
with the effects of poison," but having been told by Alexander
Ogilvy that poison bad been administered in this case, he
"conjectured " it to have caused the death. Dr. Ramsay con-
curred as to the post-mortem appearances, with this addition,
that the lips were "more discoloured than by a natural death,"
and, upon the same information, agreed with Dr. Meik. Both
admitted having seen similar symptoms in cases of death from
natural causes. Dr. Ogilvy, who had inspected the corpse at
the request of the Sheriff, deponed "That the breast was white
and the lips pretty much of a natural colour . . . . That the
face, the arms, and several other parts of the body were black
and livid, and that the nails were remarkably black." Mani-
festly the condition of the corpse, which when seen by the
surgeons had lain unburied for six summer days, was due to
putrefaction. This Dr. Ogilvy practically admitted, by stating
that "he could draw no conclusion as to the cause of the
defunct's death." The only appearance that struck him as
peculiar was the condition of the tongue, which was "such as
occurs from convulsions or other strong causes."
In view of the negative testimony of these
experts as to the
cause of death, the evidence regarding Eastmiln's general health
becomes important. Anne Clark and the three servants repre-
sent him as a strong man, sound and hearty until the last day
of his life. His mother, a valuable witness on this as upon
many other points, was called by neither party--which affords
matter for reflection. Mr. Spalding, his brother-in-law, swore
that for some years past Eastmiln had been in bad health,
"complaining often of a heart-cholic or pain in his stomach,
attended with a short cough which was not continual but
seldom left him." That some years before he had suffered from
"an ulcerous fever" (as was otherwise proved to be the fact),
and was never the same man again; also that on one occasion,
being seized with illness at the house of Glenkilry, Eastmiln
"got hot ale and whisky with a scrape of nutmeg in it, and
[124]
was put to bed without any supper "--a curious remedy for
gastric inflammation. Mr. Spalding further stated that in
February, the month after the marriage, he wrote to Katharine's
mother, Lady Nairn, advising "that infeftment be taken in
favor of Mrs. Ogilvy upon her marriage contract," owing to the
unsatisfactory state of her husband's health. His brother-in-
law, Andrew Stewart, deponed that Eastmiln was "a tender
man," whose sister, Martha Ogilvy (Stewart's wife), used to say
that he would. not be a long liver. He repeated what Eastmiln
had told him, as already mentioned, about "swarfing on the
hill." James Millam, his friend and neighbour, said that four
days before Eastmiln died he complained to him "of a gravel
and a cholic, and that he could not live if he got not the better
of it." On the Tuesday before his death he became unwell at
the deponent's house. He had a fire lit to warm him, though
the night was not cold, and got heated chaff applied to ease his
suffering. He remarked to the witness "that he was fading as
fast as dew off the grass; that he could not get peaceable
possession of his house for Anne Clark; that he wished her
away; and he got from the deponent a ten-shilling note for the
expense of her journey." But that faithful spinster was not
so easily disposed of. Five witnesses from Glenisla proved that
the day before his death Eastmiln had been attacked by severe
internal pain while visiting his tenants; that he had to lie
down upon the ground ; that he said he had not been so ill for
six years; and that "he behoved to get Dr. Ogilvy to give him
something to do him good." It should be remembered that
at this time there is no suggestion of his having been poisoned
by his wife, who, if she had the will, had not then the means
to do so, and it is difficult to reconcile the evidence of these
relatives and friends with the laird's rude health, as sworn
to by Anne and the accusing maids. To poison a person in
such a condition seems, to the lay mind, a superfluity of
naughtiness.
What told most heavily against the lieutenant
undoubtedly
[125]
was his deal in arsenic with Dr. Carnegie at Brechin, of the
purchase and disposal of which no satisfactory explanation was
offered. But, curiously, it was not even proved that the
substance sold was in fact arsenic; all that Dr. Carnegie could
say was that he had bought it as such long before, and had
"heard from those he sold it to that it had killed rats."
So much for scientific testimony in 1765 ! With regard to
Katharine, Anne Sampson, one of the maids, swore that on the
morning of the day of Eastmiln's death, having followed her
mistress upstairs on some domestic errand, she saw her in a
closet adjoining the bedroom, "stirring about the tea with her
face to the door," but did not see her put anything in the
tea. Mrs. Ogilvy made no attempt to conceal what she was
doing, and spoke both to the servant and to a lad employed
in the house, who was also present at the time. Elizabeth
Sturrock deponed that her mistress had tried to induce her to
say she (Sturrock) had drunk the remainder of the tea.. She
admitted that Mrs. Ogilvy brought her tea that morning, when
she was ill in bed, but she denied it was what had been left
by Eastmiln. That Katharine did take salts--she being then
in a delicate state of health--Anne Clark admits, and is corro-
borated by Elizabeth Sturrock, who says she "got a part of
them." The incriminating letter from Katharine to Patrick
produced by Alexander, if genuine, leaves little doubt as to
their intimacy. One sentence only can be held to refer to the
poison: "You are not minding the thing that I said to you or
(before] you went out here, and what I wrote for." This might
equally be referable to the salts which she says she had asked
him to send her. As already pointed out, this letter was
without either date or signature, but the indefatigable Anne,
presumably an expert in handwriting, swore that it was written
by Mrs. Ogilvy. Yet when shown an undoubted letter of
Katharine, addressed to Eastmiln, "she did not know whose
handwriting it was."
The case for the prosecution was closed at
three o'clock on
[126]
Tuesday afternoon, and the exculpatory proof and addresses
to the jury occupied till two o'clock on Wednesday morning.
Of the sixty-four witnesses cited for the Crown twenty-four
were examined; a hundred and eight witnesses had been
summoned for the defence, but for reasons that will presently
appear, only ten of these were called. The contemporary
report of the trial unfortunately does not include the speeches
of counsel, but we read in the Scots Magazine that "the
evidence was summed up by the Lord Advocate for the King, by
Mr. Rae for Lieutenant Ogilvy, and by Mr. Lockhart for Mrs.
Ogilvy." Ramsay of Ochtertyre, who was then at the Scots bar,
says of Lockhart's, performance on this occasion: "He never
failed to shine exceedingly in a very long trial, when defending
criminals whose case appeared to be desperate. Mr. Crosbie
told me soon after, that in the trial of the Ogilvies, which lasted
forty-eight hours, he stood the fatigue better than the youngest
of them. He took down every deposition with his own hands,
but no short ones, when he went out to take a little air. In
answering Lord Advocate Miller, who was perfectly worn out,
he displayed such powers of eloquence and ingenuity as
astonished everybody. To save the life of his unhappy client
he gave up, with great art, her character; but contended there
was no legal proof of her guilt, though enough to damn her
fame."
At four o'clock on the afternoon of
Wednesday, 14th August,
the jury, "by a great plurality of voices," found both pannels
guilty as libelled. Lockhart at once entered a plea in arrest of
judgment in respect of certain irregularities in the proceedings.
We cannot here deal fully with this interesting debate, which
throws an extraordinary light upon the judicial procedure of
the day--how in the course of the trial the jury repeatedly
"dispersed into different corners of the house," eating and
drinking as they pleased, and talking to the Crown witnesses
and the counsel for the prosecution; how between three and five
o'clock on the Tuesday morning only one of the judges. remained
[127]
upon the bench, "the rest retiring and conversing in private
with sundry of the jury and others;" how, "when the evidence
on the part of the pannels began to be adduced, several of
the jury showed a very great impatience and insisted that that
evidence which the pannels thought material for them should be
cut short, and some of them particularly disputed the relevancy
and propriety of the questions put by the counsel for the
pannels with great heat, insomuch that some of the judges and
other jurymen were obliged to interpose, in order that the
exculpatory proof might go on; and the counsel for the pannels
were obliged to pass from many witnesses, in order to procure
attention from those assizers. Hence, though thirty-three hours
were spent in hearing calmly the proof adduced for the prose-
cutors, yet the proof for the pannels, after being heard by those
jurymen with great impatience, was put an end to in about
three hours." Finally, how, contrary to an Act of Charles II.,
whereby the prisoner's advocate was to have the last word,
Lord Kames, one of the judges, addressed the jury upon the
whole case after counsel had done so for the defence. This
is the first recorded instance in Scots criminal practice of
the familiar charge to the jury by the presiding judge. The
Court, in respect of the "regularity and accuracy" with which
the trial had been conducted, repelled the plea. But Lockhart
had still another card to play; he alleged that his client was
pregnant, and in her case judgment was superseded until her
condition should be reported upon by five professional ladies.
Sentence of death was then pronounced against Patrick Ogilvy,
to be executed on 25th September, and the Court rose, doubtless
with much relief.
Next day the jury of matrons, which included
Mrs. Shiells, a
local practitioner eminent in her art, of whom we shall hear again,
reported that they could give no positive opinion on the sub-
ject of the remit. The Court therefore delayed pronouncing
sentence against Mrs. Ogilvy till 18th November, to give the
five ladies the opportunity of arriving at a definite conclusion.
[128]
Meanwhile the friends of the prisoners were
not idle in
their interests. Application was made to the King in Council
for a respite to Patrick Ogilvy, not of favour but of right, until
certain points of law should be determined:--(I) Whether in a
capital case an appeal was competent from the High Court
of Justiciary to the House of Lords? (2) Whether the pro-
ceedings at the trial were fair and legal according to the law of
Scotland? and (3) Whether, if the first point were doubtful,
the execution of the convict should be respited till that question
was judged by Parliament, which was not then sitting ? Prior
to the determination of these questions, which were remitted to
the decision of the Attorney-General for England and the Lord
Advocate, Patrick received four reprieves--the first three for
fourteen days each, the last for seven days only. He is said to
have been a great player on the violin, and the interval between
his condemnation and execution was, we are told, "exclusively
devoted to his performance on that instrument."
While the young lieutenant's fate yet hung
in the balance,
the judicial dovecot of the Parliament House was fluttered
by the publication in certain Edinburgh journals of an
"opinion" by an English counsel, one Mr. M'Carty, upon the
points at issue. This gentleman, writing from London on 14th
September, animadverted upon the conduct of the trial, holding
that the prisoners were prejudiced by being tried for two
entirely different crimes upon one indictment. He was of
opinion that if the crimes charged were considered separately
and the evidence produced to support one crime taken singly,
without the assistance of the other, no jury in England would
have found the prisoners guilty. "The intrigue was supposed
to be certain, because the husband was supposed to have been
poisoned; and, on the other hand, the man was believed to be
poisoned, because there was a supposed proof of intrigue."
After criticising the peculiar features of the evidence with some
freedom and to excellent purpose, Mr. M'Carty saw neither
law nor reason why the proceedings of the Court of Justiciary
[129]
might not be subject, as well as those of the Court of Session,
to review by the Supreme Court. These views on the subject
of criminal appeal gave great offence to the College of Justice.
The publication of the opinion was held to be contempt of
Court, and, upon the complaint of the Lord Advocate, the
publishers of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, where it first
appeared, and of the Courant, Caledonian Mercury, and
Scots
Magazine, in which it was reprinted, were haled before the
Court of Justiciary to answer for their offence. They severally
expressed sorrow for the wrong they had done, and the Court,
while dwelling on the "high indignity" which it had thereby
sustained, dismissed them with a rebuke.
The law officers of the Crown having reported
in the nega-
tive upon the questions submitted to them, Patrick Ogilvy was
executed in the Grassmarket on 13th November, pursuant to
his sentence. Chambers states, so popular was the lieutenant
with his regiment, which was then quartered in the Castle, that
it was judged necessary "to shut them up in that fortress till
the execution was over, lest they might attempt a rescue." A
letter from his colonel, giving him an excellent character,
is printed in the report of the trial. In "An Authentick Copy"
of his dying speech, published at the time, we read, "As to the
crimes I am accused of, the trial itself will show the propensity
of the witnesses, where civility and possibly folly are explained
into actual guilt; and of both crimes for which I am now doomed
to suffer I declare my innocence, and that no persuasion could
ever have made me condescend to them. I freely forgive every
person concerned in this melancholy affair, and wherein any of
them have been faulty to me I pray God to forgive them."
The newspapers of the day record a shocking incident at the
execution. After he was "turned over," the noose slipped and
he fell to the ground. The wretched man, "making what
resistence he could," was again dragged up the ladder by
the hangman and others, "who turned him over a second time,
and he continued hanging till dead." For assisting the law on
[130]
this occasion, a member of the Society of Tron-Men (chimney-
sweeps) was expelled from that association and banished to
Leith for five years--a grievous punishment for an Edinburgh
citizen.
On 18th November the professional ladies were
at length
enabled to report that Mrs: Ogilvy could not in humanity
be hanged for several months, and the Court further delayed
sentence until 10th March. Upon 21st November Katharine
presented a petition to the Court, praying that a judicial factor
should be appointed to administer the estates of the deceased laird
in the interests of her unborn child. Alexander Ogilvy, his
brother's heir-presumptive, did not meantime oppose the applica-
tion, but in his answers he indicated that if occasion arose he
meant to contest the succession. A factor was duly appointed.
On 27th January 1766, in the Tolbooth
of Edinburgh, Mrs.
Ogilvy gave birth to a daughter. When the Court met on 10th
March to pronounce sentence of death, a physician and two
nurses deponed that she was not yet strong enough to be
brought up for judgment. The diet was therefore continued
for a week. At seven o'clock on the night of Saturday the
15th, however, the interesting invalid summoned sufficient
energy to burst her bonds. Her escape, which is said not to
have been discovered till the Sunday afternoon, was, as we
shall see, probably collusive. The contemporary accounts are
suspicious. It is said that, being indulged with "the quiet
and privacy which the nature of her illness required," she
dressed herself in man's clothes, and, the door of her room
having been at her request "left open for the benefit of the
.air," she naturally walked out. Perhaps the turnkeys and
sentries were still celebrating the New Year, old style. On
Monday the 17th the Lord Justice-Clerk granted a warrant for
her arrest, and the magistrates of Edinburgh issued a notice
offering a reward of one hundred guineas for her apprehension.
She is described as "middle sized and strong made; has a high
nose, black eye-brows, and of a pale complexion "--a description
[131]
which seems wilfully at variance with the received accounts of
her beauty. She "went off on Saturday night in a post-chaise
for England by the way of Berwick; and had on an officer's
habit and a hat slouched in the cocks, with a cockade in it."
On the 22nd the Government announced in the London Gazette
an additional hundred guineas reward for her recapture. It is
therein stated that Mrs. Ogilvy, disguised as a young gentleman,
very thin and sickly, muffled up in a greatcoat, and attended
by a servant, had passed through Haddington on Saturday at
midnight, and had pushed on with four horses, day and night,
from stage to stage, towards London. The Gentleman's Magazine
records "that information was received at Mr. Fielding, the
magistrate's office, that on the Wednesday following she was
at Dover in the dress of an officer, endeavouring to procure a
passage to France"; and in a later report, that having failed to
do so, she "returned from Dover to London, took a hackney
coach to Billingsgate, got on board a Gravesend boat, with a
gentleman to accompany her, agreed with a tilt boat there to
take them over to France for eight guineas and a guinea a day
for waiting for them four days in order to bring them back;.
which tilt boat landed them at Calais, but is since returned
without them." This, of course, was a device to gain time and
baffle her pursuers.
But tradition gives a more probable account
of Katharine's
escape from the prison. Her uncle, Mr. William Nairn, a well-
known and respected member of the Scots bar, was at that
time Commissary Clerk of Edinburgh. He was raised to the
Bench in 1786 with the judicial title of Lord Dunsinnan, and
in 1790 succeeded to the baronetcy, which, on his death in 1811,
became extinct. His lordship is said to have contrived his
niece's freedom. Sir Daniel Wilson, in his Memorials, states,
upon
the authority of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, that Katharine
walked out of the Tolbooth "disguised in the garments of
Mrs. Shiells, the midwife who had been in attendance on
her and added to her other favours this extra-professional.
[132]
delivery." James Maidment, in Kay's Portraits, tells the same
story, with the additional particular that Mrs. Shiells had
feigned toothache for some days before, and muffled her head
in a shawl. The doorkeeper, according to Chambers's Traditions,
knowing what was afoot, gave the fictitious nurse a slap on the
back as she left the prison, and bade her begone for "a howling
old Jezebel." Sharpe owed his own introduction to the world
to the good offices of this benevolent dame, who, as Chambers
notes, was still practising in Edinburgh so late as 1805.
There are various accounts of Katharine's
adventures after
she had successfully "broke prison." Sharpe says that in her
confusion she "risped " at Lord Alva's door in James's Court,
mistaking the house for that of her father's agent, when the
footboy who opened the door recognised her, having been
present at the trial, and immediately raised an alarm. As the
case was heard in camera, this lad must have been exceptionally
privileged. Her uncle's house was in a tenement at the head
of the Parliament Stairs, the site of which is now occupied by
the Justiciary Court-room. Thither, says Sharpe, Katharine
fled, and was concealed in a cellar by Mr. Nairn till the hue
and cry was over, when his clerk, Mr. James Bremner, after-
wards Solicitor of Stamps, accompanied her to the Continent.
Maidment, on the other hand, states that on the night of her
escape a carriage was in waiting at the foot of the Morse Wynd,
in which she and Mr. Bremner at once left the city. In view
of the contemporary evidence there is little doubt that this is
the correct version of her flight. She probably assumed the
officer's dress en route. Chambers says that the coachman had
orders, if the pursuit waxed hot, to drive into the sea so that
she might drown herself. The contingency, fortunately for her
fellow-traveller, did not arise. Thus Katharine vanished from
the ken of her contemporaries, and history knows nothing
certain of her fate.
"Was she guilty, was she innocent, and, if
innocent, why
did Lieutenant Patrick Ogilvy buy arsenic at Brechin ? " asks
[133]
Mr. Andrew Lang; and indeed these are "puzzling questions,"
which every reader must answer for himself.
Wilson states that Mrs. Ogilvy went from France
to
America, married again, "and died at an advanced age, sur-
rounded by a numerous family." Maidment says she was
afterwards "very fortunate, having been married to a Dutch
gentleman," with satisfactory results, as above. Alternatively,
she took the veil, and, surviving the French Revolution, died in
England in the nineteenth century. Chambers marries her
happily to "a French gentleman," and credits her with the
usual large family. Similar vague surmises are still current
regarding the aftermath of Madeleine Smith.
The only fresh light which the present writer
has been able
to discover is derived from the following sources :--a paragraph
in the Westminster Magazine of 1777--"Mrs. Ogilvie, who
escaped out of Edinburgh jail for the murder of her husband,
is now in a convent at Lisle, a sincere penitent"; and an
unpublished MS. note in a contemporary copy of the trial--
"Catherine Ogilvie or Nairn did not marry a French nobleman
as was at one time reported. She entered a convent and
remained there until the troubles consequent upon the French
Revolution compelled herself and the other inmates to fly to
England, where she died. My informant, Mr. Irvine, lawyer
of Dunse, tells me that a friend of his saw her tomb, with the
name `Catherine Ogilvie' upon it; and that upon enquiry the
superior mentioned that of all the females in the convent she
was the most exemplary in every respect."
Of the others concerned in the tragedy, the
unconscious
infant died in the Tolbooth within two months of her birth. She
is said to have been "overlaid," but by whom is not recorded.
The mother was then in France. It is satisfactory to learn
that Alexander Ogilvy took no benefit from the child's death,
for on 1st March 1766, the anniversary of Anne Clark's arrival
at Eastmiln, that bold spirit was arrested for bigamy, and was
in his turn committed to the Tolbooth. One might have
[134]
expected that Anne would be the redundant bride, but from
his indictment it appears that the favoured lady was a Miss
Margaret Dow, daughter of an officer of the Royal Highlanders,
unlawfully espoused by him so lately as 24th February. Upon
his trial on 4th August, Alexander pleaded guilty to the charge,
and was banished for seven years. He was allowed, however,
to remain two months in Scotland to settle his affairs, which he
effectually did in the following manner: while leaning over
the window of a house in one of Auld Reekie's towering lands,
he lost his balance, fell out, and was killed on the spot. Thus
only Anne Clark and old Lady Eastmiln withstood the changes
of that eventful year. "Their conversation must have been
rich in curious reminiscences," like that of Lady Bothwell and
her first love, Ogilvy of Boyne, when they came together at the
end of the chapter.
The case of Katharine Nairn is one of the
most attractive in
our criminal annals, and should this imperfect summary be the
means of sending a stray reader to the report of the trial itself,
he will not go unrewarded.
[135]
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