12 SCOTS TRIALS
THE ORDEAL OF PHILIP STANFIELD
In a secret Murther, if the dead
carkasse be at any time thereafter
handled by the Murtherer, it will gush out of blood ;
as if the blood were
crying to Heaven for revenge of the Murtherer.
--Dænonologie, KING JAMES
THE SIXTH.
AS one of the four parricides recorded in Scottish
criminal
annals, and the last person convicted in that country upon the
ancient ordeal of Bahr-recht or Law of the Bier--the bleeding
of the slain corpse at the murderer's touch--Philip Stanfield
has attained some eminence of infamy. He has pointed a moral
for Wodrow and furnished footnotes for Sir Walter Scott, who
doubted the evidence of his guilt. He has his part in Howell's
dismal repertory. More recently he has adorned a tale by Mr.
S. R. Crockett, in which he plays the villain for the circulating
libraries at some sacrifice of truth, and, despite an undeniable
gibbet and dismemberment, continues by the author's favour
his criminous career. The contemporary report of his trial at
Edinburgh in 1688 is appreciated by the bibliophile, but to
the general reader the facts of his strange story are unknown.
It is a tragedy of old years of blood and superstition; grim,
indeed, but with here and there quaint glimpses of the ghostly
marvellous, wherein we perceive malice domestic incite to
midnight murder, and in the end the guilty designated by
the manifest finger of God.
Philip Stanfield--the name is variously given
as Stansfield,
Standsfield, and Stamfield--was the eldest son of Sir James
Stanfield of New Mills, in East Lothian. A Yorkshireman by
birth, the elder Stanfield is said to have held the rank of colonel
on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War. He settled in
Scotland after Cromwell's victory at Dunbar, having purchased
[63]
certain lands lying on the south bank of the river Tyne, a mile
east of Haddington, formerly belonging to the local abbey,
There he established a cloth manufactory upon the site, some
thirty years earlier, of a similar undertaking. Colonel Stan-
field's enterprise enjoyed the patronage of the Protector, and
after the Restoration he was further encouraged by divers
privileges granted to him by the Scots Parliament. Later he
received from Charles II. a knighthood, presumably in recog-
nition of his mercantile rather than his military achievements.
In 1681, with the approval of James, Duke of York, then
resident in Scotland, proposals were made for establishing a
cloth manufacturing company on a large scale, to compete with
the English industry. Among the promotors of this patriotic
scheme was Sir James Stanfield, and from him the new
company acquired upon liberal terms a lease of "that great
manufactory stone house on the south side of the village of
Newmylnes," with the offices thereof, "which are many, great
and spacious."
At this time Sir James was a wealthy man.
The cloth
manufactory had prospered, and we learn from the decisions
of the Lords of Session that in addition to his estate of New
Mills he owned other lands at Hailes and Morham in the same
county. But he was more blessed in his business than in his
home. Lady Stanfield was no ideal helpmate, while Philip, his
son and heir, was a prince of prodigals. Sir James complained
to his friends that "he had no comfort in his wife and family,"
whom he described as "very wicked," observing that it was
"sad that a man should be destroyed by his own bowels."
His chief cause of anxiety was the conduct of his elder son, of
whose misdeeds a lurid account is given in the indictment upon
which Philip was convicted of the murder of his long-suffering
sire. Apart from that catalogue of iniquities we know little of
Philip's youth, but an anecdote preserved by Wodrow shows
him to have been a student of St. Andrew's University. While
at that seat of learning, he one day attended the preaching of
[64]
John Welsh, the great-grandson of Knox, and, disliking his
doctrine, "threw somewhat or other at the minister, which hit
him." Mr. Welsh promptly prophesied that "there would be
more present at his [Philip's] death than were hearing him
preach that day." This retort seems to have been a favourite
one with outraged prophets. Similar predictions are recorded
of Captain Porteous and others, the seers being justified by the
event. .
It is stated in the indictment that, notwithstanding
the
advantages of an excellent education, Philip, "being a profli-
gate and debauched person, did committ and was accessory to
several notorious villainies both at home and abroad." He
had, it is said, "entered a souldier in the Scots Regiment," but
most'of his time was spent in retirement in the Marshalsea and
the public prisons of Brussels, Antwerp, Orleans, and other
places on the Continent. At Treves he was condemned to death,
but managed to escape. From these retreats he was time
and again released by his father's liberality; but so far from
exhibiting either gratitude or sign of amendment, it was his
habit "most wickedly and bitterly to rail upon, abuse, and
curse his natural and kindly parent," and on two occasions he
actually attempted his father's life. On the first of these he
"did chase and pursue his father upon the King's highway at
Lothian-burn, and did fire pistols upon him"; on the second
he "did attempt to assassinate his father for his life at
Culterallors," by similar methods.
Some years before the murder, Philip, married,
was living
with his wife at the house of New Mills, as appears from a case
reported by Lord Fountainhall, a contemporary judge. In 1682
an action was raised in the Court of Session by an Edinburgh
merchant against Philip, for payment of £1100 Scots for clothes
"taken off" by himself and his wife in two years' time. Sir
James was also called as defender on the ground that although
his son was major and married at the time of the furnishing,
yet the young couple were then living in familia with him, and
[65]
had no separate estate, so that he was bound to clothe and
aliment them. The Lords decerned against Philip, but assoilzied
(discharged) the father, "because he made it appear that he had
paid 5000 merks of debts contracted by Philip during that very
space, and that his son was a prodigal waster."
Sir James, finding his pecuniary affairs embarrassed
by the
unnatural encroachments of his family, proposed, in 1686, to
sell "the houses and lands of Newmilns" to the cloth company.
The negotiations were interrupted by his death in the following
year, but were shortly thereafter completed. Meanwhile he
had decided to disinherit the peccant Philip in favour of John,
his second son. But Jacob, of whom "he had some comfortable
hopes," was little less unsatisfactory than Esau, and "several
times came in drunk as the other."
In this unhappy situation it is not surprising
that Sir James
at times exhibited a certain lowness of spirits, which the wicked
Philip artfully attributed to mental derangement. So far, how-
ever, from being driven mad by his troubles, it appears that
Sir James bore his afflictions with fortitude, and though he
suffered in mind, body, and estate, his reason was unim-
paired.
Matters reached a crisis in November 1687.
On Saturday
the 27th of that month Sir James Stanfield rode into Edinburgh
for the last time, and having transacted his business there,
returned in the evening to his house of New Mills, accompanied
by a friend, one John Bell, "minister of the Gospel, aged 40
years," who was to occupy the pulpit of the neighbouring
church at Morham next day. This divine was probably
Mr. John Bell, parish minister of Gladsmuir, the learned con-
temporary author of certain treatises on witchcraft. They
supped together after their long ride, and according to Mr. Bell
Sir James's discourse was rational and pertinent, both before
and after supper. At ten o'clock Sir James, having conducted
his guest to his chamber, went to bed. The minister's experi-
ences of the night must be described in his own words: "I declare
[66]
that having slept but little, I was awakened in fear by a cry
(as I supposed), and being waking, I heard for a time a great
dinn and confused noise of several voices, and persons some-
times walking, which affrighted me (supposing them to be evil
wicked spirits); and I apprehended the voices to be near the
chamber-door sometimes, or in the transe [passage] or stairs,
and sometimes below, which put me to arise in the night
and bolt the chamber-door further, and to recommend myself
by prayer, for protection and preservation, to the majestie of
God; And having gone again to bed I heard these voices
continue, but more laigh [low], till within a little time they
came about to the chamber-window; and then I heard the voice
as high as before, which increased my fear, and made me
rise again to look over the window, to see whether they were
men or women; but the window would not come up for me,
which window looked to the garden and water, whither the
voices went on till I heard them no more; only towards the
morning I heard walking on the stairs, and in the transe
above that chamber where I was lying. I told the women
who put on my fire in my chamber that Sabbath morning
that I had rested little that night, through dinn I heard;
and that I was sure there were evil spirits about that house .
that night."
Next morning Sir James Stanfield was missing.
The
maid-servant found his bed "better spread up than it used
to be, and the curtains more drawn about it."
Some distance behind the house of New Mills
the river
Tyne flowed beneath a steep bank upon the south. Early
.that Sunday morning a stranger named John. Topping, going
from Monkrig to the village by the water-side, saw Philip
standing "at the brink of the brae," his eyes fixed upon the
body of a man floating in the pool below. Topping asked
whose body was in the water, but received no reply; when
he came to New Mills he learned the answer to his question.
About an hour after daybreak Philip entered the minister's
[67]
chamber and inquired if he had seen his father that morning,
adding that he himself had been seeking him by the banks
of the water. Mr. Bell "having gone without the gate and
up the cawsey that leads to the manufactory, one came run-
ning. and said they had found Sir James in the water." The
minister then left 'to perform his Sabbath duties at Morham;
remarking, "If the majestie of God did ever permit the
Devil and his instruments to do an honest man wrong, then
Sir James Stanfield has received wrong this last night, which
the Lord will discover in his good time."
Umphray Spurway, the manager of the cloth
mills, was
a fellow-countryman of Sir James. Their relationship was
intimate and friendly, and Umphray was often consulted by
Staufield in his unhappy, domestic troubles. Apprised of
his master's disappearance, he was leaving the mills to go
up to the great. house, when he encountered Philip. The
latter expressed wonder at the cause of his father's "discon-
tent, that he should thus 'leave his lodgings"; whereupon
Umphray plainly told him that in his view his (Stanfield's)
family were responsible for what had.happened. The search
was then begun, and presently. Sir James's body was dis-
covered floating, face downwards, among the ice in a pool
of still water some five feet deep, "a little by-west the town
[village]." It was observed at the time that the ground at
the water's edge nearest the body was "all beaten to mash
with feet and the ground very open and mellow, although
a very hard, frosty morning." When the dead man was
carried by his servants to his own house, Philip met the
bearers in the doorway, and "swore that the body should
not enter there, for he had not died like a man but like a.
beast." It, was accordingly deposited in an outhouse.
"The presumptions here were very pregnant
against Philip,"
says Fountainhall, "for though other children in such dubious
cases do ever ascribe their father's death to murder, yet he
being asked his opinion, asserted he thought he was not
[68]
THE POOL
IN THE TYNE NEAR NEW
MILLS
murdered, but rather took pains to persuade all that he was
felo de se and his own executioner."
Philip's expressed opinion that Sir James
had taken his
own life was at first generally shared. Within an hour of
the recovery of the body, the son ransacked his father's
repositories, secured his valuables, and, appropriately enough
in the circumstances, removed the silver buckles from the
dead man's shoes and put them on his own.
When Mr. Bell returned to New Mills on the
Sunday
evening, he was informed by Philip that he had advertised
several friends in Edinburgh of what had happened, and was
expecting their arrival that night. The minister commended
his prudence, deeming it highly desirable that the body should
be "sighted" by the physician and friends of the deceased,
for, from his midnight experiences, he was inclined to think
it not a case of suicide, but "a violent murder committed
by wicked spirits." In the morning he found to his astonish-
ment that by Philip's orders the body had been secretly
buried in the night. "They had very hastily buried him,"
says Fountainhall, "pretending that they would not have
his body to be gazed upon and viewed by all comers."
Meanwhile "the fame of the country did run" that
Sir James
had been strangled by his son or servants, and Umphray
Spurway, suspecting that all was not right, had, through a
friend in Edinburgh, communicated with the Lord Advocate,
Sir John Dalrymple (afterwards the first Earl of Stair). His
lordship replied by letter, recommending that the body be
viewed by Spurway, "along with two or three discreet per-
sons," and if they saw no reason to suppose Sir James had
met with foul play, that it should then be buried "privately
and with as little noise as could be." When the messenger
returned on the Sunday night, however, he was intercepted
by Philip, who suppressed the letter.
At three o'clock on the Monday morning Umphray
Spurway
was awakened, and looking out from his own house at the mills
[69]
saw horses and "great lights " about Sir James's gate. He arose,
and going down to ascertain the cause met one of his men, who
told him that Philip, "having received orders from my Lord
Advocate for that purpose," was taking the body for inter-
ment to Morham churchyard. Umphray did not offer to
join the funeral convoy to the lonely burial-place on the
Lammermuirs some three miles off, where, in the black winter
night, lit only by the torches of the murderer and his satellites,
a grave was hastily dug in the frost-bound earth. He prudently
went back to bed; but next day "the Englishmen in the
manufactory, who were acquainted with the Crowner Laws,
made a mutiny anent the burial."
On the following night Spurway was again aroused
from
sleep, and found at his door two Edinburgh surgeons, named
Crawford and Muirhead, and three other gentlemen from
the city (one being Mr. James Row, a relative of the deceased),
who exhibited an order from the Lord Advocate for the exhuma-
tion of Sir James Stanfield's corpse. He accompanied them
to the churchyard forthwith. Mr. Andrew Melvil, minister
of the parish, with whose services Philip on the former occasion
had dispensed, attended in his official capacity. Sir James's brief
rest was broken, and the body was carried into the church,
where the surgeons conducted their examination by torchlight.
Philip himself was present, how unwillingly and with what
feelings may be imagined.
The autopsy concluded, the surgeons requested
the relatives
to assist in replacing the body in the coffin. It afterwards
appeared from Sir George Mackenzie's address to the jury
that this was done deliberately, with a view of subjecting Philip
to the ordeal by touch. In accordance with the Scots custom
the son lifted his father's head, but no sooner had he done
so than the horrified onlookers "did see it darting out blood
through the linen from the left side of the neck which the
pannel [prisoner] touched." Philip, astounded, let the head
fall with a loud crash upon the "furm " [bench], staggered back,
[70]
wiping his bloody hands upon his clothes, and crying lamentably
upon his Maker for mercy, fell fainting across a seat. The
watchers, "amazed at the sight," looked at one another in awe.
They had witnessed the immediate interference of the Deity--
"God's revenge against murder."
In due course Philip Stanfield was arrested
and brought
to justice. His trial took place before the High Court of Jus-
ticiary at Edinburgh upon 6th, 7th, and 8th February 1688.
George, Earl of Linlithgow, Lord Justice-General, presided, the
other judges being Sir John Lockhart, Lord Castlehill; Sir David
Balfour, Lord Forret; Sir Roger Hogg, Lord Harcarse; and John
Murray, Lord Drumcairne. The prosecution was conducted by
Lord Advocate Dalrymple and Sir George Mackenzie, the
"Bloody Mackenzie" of Presbyterian tradition. Dalrymple had
succeeded Mackenzie in the office of Lord Advocate a year
before; within a month the political whirligig was again to
bring about a similar exchange of parts. Sir David Thoirs, Sir
Patrick Hume, William Moniepenny, and William Dundas
appeared for the defence. The usual debate upon the relevancy
of the libel, the formidable and unwieldy indictment of former
times, setting forth at portentous length all (and sometimes
more than) the Crown expected to prove, occupied the first
day. Stripped of the cumbrous verbiage of their "qualifi-
cations," the crimes charged were three in number--(1) high
treason, as having drunk confusion to the King; (2) cursing of
parents; and (3) murder under trust, each of which was at that
date equally punishable by death. The copious arguments of
counsel were, according to the old practice, reduced to writing
and are printed in the trial. We cannot here enter these
learned labyrinths, abounding in quaint subtleties and citation;
from Carpzovius, Mattheus, and other ancient jurists. Fountain-
hall, who gives a curious abridgment of the pleadings, observes
"It was alleged, against the parricide, that the presumption
libelled where not relevant, such as his [Philip's] preceding
threats, his hasty burying of him, the corps bleeding when he
[71]
touched them, . . . and that his [Sir James's] murder might be
ascribed to other causes, seeing it is notour [publicly known]
that he was once mad, and that it can be proven that he was
once melancholy and hypochondriac thereafter, and that he used
to tell himself that in one of these fits he rode towards England
with a design never to have returned, but his horse stopped and
would not go forward, which he looked upon as the finger of
God, and returned home again; that once he was throwing
himself out at a window at the Nether Bow if Thomas Lendall
had not pulled him in by the feet; and that the very week
before his death he desired George Stirling to let blood of him
because his head was light." The Lords, however, found the
libel relevant, and repelled all the defences.
Next day a jury was empanelled, and the prosecutor
adduced
his proof. The charge of treason need not detain us. It was
proved that Philip, in the kitchen of New Mills, had proposed
to five persons the comprehensive toast of confusion to the Pope,
Antichrist, the Devil, and the King, "and did menace the wit-
nesses with a great Kane that he would beat and brain them if
they told it." The cursing of his father upon many occasions
was fully established. For instance, Sir James's own servant
deponed that, when asked to come to dinner with his father,
Philip's ordinary answer was, "The Devil damn him and you
both, and the Devil rive him, for I will not go to him, and if he
[Philip] had a sixpence a day he would not go near him, for
his father girned upon him like a sheep's head in a .tongs."
On another occasion, Philip having obtained some tobacco from
a shop in the village without paying for it, the vendor hinted
that Sir James might do so; whereupon Philip rudely retorted,
"The Devil take him and his father both, for there never came
an honest man out of Yorkshire "--a graceful allusion to his
parent's original domicile.
With regard to the cause of Sir James's death
Mr. James
Muirhead, one of the surgeons who made the post-mortem, was
examined, but, curiously enough, only as to the miraculous
[72]
bleeding of the corpse. The joint medical report stated that
there was upon the neck "a large and conspicuous swelling,
about three inches broad, of a dark red or blae colour, from one
side of the larynx round backwards to the other side thereof,"
which, on incision, was found to be full of bruised blood. The
neck was dislocated. Otherwise the body presented a healthy
appearance, and was entirely free from water. Mr. Muirhead
deponed that when he and the other surgeon were "putting on
the clean linens and stirring and moving the head and craig
[neck], he saw no blood at all." There were also produced for
the Crown separate reports of the Chirurgeons of Edinburgh
and the College of Physicians, based on the post-mortem
appearances as reported, to the effect that strangulation, not
drowning, was the cause of death.
It was proved that father and son were upon
the worst of
terms; that Philip had repeatedly threatened to take his
father's life if he was disinherited in favour of his brother,
"though he should die in the Grass Mercat for it," i.e. on
the gallows; and that Sir James went in great fear of him,
having twice narrowly escaped assassination at his hands. Mr.
Roderick Mackenzie, an Edinburgh advocate and the old gentle-
man's friend, deponed that he met him in the Parliament Close
eight days before his death, when "the defunct invited him to
take his morning draught." While enjoying their "meridian"
in an adjacent tavern, they discussed the unhappy situation of
Sir James's domestic affairs. Mr. Mackenzie hinted that he had
heard this was partly due to the disinheriting of the heir.
"The defunct answered, `Ye do not know my son, for he is the
greatest debauch in the earth; and that which troubles me
most is that he twice attempted my own person.' "
It further appeared that within a month of
his father's
death Philip had several times boasted that he would be "laird
of all before Christmas," and would then "ride in their skirts
that had been ill to him"; also that during this same period
Lady Stanfield, being sick, said to him: "You will shortly
[73]
want your mother, which will be a gentle visitation to Sir
James," when Philip rejoined, "By my soul, mother, my father
shall be dead before you! "
Lady Stanfield herself was not free from the
dreadful
suspicion of having been accessory to her husband's murder.
That the relations between husband and wife were most
unhappy, and that in the family quarrels she espoused the
cause of her prodigal son, was clearly proved. Fountainhall
records that "the mother had the dead-clothes all ready,"
that is, before the occasion for their use arose. "Some
alleged that she was concerned in the murder"; and he adds
an even more shocking accusation. In the opinion of Sir
Walter Scott some countenance is afforded to these horrible
rumours by the evidence given at the trial.
The manner of the murder, according to the
prosecution,
was in this wise. Philip, though young in years, was "old
in everything else." A married man, as we have seen, he
carried on an intrigue with one "Janet Johnstoun, spouse to
John Nicols," who lived in the village of New Mills. With
the aid of this woman and of two other profligate companions,
George Thomson, significantly named "The Devil's Taylour,"
and Helen Dickson his wife, Philip was alleged to have com-
passed his father's death, producing incidentally those mani-
festations which caused the minister's "affrightment in the
night" These three accomplices, we learn from Fountainhall,
had been examined before the Privy Council on 8th December,
"and tortured with the thumbikins but confessed nothing ;
which criminal lawyers say does purge and elide, at least
debilitates and extenuates, all the former indicia and pre-
sumptions against themselves, if not those also which militated
against others." For this reason they were not produced
upon the trial, either in the witness-box or, more suitably,
at the bar. The servants at New Mills had also been "ques-
tioned" regarding their knowledge of the facts in the practical
manner of the Crown authorities of that day, for we find that
[74]
on 13th December "Sir James Stanfield's servants are tortured,"
apparently with negative results, so far at least as their
testimony was concerned.
It appeared from the proof that Janet Johnstoun
and the
Thomsons had been closeted with Philip in his chamber the
night before the murder; that Janet, though a woman of
infamous repute, "who was his own concubine and his father's
known enemy," was alone entrusted by him with the duty
of "woonding" (laying out) the old man's corpse; that she and
Lady Stanfield quarrelled next day "about some remains of
the holland of the woonding-sheet" (winding-sheet), when
Philip bade his mistress hold her peace, "for he would reward
her well for the kindness she had done to him at that time";
and that Thomson the tailor, bringing "the mournings" to
the great house and learning that the body was to be raised,
said it was the blackest news that ever he heard in his life,
and "he would sew no more in the house of New Mylns for
the world."
As these adminicles of evidence hardly went
the length
of sustaining a charge of murder, the Lord Advocate proposed
to examine two children, James Thomson, son of "The Devil's
Taylour," and Anna Mark, daughter of Janet Johnstoun, aged
respectively thirteen and ten. In view of their tender years
the Court refused to receive them as witnesses, but allowed
their declarations to be taken "for clearing of the assize."
which came to much the same thing. Their depositions are
very interesting and full of curiously vivid touches, which a
brief summary necessarily pretermits.
The boy Thomson deponed to the following effect:
Philip
and Janet came to his parents' house on the night of the
murder between nine and ten. Drink was sent for, but as
Philip had no small change "the ale was taken on upon trust."
The boy, who had been beaten and sent to bed, heard Janet's
daughter Anna call with a request for her mother to go
home to nurse her child. He heard Philip say, "God damn
[75]
his own soul if he should not make an end of his father, and
then all would be his, and he would be kind to them."Philip
and Janet went out about eleven, and shortly afterwards the
boy's father and mother followed. In about two hours his
mother returned alone and "came softly to bed." His father
came in some time later, and called to him to know if he
were awake, but he feigned to be asleep. The wife asked
the husband, "What had stayed him ?" and he replied, "That
the deed was done; and that Philip Stanfield guarded the
chamber door with a drawn sword and a bendet pistol, and
that he never thought a man would have died so soon; and
that they carried him out .towards the waterside and tyed
a stone about his neck." After some discussion, however,
the murderers had thought it better to throw the body into
the river without the stone, to produce the appearance of
suicide. The boy added that, when his father received from
Philip the coat and waistcoat found upon the body, his mother
"was affrighted, for she thought that some evil spirit was
in it "; and from that time she was afraid to be alone after
nightfall.
The girl, Anna Mark, deponed that on the night
in question
Philip was at her mother's house, and sent her to see if Sir
James had returned from Edinburgh. On learning that he had
done so, Philip and her mother went out about eleven. Her
"good-father" sent her to bring her mother back to nurse her
child, and she found her with Philip at the Thomsons' house.
Her mother, however, did not come home till about two in the
morning, when Anna heard her "good-father" say, "and
where have ye been so long ?" Her mother answered,
"Wherever I have been, the deed is done!" and after that she
heard them speak softly together, "but could not know what
they said." Since that night Janet, like Mrs Thomson, "was
feared, and would not bide alone," a peculiarity also exhibited
by Philip after his father's death.
The testimony of these two children concluded
the evidence
[76]
for the Crown; but Fountainhall states that the prosecution had
certain affidavits from London, not mentioned in the report of
the trial, "being the oaths of the keepers of the prisons where
Philip, the pannel [prisoner], had lain, who deponed that he
often cursed his father for not relieving him and boasted that
if he were out he should dispatch him; and that one Betty
Dolbry, being with child to him [Philip], had followed him
to Scotland and might possibly be on the plot; but this was
not produced to the assize."
No witnesses were adduced for the defence.
Indeed, as
appears from Sir George Mackenzie's address to the jury, the
prisoner's counsel took the unprofessional course of throwing
up their brief before half of the evidence for the prosecution
had been led. The case for the defence, as disclosed upon the
pleadings, was that Sir James had committed suicide "in a
frainzie or melancholy fit," to which he was alleged to be subject.
But even if he were in fact suffering from depression, it is, as
Sir George pointed out, hard to believe that "after he had
strangled himself and broke his own neck, he drown'd himself."
No proof was offered in support of the allegations of his previous
insanity and attempted suicide.
It is very rarely that one finds the addresses
of counsel to
the jury reported in a Scottish criminal trial even of a hundred
years later, but here we have a full and excellent report of
Sir George Mackenzie's speech for the Crown, probably a
unique example of his forensic oratory, at which we can now
only glance. "You will discern," said he, "the finger of God
in all the steps of this probation as evidently as Philip's guilt;
and this extraordinary discovery has been made as well to
convince this wicked age that the world is governed by Divine
Providence, as that he is guilty of this murder." The motive
alleged was Philip's desire to prevent delivery of the disposition
or conveyance of his property made by Sir James in favour of
his younger son, "after which settlement Philip could gain
nothing but the gallows by killing his father." Sir George
[77]
noted in passing the affinity between the two crimes first
libelled: "for to pray confusion to the King, who is pater
patrice, is a cursing of our great parent"; and, dealing with
Philip's former attempts upon his father's life, he described
that "innocent and obliging Gentleman" as flying from his
unnatural offspring like "a trembling Partridge pursued by a
Haulk." The charge of treason was not pressed, but the
learned counsel made the most of his trump card, the miracu-
lous bleeding of the body, whereby "the Divine Mejesty, who
loves to see just things done in a legal way, furnished a full
probation in an extraordinary manner." Therein, said he, "God
Almighty himself was pleased to bear a share of the testimonies
which we produce: that Divine Power which makes the blood
circulate during life, has oftimes in all nations opened a passage
to it after death upon such occasions." And this was specially
remarkable in the present case, where the incision had been
carefully bound up, and the body "designedly shaken up and
down," having been some time buried, "which naturally occa-
sions the blood to congeal"; yet at the murderer's touch the
blood "darted and sprung out, to the great astonishment of
the chirurgeons themselves, who were desired to watch the
event." Then, with regard to the hardly less marvellous discovery
"by the mouths of babes and sucklings," Sir George observed,
"If you had seen this little boy upon his knees begging his
father to confess with so much affection, so much judgment, so
much piety, you had needed no other probation." This refers
to the confronting of the wicked parents with their accusing
children before the Privy Council. The peroration is as
follows: "If, then, such amongst you as are Fathers would
not wish to be murdered by your own children, or such of
you as are Sons would not wish the World to believe that
you are weary of your Fathers, you will all concur to find this
miscreant guilty of a crime that God has taken so much pains
to detect and all mankind has reason to wish to be punished.
May the Almighty God, who formed your hearts, convince
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them; and may this poor Nation cite you as the remarkable
curbers of vice to all succeeding ages."
At the conclusion of Sir George's address,
the Lord Advo-
cate, to "mak sicker," protested for "an Assize of Error against
the Inquest in case they should assoilize the Pannel"; which,
being interpreted, meant that if the jury so far forgot
themselves as to acquit the prisoner they would be fined and
imprisoned for the wilful error of absolving him against clear
evidence! The jury, however, on 8th February, unanimously
returned a verdict of guilty of the first and second, and art and
part of the third charges libelled, and the Court pronounced
sentence of death in the horrible form applicable to his
crimes.
As to the ultimate fate of Janet Johnstoun
and of "The
Devil's Taylour" and his wicked wife, history is silent; but in
Mr. Crockett's robustious pages a brilliant future awaited Janet
as the wife of the Spanish governor of the Isle of San Juan de
Puerto Rico.
"The 15th being come and the gallows and scaffold
ready,"
says Fountainhall, Philip Stanfield "was reprieved for eight
days longer by the Chancellor at the priest's desire. He craved
by a bill that those already tortured for his father's murder
might be re-examined. This he thought would clear him
on their reiterated denial; but the Counsel refused it, lest
it should harden him." The Lord Chancellor was James
Drummond, Earl of Perth, who had adopted the faith of his
sovereign, James the Seventh. Fountainhall adds that Philip
"had tampered with the Popish priests and professed himself
to be of their religion, hoping thereby to get his life "; but
finding this move unsuccessful, he returned to the Presbyterian
fold.
On the 24th the sentence was duly carried
out. At the Cross
of Edinburgh Philip Stanfield was hanged upon a gibbet. The
tongue wherewith he had cursed his "natural and kindly
parent" was cut out and burned upon the scaffold; the right
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hand raised by him against his father's life was cut off and
affixed to the East Port of Haddington, "as nearest to the
place of the murder"; his dead body was hung in chains at the
Gallow Lee, between Edinburgh and Leith; his name, fame,
memory, and honours were ordained to be extinct; his arms
were riven furth and delete out of the book of arms, and all
his goods and gear were forfeited "to our Sovereign Lord, to
remain perpetuallie with his Highness in property."
He maintained to the last his complete innocence
of the
old man's blood, and "imprecated a judgment against himself
if he was in the least guilty or in the foreknowledge of his
father's death." Two incidents in connection with his
execution and the fate of his remains were noted by the
superstitious of the day. At his hanging the knot of the
rope slipped, "whereby his feet and knees were on the
scaffold (this I Robert Mylne, Writer, saw with my own
eyes) which necessitate the hangman to strangle him, bear-
ing therein a near resemblance with his father's death."
Application being made to the Privy Council, probably by
Lady Stanfield, for permission to bury the body, "Duke
Hamilton was for it, but the Chancellor would not consent,
because he had mocked his religion." The recently converted
Lord Chancellor evidently found Philip's taste in toasts offensive.
The body, as we have seen, was hung up in
chains at
the Gallow Lee, among those of other malefactors,
"Waving with the weather while their neck will
hold."
It was, however, secretly taken down a few days after-
wards and thrown into a neighbouring ditch, "among some
water, as his father's corpse was." Once more the body was
hung up by order of the authorities, but it was again mysteri-
ously removed, "and no more heard thereof."
"This," concludes Fountainball, whose account we have
hitherto followed, "is a dark case of divination to be remitted
to the great day, whether he was guilty or innocent. Only
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it is certain he was a bad youth, and may serve as a beakon
to all profligate persons." But without seeking to anticipate
that final finding, we may rest assured that Sir James Stan-
field died by some hand other than his own, and that Philip,
who clearly was capable de tout, was, in Braxfield's classic
phrase, "nane the waur o' a hangin'."
The case of Philip Stanfield attracted the
notice of Sir
Walter Scott, who makes reference to it on several occasions.
The earliest of these is in his private note-book, extracts
from which are given by Lockhart, where, under date 15th
March 1797, he writes: "Read Stanfield's trial, and the con-
viction appears very doubtful indeed. Surely no one could
seriously believe, in 1688, that the body of the murdered bleeds
at the touch of the murderer, and I see little else that directly
touches Philip Stanfield. It was believed at the time that
Lady Stanfield had a hand in the assassination or was at least
privy to her son's plans; but I see nothing inconsistent with
the old gentleman's having committed suicide." In later years,
when Adolphus, who discovered the identity of the author of
Waverley from his works, was visiting him at Abbotsford,
Scott recommended his guest to read the trial, and lent him
his own copy of the original folio for the purpose.
In his notes to " Earl Richard" in the Minstrelsy,
Scott
discusses the superstitious belief in the bleeding of the
murdered corpse, and instances Stanfield's case as the last
and leading example in Scotland. He also refers to the
trial of Muir of Auchindrane, which took place in 1611, where
a conviction was obtained by similar miraculous means, and
of which he himself made a ballad, "Auchindrane, or the
Ayrshire Tragedy," in 1830.
The last case of the kind in England reported
in the State
Trials, and one of the most remarkable instances of touching
as a test for murder, is that arising out of the death of Joan
Norkott in 1628, sixty years before the Stanfield affair. This
woman was found dead in her bed with her throat cut, the
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knife with which the wound had been inflicted sticking in
the floor, in a room within that occupied by her husband's
mother, sister, and brother-in-law. At the inquest these
persons declared that they had slept in the outer room that
night, but heard and saw nothing amiss, and that no one
could have entered the inner room without their knowledge.
The coroner's jury accordingly returned a verdict of felo
de se. In consequence of certain rumours, however, they
afterwards desired that the body should be exhumed, which
was done thirty days after the deatlh, in presence of a curious
crowd, including the three relatives above mentioned and
the husband of the deceased, who had been absent on the
night in question. All four were required to touch the
corpse, "whereupon," in the words of Sergeant Maynard, who
reports the case, "the brow of the dead, which before was
of a livid and carrion colour, begun to have a dew or gentle
sweat arise on it, which increased by degrees till the sweat
ran down in drops on the face. The brow turned to a lively
and fresh colour, and the deceased opened one of her eyes and
shut it again; and this opening the eye was done three several
times. She likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger
three times and pulled it in again, and the finger dropped blood
from it on the grass."
These phenomena were attested by the minister
of the
parish and by his brother, who also was in holy orders.
The former had dipped his finger in the supernatural fluid,
and swore that it was blood.
The coroner's jury withdrew their former
verdict. The four
accused were duly tried at Hertford Assizes for the murder,
and, against the expressed opinion of Judge Harvey, who
tried the case, were acquitted. The miraculous wink was no
better than an ordinary nod to so blind a jury. On appeal,
the case was re-tried at the Bar of the King's Bench before
Sir Nicholas Hyde, the Lord Chief-Justice, when a less
sceptical jury found the husband and his mother and sister
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guilty, but acquitted the brother-in-law. The two former
were executed, but made no confession; the sister, owing to
her condition, was reprieved.
The fact that the victim's neck was broken,
as also was that
of Sir James Stanfield, disposed of the suggestion of suicide;
while apart from the bleeding of the corpse, "according to
God's usual method of discovering murder," to quote Philip's
indictment, the circumstantial evidence, as in his case, pointed
plainly to the prisoners' guilt.
Echoes of the Stanfield case reverberated
in the Parliament
House for some years after the murder. On 22nd December
1693 the children of one James Scott of Bristo "pursued"
Sir James's creditors, who were in possession of his estates,
upon an assignation of his share of the cloth manufactory
granted to Scott by him on the day of his death. The deed,
duly executed, was found lying on the table in Sir James's room,
and directed to Scott, who called for it on the following day.
Presumably it had escaped Philip's notice. The question
being, Was there delivery of the document in a legal sense?
the Lords thought this "a too nice and metaphysical tradi-
tion," and held that the deed was undelivered.
On 9th November 1697 Sir James's creditors
presented
a petition to the Court, stating " that John Stanfield, his son
and apparent heir, was in lecto dying and had the whole
writs of the lands whereof they had raised a summons of
sale, and there was hazard of his wife's putting them out
of the way." The Lords, "this extraordinary case requiring
haste," ordered the title-deeds to be sealed up in the hands
of the clerk of Court.
What became of John we are not told, but from
the
little we know of his habits it is probable that the illness
was his last.
In 1713, on the winding up of the cloth company,
its
property was offered for public sale in various lots, and the
lands of New Mills were purchased by the notorious Colonel
[83]
Francis Charteris of evil memory, who changed the name to
Amisfield, after his family seat in Nithsdale, which they still
retain. Through him the estate passed in succession to the
present owner, the Earl of Wemyss.
The stately mansion of the wicked Colonel
has superseded
Sir James Stanfield's old unhappy home, and the "great
manufactory stone house, together with the walkmylne and
dying house," even the busy village itself, are among the
things that have been. Only the river is unchanged, and still
the eddies circle in the quiet pool where Philip looked
long upon his murdered father, that frosty winter morning
two centuries ago.
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