Feb.
Sir James Stanfield was one of the English manufacturers who had been induced to settle and practise their art at Newmills, in Haddingtonshire, in order that Scotch money should not need to be sent away for English-made goods. This respectable man was afflicted with a profligate eldest son, whom he at length saw fit to disinherit. He had become melancholy, probably in consequence of domestic troubles, and on a certain day in November, he was found drowned in a pool of water near his own house. It was debated whether he had been murdered or had drowned himself; and it was noted that the widow and son contended for the latter view of the case, and accordingly, without further ado, took measures for having the body immediately buried. A suspicion, however, arose that Sir James had met with foul play, and two surgeons were sent by the authorities in Edinburgh, to examine the body and report.
1688.
The corpse was raised from the grave, after it had lain there two days; and the surgeons, having made an incision near the neck, became convinced that death had been induced by strangulation; so that the supposition of suicide was set aside. This inspection took place in the church. After the cut had been sewed up, and the body washed, and put into clean linen, James Row, a merchant of Edinburgh, and Philip Stanfield, eldest son of the deceased, took it up, one on each side, to deposit it in the coffin, when, behold, an effusion of blood was observed to take place on the side sustained by the son, so as to defile his hands. He instantly let the body fall, with the exclamation, ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’ and rushed, horror-struck, into the precentor’s desk, where he lay for some time groaning and in great agitation, utterly refusing to touch the corpse again. This incident was at once accepted in the light of a revelation of the young man’s guilt as his father’s murderer; and he was therefore taken into custody and brought to Edinburgh for trial.
The trial took place on the 7th of February, but brought out little evidence worthy of attention. Nevertheless, on the strength of the bleeding, and of his being known to have cursed his father, the unfortunate young man was found guilty, and sentenced to death, with sundry aggravations of punishment.
By pretending an inclination to turn papist, he got a brief respite, but, on the 24th of the month, was hanged, protesting his innocence to the last, and finally dying Protestant. By reason of a slip of the rope, he came down till his knees rested on the scaffold, and it was necessary to use more direct means of strangulation. Then his tongue was cut out, as a retribution for the cursing of his father, and his hand hacked off and sent to be put up on the east port of Haddington, as a memorial of the murder. The body was hung up in chains, but after a few days was stolen away, and found lying in a ditch among water. It was hung up again, but a second time taken down. Both in the strangulation on the scaffold and the being found in a ditch among water, the superstitious remarked something like a providential notice of the facts of the murder of which he was assumedly guilty.
It will be acknowledged that, in the circumstances related, there is not a particle of valid evidence against the young man. The surgeon’s opinion as to the fact of strangulation is not entitled to much regard; but, granting its solidity, it does not prove the guilt of the accused. The horror of the young man on seeing his father’s blood, might be referred to painful recollections of that profligate conduct which he knew had distressed his parent and brought his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave—especially when we reflect that Stanfield would himself be impressed with the superstitious feelings of the age, and might accept the hæmorrhage as an accusation by heaven on account of the concern his conduct had had in shortening the life of his father. The whole case seems to be a lively illustration of the effect of superstitious feelings in blinding justice.
Mar. 6.