Archival Asides: Infanticide in Grass-Market

Alright, ladies. Hear ye well.  It is time that we get down on our knees and thank our lucky stars that we were born when and where we were.

 In my text searches for GRASS? (you add the "?" so that you also turn up words like grasses, grassland, etc), I keep coming across entries that tempt me so much.  For example, in the English Short Title Catalogue (pamphlets, mainly) I get hits for Grass-Market, which is a place in Edinburgh where all sorts of people were executed in the 17th and 18th century.  There is a whole series of pamphlets called "The Last Speech and Dying Words of _______________, who was executed in the Grass-market of Edinburgh on ____________, for ___________"  The most famous I've come across so far is Rob Roy Jr's, executed for "Being Art and Part and Guilty of Hamesucken, and Carrying Off the Heiress of Edinbelly in a Violent and Hostile Manner."  Hamesucken is felony trespass with the intent of damaging persons not property.

But then there are the scores of broadsides with the dying words of women (or girls, really) accused of the "most horrid crime" of infanticide.

  For example, Janet Hutchie, "For the Murder of Her Own Child," who wrote:

"I am now going in 30 Years of Age, and declares; I never knew a Man in the World but John Williamson to whom the Child was, alas a married Man, his Wife being my own Commerad while she was unmarried. I intirely free him of the Act of Murder it self,as was alledged; But acknowledges, it was by his Advice and Direction,and he desired me earnestly to do it; and when it was done to put it in some Hole or another, that it might be hid from the Eyes of the World. But Oh! who can hide from the Eye of an All-seeing GOD, to whom all Things are naked and bare.

I likewise further own, I never knew the said Williamson but once in an Morning, when my Brother and Family were at the Coal-pit, but he has frequently attempted it, but never got his Design perpetuate but that Time, by which I was got with Child by him, and when I found my self with Child, I told him, and he gave me several Things to Cause me Mis-carry, but I never took them. I did not Reveal my being with Child to any but to him and one Isobel Guthry, who in a little after died in Child-bed. 

                          

I truly own my Guilt in destoying the Child, but not directly, for it was alive when I was delivered, but for want of Help and my Unnaturality in the Birth it soon died, which if it had not, I was resolved to have strangled it, which makes me equally Guilty in the Sight of GOD, as if I had actually done it, and thereafter tyed it in a Codwair, and keep-ed it three Days in my Chest, into which Codwair I put an big Stone, and threw it in a Mill-dam, where it lay 18 Days before it was found, and knows nothing of its having a Cord about its Neck, as the Witnesses declared, unlels it had been the Knitting of the said Codwnd."

How horrible is that?  He (probably) rapes her, tries to make her miscarry, convinces her to kill and hide the baby, and she's the one that gets hanged and publicly dissected.

Bleak.  And this is just one of many infanticide executions.  

Here's Anne Morrison, age 14, whose baby probably just died in childbirth:

 I went to service in the Multrees hill, in the first of June last, and being with Child by a young Man, whose Name I forbear to mention ; I took all possible Care to conceal it, but being come to my Time, and going a little Way off from my Master's House I unexepectdly took traveling and was there delivered without Assistance,nor did I call for any, altho' I knew there was People within hearing of me. The Child being born, I laid it among the Corn and returned to my Master's House, but soon after, the truth was suspected, and upon Examination, I was found guilty, for which I am to suffer this Day.

And here's poor 19-year-old rape victim Helen Marishal:

I Was Born in the Shire of Stratharn, of very Honest and Creditable Parents, who took great pains for my Education; but I being Regardless of it, neglected my School, and Reading, and the loss of Which Means, has made me ignorant of the Knowledge of GOD and his Ways: So I being Disobedient to my Parents, and would not be in Sub-jection to them, I went away from them and betook my self to Service, where having been in several Services, where I served very faithfully, untill I had the Misfortune to meet with the Young Man who is Father of the Deceast Child for whom I now Suffer ; for now I Confess I never knew no Man in the World but him, and that only once, and that he by sending out my Commerad, and none being in the House with me but himself, he overpow'red me, and I for Concealing my self to be with Child, left that Place, and came to this Place where I stayed till near my Delivery, and it never being perceived, I engaged again in Service in Libertoun, where I really brought forth the said Child, without calling for help, but did not destroy it as it was reported, for I neither had Knife nor no other Instrument.

Some bad shit went down at Grass-Market. And the sad thing is that this kind of stuff still happens today in many places.