Series 5 > Miscellany [of the Scottish History Society] XIII

WITCHCRAFT CASES, 1630-1642
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so convinced that she was saved that he had her buried in the
churchyard, despite the stigma attached to ‘self-murther’.1
Despair was quite all right, as long as it was religious despair which
manifested itself in obvious piety and attendance at prayer groups. Such
despair was not a sign of spiritual disease but on the contrary, a sign of
spiritual health or awakening. Such a struggle was to be expected. John
Forbes of Corse speaking of conversion wrote ‘we come not to this calm
but after a tempest of misery through sin and weightiness therof having
been ‘laden and wearie under the burden ... That man deceiveth
himself, said Forbes, ‘who imagineth victory without a fight.’2
Such despair could lead to salvation even for a criminal who had to
be executed, even for a husband murderer, as in the famous case of
Lady Jean Livingston in 1600. Despite murdering her husband she had
the creme de la creme of Edinburgh’s godly society, including minister
Robert Bruce, joining her in prayer after her remarkable conversion
almost on the eve of her execution. Part of her conversion experience
was that she could ‘perceive nou the working of the spirits ... the on
contrary to the other ... the spirit of the Devil and the spirit of the Lord,
albeit coming into her life at the 11 hour’.3 Her despair over her murder
of her husband and her own imminent execution were replaced by
heavenly raptures with ‘unspeakable joy’. The minister who attended
her was so moved that he wrote down everything he could. She still had
to be executed, but at least she went to her death convinced that she had
a place in heaven. Despair was replaced by rapture, certainty of hell by
certainty of heaven.
How different were the fates of Marion and Anna. Just as Marion
had literally refused to take her medicine, ignoring Dr Jolly’s
prescription, so the real crime of the two women was that spiritually
they had also failed to take their medicine. Instead of despair proving to
be a liminal state for them on the road to conversion and eternal glory,
they testified that they had succumbed to demonic pacts. Thus they had
seemingly failed to choose eternal life and had instead perversely
chosen the ultimate dead-end: Hell. This offence was all the more
horrible because Heaven, in its Calvinist form, was being held out to
1 Ibid., iv, 119.
2 NAS, John Forbes of Corse diary, CH/12/8/6, 58.
3 NLS, Narrative of Lady Jean Livingston, Wod.Oct.XV, f. 15v.