made to him. He may well have been encouraged in this tactic by Hare’s readiness to implicate the innocent boy, Broggan, in the murder.
On 1 December, Hare was offered immunity from prosecution if he would disclose the facts about Mrs Docherty’s murder and any other such crimes committed by Burke. Hare needed little persuading to turn King’s Evidence, and he must have sung like a canary, detailing the series of murders and laying all the blame, naturally, on his erstwhile friend. As Hare could not testify against his wife, Margaret Laird was also guaranteed her freedom.
Rae had already written to the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, to inform him that an Irishman was to be tried on two counts of murder only, ‘as we are most anxious to conceal from the public the extent to which such crimes have been carried, and of which fortunately little idea is at present entertained’.
Outrage quickly grew among the population as the gang’s activities were revealed in the newspapers, which printed sensational and inaccurate stories to boost their circulations, and the flames of anger were fanned by popular broadsheets sold in the streets. All missing persons were suddenly assumed to be victims of the murderous partners, and streetwise children went round chanting a new rhyme of monosyllabic words and names:
Up the close and doon the stair,
But and ben 5 wi’ Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
Knox the boy who buys the beef.
Among those who learned of the arrest of Burke and Hare was Janet Brown. She went to the police, told them about the disappearance of her friend Mary Paterson and identified the prisoners in whose company she had last seen her. And a local baker claimed to have seen one of Constantine Burke’s sons wearing a pair of trousers which he, the baker, had given to Daft Jamie.
The Lord Advocate was now confident that a successful case could be brought against Burke for the murders of Mary Paterson, James Wilson and Mrs Docherty, and against Nelly McDougal in the case of Mrs Docherty. Within a few days of Hare’s treachery, Burke and McDougal were committed for trial.
NOTES
1 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine , March 1829.
2 Thomas Ireland (publisher), West Port Murders , (Edinburgh, 1829), pp. 121–22.
3 Edinburgh Evening Courant , 3 November 1828.
4 Ibid, 6 November 1828.
5 ‘But and ben’ – a two-roomed house; also used as an adverb meaning ‘back and forth’.
----
7. TRIAL
----
W ith characteristic Presbyterian indifference to the most important holy day in the Christian calendar, the trial of William Burke and Helen McDougal commenced at ten o’clock on the morning of Christmas Eve, before the High Court of Justiciary in Parliament Square. Burke and McDougal had been brought from the Calton jail the night before to the cells below the court, in the imposing building where the Scottish Parliament had sat until the union with England in 1707, and where the king, George IV, wearing the kilt and the Royal Stuart tartan, had been entertained at a magnificent banquet in 1822. The Parliament Hall was lined with statues and portraits of eminent Scots beneath a heavy hammerbeam roof of Scottish oak, and was divided into two parts by a screen, the High Court occupying one end and the Sheriff’s Court the other.
The huge, loyal crowd which had cheered the king along the New Town’s Princes Street six years earlier now reverted to a vast incensed mob in the Old Town’s Lawnmarket, High Street and Cowgate, clamouring to get into the courtroom. Local police were reinforced by a contingent of 300 drafted in to help preserve the public peace and keep the approaches to the court clear. Troops of cavalry and infantry were on standby in case of disturbances which the police could not contain. By nine o’clock the court was full to overflowing, and the first public act of the Lord Justice-Clerk, the Right Honourable David Boyle, was to order the opening of a window, which
On 1 December, Hare was offered immunity from prosecution if he would disclose the facts about Mrs Docherty’s murder and any other such crimes committed by Burke. Hare needed little persuading to turn King’s Evidence, and he must have sung like a canary, detailing the series of murders and laying all the blame, naturally, on his erstwhile friend. As Hare could not testify against his wife, Margaret Laird was also guaranteed her freedom.
Rae had already written to the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, to inform him that an Irishman was to be tried on two counts of murder only, ‘as we are most anxious to conceal from the public the extent to which such crimes have been carried, and of which fortunately little idea is at present entertained’.
Outrage quickly grew among the population as the gang’s activities were revealed in the newspapers, which printed sensational and inaccurate stories to boost their circulations, and the flames of anger were fanned by popular broadsheets sold in the streets. All missing persons were suddenly assumed to be victims of the murderous partners, and streetwise children went round chanting a new rhyme of monosyllabic words and names:
Up the close and doon the stair,
But and ben 5 wi’ Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
Knox the boy who buys the beef.
Among those who learned of the arrest of Burke and Hare was Janet Brown. She went to the police, told them about the disappearance of her friend Mary Paterson and identified the prisoners in whose company she had last seen her. And a local baker claimed to have seen one of Constantine Burke’s sons wearing a pair of trousers which he, the baker, had given to Daft Jamie.
The Lord Advocate was now confident that a successful case could be brought against Burke for the murders of Mary Paterson, James Wilson and Mrs Docherty, and against Nelly McDougal in the case of Mrs Docherty. Within a few days of Hare’s treachery, Burke and McDougal were committed for trial.
NOTES
1 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine , March 1829.
2 Thomas Ireland (publisher), West Port Murders , (Edinburgh, 1829), pp. 121–22.
3 Edinburgh Evening Courant , 3 November 1828.
4 Ibid, 6 November 1828.
5 ‘But and ben’ – a two-roomed house; also used as an adverb meaning ‘back and forth’.
----
7. TRIAL
----
W ith characteristic Presbyterian indifference to the most important holy day in the Christian calendar, the trial of William Burke and Helen McDougal commenced at ten o’clock on the morning of Christmas Eve, before the High Court of Justiciary in Parliament Square. Burke and McDougal had been brought from the Calton jail the night before to the cells below the court, in the imposing building where the Scottish Parliament had sat until the union with England in 1707, and where the king, George IV, wearing the kilt and the Royal Stuart tartan, had been entertained at a magnificent banquet in 1822. The Parliament Hall was lined with statues and portraits of eminent Scots beneath a heavy hammerbeam roof of Scottish oak, and was divided into two parts by a screen, the High Court occupying one end and the Sheriff’s Court the other.
The huge, loyal crowd which had cheered the king along the New Town’s Princes Street six years earlier now reverted to a vast incensed mob in the Old Town’s Lawnmarket, High Street and Cowgate, clamouring to get into the courtroom. Local police were reinforced by a contingent of 300 drafted in to help preserve the public peace and keep the approaches to the court clear. Troops of cavalry and infantry were on standby in case of disturbances which the police could not contain. By nine o’clock the court was full to overflowing, and the first public act of the Lord Justice-Clerk, the Right Honourable David Boyle, was to order the opening of a window, which
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