But in those days there was bound to be yet another factor
brought into the tale. Witches were held responsible for many a crime in
Scotland in the seventeenth century, and of course Lord Stair's "auld
witch wife" was adjudged guilty of the whole tragedy. In a sense,
doubtless, so she was, but the description given by the credulous of
how, on her marriage night, Janet Dalrymple was "harled" through the
house by evil spirits in such a way as to cause her death shortly
afterwards, is slightly at variance with the actual facts. Yet others
there were who said that she who had sworn solemnly by all that was holy
to keep her plighted troth with Andrew Rutherfurd, had obviously handed
herself over, body and soul, to Satan when the troth was broken, and
that he who would have slain David Dunbar was the Evil One himself.
"He threw the bridegroom from the nuptial bed,
Into the chimney did so his rival maul,
His bruised bones ne'er were cured but by the fall."
The "fall" referred to by this scurrilous lampoon, written by Sir
William Hamilton, a bitter enemy of Lord Stair, was the accident by
which Dunbar of Baldoon met his death. While riding from Leith to
Holyrood on March 27, 1682, his horse fell with him. His injuries proved
fatal, and he died next day, and was buried in Holyrood Chapel.
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