The cellar key was missing. Jane Griffin had carved cold fowl for her children’s supper, yet the key could nowhere be found. As the search proved fruitless, the mistress of the house suspected her maidservant, Elizabeth Osborn, of having seen it or put it out of the way. Words arose between the two women. They had often bickered in the past; on this occasion, a knife left lying close at hand turned angry speech into a mortal stroke.
Jane lived with her husband, who kept the Three Pigeons inn in Smithfield. The ancient narrative describes her as the daughter of honest and reputable parents, carefully bred and instructed in the principles of religion, and well respected in several households prior to her marriage. She managed the tavern with credit: guests frequented the house in great numbers and, the chronicle notes, departed well satisfied. Hers was an active life of industry and constant company about the bar, serving the rooms and dressing victuals. Yet this same portrait also records her vehement temper, which made her liable to sudden transports of passion.
Elizabeth Osborn entered the house as a servant. The mistress and the maid did not agree; disputes continually recurred between them, accompanied at times by bitter language. According to the account, Jane would now and then answer her with violent expressions. After Elizabeth’s death, these harsh words were brought forward at her trial as tokens of malice aforethought. Jealousy was sometimes whispered as the root of their contentions, though the chronicler declares he can affirm nothing on that head.
On that evening, the cellar key was wanting just as the children’s supper was to be laid out. Jane and the household fell to looking for it. Unable to light upon it, the mistress stepped into the room where Elizabeth was and taxed her with having seen the key or conveyed it away. The servant replied with equal warmth, as the chronicle relates. The very knife with which Jane had just been carving the cold fowl lay within reach upon the dresser.
In the heat of the quarrel, Jane snatched up the knife and struck Elizabeth in the chest. The blade dealt a mortal wound. In the paper she afterwards left behind, Jane described the act as sudden, committed upon a sudden provocation and without premeditated malice.
Having struck the blow, Jane went upstairs, never imagining she had killed Elizabeth. The alarm was raised only when the maid fell to the floor. Jane was carried before a magistrate and committed to Newgate. In the first days of her confinement, she appeared to entertain hopes of an acquittal at her trial. She made no confession during this period. Yet as the day of the sessions drew near, the chronicle depicts her as seized with a deeper dread, despite whatever arguments she could urge in her own defence.
The jury found her guilty, and sentence of death was pronounced. Jane did not instantly surrender all hope of escaping the fatal tree, though her terrors had redoubled as the trial approached. She nevertheless set about preparing for her end, desiring the spiritual assistance of her parish minister. He attended her faithfully and joined in her prayers. The chronicle describes a woman praying with ever-growing fervour and anguish, as her impending doom became impossible to keep from her thoughts.
The chronicler represents her as deeply penitent. He relates that she would sometimes sit upon the foul stones of the prison floor, saying in substance that she ought to humble herself in the very dust, and that she would gladly give a hundred hearts, were they hers to bestow, to expiate her offence. The narrative connects this rigorous penitence with the visits of the divine and the arrival of the death warrant, after which all earthly hope of a reprieve was extinguished.
When the dead-warrant arrived, she understood that her life was forfeited without remedy. According to the account, she turned her mind entirely toward religion and the contemplation of a future state. Shortly before her execution, she was granted a final interview with her husband and her young daughter. She exhorted her husband to lead a sober, regular life, to mind his worldly business, and above all to neglect nothing in the breeding of their child. He pledged himself to do so, whereupon the narrative records that she appeared more composed. She again commended his worldly affairs to his care, charging him to remember this her dying counsel, before turning her eyes upon her daughter. The text thus marks two distinct anxieties: the ordering of the domestic household and the lessons the child must carry forward in the world. To the little girl, Jane gave strict admonition never to surrender to anger, even in the most trifling concerns. She charged her to make her mother’s death a warning, and to live with sobriety, meekness, and steadfast obedience to the Christian faith. The lesson she imparted traced the very path she attributed to her own ruin: sharp words over an insignificant matter, a habit of passion, and at last an act beyond recall. The chronicle depicts her weeping bitterly over the child she would never raise. The grief of both husband and daughter was so poignant that the attending ministers, fearing it would too sorely disquiet Jane’s soul, brought the conference to a close and left her alone with her spiritual preparations.
The walls of the prison could not stifle the scandalous reports that clung to her name. It was rumoured in the streets that she had been privy to the murder of one Hanson, slain in the fields near the Farthing-Pie House, and further that she had cohabited with Griffin prior to their nuptials. The chronicle sets down these tales as idle rumours of unknown origin. The chaplain of Newgate, styled the Ordinary in the record, at length acquainted her with them. Jane utterly denied having had any hand in Hanson’s death, affirming that she had never resided near the place nor even heard the common reports touching the matter. She likewise denied the slander cast upon her marriage, declaring that she heartily forgave those who had raised such falsehoods against her.
A written paper which she delivered into the hands of a friend gave final form to her testimony. Therein she confessed the stroke that had slain Elizabeth, yet she insisted with her dying breath that she had never harboured any design upon the young woman’s life. In her relation, the strife began over the missing key; the knife lay ready to hand, and she had caught it up in a sudden, ungovernable heat of blood. She professed the deepest contrition for her crime, placing her hope of mercy in her repentance, her sufferings, and her faith in Christ. She prayed that the ignominy she had brought upon her family might not be visited upon her husband or her tender offspring. She freely forgave all who had wronged her, notably the authors of the malicious rumours, and besought the pardon of any whom she might have offended. She likewise entreated all pious readers to offer up their prayers on her behalf. This document thus united confession, sorrow, forgiveness, and the vindication of her kindred.
On January 29, 1719–20, according to the ancient English calendar, Jane was carried to the place of execution. The chronicle records that in her final hours she was seized with a great agony of spirit, repeatedly asking both the minister and the Ordinary whether there remained any hope of salvation for her soul. She seemed loth to part from them, reiterating her anxious inquiry. The Ordinary exhorted her to submit to this last bitter cup of her sorrow, pointing her to the hope of meeting again in a better world, if such were the divine pleasure. The closing scene thus departed from the untroubled serenity which her penitent demeanour might have promised: the text records alongside her prayers and contrition the natural horror of an approaching and shameful death. She died, aged about forty years, having been condemned for the death of Elizabeth Osborn. In the declaration left with her friend, Jane continued to deny that she had ever struck the blow with malice aforethought.