Janet Beaton

Janet Beaton, Lady of Branxholme and Buccleugh (1519–1569) was an aristocratic Scottish woman and a mistress of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. She had a total of five husbands. One of her nieces was Mary Beaton, one of the four ladies-in-waiting of Mary, Queen of Scots, known in history as the four Marys. In her lifetime, she was accused of having been a witch. Janet was immortalised as Sir Walter Scott's Wizard Lady of Branxholm in his celebrated narrative poem "Lay of the Last Minstrel". Family Janet was born in 1519, one of the eleven children of Sir John Beaton, 2nd Laird of Creich and Janet Hay, daughter of John Hay, provost of Dundee by his wife Elizabeth Crichton. Her father was the hereditary keeper of Falkland Palace. Her brother was Robert Beaton, 4th Laird of Creich, and her sister, Elizabeth Beaton was a mistress of King James V of Scotland, by whom she had an illegitimate daughter, Jean Stewart. Her niece was Mary Beaton, one of the celebrated ladies-in-waiting of Mary, Queen of Scots, known as "the four Marys". Janet was also related to Cardinal David Beaton and Mary's ambassador to France, James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow. Marriages and children Janet married her first husband, Sir James Crichton of Cranston Riddell in 1538 when she was nineteen years of age. In 1540, a year after Sir James's death, she married Sir Simon Preston of Craigmillar Castle; they were divorced in 1543 on grounds of consanguinity and her own admitted adultery with her future third husband. Sometime before June 1544 Janet married, as his third wife, Sir Walter Scott of Branxholme and Buccleuch, Chief of the Clan Scott (1495- 4 October 1552), by whom she had five children: Walter Scott David Scott Grisel Scott (born 1552), married firstly, William Borthwick, 6th Lord Borthwick (d. 1599), by whom she had five sons; she married secondly, Walter Cairncross. Janet Scott, married in 1565 firstly John Cranstoun of Cranstoun, by whom she had issue; she married secondly, Robert Scott of Haining. Margaret Scott, said to have married Robert Scott of Thirlestane, by whom she had issue. In 1550, Janet's husband Walter Scott was appointed Warden of the Middle March and the following year, Warden and Justiciar of Liddesdale. On 4 October 1552 he was killed in a skirmish in Edinburgh's High Street with members of his clan's rivals, the Clan Kerr who ran him through with swords.