At this castle a terrible crime was committed in August 1679. George, the first Lord Forester, had no son, and, to prevent the extinction of the family name, he resigned his honours into Charles II.'s hands, and obtained a fresh patent in favour of his daughter Jean and her husband, James Baillie of Torwoodhead, who accordingly succeeded as second Lord Forester. This nobleman's first wife had died childless, it is said, heart-broken at the neglect and indignities she suffered at his hands. He was a second time a widower,--having married a daughter of the old Cavalier general, Patrick Ruthven, Earl of Forth and Brentford, by whom he had five children, all of whom bore their mother's name of Ruthven,--when popular rumour accused him of carrying on an intrigue with the beautiful Christian Nimmo,[54] the wife of a merchant in Edinburgh. She was a great deal younger than himself, and a niece of his first wife's. This near relationship greatly increased the scandal, which was aggravated by Lord Forester having always professed to be a religious man, and a rigid Presbyterian. Mrs. Nimmo, besides being a very beautiful woman, was of a violent and impulsive nature. She was believed always to carry a sword under her petticoats,[55] and so was not a person to be treated lightly, especially by those who reflected what blood ran in her veins,--a Mrs. Bedford, who had murdered her husband a few years before, being her cousin-german. She was also related to the unhappy Lady Warriston, who suffered death for the same crime in 1600. Lord Forester's passion for her appears to have cooled; and, shutting his eyes to possible consequences, he permitted himself in one of his carouses to speak more than lightly of her. This came to her ears, and, seized with fury, she went at once to his castle at Corstorphine. He was absent when she arrived, drinking at a tavern in the village. She sent for him, and met him in the garden, close to the old dovecot, where a violent altercation took place between them. In the midst of it, she snatched the sword from his side, ran him through the body, and killed him. [54] She was Christian Hamilton, daughter of Grange Hamilton, and maternal grand-daughter of the first Lord Forester. [55] Kirkton's _History of the Church of Scotland_, edited with notes by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, page 184.