Important research for a story I'm writing! Not real life, never real life.
You are transported back in time and into the body of a young noblewoman in the 1400s. Your parents have married you off to an awful, abusive, rapist husband whom literally no one else would marry despite him being very high nobility because he's that terrible. You successfully produce a baby boy and then plan to murder this man for the good of everyone and yourself. Here is the question: do you think you could murder him in a way that is undetectable to the historical people around you? Note: they aren't stupid, you are the prime suspect as the battered wife AND you can't just say poison. Where are you going to buy poison? Do you know anything about poison actually? NO GOOGLING! You were sent back without a plan!
Do you think you could murder someone in the 1400s and get away with it with your modern know-how?
Yes, I totally have a plan (tell me for research purposes)
No, I realize that I'm very uninformed about murder
I have some ideas but I'm not sure they would work
Edit: my notes are full of murder. I love you all
First step: alliances. Who is going to support my power when my husband dies? Who's a threat? Who can reliably slip me information, who will look the other way, who do I need to pretend around? Is the local medical dude stupid and easily led, seduceable, or a good man who already detests my husband?
THEN construct a plan. Ideally, I'll be a day or so travel away when shit goes down. Can I incite a duel with some well placed words to an enemy? Does he have a drinking buddy who might recklessly induce him to fence or ride after too much liquor? I didn't do anything, I wasn't even there when he got that wound.
When I come back to nurse him (if I do) it's with all the modern day knowledge that I won't apply. Not that anyone would listen to me, of course, but I can ask questions, after all I'm just a female? What is happening? Isn't bleeding the patient good? This water from the stagnant pond was blessed by the priest, surely God will favor him if we anoint his wound with it?
I get nowhere near my husband, especially without witnesses. The sick room is no place for a delicate lady, and besides, on no accounts can we risk his heir. I should probably be sent away - for my health, you understand.
Sometimes people die young. Women are widowed early.
It's so tragic.
Two notes:
To clarify about the poison, you can use poison if you actually know how to identify it, I'm saying you can't just go "Poison!" with no knowledge about poison. Buying it probably means they know that poison and you're caught. Your personal knowledge when you read this post is all you have.
Another point of clarity: You went through all that trouble to have a baby without modern medicine so you could get the sweet house after your husband died. That's why you can't be caught. No disappearing.
i love the ideas in the notes, but one thing is really sticking for me: you are the only person that would marry this guy—whether by your own consent or someone else consenting for you—and suddenly, this fucker dies under what could be considered suspicious circumstances, especially if it was sudden. everyone knows you're an abused wife, knows the servants are abused, it's all public knowledge whether anyone talks about it or not. even if he legitimately died without being murdered, gossip might still spread.
but you are still a woman in the 1400s with a great house and likely an excellent fortune. how are you going to keep opportunists from blaming you as an excuse to get their hands on your property, especially in the face of rumours that your husband's death wasn't natural? it wouldn't even be that hard to make what is essentially theft look legitimate, it could still pass to the son, and he will need a trustee or guardian of some sort until he comes of age, and who better than the local lord justice, who also happens to be a greedy shit but basically is the law, so who's going to stop him?
who's going to stop anyone with better claim to their accusations (because again, you are a woman, and possibly not even a noblewoman yourself but by marriage) from depriving you of your property? what's going to stop your son from doing so once he comes of age, in the event that you can't legally inherit?
i think the question is not 'can you make it look good enough to get away with it,' but 'is anyone going to let you get away with it no matter how good you make it look'? i mean, it wouldn't take much, an accusation of witchcraft—sensationalised, of course, but it is hard to refute—and whipping up a very public campaign ending in a death sentence, and...that's it. game over.
or maybe the best question is, in the face of that, are you willing to risk it? it might not actually be the most cut-and-dried question: which eventuality of possible death are you most willing to risk? that at the hands of your monstrous husband, or that at the hands of a conspiracy to wrest property and possibly power away from you at any cost?
These are excellent points!
In this particular work, the husband is the heir apparent, his father is still alive and holding the title. Grandpa loves the little baby grandson and will definitely make him the new heir if his son dies. The husband has such a bad reputation that I really think if the wife kills him with plausible deniability, the gossip will be, "god has struck him down and he deserved it." Then she gets to bask in being in control of the household until her son grows up and then she retires as a dowager when he marries.
But the main point is that the noblewoman is getting genuinely worried that the husband might kill her or her son, so she's got to do something before it gets worse.
ok, not to be a total shit about this—i am the first to admit i love poking potential plot holes as a form of brainstorming, sorry if that's not what you're looking for—but if granddad is still alive and loves grandson (and daughter-in-law?) my immediate first question is, how is son/husband getting away with this in the first place, especially to the extent there's genuine worry he'll kill wife or grandson or both? i am assuming a continental european-esque and/or british-ish medieval setting, so if that's wrong or markedly different, obviously none of my line of thought will apply.
if granddad is alive (and i'm assuming fairly robust), especially if he's titled, there would have to be some pretty good legal reasons why he's unable to help, or i'd have to come to the unfortunate conclusion that he's just as bad as his son. and he could be! he could be just as bad as his son and still love his grandson, that's not necessarily a conflict, but i am a little confused about the setup.
noblewoman daughter-in-law doesn't need to get away with it if granddad is willing to help make it go away—especially if he brings his purse as a bludgeoning tool—and would likewise, as you pointed out, be in the way of some unscrupulous person getting their hands on the estate. i know it will depend on their relative position in the society you're writing, but i'm also fully aware that you definitely have an understanding that a low-ranking nobleman doesn't have the kind of pull that someone higher up in the nobility would.
perhaps it's enough to say that i'm already hooked on the plot lol. and again, sorry if i'm stepping on toes, i don't always have a good awareness about turning off my editor tap.
I posted this on my Jane Austen blog so I'm not surprised everyone thinks I mean Europe, the story is from China, but honestly I was just wanting to know if anyone had ideas to kill historical people with future methods. The character is translated into English as a duke, so very high nobility.
As for why grandpa is alive and son is still awful? It's like a Tom Bertram situation if you've read Mansfield Park, Tom just runs off and does stuff and his dad can't figure out how to stop him (also, it's not like they are breaking into their kid's bedroom when he's alone with his wife). This character is the only son, so he's basically guaranteed to inherit and they keep covering up his actual crimes in some sort of vain hope that he'll stop. Also, if you live in a patriarchal society, there is this fun thing you can do called "blame the wife for making him angry/not fixing him," it works every time!
The feeling I got from the original story is that the grandparents are in this like, cognitive dissonance where they do know their son is The Worst, but they only have one option, and they do love their kid as parents, so they kind of both try to protect the wife but also excuse their son and pretend he isn't as bad as he is. And they probably don't want to admit to themselves that they raised such a terrible person and are enabling his future behaviour by never letting him face consequences.
As for money, I'd bet he's just charging things to his family account and then they don't want to look bad as a family by not paying or telling places that he's grounded. What thin veneer of dignity they still have as a noble house and whatnot.
This character isn't totally fleshed out, but I imagine him to be similar to Arthur Huntington from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall if you've read it. There is a story line where he almost manages to drag friends down with him too.
well, if the story is set in China, then i would just like to bring back up my earlier suggestion about just getting the fucker hooked on opium. Even if it takes awhile to kill him, it'll mellow him right the hell out...
Suggestion: how would we feel about using our modern understanding of germ theory to kill the shitty husband? Like could you take his shaving razor, dip in it an chamber pot of shit wipe off any perceivable traces, and startle his barber next time he’s being shaved so he gets sepsis in a wound on his neck? Or swirl it in his goblet of wine and hope he gets cholera or something?
You could also improperly preserve food (which if you’re unprepared and unknowledgeable just need to avoid any intentional attempts at sterilizing the food), make sure it’s fed just to him, and wait until botulism strikes
There are so many common historical causes of death we don’t even think about these days because most of the world has reliable access to potable water and basic medical treatment
That was my thought! It wouldn't be a traditional murder but arranging for him to get some kind of disease would be easy, and very difficult to blame on me. And as a wife in the kitchen, I'd have lots of opportunities - it's technically poison, but nobody would think that it could have been induced intentionally because they just don't understand germ theory.
Also if you’re a noble lady, you’re not preparing his food at all, so even if they thought the food was bad, it hopefully shouldn’t blow back on you
