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Jean Gardner or later Jean Hill, was ''"a young woman of very surpassing beauty"'',〔 with a ''"light foot and an ensnaring eye"'',〔(Elspeth Buchanan ) Retrieved : 7 November 2012〕 but she may have been thirteen years older〔 than Robert Burns with whom she was on friendly or 'intimate' terms. A strong local tradition in Irvine〔 links her with Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), however no contemporary written evidence records this relationship〔Mackay, Page 107〕 and Burns himself is not thought to have written about her, other than a disputed use of her given name as the 'darling Jean' of Burns's 'Epistle to Davie', and most recent writers have considered the reference to be to Jean Armour.〔 ==Life and character== Jean may have been the daughter of James Gardiner (d.1768), a butcher living at the Seagate〔Strawhorn, Page 103〕 in Irvine, and Janet Caldwell. James owned three houses in the Seagate and a park called Spenshill. Jean was baptised on 14 September 1746.〔Mackay, Page 699〕 When James Gardiner died in 1768 his eldest daughter inherited half of his property; already a widow according to Strawhorn, her dead husband, a shipmaster, being one Alexander Armour. This would confusingly make her married name 'Jean Armour.'〔Strawhorn, Page 104〕 It was in Jean's family house in Seagate (probably in the second house on the right from Highstreet)〔Boyle, Page 60〕 that the preacher Hugh White was supposed to have lodged.〔 Revd. Hugh White or Whyte was the minister of the Relief Congregation which had seceded from the established church and it was after he preached a sermon at Glasgow that one Elspeth Buchan or Elspat Buchan (1738–1791) followed him back to Irvine where she went on to form the fanatical Buchanites. The Revd White and his wife supported her and he was suspended from his church as a result.〔Mackay, Page 108〕 Jean Gardner joined the Buchanites, who numbering only around forty-six at this time, where expelled from Irvine in May 1784 after the sect had seceded from the Relief Church. She followed eventually joined them in the barn at New Cample in Dumfrieshire where the Buchanites had temporarily settled after 'Mother Buchan' sent Andrew Inness back to collect her. It has been speculated that she was unwilling to leave because of her attachment to Burns.〔(Life of Andrew Inness ) Retrieved : 7 November 2012〕 At New Cample Jean met and later married George Hill, another member of the group, after the sect broke up. The couple emigrated with to America where she is said to have died from a fever at Philadelphia in around 1793.〔 It is also recorded that her sister Kate and the rest of her family joined the Buchanites and that Kate or Katie had a child by Andrew Inness whom she was not allowed to marry as this was against the laws of the sect.〔 Kate remained with Andrew in a belated celibate friendship until she died and he became the last member of the sect.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jean Gardner」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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