One grey day we arrived at the Martyrs’ Stake in Wigtown. A stillness came upon us as we stood on the wooden boards next to the stone pillar. Well over 300 years have passed since the local people witnessed the deaths of two brave women at this spot. Today, it is surrounded by a bog, but then it was sandy, where the Blednoch runs into the sea. The two women, Margaret McLachlan of Kirkkinner, a widow aged 63, and Margaret Wilson of Glenvernock, a young woman of 18, had been sentenced to death for high treason against King James VII. On 11 May 1685, the two women were ‘tied to the palisades and fixed in the sand within the flood mark, at the mouth of the Blednoch stream, and there to stand till the flood flowed over them and drowned [them].’
Gilbert Wilson, a wealthy farmer, had three children who stood for the Covenants. In 1685, Thomas was 16 years old, Margaret 18, and Agnes 13. In the dark times of persecution, they had fled home and had survived in the caves and dens of the earth, choosing to suffer for their beliefs, rather than to compromise. Their distraught father had been forced by the local council to house and feed up to a hundred soldiers at a time, leaving his family poverty-stricken. When his children were tricked and caught, they were flung into the Thieves Hole where they languished whilst the king’s men decided their fate. Thomas caved in under pressure, and Agnes, being only a child, was released on bail, her father being crippled with a costly fine. Another Covenanter woman arrested was Margaret Maxwell, aged 21, who was the household servant of a local nobleman. She was publicly flogged for three days as a punishment, but the townsfolk refused to turn up to see this injustice.
Although the Privy Council of Edinburgh granted a reprieve to Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson, following petitions for mercy, the local Wigtown council ignored this and pressed on with murdering the two women. They had been falsely accused of attending the battles of Bothwell Brig in 1679 and Airdsmoss in 1680, but they had been at 20 illegal field gatherings and another 20 house gatherings to hear the Bible preaching. When it boiled down to it, they had both refused to take the king’s Oath of Abjuration, submitting to him being the Head of the Church and State. Scottish Parliament had also passed an Act on 8 May 1685, against ‘the fanatical party’ who ‘still keep their house and field conventicles [gatherings], which are nurseries and rendezvouses of rebellion’. The Act continues: ‘Therefore, His Majesty, with consent of Parliament, ordains that all such persons who shall hereafter preach at such house or field conventicles, also those who shall be present as hearers, shall be punished by death and confiscation of their goods.’
Thus, the two Margarets were caught in the mesh designed to separate the faithful Covenanters from the rest of the Presbyterians who had compromised. The soldiers hoped that by staking the older Margaret first on the beach, the younger Margaret would see her suffering and compromise, as she saw her mentor drowning in the incoming tide. Instead, she was strengthened, and called out, ‘I see Christ wrestling there’. After the death of her friend, the crowd called out to the younger Margaret to just say ‘God save the King!’, meaning that she should submit to his absolute rule. ‘God save him, if He will,’ she replied, ‘for it is his salvation I desire.’ After this she read Romans chapter 8, sang some of Psalm 25, then perished in the sea.
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).
Image from 1714, taken from Thomson, John Henderson (1871): A cloud of witnesses, for the royal prerogatives of Jesus Christ : being the last speeches and testimonies of those who have suffered for the truth in Scotland, since the year 1680. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier. pp. 435–442.