The Matyrs Stake Wigtown

The Matrys stake is easily found at the West end of Wigtown, signposted, a short walk near a car park. The graves of the Matyrs are in the old graveyard of Wigtown Parish Church. link

The Covenanters, (Wiki) staunch presbyterians, were a group of individuals who supported the National Covenant and carried out many activities to prevent the imposition of an episcopal church on the people of Scotland by James Vi, Charles I and Charles II against the will of the Scottish people. Their aim was to continue their worship, often at a house or other place led by their own ministers. They believed that they served God and not the king. And their clandestine gathererings led to persecution.

The Abjuration Oath at the start of 1685 was an attempt to look inside the minds of Charles II’s Scottish subjects to discover “fanatics” who rejected the King’s authority and posed a danger to the state. Failing to swear an oath, was on pain of death and in Galloway would put you infront of the following.

Alexander Gordon viscount of Kenmuir,

Robert Grierson the said laird of Lagg,

David Dunbar of Baldune, [i.e., Baldoon]

Sir Godfrey M’Culloch of Mireton, - see elsewhere on this blog

and Mr David Graham sheriff-depute of Galloway, for the shire of Wigton and stewartry of Kirkcudbright.

link

However in Wigtown one Provost Coltran, proprietor of Drummorrall. was appointed to test  the people of Galloway and chief magistrate at the drowning of the Matyrs on Wigtown sands May 11th 1685, it was commonly said he'd sold his soul to the Devil.

The story reported in Mill's book is that at his death the windows of his house were in a blaze of fire, clearly indicating to the mind that the Devil was getting his own, and that for a long time afterwards a terrifying figure snorting fire from his nostrils walked the earth, for many years the house where he lived was avoided after nightfall.

According to Witchcraft and a superstious record of south-West Scotland link

Lieutenant-General William Drummond, whose brutal, relentless pursuit of Covenanters earned him the nickname "Herod" Drummond . see Scottish Covenanters Memorial Association

The best account that I have found is below

Rev.C.H.Dick’s  entitled Highways and Byways in Galloway and Carrick, which was published in 1916.  In it he wrote:

The Martyr of Solway by Millais (1871) Walker Gallery Liverpool

“….Upon the 11th of May,1685 came the wicked execution of two excellent women, Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson, near Wigtown, in South West Scotland .  Margaret Wilson, eighteen, and her sister, Agnes, not yet thirteen years old, were the daughters of Gilbert Wilson, tenant of Glenvernoch in the parish of Penninghame. They conformed to Episcopacy. Adherents to the Covenants, the girls fell into the hands of the persecutors, and were imprisoned.

Upon their release, they left the district and wandered through Carrick, Galloway, and Nithsdale with their brothers and some other Covenanters. But on the death of King Charles, there was some slackening of the persecution, and the girls returned to Wigtown.

An acquaintance, Patrick Stuart, betrayed them. He proposed drinking the king’s health; this they modestly declined: upon which he went out, informed against them, brought in a party of soldiers, and seized them.   They were thrown in the thieves’ hole, and after they had been there some time, were removed to the prison where Margaret McLauchlan was.

Margaret Maclachlan was a woman of more than ordinary knowledge, discretion, and prudence, and for many years of singular piety and devotion: she would take none of the oaths now pressed upon women as well as men, neither would she desist from the duties she took to be incumbent upon her, hearing presbyterian ministers when providence gave opportunity, and joining with her Christian friends and acquaintances in prayer, and supplying her relations and acquaintances when in straits, though persecuted. It is a jest to suppose her guilty of rising in arms and rebellion, though indeed it was a part of her indictment. She was very roughly dealt with in prison, and was allowed neither fire nor bed although she was sixty-three years of age.

All the three prisoners were indicted “for rebellion, Bothwellbridge, Ayr’s Moss, and being present at twenty field-conventicles”.   None of them had ever been within many miles of Bothwell or Ayr’s Moss. Agnes Wilson could be but eight years of age at Ayr’s Moss, and her sister but about twelve or thirteen; and it was impossible they could have any access to those risings:

When the Abjuration Oath was put to them, they refused it, the assize found them guilty, and the sentence was that “upon the 11th instant, all the three should be tied to stakes fixed within the flood-mark in the water of Blednoch near Wigtown, where the sea flows at high water, there to be drowned”.

Gilbert Wilson secured the liberation of the younger girl under a bond of a hundred pounds sterling. The sentence was executed on Margaret Maclachlan and Margaret Wilson.  The two women were brought from Wigtown, with a numerous crowd of spectators. Major Windram with some soldiers guarded them. The old woman’s stake was a good way in beyond the other, and she was first despatched, in order to terrify the other to a compliance with such oaths and conditions as they required. But in vain, for she adhered to her principles with an unshaken steadfastness.

When the water was overflowing her fellow-martyr, some about Margaret Wilson asked her, what she thought of the other now struggling with the pangs of death. She answered, what do I see but Christ (in one of his members) wrestling there. Think you that we are the sufferers? No, it is Christ in us, for he sends none a warfare upon their own charges.

When Margaret Wilson was at the stake, she sang the 25th Psalm from verse 7th, downward a good way, and read the 8th chapter to the Romans with a great deal of cheerfulness, and then prayed.   While at prayer, the water covered her: but before she was quite dead, they pulled her up, and held her out of the water till she was recovered, and able to speak; and then by Major Windram’s orders, she was asked, if she would pray for the king.

She answered, ‘She wished the salvation of all men, and the damnation of none.’

One deeply affected by her words said, ‘Dear Margaret, say God save the king, say God save the king.’

She answered in the greatest steadiness and composure, ‘God save him, if he will, for it is his salvation I desire.’

Whereupon some of her relations near by, desirous to have her life spared, called out to Major Windram, ‘Sir, she hath said it, she hath said it.’

Whereupon the major came near, and offered her the abjuration, charging her instantly to swear it, otherwise return to the water.

Most deliberately she refused, and said, ‘ I will not, I am one of Christ’s children, let me go.’

Upon which she was thrust down again into the water.

The name of the man by whose information the women were arrested is well known, and his memory execrated still. One of his descendants getting into an altercation was thus taunted: ‘I wadna like to have had a forebear who betrayed the martyrs; I wadna be coomed o’ sic folk’.

-- -- --

Other executions of women at Wigtown included Isobel Alison and Marion Harvie in 1681 link and William Johnston, John Milroy and George Walker in 1685.

Other churchyards such as at Anwoth contain graves to covenanters where John Bell of Whyteside lies 'barborously shot to death'.

Other Covenant Places in the Machars

Begg's Hole near Garlieston link where Begg hid.

Drumjargon Farm, where Margaret McLauchlan had lived. Together with Margaret Wilson,

Garrerie’s Cave appears in the OS name book for Mochrum parish, Wigtownshire:

‘A cave on the shore of Knock tradition says that the Laird of Garrarie used to take refuge here during a period of religious persecution in Scotland hence the name.'

Gordon of Garrarie was a forfeited fugitive in 1680 and 1681 for his part in the Presbyterian Rising of 1679. He was one of the Wigtownshire lairds who reached the Covenanters’ camp near Bothwell Brig a couple of days before the battle. He lived close to the site of the cave named after him.'. Link