Tour Scotland short 4K travel video clip, with Scottish music, of martyrs gravestones on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit and trip to the graveyard in Wigtown, Dumfries and Galloway, Britain, United Kingdom. During The Killing Times of the Covenanters in the 17th century, Margaret McLachlan, an elderly woman in her 60s, and Margaret Willson, a teenager, were sentenced to be tied to stakes in the tidal channel of the River Bladnoch near its entrance to Wigtown Bay to be drowned by the incoming tide. The execution date was 11 May 1685. The ploy was that the younger woman might be persuaded to change her mind after watching the older woman drown. The strategy failed and both died. This execution was carried out by dragoons under the command of Major Windram in the presence of Sir Robert Grierson of Lag who held the King's Commission to suppress the rebels in the South West. Two Marys were drowned in the Solway tide. Three men were executed in 1685 on the orders of Major Windram. The gravestone to Margaret Wilson is inscribed thus:
Here lyes Margaret Wilson doughter to Gilbert Wilson
in Glenvernoch who was dround annno 1685 aged 18
Let earth and stone still witness beare
their lyes a virgine martyre here
murther’d for ouning christ supreame
head of His church and no more crime
but not abjuring presbytry
and her not owning prelacy
they her condem’d by unjust law
of heaven nor hell they stood no aw.
Within the sea ty’d to a stake
the actors of this cruel crime
was Lagg, Strachan, Winram, and Grahame
neither young yeares nor yet old age
could stop the fury of there rage.
Beside it is the gravestone of Margaret Lachlan, inscribed with these words:
Here lyes William Johnston John Milroy
George Walker who was without
sentence of law hanged by Major Wynram
for their adherence to Scotland’s Reformation
Covenants National and Solemn Leagwe 1685
The Covenanters honoured only Christ as head of their church and they refused to submit to the introduction of Episcopalian bishops or the use of liturgy in their services. Locally billeted government troops pursued these rebels as they met illegally on the moors and/in the hills for worship. In Scotland's Presbyterian kirk, Jesus Christ alone is acknowledged as the head of the church. The claim by the Stuart monarchs to the Divine Right of Kings and their attempt to impose Episcopacy on Scotland had been strongly resisted by the people from 1638. In that year many had signed the National Covenant as an act of defiance which continued through the Killing Times of escalating punishment and persecutions, from fines and banishment to torture and executions, during the Fifty Years Struggle' that ended in 1688. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. Find things to see and do in Scotland where you are always welcome
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs
No comments:
Post a Comment