Margaret Wilson (Scottish martyr)

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A young Scottish Covenanter, from Wigtown, Galloway in Scotland executed by drowning for refusing to swear an oath declaring the King of England as head of the church. She died on May 11, in either 1684 or 1685.

A member of the Free Church, Margaret refused to recognise the established Church of Scotland and swear the abjuration oath to the King. As a consequence she and an older friend, Margaret McLauchlan, were condemned to death by drowning and were chained to stakes on the Solway Firth. Although at the last moment, choking on the salt water, she was allowed to offer a prayer for the King, this was not good enough for her accusers, and she was forcibly thrust beneath the waves. It is said that, as the tide rose, she defiantly quoted from the psalms and the Epistles and sang. After her drowning, witnesses described how her hair floated around her head like a halo in the clear water.

She is the subject of the painting “The Martyr of Solway” by the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, which now hangs in the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Although the painting today shows Margaret wearing an open-neck blouse, when conservators x-rayed the piece, they found that this picture had originally been a nude. Having painted the picture in about 1871, Millais is thought to have added the clothing later to placate delicate Victorian sensibilities.

About 18 at the time oh her death, Margaret Wilson was buried, together with her friend Margaret McLauchlan, in the churchyard of Wigtown.

The Two Margarets