his Church, and no more crime
But her not owning Prelacy,
And not abjuring Presbytery.
Within the sea, tied to a stake,
She suffered for Christ Jesus' sake."

The stone on which these lines were inscribed covered, according to the
same authority, "the body of Margaret Wilson, who was drowned in the
water of the Blednock upon the 11th of May, 1684 [5], by the Laird of
Lagg."

[52] In Colonel Fergusson's most entertaining chapter of family history,
"The Laird of Lagg," he mentions an old lady, still alive in 1834, who
remembered her grandfather's account of the execution, which he declared
he had himself witnessed: "There were cluds o' folk on the sands that
day in clusters here and there, praying for the women as they were put
down."

[53] Charles Kingsley, for example, wrote in "Alton Locke" of "the
Scottish Saint Margaret whom Claverhouse and his men bound to a stake."

[54] Wodrow, iv. 244.

[55] Claverhouse to Queensberry, May 3rd, 1685. Napier, i. 141; and iii.
457.

[56] "John Inglis, captain of a troop of dragoons, lying in garrison at
Newmills, in the West, a house belonging to the Earl of Loudon, having
taken some of these fanatics prisoners, and though he had power to
execute them, yet keeping them alive, some of their desperate comrades
breaks in upon the garrison and rescues them, to their great shame; for
which Inglis was degraded, and his place was given to Mr. George
Winrahame, a bigot Papist." Fountainhall, quoted by Napier, iii. 457.
This Winrahame may be the Winram who had to do with the Wigtown Martyrs.
According to "The Cloud of Witnesses,"

"The actors of this cruel crime
Was Lagg, Strachan, Winram, and Grahame."

A letter more or less in a name was of no account in the cacography of
those times.

[57] "The new reign was not to remain long undisturbed; before the end
of April there was the apprehension of a great civil war, and in May the
news came that it had begun both in England and Scotland." These are
Burton's words (vii. 258), and no one can accuse Burton of undue
partiality to James or his government. See also Aytoun's Appendix to his
"Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," which, however, was written before the
publication of Napier's book had proved Claverhouse's responsibility for
the death of John Brown.

[58] Wodrow, iv. 148-9. He prints the declaration in full from a copy in
Renwick's own handwriting. The following extracts will give some idea of
it: "W