Editing Wigtown (section)

===Wigtown Martyrs===
[[File:Covenanters' Graves - geograph.org.uk - 937570.jpg|thumb|[[Covenanters]]' graves, in the graveyard of St Machutus's Church, Wigtown. The recumbent stone in the foreground is the grave of [[Margaret Wilson (Scottish martyr)|Margaret Willson]], and, behind it, the upright stone on the right is that of "Margrat Lachlane" (Margaret McLaughlin), these being the two women who were executed by drowning (according to tradition, at the location of the present-day Martyrs' Stake). The upright stone on the left is that of the three Covenanter men who were hanged at the same time.]]

Monuments to the [[Wigtown Martyrs]] exist in Wigtown. During "[[The Killing Time]]" of the [[Covenanters]] in the 17th century, Margaret McLachlan, an elderly woman in her 60s, and [[Margaret Wilson (Scottish martyr)|Margaret Willson]], a teenager, were, for refusing to swear an oath declaring James VII of Scotland as head of the church, sentenced to be tied to stakes in the tidal channel of the River Bladnoch near its entrance to [[Wigtown Bay]] to be [[drowning|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, 1st Baronet|Sir Robert Grierson of Lag]] who held the King's Commission to suppress the rebels in the South West. Their story, as told in various sources, tells how the women were betrayed by an informer. After about a month in prison they were tried as rebels and sentenced to death by drowning. The story of the Wigtown Martyrs was among those collected by [[Robert Wodrow]] and published in his ''History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution''.  The [[Church of Scotland]] [[synod]] had decided in 1708 to collect accounts of persecution under the Stuart monarchs, and persuaded Wodrow to take on the research. He wrote that Thomas Wilson "lives now in his father's room, and is ready to attest all I am writing."<ref name=morton>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924029476003#page/n411/mode/2up|title=Galloway and the Covenanters; or, The struggle for religious liberty in the south-west of Scotland|page=409|first=Alex S.|last=Morton|location=Paisley|publisher=Alexander Gardner|year=1914}}</ref>