The Best of The Review: Favorite Posts From the First Half Year (Volume I)

The Women of the Lost  Colony~Jenny Barden

Chosen for the enduring mystery of the lost Roanoke settlement, this blog indeed calls up the tragedy and ongoing interest in what became of these people. With its photos of reconstructed elements and scattered clues, it is almost as if we are wading through the scene of the women's disappearance ourselves. Haunting, it captivates us.

*********

Amongst the ‘Lost Colonists’ who attempted to found the first permanent English settlement in America were at least seventeen women. What would life have been like for these women, some of them pregnant, at least one of them with a baby at the breast, who left everything familiar in England to begin life afresh in a strange raw land? They would have faced the threat of native hostility, witnessed the aftermath of a horrific murder soon after arrival, and untold hardship at a time of famine. We’ll never know for certain what happened to them. The Colony’s Governor left to summon help barely six weeks after the Colonists were set down on Roanoke Island in the ‘new found land’ of Virginia in the summer of 1587. When he returned, three years later, all the Colonists had disappeared leaving only a few enigmatic clues as to where they might have gone.  

The reconstruction ‘Elizabeth’ at Roanoke. The ship that brought the Lost Colonists from England would have looked much the same

We know the names of the women from a list drawn up by the Governor, John White, which was given to Richard Hakluyt and later included in his account of the enterprise. From the evidence of surnames shared with some of the male Colonists, we can deduce that eleven of the women were married and two travelled with children. Two of the very bravest women embarked on the voyage in an advanced state of pregnancy to be later delivered of their babies in the New World. One of these was the Governor’s daughter, Eleanor (recorded as ‘Elyoner’), who gave birth to a girl, Virginia Dare, the first child of English parents to be born on American soil. At a time when childbirth was likely to be difficult, dangerous and painful for any woman, this must have taken courage indeed. Eleanor Dare chanced everything to accompany her husband and father in their quest to establish the City of Raleigh in the New World and make a home there. She probably marvelled at first at the land’s wild beauty, but she must have been terrified by the brutal death of one of the Governor’s Assistants, George Howe, only a few days after reaching Roanoke. His end came as he was out wading, looking for crabs, no doubt enjoying the feel of mud and sand between his toes, alone, defenceless and unsuspecting. Howe’s body was found shot through with arrows and his head smashed to a pulp. He left a young orphaned son. What must that boy have felt? The women surely would have comforted him with rising fear in their hearts.

                        This is how Roanoke would have appeared to the Lost Colonists on first arrival

Click to continue reading...

A Newfound Land by Anna Belfrage~

This intriguing review indeed prods readers to discover The Graham Saga for themselves. Like many others who have told us they read the novel as a stand alone but were so drawn to the story they had to read all the others in the series, we are pretty confident you, too, will want to catch up with the Grahams. 

*********

A Newfound Land is Anna’s fourth book in the time-slip series of The Graham Saga. The story continues, and although is complete in itself, Anna weaves the salient points from the other three books seamlessly into this one so that the reader is kept fully up to date of past events. Having said this, I was so involved with the story that when I had finished I just had to buy the other three books just to flesh out those episodes alluded to in the fourth book.

First of all I would like to say that I like the cover to A Newfound Land. The font looks as though it has been written with a quill pen or a dip-pen, and the background picture shows arrows, feathers, and to the top a shadow of a map of what I suspect to be of ‘the new country’ all in sepia tones as if aged. Book covers matter and should be relevant to the book, and this one is perfect, as with all Anna’s covers.

The story starts with the Grahams in the ‘new country,’ having left Scotland because of religious persecution. Matthew is devastated at having to leave Hillview in Ayrshire, the family homestead for generations. Their new home, after nearly four years, is still incomplete, a work in progress. Their nearest neighbour is ‘well over an hour’s ride away.’ The Grahams have been here since 1668 cutting down virgin forest to build a home and make ‘several sizeable fields and pastures, a respectable kitchen garden…’ Anna has a special way of describing the surroundings for the Grahams so that the reader can be placed right beside them. So much so that you feel almost like you are eavesdropping on their private lives in the telling of the story. 

I like the way that Anna has Alex using her 21^st century language with Matthew; for example from the very beginning there is the use of the word ‘okay’ which eventually the family uses as common parlance. At one point in the story Alex says, ‘I feel like a teenager…’ and it is only then that you realise that it is an alien expression for that era. When I realised this I had to look it up and found that the word was not really in existence or use until the early 1940s as sited in The Popular Science Monthly in the United States. 

1941 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 223/2, I never knew teen-agers could be so serious. (Taken from the Internet). 

It’s this kind of detail that makes Anna Belfrage’s novels work so well. Time-slip is a fanciful thing, but her book challenges your thinking on this and makes it totally believable. She makes the reader aware of the uncertainties, the traumas, the loneliness that comes with populating a ‘New World’. For all that, you find yourself admiring the tenacity of the Grahams to carve out a home and a life for themselves and their children. I also like the way that Alex’s free modern day thinking is challenged by Matthew, as it is only he who can name each child that they have. It is he who is in charge of their spiritual life. 

Matthew has a clergyman temporarily staying in their home to teach their children the Bible and general education. Alex is put out by this, especially when the clergyman, Richard Campbell, belittles her in front of her husband and children after she tells Campbell that he is wrong. He then tells the children, ‘Your mother has no idea what she’s talking about; she’s a woman.’ And, ‘Man is set to rule over woman on account of his intellect and spiritual strength. Women are more prone to be taken over by the devil, seeing as they’re weaker souls.’ This causes a rift between Alex and Matthew as he doesn’t defend her. We feel her betrayal as Matthew refuses to back her up in front of their children. Will they ever heal their rift?

Click  to continue reading...

The Wigtown Martyrs

Scotland has a long and troubled history of religious oppression whether it be Catholics punishing Protestants, Protestants punishing Catholics or Protestants punishing other Protestants! Always it boils down to what is seen as the correct way to honour and worship God. One of the cruellest times which saw some of the worst excesses of violence has gone down in history as the Killing Times.

Field conventicle

The Covenanters, with their belief that no single person on earth could be head of the church for that honour belonged to God himself had put themselves at odds with the restored monarchy of James VII. From 1660 Presbyterianism had been outlawed and only Episcopalian worship permitted. Ministers who refused to follow these restrictions were expelled from their churches and with no other option available the Presbyterian congregations were forced to worship in the fields and hills in open air conventicles where the very act of worship itself was seen as treason against the Crown. Worshippers could be killed without trial if caught in the act of praying.

Increasing military actions had gradually curtailed the large field conventicles and the faithful were forced to find other means to worship. They faithful now were forced to hold small gatherings held indoors, but the Crown and government still sought to punish the Presbyterian congregations. Failure to take a test of allegiance to the king, which required renouncing the Covenant, met with the death penalty, as did even attending a  conventicle or harbouring Covenanters.

From these dark days comes the sad tale of the Wigtown Martyrs. Margaret Wilson and Margaret McLachlan. In 1685 Margaret Wilson was the eighteen-year-old daughter of Gilbert Wilson, a prosperous farmer at Glenvernoch. Gilbert and his wife conformed, and attended Episcopalian services in the parish church. 

Their children, though, refused. Margaret and her sister Agnes then aged thirteen, and younger brother Thomas, knowing they were being watched, were living in the hills, attending conventicles and sheltering in the homes of Presbyterian sympathisers. Gilbert Wilson was held responsible for his children’s non-attendance, was heavily fined by the Courts, and had soldiers billeted upon him, who stole livestock and possessions from him. With the death of Charles II in February 1685, there was hope for a lull in persecution. The young Wilson girls came down from the hills and may have sheltered at the home of Margaret McLachlan, a 63-year-old widow who lived at Drumjargan in Kirkinner Parish. A local man betrayed them when they came into Wigtown, and the two girls were taken prisoner. At the same time, Margaret McLachlan was seized while at prayer in her own home, and held in custody with them. The women were required to take the Oath of Abjuration which had earlier been administered to everyone in the County over the age of 13 years. When they refused to do so they were put on trial before a panel of five commissioners, Grierson of Lagg, Sheriff David Graham, Major Windram, Captain Strachan and Provost Coltrane of Wigtown, who were described as “five of the most vicious scoundrels in Scotland.”

The two sisters and elderly woman were accused of attending illegal conventicles in private houses and in the hills and attending the battles of Bothwell Brig (1679) and Airds Moss (1680). It is highly unlikely the latter charges were true. The sisters were then but children and McLachlan would be unlikely to have borne arms against armed soldiers in open battle. 

No one was surprised when all three were however found guilty and on the 13th of April 1865 and were sentenced to death by drowning. They were to be chained to posts set in the Solway Firth and there left to be covered by the incoming tide.

The girls' father took himself at all speed to Edinburgh begging pardon from the Privy Council of Scotland. Probably much to his surprise his younger daughter was pardoned at the cost of £100, an enormous sum at the time, for a bond of continued good behaviour. A petition which claimed McLachlan had recanted was also produced and after some deliberation reprieves were issued for both women dated 30th April. 

"The Lords of his Majesties Privy Council doe hereby reprive 

the execution of the sentance of death pronunced by the Justices 

against Margret Wilson and Margret Lauchlison until the ..... day of ..... 

and discharges the magistrats of Edinburgh for putting of the 

said sentence to execution against them untill the forsaid day; 

and recomends the saids Margret Wilson and Margret Lauchlison 

to the "Lords Secretaries of State" to interpose with his most 

sacred Majestie for his royall remission to them." 

Eleven days after the reprieve had been signed the commissioners chose to ignore it. They felt secure that 'over-zealousness' would not be seen as a crime by the merciless James VII. On the 11th of May 1685 the two women were taken from their cell and dragged down to the shoreline where stakes had been hammered into the wet sand. Here they were chained and abandoned to their fate.

Margaret Wilson

As the tide rose Margaret Wilson was forced to watch the older woman whose stake had been set further out drown before her eyes. Still she refused to take the oath accepting the king as head of the church and sang from Psalm 25 “To Thee I lift my soul, O Lord; I trust in Thee, my God; let me not be ashamed, nor foes triumph over me.” She also recited from the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 8, most poignantly verses 35-37: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, for Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” 

Finally her captors thrust her head below the waves in anger at her faithfulness to the Reformed Kirk and to God. She died aged only 18.

A popular legend claims that the man who held her head into the water laughed as he said “take another drink o't my hearty!” Ever afterwards he himself suffered from an unquenchable thirst that drove him to drink from every puddle and ditch he passed until even his friends abandoned him.

Memorial showing Margraret reading her Bible to her younger sister
under the weeping gaze of her guardian angel

A memorial to the martyrs stands in the town churchyard and another upon Windy Hill.

Facebook users may also comment here.

For book give-aways and more general chat please visit us at our Facebook page. 

Stuart Laing is the author of The Robert Young of Newbiggin Mysteries.

 His blog can be followed at 

stuartslaing.wordpress.com