Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/124

 Soon after the outbreak of war with the United States of America in 1812, Wilson joined the first battalion of the 1st royals in Canada. He arrived towards the end of the year, and on 29 May 1813 was engaged in the attack under Sir George Prevost on the American depôt at Sacketts' Harbour, and on 19 June on a strong position occupied by the Americans at Great Sodus, where he received a severe bayonet wound. He took part in the expedition against Black Rock on the Niagara River near Erie, which was captured and burned on 11 July. He was at the capture of Fort Niagara on 19 Dec., and distinguished himself in the action near Buffalo on 30 Dec. 1813. He was engaged on the Chippewa under Major-general Phineas Riall on 5 June 1814, and in the desperate victory of the Chippewa or Lundy's Lane on 25 July, when Lieutenant-general Sir Gordon Drummond commanded the British. Riall was taken prisoner, and Wilson, wounded seven times and left for dead on the field of battle, fell into the enemy's hands, and remained a prisoner until after the treaty of Ghent terminated the war in December 1814.

For his distinguished conduct and bravery at Buffalo and Chippewa he received two brevet steps of promotion. He was also awarded the peninsular medal with clasps for Busaco and Fuentes d'Onor. He was for some time aide-de-camp to Major-general Riall at Grenada in the West Indies. He went on the half-pay list on 25 July 1822, and on 16 Nov. following he was appointed adjutant of the Royal Hospital at Chelsea. He was gentleman usher of the privy chamber to Queen Adelaide for nearly twenty years till her death in 1849. He was made a companion of the order of the Bath and a knight of the royal Hanoverian Guelphic order. On 14 July 1855 he was appointed major and commandant of Chelsea Hospital, where he died on 8 May 1868. He married, in 1824, Amelia Elizabeth Bridgman (d. 1864), daughter of Colonel John Houlton.

[Despatches; Army Lists; Christie's War in Canada; Gent. Mag. 1868; Royal Military Cal. 1820; Alison's Hist. of Europe; m'Queen's Campaigns of 1812, 1813, and 1814; Carmichael Smyth's Wars in Canada.] 

WILSON, MARGARET (1667–1685), the ‘martyr of the Solway,’ elder daughter of Gilbert Wilson (d. 1704), a yeoman of Penninghame, Wigtownshire, was born at Glenvernock in that parish in 1667. Though her parents conformed to episcopacy, Margaret and her younger sister Agnes refused to do so. On 18 April 1685 the sisters, together with a much older person, Margaret MacLachlan (aged 63), were tried at Wigtown assize, before the sheriff-depute, David Graham (brother of Claverhouse), and three other judges, upon a charge of rebellion and attendance at field conventicles. All three having refused the abjuration oath, they were sentenced to be tied to stakes fixed within the flood-mark in the water of Bladenoch, where the sea flowed at high water, so that they should be drowned by the incoming tide. The prisoners were confined in the tower of Wigtown church. Agnes, who was but thirteen, was bailed out by her father upon a bond of 100l. (duly exacted upon her non-appearance), but on the other two sentence was carried out on 11 May 1685. Major Windram guarded them to the place of execution, whither they were attended by a throng of spectators; Margaret appears to have taken the lead throughout. ‘The old woman's stake,’ says Wodrow, ‘was a good way in beyond the other, and she was the first despatched …’ but Margaret ‘adhered to her principles with an unshaken steadfastness.’ After the water had swept over her, but before she was dead, another chance of taking the oath was afforded her. ‘Most deliberately she refused and said, “I will not. I am one of Christ's children: let me go.” Upon which she was thrust down again into the water, where she finished her course with joy. She died a virgin-martyr, about eighteen years of age.’ An elaborate effort has been made (NAPIER, Case for the Crown) to show that the sentence was never really executed, but that a recommendation to pardon, made by the lords of the privy council (which appears in the council registers), was carried into effect. Wodrow himself refers to the signature of a letter of reprieve, but there is abundant evidence to prove that the death sentence was carried out in all its barbarity—probably before the notice of remission had time to be conveyed from Edinburgh to Wigtown. A horizontal slab, upon which Margaret's name and seven rude couplets were inscribed, was set up in Wigtown cemetery early in the eighteenth century, and a monumental obelisk was erected on Windy Hill to the memory of the martyrs in 1861. Millais's well-known picture, ‘The Martyr of the Solway’ (1871), was purchased by Agnew for 472 guineas, and was subsequently given by Mr. George Holt to the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (1895). A statue of Margaret Wilson was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1889 by C. B. Birch, A.R.A.

[Wodrow's Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, 1830, iv. 248; Stewart's History vindi- 