Talk:Margaret Wilson (Scottish martyr)

Paragraphs lacking citations
The recent reorganisation of the article has split paragraphs so that they no longer have inline citation links: see WP:CITE for requirements to meet verification policy. Could those doing the splitting please add "ref name" templates to the end of the paragraphs showing the references they are based on, otherwise it may be necessary to revert to a fully cited version of the article. . dave souza, talk 07:15, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Added section
The following section has been added to the arts and literature section:

The Kirk Sessions of Penningham and Kirkinner parishes in the course of their investigations recorded quite different versions of the events, a fact that led Mark Napier to seriously question the accuracy of these stories that displayed such glaring discrepancies. Regarding the quality as evidence of these witness statements, Napier notes that the accounts are not actual witness statements but very general attestations summarised second hand within the sessions minutes, and regarding the existence of any possible personal statements regarding the events, "not a vestige of any such thing is to be found in the minutes".

Firstly if we are to take Napier seriously, this should be in the discussion of the event itself. Secondly, Napier's is a book from 1870. It does not meet WP:RS requirements, though it may be notable as evidence of historical controversy. It's not useful as a sort-of defence of Tey, whose ridiculously over-rated book gets virtually every historical subject it touches on completely wrong. What she says is wrong quite irrespective of the facts of the case. If you can find modern sources that take Napier's argument seriously, then we should have a section on the dispute about the historicity of events - if there is one.

Napier's book, by the way, is called "History Rescued", not "History Vindicated", which is the title of the book he is replying to. It can be accessed at Internet Archive. Paul B (talk) 10:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Paul Barlow's edit regarding the added section
Paul, I'm curious as to your concerns in restoring your earlier version of this article, which inaccurately describes the the Kirk Sessions of Penningham and Kirkinner parishes as offering "witness statements" when they are in fact summaries of hearsay that were recorded and reworked into a narrative at these Sessions. I've viewed the original manuscripts in the course of my research and Mark Napier's assessment, (in, yes, "History Rescued", sorry, I would have corrected this title when I noticed it if you had not erased the material) is a genuine and sustainable critique. The two Session manuscripts present accounts that are seriously contradictory and do not contain actual witness statements as a modern historian would understand the term. The Wodrow material that seems to be cited as firm evidence in version you have restored is quite properly forensically demolished by Napier in the work I cited. And yes, Josephine Tay is not a respected historian, but Mark Napier is, and is cited in every serious historical work dealing with the Glorious Revolution in Scotland! Have you actually read either Napier or Wodrow yourself? For, if Napier, who, as a solicitor, argues his historical case presenting full quotations of Wodrow's work and the other earlier sources for the story, is to be considered as unable to meet WP:RS requirements, then Wodrow's exceedingly one sided propaganda work is utterly unsustainable as a serious source. On the "reliability" issue, if you check the Wikipedia quidelines they state that sources themselves "do not need to maintain a neutral point of view. Indeed, many reliable sources are not neutral." Napier is clearly not neutral, I agree, but his assessment of the Kirk Sessions of Penningham and Kirkinner parishes clearly is accurate. In this Napier, employing his legal training, offers a reliable source that differs radically from the work of Wodrow who was recognised even in his own age as a political propagandist.

I am concerned that your edit is intended to restore a grossly inaccurate and unsustainable version of an historical story developed extensively in the nineteenth century, but which has undergone a radical re-apprasial in historical circles in recent years. I had hoped to fold in current scholarship into the article over the next few days before you started what appears to be an edit war that I'm unwilling to engage in.

I am seriously concerned that your aggressive removal of my developing thread of new information, which was aimed at increasing the accuracy of the article, and your revertion to your earlier uncritical acceptance of Wodrow's version of events is profoundly detrimental to the purpose of Wikipedia, which, as I understand it, is intended to permit a number of contributors to engage in developing a full, broad and objective a presentation of a theme rather than to permit one contributor to insist on his own definitive contribution and to perpetuate sentimental myths which seriously distort the issues. Rathlain (talk) 11:48, 19 October 2013 (UTC).


 * Yes, I have looked at Napier's book (I haven't read all of the endless repetitive pages of sneering, taunting, self-satisfied rhetoric, which is anything but "forensic" IMO). Of course I haven't read all the endless pages of Wodrow either, but I have read the relevant passages. Wodrow is not being used as a scholarly source, but as the historical source of the story itself. However, I'm more than willing to admit that this article needs better sources. It's overly reliant on primary material, and it could do with recent scholarly literature.


 * It is not "edit warring" to revert an edit and open the matter for discussion on the talk page. That is proper practice, but if you want to get outside input you can do so at Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring or even Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents if you think it is a conduct issue. Your own personal research, unless it is is properly published, does not, If afraid, "count" here. See WP:V and WP:RS. But published sources by scholars do. I make it perfectly clear in my comments on the talk page that a section on the debate about historicity would be entirely desirable if it can be sourced. There is no urgency. I have my doubts that this is a question of "recent" developments in scholarship, since Napier is a century and a half old. Paul B (talk) 17:47, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, Paul. After your first testy slash out of my own tentative work, I believed your cuts to be "edit warring" to affirm your own version proprietorialy, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt as intending a sincere, if rather aggressive, response. The real test of this will come when I add a new section at some point in the following weeks that will examine Wodrows (and earlier) versions of the story, Napier's response, and the 19th C critiques of Napier. I will also fold in the modern academic sources and some relevant material from the MS sources Wodrow claims, which, when I read them, seemed to compete with Tey as exaggerated fiction! They certainly cannot be spoken off as Witness statements, as they are simply hearsay, often second hand stories that have been regularised into a single narrative by the clerk of Sessions. It is highly misleading to any reader of the otherwise excellent summation you have written to refer to such material as "witness statements". I would be more than happy for you to look over the MS Sessions material yourself in Edinburgh, and amend this assertion you are making when you have seen for yourself that it is not witnesses own words offered but a final write-up by a clerk from what must have been collected second hand accounts. Wodrow is not an acceptable historical source, as his account in turn tampers with these accounts to an even greater degree.

While I fully agree that Napier needs to be handled with care, his critique of the authenticity of the event requires serious consideration. Just because Napier is a neo-Jacobite, it does not mean that his research is weak. The accounts he critiques are seriously contradictory, and the later attempts to answer Napier avoid this issue with some bizarre and unlikely sophistry. It's all so very like the anti-Dreyfusard insistence that the unsupported assertions that sent him to Devil's Island were simply "true" and did not require analysis.

Napier's style is "historically situated", true, but his actual research shows a legal mind (which, alas, means he argues his case with "endless repetitive pages of sneering, taunting, self-satisfied rhetoric" to drive his points home). However, he HAS BEEN regarded by historians since his day as a DEPENDABLE researcher who presents his original supporting material accurately, while Wodrow certainly is not. Again, while you may be referencing Wodrow as an historical source, the references are supporting a story that you present as actual historical fact, while as you must know, the only contemporary document that is reliable is considered reliable by serious researchers is the reprieve. The rest is riddled with contradiction. And simply because you are repelled by Napier's prose style, this does not absolve you from actually testing his assertions honestly against the sources he provides.

As you say, the article needs better sources for some of its own assertions. I have no problem at all with its presentation as a story (every congratulation on a concise and readable version), only with its presentation as unquestionable historical fact, for the sources that would be required to support any strong assertion of fact simply do not exist anywhere, as Napier, under all that bombast, shows. And out of respect for the integrity of the Wikipedia project it is necessary to rehearse the debate honestly rather than simply offer the tired old myths up to the reader as given fact.Rathlain (talk) 13:01, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Taking your point about these not being witness statements in a modern meaning, I've added clarification from Elizabeth Robertson's Herald article, and changed the wording to "statements by individuals who had witnessed the events". As a modern secondary source she seems to be including information which I've not found in Wodrow. Any assessment of Napier's scholarship must rely on modern secondary sources, not on your own opinion: thou shalt not WP:SYN! . . dave souza, talk 16:48, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you David, for taking the trouble to consider the problem, but I really think that referencing "statements by individuals who had witnessed the events" to what is point of fact a journalistic local history article in order to justify the continuing use of the term "witness" is utterly unacceptable. Elizabeth Robertson may have taken to trouble to read the original Sessions MS but she clearly is not a trained historian and has simply accepted the bald statements in the Sessions accounts uncritically at apparent face value. Remember these accounts were collected by interested parties in the heat of a partisan war of words just a few months before the old pretender actually landed in Scotland!! They need to be properly digested and evaluated. The powerful contradictions within the Sessions records that Napier draws our attention to with the analytic tools of a trained lawyer need to be addressed and not simply dismissed if we are to offer a balanced account of what may actually have occurred at the time.

The balance of objectivity in this article has not yet been struck, as an uncritical acceptance of the contradictory sessions accounts is still being employed to "confirm" the "truth" of events that recent work on Claverhouse (Linklater & Hesketh, Murry Scott) shows to be suspect in detail. Importantly, no-one on the spot had the authority to execute anyone independently of the council's decisions. The most powerful local authority, Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, certainly did not have powers of execution, and if he carried out these drownings, he was acting well outside of his powers. As Napier points out, the only truly reliable document any historian may draw on is the reprieve.

I am aware that this issue is a very live issue for some today, remaining something of a "hot potato". Any search of the internet shows how blocked the arena is with hagiographic and uncritical re-itterations of the Wodrow version. Any attempt to present a balanced approach to the actual evidence, which is "tantalisingly short" (Linklater & Hesketh), is argued down without careful consideration. One 2011 assessment available on the net as a PDF even compares those questioning the event to holocaust deniers.

The article as it stands remains very, very one sided in its assertions and requires serious attention to address this problem in the interests of proper objectivity. As Paul said, "the article needs better sources for some of its own assertions." Using Wodrow and some very weak journalism to justify the term "witness statements" does not even begin to answer this. Rathlain (talk) 08:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi David, sorry, just one last point. I take your comments on supporting Napier by modern scholarship very seriously. I'm refraining for adding anything before it has a strong underpinning. But I would think that Napier is still perfectly usable as a source of quoted material (he is scrupulously careful here), its just that his rather flamboyant conclusions in presenting his "clients" case requires some careful handling and would require the review of modern scholarship. Again, thanks, Rathlain (talk) 08:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Penninghame and Kirkinner Session Records and the "Witness Statements."
I have made some slight adjustments to the "Witness Statements" section, referenced to the minutes of the Kirk Sessions that are freely available at the National Archive of Scotland. I continue to be concerned that the text as it stood before made it look as if the two accounts contained in the minutes were fully consistent with one another and that they are actually quoting from accounts, when anyone consulting them (or even carefully reading Elisabeth Robertson's Herald article), will quickly notice that the summaries NEVER directly quote any witness statements. Anyone seriously concerned with the nature of these statements can now verify just how inaccurately this material is being presented within the "Witness Statements" section.

The statement "McLachlan's daughter gave testimony about the drowning of her mother, and the records of the Penninghame Kirk Session include a statement from Wilson's brother Thomas" suggests that there are actual quotes from these witnesses within the Sessions minutes, whereas these attributions are derived directly from Elisabeth Robertson's Herald article which uses the misleading terms statement and testified. A reading of the minutes reveals that the witnesses referenced are not actually testifying before the Session, but that the writer of the account is himself claiming that they could give such information if asked. The confirmation of "fact" by the current article's sources is actually actually second hand accounts (Wodrow and Elisabeth Robertson's Herald article) that are basing their case on hearsay first put down twenty years after the events in a situation of religious conflict and threatened invasion.

I can find no detailed academic work on these session records, despite the general academic work on this period that shows how indirect and thin the evidence for the Wigtown Drownings actually is, but the highly misleading nature of the affirmations in this section compels me to reference to manuscript material that may be consulted by anyone who is interested. Rathlain (talk) 07:41, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

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