My attempt at an A-Z of Edinburgh places named after women highlighted to me just how absent their commemoration in street names is. It is also fairly well known just how few public statues there are in the city of named women – at the latest count: two! (Helen Crummy at Craigmillar and Queen Victoria in Leith). But there is another monument which is not so well kenned about and which has present-day relevance when we consider how this city commemorates women. The place of which I write of is Muschet’s Cairn. Attempts have been made to try and tell its back story and raise its profile, but statues and streetnames for sportsmen seem to have captured local attention much more readily.

This cairn is remarkable in that not only does it commemorate a woman, but it commemorates a woman who was the victim of male violence: Margaret Hall, also known as Ailie, a diminutive of Alison. Margaret was murdered by her husband Nicol Muschet of Boghall (sometimes Muschat or Mushet) near this spot on the night of October 17th 1720 and it is his name which is applied to the pile of stones.

n.b. What follows is a hard story to tell from the victim’s point of view. It was well covered in the sensationalist press at the time, but this was based on the letters and confessions of the perpetrators as they sought to absolve themselves and explain away their crimes. There was nobody to give a voice to the victim, there’s no victim impact statement from Margaret Hall’s family. Because of this, and because it was not the practice at the time for Scottish women to take the surnames names of their husbands; I will refer to the victim as Margaret Hall throughout this post and not of her as Mrs. Muschet. I have also sought to find out and share as much as I can about the short life of the victim, about whom very little is known beyond her husband’s attempts at character assassination.

Margaret Hall was born in Edinburgh on May 16th 1703 to Isobell Straitton and her husband Adam Hall, a burgess and spirit merchant. Her birth registration in the old parish register is the only official record of her I can find.

Nicol Muschet was born around 1695 at Boghall in Kincardine Parish, near Menteith in Stirlingshire, to Jean or Janet Henderson and her husband Robert Muschet, a schoolmaster. His mother raised him “in the true Presbyterian Principles of Religion” which the young Nicol complied with, but confessed to finding overbearing. When his father died he took the Laird’s title “- of Boghall” aged 15.

Sufficient money was left to him to complete his grammar school education and to study medicine in Edinburgh, far from his pious and strict mother’s watchful eye. Unleashed, he is described as being prodigal and consorting with company “without ever consulting God or eyeing his Glory.” Aged 21, he completed his studies in the city and was apprenticed to Thomas Napier, a surgeon in Alloa. Alloa however was not Edinburgh; with not much medical practice doing, few opportunities for advancement and only “walking, talking, idle discourse, reading…” to while away the hours, the profligate Nicol instead turned to drinking and abandoned his master and craft. He soon returned home to Boghall to live the life of a country squire with his mother, but found rural life equally boring and within a few weeks the draw of Edinburgh proved too much. Upon reading the notice of a public dissection in the city he returned to it in August 1719, now aged 24. On his first night back in the city, he was promenading on the Castle Hill as was the fashion at the time and came upon the house of Adam Hall and his 16 year old daughter Margaret. Recognising one of Hall’s maids from when he had been a student, he struck up a conversation. The pair rekindled their acquaintance over “a chopin of ale” until Margaret had the misfortune to join them, at which point the servant retired, leaving her mistress with Nicol.

The two became ingratiated that evening and she helped to arrange him lodgings in a good house. She said she would call on him once he was settled in and was true to her word. Nicol – whom Walter Scott termed “a debauched and profligate wretch” – would later claim that Margaret had made relentless designs on him and “to [his] sad and lamentable loss, she made me too many visits“. Other witnesses – including his own mother – countered this version of events. Never the less, only 3 weeks later Nicolformally asked Adam Hall for her hand in marriage. She was 8 years Nicol’s junior but Hall agreed, despite noting his daughter was “not yet fully educate for marriage“. As far as Hall would have been concerned, Nicol had prospects to offer his daughter; a small country estate, a modicum of independent wealth and steady work in the “shop” of the surgeon Mr Gibb. And so it was that on Saturday 5th September 1719, Nicol Muschet and Margaret Hall were married in the house of John Galloway, tailor in Peebles Wynd, by the Episcopal Reverend Robert Bowers. Note that this was not in the manner of the Presbyterian Kirk in which Nicol was raised and he would later repent that he had celebrated his marriage “in such a manner as corroborated and approved of the sinful Superstitions of the Church of England, contrary to my Baptismal and National Vows and, I must acknowledge, to the Light of my Conscience also.”

After initially staying in the Hall residence, the newly-weds soon moved to their own lodgings in St. Mary’s Wynd. However Nicolsoon “tired of her” and also of the goldsmith who was chasing payment for the jewellery he had bought for her and set upon a course to “improve himself abroad“; he intended to desert his wife and his creditors. That could have been that – and the end of our story – if the greedy and dishonest Nicolhadn’t decided to first “defraud his wife of her legal aliment from his estate“. Rather than just abandoning her, he would first divorce her so she had no recourse to his inherited wealth via alimony. And so he began to conspire with an acquaintance – James Campbell of Burnbank, the store keeper at Edinburgh Castle – over how he could achieve his ends. Burnbank was an equal scoundrel to Nicolwas; “a noted gambler and libertine, [he] was well known to all the reprobates in Edinburgh by the familiar sobriquet of ‘Bankie’.” There was an old family debt between the pair, the settlement of which was used as leverage in their scheming. Nicol arranged to pay Bankie 900 Merks in old Scottish currency (£50 sterling) thus cancelling the debt if he could procure (fabricate) sufficient evidence against Margaret to allow him to divorce her. Not content to make a gentlemen’s agreement, the two signed a formal deed to this effect.

Be it kend till all men by thir present letters, me, James Campbell, Ordnance Storekeeper at Edinburgh Castle : Forasmuch as Nicol Muschet of Boghall is debtor to me in three years rent of his lands, viz. cropt ninety-five, and precedings, and that I have transacted the same for nine hundred merks, Scots money, for which there is bill granted me. Therefore, I hereby declare I am not to demand payment of the said sum untill a legal offer be made him of my discharge of all I can claim of him, and give him up, oi’ offer so to do, all his papers on oath : As also, of two legal depositions, or affidavits of two witnesses, of the whorish practices of Margaret Hall, daughter to Adam Hall, merchant in Edinburgh, and three months thereafter. In witness whereof, I have written, with my own hand, on stamped paper, thir presents, at Edinburgh, the twenty-eighth day of November, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen years.

The signed bond between Nicol and Bankie.

The conspirators first tried to trick Margaret into breaking her marriage bond by faking a letter from Nicol that he had ridden to London, never to return. To improve the deception they had it posted to her from Newbattle in Midlothian, on the road to London – where in actual fact Nicol was lying low in the Debtors Sanctuary at Holyrood. The plan failed however as Margaret resolved to visit her mother-in-law at Boghall to discuss the matter. Bankie was unable to dissuade her from this course, despite his best attempts. To prevent this meeting taking place, he hiring an unscrupulous writer (Scots, a lawyer) to draft a phony warrant for Margaret’s arrest, on charges of theft, and to pursue her to Linlithgow, where she was lodging on the road to Boghall, to serve it. When the writer served the warrant, who should conveniently appear at the perfect moment to act as the good Samaritan but Bankie. He arranged to accompany her back to Edinburgh with the writer where he would bail her and be her guarantor.

Bankie effectively had Margaret under house arrest, but she was not a willing captive. Suspicious of the whole charade, she managed to escape and stole away to Boghall by horse a few days later, being careful not to stop again at Linlithgow. Once again however, Bankie used letters of coercion and false promises to draw her back to Edinburgh but it was clear that this first plan to gain a divorce was never going to work. So the conspirators upped the stakes and determined that they would instead embark on a course against the unfortunate Margaret that we would now call “date rape“; forcibly breaking her marriage vows.

It was arranged that Margaret should be lodged in the Abbey Sanctuary when she returned from Boghall and “on a Monday night in December” she was compelled to drink a punch of Brandy and sugar that was laced with laudanum, rendering her unconscious. An acquaintance of Bankie – John MacGregory – was procured to take advantage of the incapacitated Margaret. However this scheme was foiled at the last minute when they found out from their dishonourable writer friend that it would not be sufficient grounds for divorce “unless we could Evidence a Tract of Conversation betwixt MacGregory and her either before or after the fact“. The plan was re-hatched. Instead, they acquainted Margaret with James Muschet, probably Nicol’s younger brother, and his wife Grizel Bell. James and Grizel were in “reduced circumstances” and in return for money they agreed to a scheme where they would get Margaret drunk when MacGregory was in the house and engineer a seduction upon her. However despite repeated attempts, Margaret kept her virtue and Nicol, tiring of the constant demand for expenses from James and Grizel, gave up on this plan too.

Nicol – later claiming he was led to it by Bankie – now set upon the ultimate course of action and resolved to have his wife murdered; but as the scheme required that he would get away with it, so it was decided that James and Grizel would be paid to poison Margaret. They settled on “corrosive sublimate” – Mercury Dichloride – a highly poisonous substance used at that time as an insecticide and in treatment for syphilis and therefore a substance Nicol had access to through his work. The first attempt was administered to Margaret in a dram mixed with sugar and made her so violently ill that “life was not expected for her“, but she survived. They tried again. Again she was ill, but again it did not kill her. They next tried the same poison but mixed with nutmeg in a punch, but still Margaret clung to life. Grizel now tried, mixing the poison with warm ale and administering it to her under the pretence of caring for her in her sickness. Again she was made ill, yet again she refused to die. They even poisoned the cordials administered to her in her sick bed, this time Nicol himself administering them to his poor wife, but despite causing her immense torment and sickness, they were unable to kill her.

Once again, the plotters gave up. They allowed Margaret to recover sufficiently that they could try to kill her again by some other means. The next scheme was that James and Grizel should take Margaret to Leith for a day of drinking and on their way home she would be drowned in a pond, quite probably one of the Quarryholes on the road back to Edinburgh. James however refused to go along with this and so various other plans were discussed; she would be pushed from her horse when fording a river near Kirkliston; she would be hit across the head and her body dumped in one of the Quarryholes outside the Town. Nothing came of any of these and eventually Nicol and Bankie fell out with each other.

In the New Year of 1720, the 3 remaining plotters finally settled on causing a fatal head injury to Margaret. It was agreed that James and Grizel would be paid 20 Guineas to undertake the act in Dickson’s Close, where by now Nicol and Margaret were lodging. Grizel’s part was to invite the victim to her house and entertain her with “meat and drink” until the late hours, before sending her home on a final journey. At this point, James would attack her within sight of the “safety” of her own door, a hammer being procured for the deed which James made a wooden handle for. This weapon was chosen as its head could be thrown into the Nor’ Loch and its handle burned to destroy the evidence post mortem.

However, Old Town Edinburgh was a busy place and despite multiple attempts, they were never able to follow through to conclusion as Dickson’s Close was always too busy with witnesses to attack Margaret. The year wore on without the incompetent assassins being able to complete their task. Eventually, Nicol resolved to bring matters to a fatal conclusion by himself. On the morning of October 17th 1720, Nicol Muschet stole a knife from his landlady. After a day of wining and dining with James and Grizel, he sent for Margaret to join them. She duly arrived and he implored her to ask no questions and instead join him on a night time walk to Duddingston Kirk. They walked- reportedly in silence – down the Canongate, past the Palace of Holyrood House and its ghostly Abbey, and into the King’s Park.

On that fateful evening, at a spot near the cairn, Nicol Muschet murdered his innocent wife, thus ending the torment he had caused her for the entirety of their short marriage. By his own confession, after having attacked her and left her for dead, he returned with the knife to make sure of it. The next morning, Margaret was found with her throat cut and “many other wounds received in her dying struggle“. There were signs that she had fought to defend her life; from her wounds, from the hair of a man in her hands and from Nicol’s own confession. At the scene, a man’s silk sleeve was found ripped off, embroidered on it the letter “N“.

Nicol fled the scene, first to consult with Grizel and then on to Leith where he reportedly spent the next day in the company of a sailor, one can assume making arrangements for flight. He returned to the city to meet again with Grizel, but found the noose was slowly tightening around him – despite Grizel’s assurances to the contrary. His landlady had been taken to the city guard house for questioning, so he returned to Leith, but over the next 3 days made repeated incognito visits to the city to consult with acquaintances about his best course of action to try and dodge justice.

Grizel soon tired of Nicol’s repeated visits however, it was clear to her that she was not now going to get her 20 guineas and she was surely beginning to fear for her own neck, and so she decided to tip off the authorities as to the whereabouts of Nicol. She ensured his capture by setting up a social occasion where he was apprehended and immediately thrown in the Tolbooth – the civic building that functioned as a court and jailhouse. Under questioning he at first denied everything, but when presented with the known facts of his crimes, the gruesome details of his assault on his wife and the injuries he inflicted upon her, he confessed “and signed a deceleration to that effect“.

Confined within the Tolbooth, he wrote to his mother begging for her forgiveness and support. Lady Boghall was having none of it however. In her excoriating reply, she condemned any attempt that would be made in his defence and left him to his fate and upon God’s Mercy, urging him to seek divine forgiveness. The details of her reply were reprinted in a sensationalist broadside:

Abandoned by his mother to God, Nicol Muschet went to trial on 28th November.

The judges present were Lords Royston, Polton, Pencaitland, Dun and Newhall; the Solicitor-General (Walter Stewart) and John Sinclair, advocate-depute, with Duncan Forbes and Andrew Lauder, appeared for the Crown. The libel having been read, the panel craved the Court to appoint counsel for his defence, and John Horn, John Elphinstone, and Charles Erskine were accordingly empowered to plead for him.

“Nicol Muschet: His Crime and Cairn, from “The Riddle of the Ruthvens”

Having signed his own confession and entering no defence, he was found guilty on December 5th and sentenced to death on the 8th. The press had a sensational time and various letters, broadsides and confessions were printed. I will not reproduce them here as they lend a voice to the murderer and tormentor of Margaret Hall, a chance stolen from her by him. Nicol Muschet was hung from the scaffold in the Grassmarket on the afternoon of 6th January 1721, between the hours of 2 and 4 O’ Clock in the afternoon.

His body was then taken down, the hand with which he murdered his wife was cut off and his corpse hung from the gibbet at the Gallowlee (near to present day Shrubhill on Leith Walk). That was not quite the final end for Nicol Muschet however; a Grassmarket butcher called Nicol Brown gained notoriety for reputedly eating a pound of flesh cut from the rotting corpse in a drunken bet. In an extraordinary coincidence, in 1753 Nicol Brown was tried and convicted for the murder of his wife and was hung from the same scaffold until dead and his body hung from the same gibbet afterwards. His trade incorporation, shamed by his actions, cut his body down and tossed it into the Quarryholes in disgust.

Grizel and James escaped justice by turning King’s Evidence against Bankie, who was tried for the Scots crime of “art and part” (aiding and abetting). He was found guilty and sentenced to transportation to the West Indies as a plantation labourer for life, although not before spending at least 5 years in captivity in Edinburgh Castle. He would later write an “Elegy on the Mournful Banishment of James Campbell of Burnbank to the West Indies” by way of an explanation and to deflect blame from himself; I will not repeat it here as again it gives a defending voice to the criminal which he helped steal from his victim.

Margaret’s body was carried to the Abbey Sanctuary after it was discovered, but after that we do not know where she was buried (it may be that as an Episcopalian she was buried outside the city at Restalrig Kirk). There was a public outpouring of grief about her fate, an anonymous elegy was published and circulated around the city.

The people of Edinburgh “to mark their horror of the event, in the old Scottish fashion raised a cairn on the spot where the murder was perpetrated”. The cairn remains to this day near its original spot, but was initially removed in 1789 when the Duke’s Walk footpath was widened. This was on the instructions of Lord Adam Gordon – the Governor of Edinburgh Castle, Commander-in-Chief of the Army for Scotland and the principal resident of the Palace of Holyroodhouse – and was probably to better connect his residence to the barracks at Piershill. The cairn was restored again in 1823 using stones from an old wall which was being removed ahead of the visit of George IV in 1822, again to further widen the Duke’s Walk.

The reason behind its restoration was possibly the romantic influence of Walter Scott – all pervading in Scotland at the time – who wrote of the cairn as a moonlit meeting place in his Heart of Midlothian novel; the Deans family in this book living in a cottage on the other side of the park at St. Leonards.

So if you are passing this spot in the future it’s worth taking a moment to pause and to consider the otherwise anonymous pile of stones marked only with the name of the victim’s murderous husband. And consider if the cairn needs something by way of a board or plaque to better explain what it is, why it was there and who it commemorates. It is named Muschet’s Cairn, but it commemorates Margaret Hall and not her murderer, should it not be Margaret’s Cairn? This country can be very good at dignified public memorials when it chooses to be, but this is not one of them. Margaret Hall may have died in 1720 and even though so much has changed since then, in many ways not a lot has.

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