|
|
The Shame and Fame of Half-Hangit' Maggie: Attitudes to Child Murder in Early Modern Scotland
| This paper will use the case of Margaret Dickson who was indicted for parricide at Edinburgh’s High Court in 1724, to identify and illuminate the ways in which the concept of shame lay at the heart of the legal process for indicted Scottish women during the early modern period. Maggie Dickson was a married woman who was indicted for murdering her new-born son after she admitted to concealing her pregnancy, giving birth in secret, and then throwing the child’s body into the River Tweed. The case is significant due to the detailed way in which it was recorded by the courts, the attention it received from contemporary social commentators and the press as well as the fact that uniquely, in cases of child murder during the early modern period; the accused was a married woman.
Various modes and types of ‘shaming practices’ were expended upon Maggie Dickson in the prelude to her trial. Similarly the information provided by court records in relation to these factors serve to illuminate just how terrifying and opprobrious a criminal investigation and indictment for child murder could be for the women concerned. After having been convicted, Maggie was sentenced to death, and her journey to the gallows contained significant elements of ante-mortem and post-mortem ignominy, which were widely exposed and celebrated by the Scottish legal and religious authorities of the day. However, when somewhat miraculously, Maggie Dickson survived her execution, attitudes towards her (and the crime she had committed) were wholly transformed. The shame which had been at the forefront of the legal process against her was replaced by compassion, sympathy and ultimately, fame and fortune.
This conversion of opinion raises questions about the nature and function of shame in European legal processes, particularly when directed towards female suspects. Why were women accused of child murder, particular targets for opprobrium in early modern Scotland? Was this a uniquely Scottish concern? Where did this particular relationship between crime and shame originate and just how stable was it in practice? Was it as a result of the distinctive socio-religious make-up of post-Reformation Scotland or was it merely a typical aspect of the Scottish legal process? Why did attitudes towards Maggie Dickson change so markedly in the twenty days between her conviction and the hours after her execution? This paper will address these questions in the light of fresh evidence uncovered from Scotland during the early modern period.
|
|
