A Rock and Roll Drama set in SCOTLAND
Novel set in 1720s SCOTLAND
9th April 2026
The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster, novel set in 1720s Scotland.
This novel, based on a true story, opens as a young woman, Maggie Dickson, re-appears after her hanging. By some chance, she didn’t die. Her reprieve became the stuff of legend and this story is the author’s re-telling of the events surrounding her trial and perceived misdemeanour. Will they hang her a second time?
Under The Act Anent Murthering of Children 1690, if any woman shall conceal her being with child and shall not call for assistance during birth, then if the child is found dead the mother shall be found guilty of the murder of her own child, regardless of of whether there is any direct evidence of murder … the concealment of pregnancy is a crime.
Goodness, that is strong stuff. The author explores the plight of women and develops a story around the known facts. In this novel, Maggie grows up in Fisherrow, Musselburgh, in a fishing family, who store smuggled tea as a sideline (which was a way of earning money and proliferated down the East Coast of England and Scotland). It’s a tough life. Maggie chooses to marry a fly-by-night man, who, shortly after their marriage, is taken by the press gangs, leaving her with very little. She is determined to head to London and after discovering some distressing news, she indeed sets off, only to find herself waylaid in Kelso. It is here that her story unfolds, that she discovers she is pregnant, and, whilst she is deciding on her future, time marches on. She gives birth in secret to a little girl.
This is an involving story that highlights how women found themselves between a rock and hard place, in an extremely patriarchal society. Maggie had omitted to mention to the employer of the pub where she found herself working that she was married, and even this withholding worked against her. The perceived concealment of her pregnancy further damaged her case and she was sentenced to hang.
The story is beautifully and sympathetically told, and it is certainly quite sobering how a woman could so easily fall foul of a law that seems ridiculous in the 21st Century. Nevertheless, similar oppression is still depressingly rife in certain cultures around the world today, some 400 years later.
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