Thread by @cocteautriplets

It's fairly well known just how few statues there are in Edinburgh of named women (2!). My attempt at an A-Z of city places named after women further highlighted to me just how few there are (and of those, many were done so by men of property for reasons of their own).

But there is a place that's not that well kenned about that has topical relevance and is always worth thinking of. Many attempts have been made to try and tell its back story or to raise it's profile. That place is Muschat's (or Muschet's) Cairn.

The cairn is unusual in that not only does it commemorate a woman, but it commemorates a woman who was the victim of male violence. Ailie (or Eilidh) Mushet, was murdered by her husband Nicol Mushet of Boghall near this spot on the night of October 17th 1720

Nicol, "a debauched and profligate wretch" married Ailie Hall after a courtship of 3 weeks, but soon "tired of her". But being the scumbag he was, he decided to pay others to murder his innocent wife.

The first attempt was to be made as she made her way down Dickson's Close in the Old Town. 20 guineas was to be paid. This came to nothing.

He then connived with a friend, Campbell of Burnbank, to incriminate his wife of adultery, to force a divorce. Nicol Mushet would pay an old debt on Burnbank of 900 Merks in return. Burnbank reneged however and suggested instead that Nicol have Ailie poisoned.

This Nicol did, paying a relative in poor circumstance, James Mushet, to administer poison to the food of Ailie. This was apparently done to no effect.

Eventually, Nicol resolved to end matters by himself and stole a knife. He lured Ailie for a walk to Duddingston Kirk on that fateful evening and on a spot near the cairn, he murdered her.

The next morning, Ailie was found with her throat cut and "many other wounds received in her dying struggle". Nicol had already confessed to his brother, James, and was immediately arrested, tried and confessed.

He was hung from the scaffold in the Grassmarket on the morning of 6th January 1721. Burnbank, for his part, was banished from the city. I cannot find what became of James Mushet.

But it doesn't matter what became of him although I hope and assume he met with old fashioned justice. 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"

A cairn remains to this day near the spot, although it is not the original. The cairn was initially removed in 1789 when the Duke's Walk footpath was widened, but was restored in 1823 using stones from the old wall which was moved ahead of the visit of George IV in 1822

The reason it was restored is probably the doing (or influence) of Walter Scott, who wrote of the cairn as a moonlit meeting place in his Heart of Midlothian novel; the Deans family cottage being in the park at St. Leonards.

So if you are passing, or if you are thinking on recent matters, it's worth taking a moment to pause, to consider the otherwise anonymous pile of stones, marked only with the family name of the victim's murderous husband.

Perhaps the cairn needs something by way of a board or plaque to better explain what it is and why it was there, and who it commemorates. Should it be Ailie Hall's Cairn rather than Muschet's Cairn?

It's hard to tell this story from the woman's, the victim's, point of view, as although it was well written about at the time what we have is the perpetrators testimony. There's no victim impact statement from Ailie's family from an 18th century case.

There must be details somewhere of when and where Ailie Hall was born and where she was buried...

This was 1720 and not much has changed in many ways since then. I am with @sarasheridan that we improve the cairn. She has written of Ailie and countless other women who were "victims & victors, survivors & swots" in her book (link to it in the thread).

https://twitter.com/sarasheridan/status/1258328174271889408?s=20

This country is *very* good at dignified public memorials. But a rather forgotten about and anonymous pile of rocks in the corner of a park is not one of them.

Footnote. In Nicol's confession, the victim is named as Margaret Hall, rather than Ailie; as I say there's much written of him and his crime but seemingly much less of her.