WILSON, MARGARET: One of the two " martyrs of the Solway "; b. at Glenvernock (65 m. s.s.w. of Glasgow),, Scotland, 1667; drowned near Wigtown (75 m. s. of Glasgow) May 11, 1685. For refusing to conform to episcopacy, she, together with her younger sister Agnes, and Margaret MacLachlan, a woman of sixty-three, was tried at the Wigtown assize and condemned to death by drowning in the Bladenoch. The younger sister was bailed out, but on May 11, 1685, the two other women were tied to stakes within the flood-mark of the water of the Bladenoch and were drowned by the incoming tide. The incident furnished the subject of Millais' picture, "The Martyr of the Solway" (1871), now in Liverpool. An obelisk to the memory of the martyrs was erected on Windy Hill, Wigtown, in 1861, and there is another well-known monument at Stirling. See Covenanters, § 6.

Bibliography: A. Stewart, History Vindicated in the Case of the Wigtown Martyrs, Edinburgh, 1869; R. Wodrow, Hist. of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, ib. 1829-1830; J. Anderson, Ladies of the Covenant, Glasgow, 1850, New York, 1880; W. M. Hetherington, Hist. of the Church of Scotland, pp. 281-282, New York, 1881; DNB, lxii. 118-119; and literature under COVEINAWrERS.

WILSON, THOMAS: Church of England, 'bishop of Seder and Man; b. at Burton (10 m. s. of Liverpool), England, Dec. 20, 1663; d. on the Isle of Man Mar. 7, 1755. He was graduated from Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1686;. M.A., 1696); was ordained deacon, 1686; became curate in the chapelry of Newchurch Kenyon, Lancashire, 1687; was ordained priest, 1689, and remained in charge of Newchurch till 1692, when he was appointed chaplain to the Earl of Derby, who, in 1697, appointed him bishop of Sodor and Man, and he was consecrated, 1698. He accomplished two great reforms in his diocese: the first, of 1703, relating to the tenures of landed property, which had been very uncertain; and the second, accomplished by his Ecclesiastical Constitutions, to the rules and discipline of the church there. He had remarkable qualities as an administrator, and was, from his position, compelled to take a great share in secular affairs. He wrote comparatively little. In 1707 he issued at London his Principles and Duties of Christianity, commonly called the 11 Manx Catechism," in English and Manx; this

was the first book ever printed in Manx. In 1735 he showed his interest in the missionary aspects of General Oglethorpe's Georgia plantation scheme, by writing his Essay towards an Instruction for the Indians, Explaining the most Essential Doctrines of Christianity . . with Directions and Prayers. The Essay, which was translated into French and Italian, and met with great favor, was published in 1740 at London. In 1749 he accepted from the Unity of the Brethren (q.v.) the office of honorary president of the reformed section of the Moravian Church. His age at the time debarred him from active sdrvice, but he was glad of the opportunity of publicly testifying to his interest in that people. His life was marked by rare unselfishness and devotion to duty. His works embrace devotional writings of extended private and public use, numerous sermons, and Short and Plain Instructions for the Better Understanding of the Lord's Supper (2d ed., London, 1736; and often); Parochialia, or Instructions to the Clergy (Bath, 1821); and The Holy Bible, with Notes, by Thomas Wilson . . . and various Renderings, by . . C. Cruttwell (3 vols., London, 1785); His Works were first published in a collected edition, with his Life, by C. Cruttwell (2 vols., Bath, 1781; 4th ed., 4 vols., 1796-97; and best ed., with his Life by J. Keble, 7 vols., Oxford, 1847-63).

Bibliography: Besides the accounts of the life in the collected Works, ut sup., there are biographies by H. Stowell, London, 1819; R. B. Hone, in Lives of Eminent Christians, vol. i., ib. 1833; W. H. Teale, in Lives of Eminent Divines, ib. 1846. Consult further: J. Rosse, Hist. of Wesleyan Methodism in the Isle of Man, Douglas, 1849; M. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, preface, London, 1869; J. H. Overton and F. Relton, The English Church (1911,1800), pp.125-136 et passim, ib. 1906; DNB, lxii. 139-142.