ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a part of the proceedings against Margaret Ramsay for the murder of her illegitimate newborn child in Edinburgh. The account records the testimony of witnesses at her trial in front of a fifteen-man jury, or assize; the original indictment that detailed the crime and the accusation does not survive. What survives provides an account of a woman going into labour, and the subsequent disposal of the child’s body by a group of women who offered her support during that time. Keen to distance themselves from culpability, the women either excluded themselves from the scene of childbirth or reported knowing little about it. The prosecution of such a crime also indicates the cultural significance of children to this society, and a concern with the deaths of children born outside of wedlock. Such sources begin to offer people insight into the emotional investments, moralities and anxieties of such communities.
