The introduction of a new bill focused on domestic violence has brought to attention the story of Margaret Hall.

Murdered by her husband in Edinburgh in 1720, representatives from Scottish Women’s Aid, Victim Support Scotland, EmilyTest and Historic Environment Scotland gathered at a cairn in her memory on Wednesday, the day after the bill was put forward.

Plans are also in place to erect an information board on the site - here's who she was and why her story is pertinent to the issue of domestic homicide.

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Margaret Hall was born in Edinburgh in 1703 to Isobell Straitton and her husband Adam Hall, a burgess and spirit merchant.

In 1719 at the age of 16 she met Nicol Muschat (sometimes Muschet), eight years her senior, who was working in a shop on the Royal Mile and the pair were married just three weeks later.

Shortly after their marriage, however, he "grew tired of her" and, owing money to various creditors, planned to abscond abroad to "improve himself" as a surgeon and leave his wife behind.

Not wanting Margaret to be entitled to alimony, he decided to concoct a reason to divorce her before running away.

He enlisted the help of James Campbell of Burnbank, the storekeeper at Edinburgh Castle, agreeing to pay him £50 if he could invent evidence against his wife that would be sufficient to divorce her.

This money was an old family debt, and the pair signed an official bond.

It read: "Be it kend till all men by thir present letters, me, James Campbell, Ordnance Storekeeper at Edinburgh Castle : Forasmuch as Nicol Muschet of Boghall is debtor to me in three years rent of his lands, viz. cropt ninety-five, and precedings, and that I have transacted the same for nine hundred merks, Scots money, for which there is bill granted me. Therefore, I hereby declare I am not to demand payment of the said sum untill a legal offer be made him of my discharge of all I can claim of him, and give him up, oi’ offer so to do, all his papers on oath : As also, of two legal depositions, or affidavits of two witnesses, of the whorish practices of Margaret Hall, daughter to Adam Hall, merchant in Edinburgh, and three months thereafter. In witness whereof, I have written, with my own hand, on stamped paper, thir presents, at Edinburgh, the twenty-eighth day of November, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen years."

Arthur's seat, above Holyrood parkArthur's seat, above Holyrood park (Image: unknown)

To try and entrap Margaret into these "whorish practices", the pair faked a letter from Nicol saying he had moved to London, hoping this would entice her to break her marriage vows.

When this failed, they plotted to drug the teenager and have an acquaintance named John MacGregory rape her, but a lawyer informed them this would not stand up in court unless they could prove the two had spoken beforehand.

They then recruited James Muschat, Nicol's cousin, and his wife Grizel to try to seduce Margaret but she refused repeated advances.

Ultimately, he decided to murder his wife.

He paid James and Grizel to poison Margaret with mercury but though they attempted the murder three times, on each occasion she fell ill but did not die.

Later plans to drown her in a ditch by the side of the road in Leith and to push her from her horse as she rode were abandoned, as was a plot to bash her head in with a hammer as there were too many witnesses.

Eventually, on October 17th 1720 after a day of drinking with James, Nicol slit his wife's throat in Holyrood park before returning home to confess the crime to his cousin.

He wrote in a confession: "The Devil, that cunning adversary, suggested to me, being now hardened and also desperate by all the foresaid plots failing, that it were but a light thing whether he or I were the executioner."

It appears that his young wife knew well when her husband instructed her to walk with him into the night she may never come back.

He wrote: "She (Margaret) weep'd and prayed that God might forgive me if I was taking her to any mischief."

William Roughead recounts in The riddle of the Ruthvens and Other Studies "the particulars are too horrible for recital ; suffice it to say that Muschet only effected his purpose after a severe struggle, and but for his wife's long hair, by which he held her down, he declares that he could not have overcome her resistance".

Her body was discovered the next morning at around 10am,Margaret "having her throat cut into the very neck-bone, and her chin cut, and one of her thumbs almost cut off, and found her to be also cut in the breast in several places, and also in the other hand very barbarously".

Nicol went into hiding in Leith as he sought passage on a ship to Europe but was outed by Grizel. After being arrested he initially denied the charge, but ultimately signed a full confession.

He was sentenced "to be hanged upon a gibbet in the Grass- market of Edinburgh between the hours of two and four o'clock afternoon on Friday, 6th January 1721" after which his body was hung in chains on the Gallow Lee, at Greenside, by Leith Walk, treatment reserved for only the most serious offenders.

Locals raised a stone cairn in memory of Margaret which stands at the Meadowbank entrance to Holyrood Park, but appears as little more than a sprawling stack of stones.

Justice secretary Angela Constance is calling for an information board to be erected at the site.