The Heart of Midlothian

Edinburgh in 1736 is shaken when a crowd breaks into the Old Tolbooth and lynches Captain John Porteous after his reprieve from a murder sentence. The riot intersects with the fate of Effie Deans, who is imprisoned under a law presuming that a woman who conceals a pregnancy and cannot produce her child has committed infanticide. Her sister Jeanie knows that a lie could save her, but her religious convictions prevent her from giving false evidence in court.

After Effie is condemned, Jeanie walks from Scotland to London to seek a pardon from Queen Caroline. Her journey tests moral courage rather than martial heroism and carries her through encounters with the people responsible for the missing child. The novel uses Jeanie’s refusal to compromise her conscience to examine criminal law, Presbyterian belief, class and the unequal access ordinary people have to political mercy.