Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50
The great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50 was a series of witch trials in Scotland. It is one of five major hunts identified in early modern Scotland and it probably saw the most executions in a single year.
The trials occurred in a period of economic, political and religious unrest. Political and religious turmoil was caused by defeat for the Scottish army in the
Most of the trials were initiated by the local minister and his
Background
The 1640s were among the coolest decades in the
Through the 1640s the
Nature of the hunt
Extent
The hunt of 1649–50 is one of five major witch-hunts in early modern Scotland, the others being in
Some 612 records of accusations of witchcraft are known for Scotland in the years 1649 and 1650. Of these most, 399, are from 1649. They include 556 named persons and another 243 unnamed persons.[17] According to Christine Larner, 1649 was "the year which may have seen the greatest number of executions in the whole of Scottish witch-hunting".[5] More than 300 witches were executed in the trials,[18] with as many as 200 executions in Lothian alone.[19] The Newcastle witch trials involved 30 persons, claiming 20 victims, and was the last intense hunt in England.[16] Most of the prosecutions in Scotland were in local ad hoc courts that had a much higher execution rate than the courts run by professional lawyers; local courts executed some 90 per cent of the accused over the entire period, the Judiciary Court 55 per cent, but the circuit courts only 16 per cent.[20]
Accusations
Most of the witches were women, the majority of whom were of relatively low social status. The only high-status woman known to have been accused in the hunt was Margaret Henderson, Lady Pittadro, who was accused by Walter Bruce the minister of Inverkeithing in 1649. She fled to Edinburgh, where she was arrested and probably committed suicide before her trial. Such accusations were usually linked to local power struggles and usually unsuccessful as the families of the accused had reputations to defend and resources to mount a legal and political challenge.[21] Mentions of the Devil appeared relatively rarely in Scottish witchcraft trials, which were mainly concerned with perceived harm through witchcraft, as with Jean Craig of Tranent, who was accused of laying an illness on Beatrix Sandilands, causing her to become "mad and bereft of her naturall wit".[22] Divination was also a common accusation, often with lesser penalties, like the case of Marjorie Plumber, who was debarred from the sacrament by the presbytery of Cullen in Banffshire in 1649 for trying to determine if her ailing child would live by laying it between two holes, a "living grave" and a "dead grave", and seeing which way it turned.[23] However, there were total of 69 confessions of demonic pacts in the court records[24] and the Devil was an important figure in the Inverkeithing hunt, where several women confessed to associations with the Devil, renouncing their baptism and even to having sexual intercourse with him. As a result of these confessions five women were rapidly executed in 1649.[25]
Legal procedures
Most of the hunts were initiated by the local minister and his session or
Pricking
Scottish witchcraft trials were notable for their use of
The Newcastle trials began after the town council engaged a Scottish witch pricker, who was paid 20s for each guilty witch, but his methods raised the suspicions of the English Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson and he was eventually forced to flee.[36] According to Newcastle notable Ralph Gairdiner, he continued to operate in Northumberland, was arrested, escaped and fled to Scotland. There he was again arrested and later executed, having admitted to having caused the death through fraudulent means of 220 women accused of witchcraft in Scotland and England.[37]
Torture
Pricking could turn into a form of torture in which a subject could be repeatedly pricked until they confessed; many of the confessions gained in the 1649–50 trials were obtained in this way.[38] In 1649 the Committee of Estates passed an Act that prevented torture in cases of witchcraft, but it was probably never implemented.[39] In 1652, after the English occupation, it was reported in England that six witches had been whipped, their feet and heads burnt with lighted candles while they were strung up by their thumbs with their hands behind their backs. This, like most torture, was carried out by local clergy and magistrates without a warrant from the central courts, usually in trying to obtain an initial confession.[40] B. P. Levack argues that torture was more common in "panic years" like 1649, leading to a growth of hunts as confessions and the names of other potential witches were obtained.[41]
References
Notes
- ISBN 0748638873, p. 17.
- ISBN 038797105X, p. 381.
- ISBN 0140136495, pp. 221–4.
- ^ S. MacDonald, "Creating a Godly Society: Witch-hunts, Discipline and Reformation in Scotland", Canadian Society of Church History (2010).
- ^ ISBN 0754682234, pp. 149–50.
- ISBN 0-7190-6024-9, p. 138.
- ISBN 0714655449, p. 144.
- ISBN 0-7190-6024-9, p. 169.
- ^ S. MacDonald, Threats to a Godly Society, the Witch-hunt in Fife, Scotland 1560–1710, D. Phil thesis, University of Guelph (1997), p. 56, n.
- ISBN 0415399432, p. 56.
- ISBN 0-7486-0276-3, pp. 168–169.
- ISBN 0-7486-0233-X, pp. 88–89.
- ^ MacDonald, Threats to a Godly Society, p. 82.
- ^ S. MacDonald, Threats to a Godly Society, the Witch-hunt in Fife, Scotland 1560–1710, D. Phil thesis, University of Guelph (1997), pp. 198–199.
- ISBN 0-7190-6024-9, pp. 41–42.
- ^ a b Levack, Witch-hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics and Religion, pp. 56 and 69.
- ^ J. Goodare, L. Martin, J. Miller and L. Yeoman, "The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft", archived 2003, retrieved 20 August 2012.
- ISBN 0809104873, p. 192.
- ISBN 0191613681.
- ISBN 0-582-49123-1, pp. 87–89.
- ISBN 0-7190-6024-9, p. 109.
- ISBN 0-7190-6024-9, p. 94.
- ISBN 0486404471, p. 107.
- ISBN 9004252924, p. 94.
- ISBN 0-7190-6024-9, pp. 41–5.
- ^ R. Chalmers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. 2 (Edinburgh and London, 1874).
- ^ Goodare, "Witch-hunting and the Scottish state", p. 122.
- ^ Goodare, "Witch-hunting and the Scottish state", p. 136.
- ISBN 9004252924, p. 72.
- ISBN 0-19-211696-7, pp. 644–5.
- ^ Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, p. 52.
- ISBN 0752434330, pp. 148–9.
- ^ 'Brod', Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue
- ^ John Croft, 'Expence of Burning a Witch, 1649', Excerpta Historica (London, 1797), p. 40.
- ^ P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, Witch Hunters: Professional Prickers, Unwitchers & Witch Finders of the Renaissance (Tempus, 2005), p. 149.
- ISBN 113674004X, p. 62.
- ISBN 1136739971.
- ISBN 0521638755, p. 107.
- ISBN 3039118684, p. 66.
- ^ Levack, "State building and witch hunting in early modern Europe", p. 106.
- ISBN 0815310323, p. 43.
Bibliography
- Cullen, K. J., Famine in Scotland: The 'ill Years' of the 1690s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010) ISBN 0748638873.
- Carpenter, S. D. M., Military Leadership in the British Civil Wars, 1642–1651: "the Genius of this Age" (Frank Cass, 2005), ISBN 0714655449.
- Chalmers, R., Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. 2 (Edinburgh and London, 1874).
- Davies, R. T. T., Four Centuries of Witch Beliefs (London: Routledge, 2012), ISBN 1136739971.
- Gaskill, M., Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), ISBN 0191613681.
- Goodare, J., "Witch-hunting and the Scottish state" in J. Goodare, ed., The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), ISBN 0-7190-6024-9.
- Goodare, J., "Witch-hunts", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ISBN 0-19-211696-7.
- Goodare, J., Martin, L., Miller, J. and Yeoman, L., "The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft", archived 2003, retrieved 20 August 2012.
- Lancaster, H. O., Expectations of Life: A Study in the Demography, Statistics, and History of World Mortality (Springer, 1990), ISBN 038797105X.
- L'Estrange Ewen, C., Witch Hunting and Witch Trials (RLE Witchcraft): The Indictments for Witchcraft from the Records of the 1373 Assizes Held from the Home Court 1559–1736 AD (1929, Routledge, 2013), ISBN 113674004X.
- Levack, B. P., The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (London: Longman, 1987), ISBN 0-582-49123-1.
- Levack, B. P., "Introduction" in B. P. Levack, ed., Witchcraft, Women, and Society, Articles on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology (Garland Publishing, 1992).
- Levack, B. P., "State building and witch hunting in early modern Europe", in J. Barry, M. Hester and G. Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), ISBN 0521638755.
- Levack, B. P., "The decline and end of Scottish witch-hunting", in J. Goodare, ed., The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), ISBN 0-7190-6024-9.
- Levack, B. P., Witch-hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics and Religion (London: Routledge, 2008), ISBN 0415399432.
- MacDonald, S., "Creating a Godly Society: Witch-hunts, Discipline and Reformation in Scotland", Canadian Society of Church History (2010).
- MacDonald, S., Threats to a Godly Society, the Witch-hunt in Fife, Scotland 1560–1710, D. Phil thesis, University of Guelph (1997).
- MacDonald, S., "In search of the Devil in Fife witchcraft cases 1560–1705", in J. Goodare, ed., The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), ISBN 0-7190-6024-9.
- Mackie, J. D., Lenman, B., and Parker, G., A History of Scotland (London: Penguin, 1991), ISBN 0140136495.
- Maxwell-Stuart, P. G., Witch Hunters: Professional Prickers, Unwitchers & Witch Finders of the Renaissance (Tempus, 2005), ISBN 0752434330.
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- Wormald, J., Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), ISBN 0-7486-0276-3.
- Yeoman, L., "Hunting the rich witch in Scotland: high status witchcraft suspects and their persecutors, 1590–1650", in J. Goodare, ed., The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), ISBN 0-7190-6024-9.
- Young, J. R., "The Covenanters and the Scottish Parliament, 1639–51: the rule of the godly and the 'second Scottish Reformation'", E. Boran and C. Gribben, eds, Enforcing Reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1550–1700 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), ISBN 0754682234.