Witch trials in early modern Scotland

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North Berwick Witches meet the Devil in the local kirkyard, from a contemporary pamphlet, Newes from Scotland

In

Witchcraft Act 1563 made witchcraft, or consulting with witches, capital crimes. The first major issue of trials under the new act were the North Berwick witch trials, beginning in 1590, in which King James VI played a major part as "victim" and investigator. He became interested in witchcraft and published a defence of witch-hunting in the Daemonologie
in 1597, but he appears to have become increasingly sceptical and eventually took steps to limit prosecutions.

An estimated 4,000 to 6,000 people, mostly from the

1736
.

Many causes have been suggested for the hunts, including economic distress, changing attitudes to women, the rise of a "godly state",

judicial torture, the role of the local kirk, decentralised justice and the prevalence of the idea of the diabolic pact. The proliferation of partial explanations for the witch-hunt has led some historians to proffer the concept of "associated circumstances", rather than one single significant cause.[2]

Origins

Legal origins

Illustration of witches, perhaps being tortured before James VI, from his Daemonologie (1597)

For late medieval Scotland there is evidence of occasional prosecutions of individuals for causing harm through witchcraft. High-profile political cases included the action against

John Stewart, Earl of Mar for allegedly using sorcery against his brother King James III in 1479.[3] Evidence of these political cases indicates that they were becoming rarer in the first half of the sixteenth century however.[4] Popular belief in magic was widespread in the Middle Ages, but theologians had been generally sceptical, and lawyers interested in prosecuting only cases in which harm from magic was seen as being evident. Three women from Edinburgh and Dunfermline accused of witchcraft were held at St Andrews Castle and executed by burning on 10 October 1542.[5] They were accused of divination and malefice, using harmful magic.[6]

From the late sixteenth century attitudes began to change, and witches were seen as deriving powers from the Devil, with the result that witchcraft was seen as a form of

Witchcraft Act 1563, one of a series of laws underpinning Biblical laws[3] and similar to that passed in England a year earlier, which made the practice of witchcraft itself, and consulting with witches, capital crimes.[4]

The first witch-hunt under the act was in the east of the country in 1568–69 in Angus and the Mearns,[7] where there were unsuccessful attempts to introduce elements of the diabolic pact and the hunt collapsed.[8] The Earl of Argyll made a progress in Lorne, Argyll, and Cowal in July 1574 holding courts and executing men and women convicted of "common sorcery."[9]

Role of James VI

Main article: James VI and I

James VI's visit to Denmark in 1589, where witch-hunts were already common, may have encouraged an interest in the study of witchcraft, and he came to see the storms he encountered on his voyage as the result of magic.

Tragedy of Macbeth, which contains probably the most famous literary depiction of Scottish witches.[13]

James imported continental explanations of witchcraft. In the view of Thomas Lolis, James I's goal was to divert suspicion away from male homosociality among the elite, and focus fear on female communities and large gatherings of women. He thought they threatened his political power so he laid the foundation for witchcraft and occultism policies, especially in Scotland. The point was that a widespread belief in the conspiracy of witches and a witches' Sabbath with the devil deprived women of political influence. Occult power was supposedly a womanly trait because women were weaker and more susceptible to the devil.[14] However, after the publication of Daemonologie his views became more sceptical,[15] and in the same year he revoked the standing commissions on witchcraft, limiting prosecutions by the central courts.[16]

Nature of the trials

Although Scotland had probably about one quarter of the population of England, it had three times the number of witchcraft prosecutions, at an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 over the entire period.

1661–62, which involved some 664 named witches in four counties.[18]

Discovery of Witchcraft
, 1584

Most of the accused, some 75%, were women, though some men were also executed as witches or as warlocks. Modern estimates indicate that over 1,500 persons were executed.[19] Most of these were older women, with some younger women and men accused because they were related to an accused witch, usually as daughters and husbands. Some men were accused because they were folk healers who were felt to have misused their powers, although folk healers as a group were not targeted. Most were not vagrants or beggars, but settled members of their communities. Most had built a reputation for witchcraft over years, which resulted in prosecution when a "victim" suffered ill fortune, particularly after a curse had been issued. The use of curses by some women as a means of acquiring social power may have made this process more likely to occur.[3]

Almost all witchcraft prosecutions took place in secular courts under the provisions of the 1563 Act.

kirk sessions, disciplinary committees run by the parish elite, and was often used to attack "superstitious" and Catholic practices.[19] The central courts only launched a trial when the Privy Council issued a commission, although the council did not have full control over prosecutions in the Court of Judiciary.[2]

Scottish witchcraft trials were notable for their use of

burned alive.[25][26]

Witch beliefs

Illustration of Doctor Fian, from Newes from Scotland

The belief that witches could cause harm was common among all social groups in early modern Scotland. In 1701 in Anstruther, Elizabeth Dick had been turned away from the local mill when begging. She cursed the mill and several witnesses testified that the grain in the mill turned red. Only when one of the people who had refused her help ran after her and gave her alms did she bless the mill and everything returned to normal.[27] About half of accused witches had already gained a reputation for causing harm over a long period of time.[3] The fact that only four per cent of recorded accused witches were involved in folk healing seems to indicate that healing skills were largely seen as different from witchcraft.[28] The Aberdeenshire trials of 1596 reveal that spells could be purchased from folk magicians for success at fishing, to ensure a happy marriage, to prolong life and to affect the weather, but harmful spells were considered witchcraft. Many accusations included sexual fears. Margaret Bane, a midwife, it was claimed, could transfer the pains of childbirth to a woman's husband and Helen Gray cast a spell on a man that gave him a permanent erection.[29] Witches and other sorts of folk magicians could also carry out divinations. These included by reading the marks on the shoulder blade of a slaughtered animal, measuring a person's sleeve or waist to see if they were suffering from a fever, or being able to find answers based on which way a sieve suspended from scissors or shears swung, as Margaret Mungo was accused of doing, before the kirk session of Dingwall in 1649.[30]

It has often been stated that Scottish witchcraft was particularly concerned with the demonic pact. In the high court, Katherine Sands, who was one of four women accused of witchcraft at

Queen of the Fairies in her home under the hill.[32] J. A. MacCulloch argued that there was a "mingling of beliefs" in Scotland, between popular belief in fairies and elite Christian ideas of demonic action.[33] Alison Dick of Kirkcaldy in Fife was accused with her husband by neighbours for putting 'curses' on them,[34] and was burned to death on 8 November 1633.[35] She is one of the thirteen accused witches in an exhibition Witches in Word, Not Deed by artist Carolyn Sutton, at the Edinburgh Central Library in 2023.[36]

Alison Dick display at Edinburgh Central Library 'Witches in Word, Not Deed' by Carolyn Sutton

Decline

In the seventeenth century there was growing scepticism about the reality of witchcraft among the educated elite.

Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and there was a flood of over 600 cases[38] that alarmed the restored Privy Council, leading it to insist on the necessity of its commission for an arrest or prosecution, and banning judicial torture.[2]

Reprint of the title page of George Sinclair's Satans Invisible World (1685), one of the many tracts published in Scotland arguing against sceptical views of witchcraft

Prosecutions began to decline as trials were more tightly controlled by the judiciary and government, torture was more sparingly used and standards of evidence were raised.

1736, making the legal pursuit of witches impossible.[37] Nevertheless, basic magical beliefs persisted, particularly in the Highlands and Islands.[2]

Causes

Various reasons for the Scottish witch-hunt, and its more intense nature than that in England, have been advanced by historians. Older theories, that there was a widespread

Calvinism and Presbyterianism, and may have perceived women as more of a moral threat.[2] As a result the witch-hunt in Scotland has been seen as a means of controlling women.[19] However two of the major witch-hunts took place while the Church of Scotland was controlled by Episcopalians.[40] Christina Larner
suggested that the outbreak of the hunt in the mid-sixteenth century was tied to the rise of a "godly state", where the reformed Kirk was closely linked to an increasingly intrusive Scottish crown and legal system.

It has been suggested that the intensity of Scottish witch-hunting was due to an

inquisitorial judicial system and the widespread use of judicial torture. However, Brian P. Levack argues that the Scottish system was only partly inquisitorial and that use of judicial torture was extremely limited, similar to the situation in England. A relatively high level of acquittal in Scottish trials may have been due to the employment of defence lawyers in Scottish courts, a benefit not given accused witches in England. The close involvement of the Scottish Kirk in trials and the decentralised nature of Scottish courts, where local magistrates heard many cases (in contrast to England where most were before a small number of circuit judges), may have contributed to higher rates of prosecution.[41] The diabolic pact is often stated as a major difference between Scottish and English witchcraft cases, but Stuart Maxwell argues that the iconography of Satan may be an imposition of central government beliefs on local traditions, particularly those concerned with fairies, which were more persistent in Scotland than in England.[42] The proliferation of partial explanations for the witch-hunt has led some historians to proffer the concept of "associated circumstances", rather than one single significant cause.[2]

21st-century pardons and memorials

In 2020 and 2021, three centuries after repeal of the Witchcraft Act, and after a two-year campaign by the Witches of Scotland group, a member’s bill in the Scottish parliament has the support of the Scottish administration to clear the names of those accused.[43] On the International Women's Day in 2022, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon officially apologized on behalf of the Scottish government to those accused under the Witchcraft Act.[44][45]

The Kirk apologised in May 2022 for its part in the persecution of those accused of witchcraft.[46]

In 2023, there was an exhibition of thirteen figures of accused witches, Witches in Words, not Deeds, created by Carolyn Sutton. Alison Dick was one of the figures exhibited at Edinburgh's Central Library.[47]

See also

References

Citations

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  2. ^
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  3. ^
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  4. ^
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  5. ^ Robert Kerr Hannay, Rentale Sancti Andree (Edinburgh: SHS, 1913), pp. 139, 141.
  6. ^ P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, Satan's Conspiracy: Magic and Witchcraft in Sixteenth-century Scotland (Tuckwell, 2001), p. 33.
  7. ^ L. Normand and G. Roberts, Witchcraft in early modern Scotland: James VI's demonology and the North Berwick witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), 085989388X, p. 5.
  8. ISBN 0-7190-6024-9
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  9. ^ William Boyd, Calendar of State Papers Scotland: 1574-1581, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1907) p. 34.
  10. ISBN 0-333-61395-3
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  11. ^ JuliaH (14 November 2018). "Francis Stewart Hepburn, the 5th Earl of Bothwell". The History Jar. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
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  13. ^
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  14. ^ Thomas Lolis, "The City of Witches: James I, the Unholy Sabbath, and the Homosocial Refashioning of the Witches’ Community", CLIO (2008) 37(3), pp. 322-37.
  15. ISBN 0-333-61395-3
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  16. ^
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  17. ISBN 978-90-04-25292-9
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  18. ISBN 0-7190-6024-9
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  19. ^
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  34. ^ "Tales of witchcraft: Witch-hunting in the Kirkcaldy kirk session minutes | ScotlandsPeople". www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  35. ^ "Tales of witchcraft: Witch-hunting in the Kirkcaldy kirk session minutes | ScotlandsPeople". www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  36. ^ edinburghcitylibraries (20 September 2023). "Witches in Word, not Deed – an exhibition at Central Library until 30 November 2023". Tales of One City. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
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  40. ^ Smout, T.C. A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830
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  43. ^ Davies, Caroline (19 December 2021). "Women executed 300 years ago as witches in Scotland set to receive pardons". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  44. ^ "Scotland Moves to Pardon Thousands Executed as Witches—400 Years Later". The Wall Street Journal. December 2021. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  45. ^ Brown, Hannah (8 March 2022). "First Minister gives formal apology to those persecuted under Witchcraft Act as she welcomes misogyny report". www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  46. ^ Swanson, Ian (25 May 2022). "Church of Scotland apologises for Kirk's role in persecution of those accu". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  47. ^ edinburghcitylibraries (20 September 2023). "Witches in Word, not Deed – an exhibition at Central Library until 30 November 2023". Tales of One City. Retrieved 24 November 2023.

Further reading

  • Davidson, Thomas (1949), Rowan Tree and Red Thread: A Scottish Witchcraft Miscellany of Tales, Legends and Ballads; Together with a Description of the Witches' Rites and ceremonies, Oliver and Boyd
  • Maxwell-Stuart, P. G. (2007), The Great Scottish Witch-Hunt, Tempus

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