The True Story vs. Myth of Witchcraft. William Godwin
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been selected; for among those apprehended on Duncan’s information was Euphemia Macalzean, the daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, one of the senators of the College of Justice.
To trace out the wide field of witchcraft which was opened to him by the confessions of the accused, as they were successively examined, was an employment highly congenial to the credulous mind of James, prone to every superstition, and versed in all the traditionary lore of Sprenger and Bodinus. Day after day he attended the examinations in person, was put into a “wonderful admiration” by every new trait of grotesque horror which their confessions disclosed, and even carried his curiosity so far as to send for Gellie Duncan herself, who had, according to the confession of another witch, Agnes Sampson (the wise wife of Keith), played a reel or dance before the witches, as they moved in procession to meet the devil in the kirk of North Berwick, in order that he might himself listen to this infernal air—“who upon the like trumpe did play the said dance before the King’s majestie, who, in respect of the strangeness of these matters, took great delight to be present at these examinations.”
All these disclosures, however, it may be anticipated, were not without a liberal application of the usual compulsitor in such cases—the torture. The chief sufferer was a person named Cuningham, who figures in the trials under the name of Dr. Fian, a schoolmaster near Tranent, and apparently a person of dissolute character, although, as appeared from his conduct on this inquisition, also of singular strength of mind and firmness of nerve. He was put to the question, “first, by thrawing of his head with a rope, whereat he would confess nothing; secondly, he was persuaded by fair means to confess his folly,” (would it not have been as natural to have tried the fair means first?) “but that would prevail as little; lastly, he was put to the most cruel and severe pain in the world, called the Boots48, who, after he had received three strokes, being inquired if he would confess his damnable acts and wicked life, his tongue would not serve him to speak.” Being released from this instrument of torture, he appears, under the influence of the agony produced by it, to have subscribed a confession, embracing not only the alleged charges of conspiracy against the King by means of witchcraft, but a variety of particulars relative to his own life and conversation, by no means of an edifying character.
But the weight to be attached to this confession was soon made apparent by what followed; for Fian, who had been recommitted to prison, and who had appeared for a day or two to be “very solitarye” and penitent, contrived in the course of the next night to make his escape, and on his re-apprehension and second examination thought fit, to the great discomposure of James, to deny the whole of the charges which he had previously admitted. “Whereupon the King’s majestie, perceiving his stubborn wilfulnesse,” prescribed the following remedy for his relapse. “His nayles upon his fingers were riven and pulled with an instrument called in Scottish a Turkas49. And under every naile there was thrust in two needles over even up to the heads. At all which torments, notwithstanding, the doctor never shrunke anie whitt, neither would he then confess it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon him. Then was he with all convenient speed by commandment conveyed again to the torment of the boots, where he continued a long time, and abode so many blows in them that his legs were crushed and beaten together as small as might be, and the bones and flesh so bruised, that the blood and marrow spouted forth in great abundance, whereby they were made unserviceable for ever.”
The doctor, it will be seen, did not long require their services; but whether his confession was obtained by fair means or foul, it certainly bears so startling a resemblance to that of the leading witch, Agnes Sampson, a woman whom Spottiswood describes as “matron-like, grave and settled in her answers,” that it is hardly to be wondered at that the superstitious mind of James should have been confounded by the coincidence. Nothing, in fact, can exceed the general harmony of the accounts given by the different witches of their proceedings, except the ludicrous and yet horrible character of the incidents which they record, and which might well extort, even from James himself, the observation he appears to have made in the commencement of the proceedings, that they were all “extreme lyars.”
James, it appears, from his singular piety, and the active part which, long before the composition of his ‘Dæmonologie,’ he had taken against Satan and his invisible world, had been, from the first, most obnoxious to his servants upon earth. On one occasion, when an unsuccessful attempt had been made against his life, the fiend pleaded (though we do not see why a Scotch devil should speak French) that he had no power over him, adding, “Il est homme de Dieu50.” The visit which, in a sudden fit of romantic gallantry, he paid to Norway, to bring over his queen, was too favourable an opportunity for the instruments of Satan to be neglected; and accordingly it was resolved by the conclave that every exertion should be made to raise such a tempest as should infallibly put an end to the greatest enemy (as Satan himself confidentially admitted to one of the witches) whom the devil ever had in the world. The preparations were therefore commenced with all due solemnity. Satan undertook, in the first instance, to raise a mist so as to strand the King on the English coast, but, more active measures being thought necessary, Dr. Fian, as the devil’s secretary, or register, as he is called throughout these trials, addressed a letter to a distinguished witch, Marion Linkup, and others of the sisterhood, directing them to meet their master on the sea within five days, for the purpose of destroying the King51. On All-hallowmas Eve the infernal party, to the number of about two hundred, embarked, “each in a riddle or sieve, and went into the same very substantially.” In what latitude they met with Satan is not stated, but after some cruizing about he made his appearance, and delivered to Robert Grierson a cat, which it appears had previously been drawn nine times through the cruik52, giving the word to “cast the same into the sea! Hola!” And this notable charm was not without its effect, for James, whose fleet was at that time clearing the Danish coast, afterwards declared that his ship alone had the wind contrary, while all the other vessels had a fair one.
The charm upon the water being finished, the witches landed, and after enjoying themselves with wine, which they drank out of the same sieves in which they had previously sailed so “substantially,” they moved on in procession towards the kirk of North Berwick, which had been fixed on as their place of rendezvous with their master. The company exceeded one hundred, of whom thirty-two are enumerated in Agnes Sampson’s confession. And they were preceded by Gellie Duncan, playing upon the Jew’s-harp the following ditty:
“Cummer, goe ye before, Cummer, goe ye,
Gif ye will not go before, Cummer, let me!”
Here their master was to appear in a character less common in Scotland than on the Continent, that of a preacher. Doctor Fian, who, as the devil’s register, took the lead in the ceremonies at the kirk, blew up the doors, and blew in the lichts, which resembled black candles sticking round about the pulpit, while another of the party, Grey Meill, acted as door-keeper. Suddenly the devil himself started up in the pulpit, attired in a gown and hat, both black. The sketch of his appearance given in Sir James Melville’s Memoirs has something of the power and picturesqueness of Dante. “His body was hard lyk yrn, as they thocht that handled him; his faice was terrible, his nose lyk the bek of an egle, gret bournyng eyn” (occhi di bragia); “his handis and leggis were herry, with clawis upon his handis, and feit lyk the Griffin, and spak with a how voice.” He first called the roll of the congregation, to which each answered by name; he then demanded of them whether they had been good servants, what they had done since the last time they had convened, and what had been the success of their conjurations against the King. Gray Meill, the doorkeeper, who was rash enough to remark, that “naething ailet the King yet, God be thankit,” was rewarded for this mal-apropos observation by a great blow. The devil then proceeded to admonish them to keep his commandments, which were simply to do all the evil they could; on his leaving the pulpit, the whole congregation, male and female, did homage to him, by saluting him in a way and manner which we must leave those who are curious in such ceremonies to