The True Story vs. Myth of Witchcraft. William Godwin
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is the strange story in which all the criminals examined before James and the Council substantially agree; and unquestionably the singular coincidence of their narratives remains at this day one of the most difficult problems in the philosophy of Scottish history. The fate of the unfortunate beings who confessed these enormities could not, in that age of credulity, be for a moment doubtful. Fian, to whom, after the inhuman tortures to which he had been subjected, life could not be of much value, was condemned, strangled, and burnt. Agnes Sampson underwent a similar fate. Barbara Napier, another person said to have been present at the convention, though acquitted of this charge, was condemned on certain other charges of sorcery in the indictment; but so strongly was the mind of James excited, that, though he had secured a conviction against her, he actually brought the assize to trial for wilful error in acquitting her on this point of dittay.
But the most distinguished victim connected with this scene of witchcraft was Euphemia Macalzean, the daughter of an eminent judge, Lord Cliftonhall, a woman of strong mind and licentious passions, a devoted adherent to the Roman Catholic faith, a partisan of Bothwell (who was accused by several of the witches as implicated in these practices against the King’s life), and a determined enemy to James and to the Reformed religion. Whatever may have been the precise extent of this lady’s acquirements in sorcery, there can be no doubt that she had been on terms of the most familiar intercourse with abandoned wretches of both sexes, pretenders to witchcraft, and that she had repeatedly employed their aid in attempting to remove out of the way persons who were obnoxious to her, or who stood in the way of the indulgence of her passions. The number of sorceries, poisonings, and attempts at poisoning, charged against her in the indictment, almost rivals the accusations against Brinvilliers; and, though the jury acquitted her of several of these, they convicted her of participation in the murder of her own godfather, of her husband’s nephew, and of Douglas of Pennfrastone; besides being present at the convention of North Berwick, and various other meetings of witches, at which the King’s death had been contrived. Her punishment was the severest which the court could pronounce: instead of the ordinary sentence, directing her to be first strangled at a stake and then burned, the unhappy woman was doomed to be “bund to ane staik and burnt in assis, quick, to the death,” a fate which she endured with the greatest firmness, on the 25th of June, 1591. So deep and permanent was the impression made by these scenes upon the King’s mind, that we owe to them the preparation of an Act of Parliament anent the form of process against witches, mentioned among the unprinted acts for 1597, and more immediately the composition of that notable work of the Scottish Solomon, the ‘Dæmonologie.’
In the trials of Bessie Roy, of James Reid, of Patrick Currie, of Isobel Grierson, and of Grizel Gardiner53, the charges are principally of taking off and laying on diseases either on men or cattle; meetings with the devil in various shapes and places; raising and dismembering dead bodies for the purpose of enchantments; destroying crops; scaring honest persons in the shape of cats; taking away women’s milk; committing housebreaking and theft by means of enchantments, and so on. South-running water, salt, rowan-tree, enchanted flints (probably elf-arrow heads), and doggrel verses (generally a translation of the Creed or Lord’s Prayer) were the means employed for effecting a cure. Diseases again were laid on by forming pictures of clay or wax, which were placed before the fire or buried with the heads downward; by placing a dead hand, or some mutilated member, in the house of the intended victim; or, as in the case of Grierson, by the simpler process of throwing an enchanted tailzie (slice) of beef against his door. It was immaterial whether the supposed powers of the witch were exerted for good or evil. In the case of Grieve, no malefice (to use the technical term) was charged against him, but simply that he had cured diseases by means of charms; and the same in the case of Alison Pearson; but both were executed. Bartie Paterson seems to have been the most pious of warlocks, for his patients were uniformly directed, in addition to his prescriptions, to “ask their health at all livand wichtis abone or under the earth, in the name of Jesus.” The trial of Robert Erskine of Dun, though given as one for witchcraft, seems to have been a simple case of poisoning, he having merely resorted to a notorious witch, named Margaret Irvine, for the herbs by which he despatched his nephews. The case of Margaret Wallace, towards the close of James’s reign, deserves notice as being the first where something like a stand was made against some of the fundamental positions of the demonologists; the counsel for the prisoner contending strongly against the doctrine that, in the case of a person accused of witchcraft, every cure performed by her was to be set down to the agency of the devil. The defence however, though it seems to have been ably conducted, was unsuccessful.
Matters continued much in the same state during the reign of Charles I. From 1625 to 1640 there are eight entries of trials for witchcraft on the Record, one of which, that of Elizabeth Bathgate, is remarkable, as being followed by an acquittal. In that of Katharine Oswald54, the prisoner’s counsel had the boldness to argue, that no credit was to be given to the confessions of the other witches, who had sworn to the presence of the prisoner at some of their orgies; “for all lawyers agree,” argued he, “that they are not really transported, but only in their fancies, while asleep, in which they sometimes dream they see others there.” This reasoning however appears to have made no impression on the jury, any more than the argument in Young’s case55, that the stoppage of the mill, which she was accused of having effected twenty-nine years before, by sorcery, might have been the effect of natural causes. About one-half of the convictions during this period proceed on judicial confessions; whether voluntary or extorted does not appear. They are not in general interesting, though some of the details in the trial of Hamilton56 differ a little from the ordinary routine of the witch trials of the time. Having met the devil on Kingston Hills, in East Lothian, he was persuaded by the tempter to renounce his baptism—a piece of apostasy for which he received only four shillings. The devil further directed him to employ the following polite adjuration when he wished to raise him, namely, to beat the ground three times with his stick, and say, “Rise up, foul thief!” On the other hand, the devil’s behaviour towards him was equally unceremonious; for on one occasion, when Hamilton had neglected to keep his appointment, he gave him a severe drubbing with a baton.
The scene darkens however, towards the close of this reign, with the increasing dominion of the Puritans. In 1640 the General Assembly passed an act, that all ministers should take particular note of witches and charmers, and that the commissioners should recommend to the supreme judicature the unsparing application of the laws against them. In 1643 (August 19), after setting forth the increase of the crime, they recommend the granting a standing commission from the Privy Council or Justiciary to any “understanding gentlemen or magistrates,” to apprehend, try, and execute justice against the delinquents. The subject appears to have been resumed in 1644, 1645, and 1649; and their remonstrances, it would seem, had not been without effect, for in 1649, the year after the execution of Charles, an Act of Parliament was passed confirming and extending the provisions of Queen Mary’s, so as more effectually to reach consulters with witches, in regard to whom it was thought (though we do not see why) that the terms of the former act were a little equivocal. From this time, not only does the number of convictions, which since the death of James had been on the decline, increase, but the features of the cases assume a deeper tinge of horror. The old, impossible, and abominable fancies of the ‘Malleus’ were revived in the trials of Janet Barker and Margaret Lauder57, which correspond in a remarkable manner with some of the evidence in the Mora trials. About thirty trials appear on the record between this last date and the Restoration, only one of which appears to have terminated in an acquittal; while at a single circuit-court, held at Glasgow, Stirling, and Ayr, in 1659, seventeen persons were convicted and burnt for this crime.
Numerous however as are the cases in the Records of Justiciary, it must be kept in view that these afford an extremely inadequate idea of the extent to which this pest prevailed over the country. For though Sir George Mackenzie doubts whether, in virtue merely of the general powers given by the act, 1563, inferior judges did at any time,