[Sidenote: 1662.]
‘In the night-season, at Edinburgh, one Thomas Hepburn, a writer, being
a young man, was strangled in his bed privately, and, fearing he should
[have] recovered, a knife was stopped in[to] his throat. He was carried
out naked by three or four persons, and laid down on a midden-head
in the High Street. A young maid coming by at the time, being afraid,
cried and went into the Court of Guard, and told the business; upon
this, some of the guard went out and apprehended five men, drinking
with a woman, in the lodging where he lay, and carried them to the
Tolbooth. They all denied they knew any such thing.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 1.]
The late storm of popular rage against witches would now appear to
have spent the worst, though not the whole of its fury. The Privy
Council was become sensible of great inhumanity having been practised
by John Kincaid, the pricker--who, as has been stated, took upon him to
ascertain whether a woman was a witch or not by inserting a pin into
various parts of her body, with the view of finding if in any part she
was insensible to pain! They ordered this man to be put in prison.[202]
A few days afterwards, they issued a proclamation, proceeding on the
assurance they had received, that many persons had been seized and
tortured as witches, by persons having no warrant for doing so, and
who only acted out of envy or covetousness. All such unauthorised
proceedings were now forbidden. Nevertheless, proceedings of a more
legal and less barbarous character went on. Twelve commissions for the
trial of witches in different districts were issued on the 7th of May;
three on the 9th; three on the 2d of June; one upon the 19th; and three
upon the 26th. In these instances, however, a caution was given that
there must be no torture for the purpose of extorting confession. The
judges must act only upon voluntary confessions; and even where these
were given, they must see that the accused appeared fully in their
right mind.
[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1662.]
At Auldearn, in Nairnshire, the notable witch-case of Isobel Gowdie
came before a tribunal composed of the sheriff of the county, the
parish minister, seven country gentlemen, and two of the town’s
men.[203] She was a married woman; her age does not appear, but,
fifteen years before, she had given herself over to the devil, and
been baptised by him in the parish church. She was now extremely
penitent, and made an unusually ample confession, taking on herself
the guilt of every known form of witchcraft. She belonged to a
witch-_covin_ or company, consisting, as was customary, of thirteen
females like herself, who had frequent meetings with the Evil One, to
whom they formed a kind of seraglio. Each had a nickname--as _Pickle
nearest the Wind_, _Over the Dike with it_, _Able and Stout_, &c.,
and had a spirit to attend her, all of which had names also--as the
_Red Riever_, the _Roaring Lion_, and so forth. The devil himself she
described as ‘a very mickle, black, rough man.’
Meeting at night, they would proceed to a house, and sit down to meat,
the _Maiden of the Covin_ always being placed close beside the devil
and above the rest, as he had a preference for young women. One would
say a grace, as follows:
‘We eat this meat in the devil’s name,
With sorrow and _sich_ [sighs] and mickle shame;
We shall destroy house and hald,
Both sheep and nolt intill the fauld:
Little good shall come to the fore
Of all the rest of the little store.’
And when supper was done, the company looked steadily at their grizly
president, and bowing to him, said: ‘We thank thee, our Lord, for this.’
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Occasionally he was very cruel to them. ‘Sometimes, among ourselves,’
says Isobel, ‘we would be calling him _Black John_, or the like, and
he would ken it, and hear us weel eneuch, and he even then come to
us and say: “I ken weel eneuch what ye are saying of me!” And then
he would beat and buffet us very sore. We would be beaten if we were
absent any time, or neglect anything that would be appointed to be
done. Alexander Elder in Earl-seat would be beaten very often. He is
but soft, and could never defend himself in the least, but would greet
and cry when he would be scourging him. But Margaret Wilson would
defend herself finely, and cast up her hands to keep the strokes off
her; and Bessie Wilson would speak crusty, and be belling again to him
stoutly. He would be beating us all up and down with cords and other
sharp scourges, like naked ghaists, and we would still be crying:
“Pity, pity, mercy, mercy, our Lord!” But he would have neither pity
nor mercy. When angry at us, he would girn at us like a dog, as if he
would swallow us up. Sometimes he would be like a stirk, a bull, a
deer, a rae,’ &c.
Isobel stated that when the married witches went out to these nocturnal
conventions, they put a besom into their place in bed, which prevented
their husbands from missing them. When they had feasted in a house and
wished to depart, a corn-straw put between their legs served them as a
horse; and on their crying, ‘Horse and hattock in the devil’s name!’
they would fly away, ‘even as straws would fly upon a highway.’ She
once feasted in Darnaway Castle, and left it in this manner. On another
occasion, the party went to the Downy Hills, where the hill opened,
and they went into a well-lighted room, where they were entertained by
the queen of Faery. This personage was ‘brawly clothed in white linens
and in white and brown clothes;’ while her husband, the king of Faery,
was ‘a braw man, weel-favoured, and broad-faced.’ ‘On that occasion,’
says Isobel, ‘there were elf-bulls routing up and down, and affrighted
me’--a trait which bears so much the character of a dream, as to be
highly useful in deciding that the whole was mere hallucination.
The covin were empowered to take the shapes of hares, cats, and crows.
On assuming the first of these forms, it was necessary to say:
‘I sall go intill a hare,
With sorrow, sich, and mickle care;
And I sall go in the devil’s name,
Aye while I come home again.’
‘I was one morning,’ says Isobel, ‘about the break of day, going to
Auldearn in the shape of ane hare, and Patrick Papley’s servants, going
to their labour, his hounds being with them, ran after me. I ran very
long, but was forced, being weary, at last to take my own house. The
door being left open, I ran in behind a chest, and the hounds followed
in; but they went to the other side of the chest, and I was forced to
run forth again, and wan into ane other house, and there took leisure
to say:
“Hare, hare, God send thee care!
I am in a hare’s likeness now,
But I sall be a woman even now!
Hare, hare, God send thee care!”
[Sidenote: 1662.]
And so I returned to my own shape again. The dogs,’ she added, ‘will
sometimes get bits of us, but will not get us killed. When we turn to
our own shape, we will have the bits, and rives, and scarts in our
bodies.’
Sometimes they would engage in cures, using of course the power derived
from their infernal master. For a sore or a broken limb there was a
charm in verse, which they said thrice over, _stroking the sore_, and
it was sure to heal. They had a similar charm for the _bean-shaw_ or
sciatica:
‘We are three maidens charming for the bean-shaw,
The man of the middle earth,
Blue bearer, land fever,
Manners of stoors,
The Lord flegged the Fiend with his holy candles and yird-fast
stone;
There she sits and here she is gone:
Let her never come here again!’
Another was for cases of fever:
‘I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and
all the fevers that ever God ordained,
Out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the
sides, out of the knees, out of the thies,
Frae the points of the fingers to the nebs of the taes:
Out sall the fevers go, some to the hill, some to the hope,
Some to the stone, some to the stock,
In St Peter’s name, St Paul’s name, and all the saints of heaven,
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Haly Ghaist!’
More generally, however, they were employed in planting or prolonging
diseases. Isobel Gowdie told the minister that, in the preceding
winter, when he was sick, they made a bagful of horrible broth of the
entrails of toads, parings of nails, the liver of a hare, pickles of
beir and bits of rag, and, at the dictation of the devil, pronounced
over it this charm:
‘He is lying in his bed, he is lying sick and sair,
Let him lie intill his bed two months and three days mair,’ &c.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
‘Then we fell down upon our knees, with our hair down over our
shoulders and eyes, and our hands lifted up, and our eyes steadfastly
fixed upon the devil, and said the foresaid words thrice over.... In
the night-time, we came into Mr Harry Forbes’s chalmer, with our hands
all smeared, to swing [the bag] upon Mr Harry, where he was sick in
his bed; and in the daytime [there came ane of our number] to swing
the bag [upon the said Mr Harry, as we could][204] not prevail in the
night-time against him.’
Isobel stated the charm for taking away a cow’s milk. ‘We pull the tow
[rope] and twine it, and plait it the wrong way in the devil’s name;
and we draw the tether, sae made, in betwixt the cow’s hinder feet, and
out betwixt the cow’s forward feet, in the devil’s name; and thereby
takes with us the cow’s milk.... The way to give back the milk again is
to cut the tether. When we take away the strength of any person’s ale,
and gives it to another, we take a little quantity out of each barrel
or stand of ale, and puts it in a stoup, in the devil’s name; and, in
his name, with our awn hands, puts it amang another’s ale, and gives
her the strength and substance of her neighbour’s ale. [The way] to
keep the ale from us, that we have no power of it, is to sanctify it
weel.’
One of their evil doings was to take away the strength of the manure
of such as they wished ill to, or to make their lands unproductive.
‘Before Candlemas, we went be-east Kinloss, and there we yoked a pleuch
of paddocks. The devil held the pleuch, and John Young in Mebestown,
our officer, did drive the pleuch. Paddocks did draw the pleuch as
oxen. Quickens [dog-grass] were soams [traces]; a riglen’s [ram’s]
horn was a coulter; and a piece of a riglen’s horn was a sock. We went
several times about, and all we of the _covin_ went still up and down
with the pleuch, praying to the devil for the fruit of that land, and
that thistles and briers might grow there.’ When they wished to have
fish, they had only to go to the shore just before the boats came home
and say three several times:
‘The fishers are gone to the sea,
And they will bring home fish to me;
They will bring them home intill the boat,
But they sall get of them but the smaller sort.’
Accordingly, they obtained all the fishes in the boats, leaving the
fishermen nothing but slime behind.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Having conceived a design of destroying all the Laird of Park’s male
children, they made a small effigy of a child in clay, and having
learned the proper charm from their master, fell down before him on
their knees, with their hair hanging over their eyes, and looking
steadily at him, said:
‘In the devil’s name
We pour this water amang the meal,
For lang dwining and ill heal;
We put it intill the fire,
That it may be burned baith stick and stour.
It sall be brunt with our will,
As any stickle[205] upon a kiln.’
‘Then, in the devil’s name,’ says the culprit, ‘we did put it in, in
the midst of the fire. After it was red like a coal, we took it out in
the devil’s name. Till it be broken, it will be the death of all the
male children that the Laird of Park will ever get.... It was roasten
each other day at the fire; sometimes one part of it, sometimes another
part of it, would be wet with water, and then roasten. The bairn would
be burnt and roasten, even as it was by us.’ One child having died, the
hags laid up the image till the next baby was born, and ‘within half a
year after that bairn was born, we took it out again, and would dip it
now and then in water, and beek and roast it at the fire, each other
day once, untill that bairn died also.’
The devil made elf-arrows for them, and, learning to shoot these by an
adroit use of the thumb, they killed several persons with them, also
some cattle. ‘I shot at the Laird of Park,’ says Isobel, ‘as he was
crossing the Burn of Boath; but, thanks be to God that he preserved
him. Bessie Hay gave me a great cuff because I missed him.’ She spoke
of having herself shot a man engaged in ploughing, and also a woman.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Not satisfied with what they had done against the Laird of Park, they
held a diabolic convention at Elspet Nisbet’s house, to take measures
for the entire destruction of his family and that of the Laird of
Lochloy. Taking some dog’s flesh and some sheep’s flesh, they chopped
it small and seethed it for a whole forenoon in a pot. Then the devil
put in a sheep’s bag, which he stirred about for some time with his
hands. ‘We were upon our knees, our hair about our eyes, and our
hands lifted up, and we looking steadfastly upon the devil, praying
to him, repeating the words which he learned us, that it should kill
and destroy the Lairds of Park and Lochloy, and their male children
and posterity. And then we came to the Inshoch in the night-time, and
scattered it about the gate, and other places where the lairds and
their sons would most haunt, and then we, in the likeness of craws
and rooks, stood about the gate and in the trees opposite. It was
appointed so that if any of them should touch or tramp on any of it,
it should strike them with boils, &c., and kill them. Whilk it did,
and they shortly died. We did it to make that house heirless. It would
wrong none else but they.’
We are not informed of the fate of Isobel Gowdie, or her associate,
Janet Braidhead, from whose confession the last particulars are
extracted; but there can be no doubt that they perished at the stake.
Theirs are clearly cases of hallucination, mistakes of dreams and
passing thoughts for real events, the whole being prompted in the first
place by the current tales of witchcraft, and then made to assume in
their own eyes a character of guilt because the witches themselves
believed in witchcraft and all its turpitude, as well as their
neighbours.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 15.]
The new-made Archbishop of St Andrews (Sharpe) commenced a sort of
progress from Edinburgh, to take possession of his see. Dining with Sir
Andrew Ramsay at Abbotshall, he came to lodge at Leslie, attended by
several of the nobility and gentry. The anxiety of the upper classes to
do honour to the new system is shewn in the cortège which accompanied
the prelate next day to St Andrews. He had an earl on each hand, and
various other nobles and lairds, and at one time between seven and
eight hundred mounted gentlemen, in his train. Next Sunday, he preached
in the town-church of St Andrews, on the text, ‘I am determined to know
nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.’ ‘His sermon
did not run much on the words, but in a discourse vindicating himself,
and pressing Episcopacy and the utility of it.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 20.]
By an act of parliament, this day was henceforth to be held as a
holiday, both as the king’s birthday and as the anniversary of his
majesty’s restoration. All over Scotland, the ordinance seems to have
been heartily complied with. Everywhere there were religious services
and abstinence from labour, and in most places active demonstrations
of rejoicing, as beating of drums, shooting of cannon, sounding of
trumpets, setting up of bonfires, and ceremonial drinkings of royal
healths in public places.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Through a peculiar loyal zeal, there was an extraordinary demonstration
at Linlithgow. Not merely was the fine public fountain of that ancient
burgh set flowing with divers coloured wines of France and Spain; not
merely did the magistrates, accompanied by the Earl of Linlithgow and
the minister of the parish, come to the market-place and there drink
the king’s health at a collation in the open air, throwing sweetmeats
and glasses among the people, but an arch had been constructed, with
the genius of the Covenant (an old hag) on one side, a Whiggamore
on the other, and the devil on the top--on the back, a picture of
Rebellion ‘in a religious habit, with turned-up eyes and a fanatic
gesture,’ while on the pillars were drawn ‘kirk-stools, rocks,
and reels,’ ‘brochans, cogs, and spoons,’ with legends containing
burlesque allusions to the doings of the zealous during the preceding
twenty years: and at the drinking of the king’s health, this fabric
was set fire to and consumed, together with copies of the Covenants,
and all the acts of parliament passed during the Civil War, as well
as many protestations, declarations, and other public documents of
great celebrity in their day. When the fire was over, there appeared,
in place of the late fabric, a tablet supported by two angels, and
presenting the following inscription:
‘Great Britain’s monarch on this day was born,
And to his kingdom happily restored;
His queen’s arrived, the matter now is known,
Let us rejoice, this day is from the Lord!
Flee hence all traitors, that did mar our peace;
Flee, all schismatics who our church did rent;
Flee, Covenanting remonstrating race;
Let us rejoice that God this day hath sent.’
Then the magistrates accompanied the earl to the palace, where he, as
keeper, had a grand bonfire, and here the loyal toasts were all drunk
over again. Finally, the magistrates made a procession through the
burgh, saluting every man of account.[206]
Wodrow tells us that this ‘mean mock of the work of reformation,’ was
chiefly managed by Robert Miln, then bailie of Linlithgow, and Mr James
Ramsay, the minister of the parish, subsequently bishop of Dunblane;
both of whom had a few years before ‘solemnly entered into, and renewed
these covenants, with uplifted hands to the Lord.’ ‘The first in
some time thereafter came to great riches and honour [as a farmer of
revenues], but outlived them, and the exercise of his judgment too, and
died bankrupt in miserable circumstances at Holyroodhouse.’
[Sidenote: 1662.