that he was the greatest enemy he ever had. He sent for Gellie Duncan
to the palace, and made her play before him the same reel which she had
played at the witches' dance in the kirk.
Dr. Fian, or rather Cunningham, a petty schoolmaster at Tranent, was
put to the torture among the rest. He was a man who had led an infamous
life, was a compounder of and dealer in poisons, and a pretender to
magic. Though not guilty of the preposterous crimes laid to his charge,
there is no doubt that he was a sorcerer in will, though not in deed,
and that he deserved all the misery he endured. When put on the rack,
he would confess nothing, and held out so long unmoved, that the severe
torture of the boots was resolved upon. He endured this till exhausted
nature could bear no longer, when Insensibility kindly stepped in to
his aid. When it was seen that he was utterly powerless, and that his
tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, he was released. Restoratives
were administered; and during the first faint gleam of returning
consciousness, he was prevailed upon to sign, ere he well knew what he
was about, a full confession, in strict accordance with those of Gellie
Duncan and Agnes Sampson. He was then remanded to his prison, from
which, after two days, he managed, somehow or other, to escape. He was
soon recaptured, and brought before the Court of Justiciary, James
himself being present. Fian now denied all the circumstances of the
written confession which he had signed; whereupon the King, enraged at
his "stubborn wilfulness," ordered him once more to the torture. His
finger nails were riven out with pincers, and long needles thrust up to
the eye into the quick; but still he did not wince. He was then
consigned again to the boots, in which, to quote a pamphlet published
at the time, [News from Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Dr.
Fian.] he continued "so long, 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 astonishing similarity of the confessions of all the persons
implicated in these proceedings has often been remarked. It would
appear that they actually endeavoured to cause the King's death by
their spells and sorceries. Fian, who was acquainted with all the usual
tricks of his profession, deceived them with pretended apparitions, so
that many of them were really convinced that they had seen the devil.
The sum of their confessions was to the following effect:--
Satan, who was, of course, a great foe of the reformed religion, was
alarmed that King James should marry a Protestant princess. To avert
the consequences to the realms of evil, he had determined to put an end
to the King and his bride by raising a storm on their voyage home.
Satan, first of all, sent a thick mist over the waters, in the hope
that the King's vessel might be stranded on the coast amid the
darkness. This failing, Dr. Fian, who, from his superior scholarship,
was advanced to the dignity of the devil's secretary, was commanded to
summon all the witches to meet their master, each one sailing on a
sieve on the high seas.
On All-hallowmas Eve, they assembled to the number of upwards of two
hundred, including Gellie Duncan, Agnes Sampson, Euphemia Macalzean,
one Barbara Napier, and several warlocks; and each embarking in a
riddle, or sieve, they sailed "over the ocean very substantially."
After cruising about for some time, they met with the fiend, bearing in
his claws a cat, which had been previously drawn nine times through the
fire. This he delivered to one of the warlocks, telling him to cast it
into the sea, and cry "Hola!" This was done with all solemnity, and
immediately the ocean became convulsed--the waters hissed loudly, and
the waves rose mountains high,
"Twisting their arms to the dun-coloured heaven."
The witches sailed gallantly through the tempest they had raised, and
landing on the coast of Scotland, took their sieves in their hands, and
marched on in procession to the haunted kirk of North Berwick, where
the devil had resolved to hold a preaching. Gellie Duncan, the musician
of the party, tripped on before, playing on her Jew's harp, and singing,
"Cummer, go ye before, Cummer, go ye;
Gif ye will not go before, Cummer, let me!"
Arrived at the kirk, they paced around it withershins, that is, in
reverse of the apparent motion of the sun. Dr. Fian then blew into the
key-hole of the door, which opened immediately, and all the witches
entered. As it was pitch dark, Fian blew with his mouth upon the
candles, which immediately lighted, and the devil was seen occupying
the pulpit. He was attired in a black gown and hat, and the witches
saluted him, by crying, "All hail, master!" His body was hard, like
iron; his face terrible; his nose, like the beak of an eagle; he had
great burning eyes; his hands and legs were hairy; and he had long
claws upon his hands and feet, and spake with an exceedingly gruff
voice. Before commencing his sermon, he called over the names of his
congregation, demanding whether they had been good servants, and what
success had attended their operations against the life of the King and
his bride.
Gray Meill, a crazy old warlock, who acted as beadle or doorkeeper, was
silly enough to answer, "that nothing ailed the King yet, God be
thanked;" upon which the devil, in a rage, stepped down from the
pulpit, and boxed his ears for him. He then remounted, and commenced
the preaching, commanding them to be dutiful servants to him, and do
all the evil they could. Euphemia Macalzean and Agnes Sampson, bolder
than the rest, asked him whether he had brought the image or picture of
King James, that they might, by pricking it, cause pains and diseases
to fall upon him. "The father of lies" spoke truth for once, and
confessed that he had forgotten it; upon which Euphemia Macalzean
upbraided him loudly for his carelessness. The devil, however, took it
all in good part, although Agnes Sampson and several other women let
loose their tongues at him immediately. When they had done scolding, he
invited them all to a grand entertainment. A newly buried corpse was
dug up, and divided among them, which was all they had in the way of
edibles. He was more liberal in the matter of drink, and gave them so
much excellent wine that they soon became jolly. Gellie Duncan then
played the old tune upon her trump, and the devil himself led off the
dance with Euphemia Mac alzean. Thus they kept up the sport till the
cock crew.
Agnes Sampson, the wise woman of Keith, as she was called, added some
other particulars in her confession. She stated, that on a previous
occasion, she had raised an awful tempest in the sea, by throwing a cat
into it, with four joints of men tied to its feet. She said also, that
on their grand attempt to drown King James, they did not meet with the
devil after cruising about, but that he had accompanied them from the
first, and that she had seen him dimly in the distance, rolling himself
before them over the great waves, in shape and size not unlike a huge
haystack. They met with a foreign ship richly laden with wines and
other good things, which they boarded, and sunk after they had drunk
all the wine, and made themselves quite merry.
Some of these disclosures were too much even for the abundant faith of
King James, and he more than once exclaimed, that the witches were like
their master, "extreme lyars." But they confessed many other things of
a less preposterous nature, and of which they were, no doubt, really
guilty. Agnes Sampson said she was to have taken the King's life by
anointing his linen with a strong poison. Gellie Duncan used to
threaten her neighbours by saying she would send the devil after them;
and many persons of weaker minds than usual were frightened into fits
by her, and rendered subject to them for the remainder of their lives.
Dr. Finn also made no scruple in aiding and abetting murder, and would
rid any person of an enemy by means of poison, who could pay him his
fee for it. Euphemia Macalzean also was far from being pure. There is
no doubt that she meditated the King's death, and used such means to
compass it as the superstition of the age directed. She was a devoted
partizan of Bothwell, who was accused by many of the witches as having
consulted them on the period of the King's death. They were all found
guilty, and sentenced to be hanged and burned. Barbara Napier, though
found guilty upon other counts, was acquitted upon the charge of having
been present at the great witch-meeting in Berwick kirk. The King was
highly displeased, and threatened to have the jury indicted for a
wilful error upon an assize. They accordingly reconsidered their
verdict, and threw themselves upon the King's mercy for the fault they
had committed. James was satisfied, and Barbara Napier was hanged
along with Gellie Duncan, Agnes Sampson, Dr. Fian, and five-and-twenty
others. Euphemia Macalzean met a harder fate. Her connexion with the
bold and obnoxious Bothwell, and her share in poisoning one or two
individuals who had stood in her way, were thought deserving of the
severest punishment the law could inflict. Instead of the ordinary
sentence, directing the criminal to be first strangled and then burned,
the wretched woman was doomed "to be bound to a stake, and burned in
ashes, quick to the death." This cruel sentence was executed on the
25th of June 1591.
These trials had the most pernicious consequences all over Scotland.
The lairds and ministers in their districts, armed with due power from
the privy council, tried and condemned old women after the most summary
fashion. Those who still clung to the ancient faith of Rome were the
severest sufferers, as it was thought, after the disclosures of the
fierce enmity borne by the devil towards a Protestant King and his
Protestant wife, that all the Catholics were leagued with the powers of
evil to work woe on the realm of Scotland. Upon a very moderate
calculation, it is presumed that from the passing of the act of Queen
Mary till the accession of James to the throne of England, a period of
thirty-nine years, the average number of executions for witchcraft in
Scotland was two hundred annually, or upwards of seventeen thousand
altogether. For the first nine years the number was not one quarter so
great; but towards the years 1590 to 1593, the number must have been
more than four hundred. The case last cited was one of an extraordinary
character. The general aspect of the trials will be better seen from
that of Isabel Gowdie, which, as it would be both wearisome and
disgusting to go through them all, is cited as a fair specimen,
although it took place at a date somewhat later than the reign of
James. This woman, wearied of her life by the persecutions of her
neighbours, voluntarily gave herself up to justice, and made a
confession, embodying the whole witch-creed of the period. She was
undoubtedly a monomaniac of the most extraordinary kind. She said that
she deserved to be stretched upon an iron rack, and that her crimes
could never be atoned for, even if she were to be drawn asunder by wild
horses. She named a long list of her associates, including nearly fifty
women and a few warlocks. They dug up the graves of unchristened
infants, whose limbs were serviceable in their enchantments. When they
wanted to destroy the crops of an enemy, they yoked toads to his
plough, and on the following night Satan himself ploughed the land with
his team, and blasted it for the season. The witches had power to
assume almost any shape; but they generally chose either that of a cat
or a hare, oftenest the latter. Isabel said, that on one occasion, when
she was in this disguise, she was sore pressed by a pack of hounds, and
had a very narrow escape with her life. She reached her own door at
last, feeling the hot breath of the pursuing dogs at her haunches. She
managed, however, to hide herself behind a chest, and got time to
pronounce the magic words that could alone restore her to her proper
shape. They were:--
"Hare! hare!
God send thee care!
I am in a hare's likeness now;
But I shall be a woman e'en now!
Hare! hare!
God send thee care!"
If witches, when in this shape, were bitten by the dogs, they always
retained the marks in their human form; but she had never heard that
any witch had been bitten to death. When the devil appointed any
general meeting of the witches, the custom was that they should proceed
through the air mounted on broomsticks, or on corn or bean-straws,
pronouncing as they went:--
"Horse and partook, horse and go,
Horse and pellats, ho! ho! ho!"
They generally left behind them a broom, or a three-legged stool,
which, when placed in their beds and duly charmed, assumed the human
shape till their return. This was done that the neighhours might not
know when they were absent.
She added, that the devil furnished his favourite witches with servant
imps to attend upon them. These imps were called "The Roaring Lion,"
"Thief of Hell," "Wait-upon-Herself," "Ranting Roarer,"
"Care-for-Naught," &c. and were known by their liveries, which were
generally yellow, sad-dun, sea-green, pea-green, or grass-green. Satan
never called the witches by the names they had received at baptism;
neither were they allowed, in his presence, so to designate each other.
Such a breach of the infernal etiquette assuredly drew down his most
severe displeasure. But as some designation was necessary, he
re-baptized them in their own blood by the names of "Able-and-Stout,"
"Over-the-dike-with-it," "Raise-the-wind," "Pickle-nearest-the-wind,"
"Batter-them-down-Maggy," "Blow-Kale," and such like. The devil himself
was not very particular what name they called him so that it was not
"Black John." If any witch was unthinking enough to utter these words,
he would rush out upon her, and beat and buffet her unmercifully, or
tear her flesh with a wool-card. Other names he did not care about; and
once gave instructions to a noted warlock that whenever he wanted his
aid, he was to strike the ground three times and exclaim, "Rise up,
foul thief!"
Upon this confession many persons were executed. So strong was the
popular feeling, that no one once accused of witchcraft was acquitted;
at least, acquittals did not average one in a hundred trials.
Witch-finding, or witch-pricking became a trade, and a set of mercenary
vagabonds roamed about the country, provided with long pins to run into
the flesh of supposed criminals. It was no unusual thing then, nor is
it now, that in aged persons there should be some spot on the body
totally devoid of feeling. It was the object of the witchpricker to
discover this spot, and the unhappy wight who did not bleed when
pricked upon it, was doomed to the death. If not immediately cast into
prison, her life was rendered miserable by the persecution of her
neighbours. It is recorded of many poor women, that the annoyances they
endured in this way were so excessive, that they preferred death. Sir
George Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate, at the time when witch-trials were
so frequent, and himself a devout believer in the crime, relates, in
his "Criminal Law," first published in 1678, some remarkable instances
of it. He says, "I went, when I was a justice-depute, to examine some
women who had confessed judicially: and one of them, who was a silly
creature, told me, under secrecy, that she had not confessed because
she was guilty, but being a poor creature who wrought for her meat, and
being defamed for a witch, she knew she should starve; for no person
thereafter would either give her meat or lodging, and that all men
would beat her and set dogs at her; and that, therefore, she desired to
be out of the world; whereupon she wept most bitterly, and upon her
knees called God to witness to what she said." Sir George, though not
wholly elevated above the prejudices of his age upon this subject, was
clearsighted enough to see the danger to society of the undue
encouragement given to the witch-prosecutions. He was convinced that
three-fourths of them were unjust and unfounded. He says, in the work
already quoted, that the persons who were in general accused of this
crime, were poor ignorant men and women, who did not understand the
nature of the accusation, and who mistook their own superstitious fears
for witchcraft. One poor wretch, a weaver, confessed that he was a
warlock, and, being asked why, he replied, because "he had seen the
devil dancing, like a fly, about the candle!" A simple woman, who,
because she was called a witch, believed that she was, asked the judge
upon the bench, whether a person might be a witch and not know it? Sir
George adds, that all the supposed criminals were subjected to severe
torture in prison from their gaolers, who thought they did God good
service by vexing and tormenting them; "and I know," says this humane
and enlightened magistrate, "that this usage was the ground of all
their confession; and albeit, the poor miscreants cannot prove this
usage, the actors in it being the only witnesses, yet the judge should
be jealous of it, as that which did at first elicit the confession, and
for fear of which they dare not retract it." Another author, ["Satan's
Invisible World discovered," by the Rev. G. Sinclair.] also a firm
believer in witchcraft, gives a still more lamentable instance of a
woman who preferred execution as a witch to live on under the
imputation. This woman, who knew that three others were to be strangled
and burned on an early day, sent for the minister of the parish, and
confessed that she had sold her soul to Satan. "Whereupon being called
before the judges, she was condemned to die with the rest. Being
carried forth to the place of execution, she remained silent during the
first, second, and third prayer, and then, perceiving that there
remained no more but to rise and go to the stake, she lifted up her
body, and, with a loud voice, cried out, "Now all you that see me this
day, know that I am now to die as a witch, by my own confession, and I
free all men, especially the ministers and magistrates, of the guilt of
my blood. I take it wholly upon myself. My blood be upon my own head.
And, as I must make answer to the God of heaven presently, I declare I
am as free of witchcraft as any child. But, being delated by a
malicious woman, and put in prison under the name of a witch, disowned
by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground of hope of ever coming
out again, I made up that confession to destroy my own life, being
weary of it, and choosing rather to die than to live." As a proof of
the singular obstinacy and blindness of the believers in witches, it
may be stated, that the minister who relates this story only saw in the
dying speech of the unhappy woman an additional proof that she was a
witch. True indeed is it, that "none are so blind as those who will not
see."
It is time, however, to return to James VI, who is fairly entitled to
share with Pope Innocent, Sprenger, Bodinus, and Matthew Hopkins the
glory or the odium of being at the same time a chief enemy and chief
encourager of witchcraft. Towards the close of the sixteenth century,
many learned men, both on the Continent and in the isles of Britain,
had endeavoured to disabuse the public mind on this subject. The most
celebrated were Wierus in Germany, Pietro d'Apone in Italy, and
Reginald Scot in England. Their works excited the attention of the
zealous James, who, mindful of the involuntary compliment which his
merits had extorted from the devil, was ambitious to deserve it by
still continuing "his greatest enemie." In the year 1597 he published,
in Edinburgh, his famous treatise on Demonology. Its design may be
gathered from the following passage in the introduction. "The fearful
abounding," says the King, "at this time, and in this country, of these
detestable slaves of the devil, the witches, or enchanters, hath moved
me, beloved reader, to despatch in post this following treatise of
mine, not in any wise, as I protest, to serve for a show of mine own
learning and ingene (ingenuity), but only (moved of conscience) to
press thereby, so far as I can, to resolve the doubting hearts of many;
both that such assaults of Satan are most certainly practised, and that
the instrument thereof merits most severely to be punished, against the
damnable opinions of two, principally in our age, whereof the one,
called Scot, an Englishman, is not ashamed, in public print, to deny
that there can be such thing as witchcraft, and so maintains the old
error of the Sadducees, in denying of spirits. The other, called
Wierus, a German physician, sets out a public apology for all these
crafts-folks, whereby procuring for them impunity, he plainly betrays
himself to have been one of that profession." In other parts of this
treatise, which the author had put into the form of a dialogue to "make
it more pleasant and facile," he says, "Witches ought to be put to
death, according to the law of God, the civil and imperial law, and the
municipal law of all Christian nations: yea, to spare the life, and not
strike whom God bids strike, and so severely punish in so odious a
treason against God, is not only unlawful, but doubtless as great a sin
in the magistrate, as was Saul's sparing Agag." He says also, that the
crime is so abominable, that it may be proved by evidence which would
not be received against any other offenders,--young children, who knew
not the nature of an oath, and persons of an infamous character, being
sufficient witnesses against them; but lest the innocent should be
accused of a crime so difficult to be acquitted of, he recommends that
in all cases the ordeal should be resorted to. He says, "Two good
helps may be used: the one is, the finding of their mark, and the
trying the insensibleness thereof; the other is their floating on the
water; for, as in a secret murther, if the dead carcass be at any time
thereafter handled by the murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if
the blood were crying to Heaven for revenge of the murtherer, (God
having appointed that secret supernatural sign for trial of that secret
unnatural crime); so that it appears that God hath appointed (for a
supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches) that the water
shall refuse to receive them in her bosom, that have shaken off them
the sacred water of baptism, and wilfully refused the benefit thereof;
no, not so much as their eyes are able to shed tears (threaten and
torture them as you please), while first they repent (God not
permitting them to dissemble their obstinacy in so horrible a crime).
Albeit, the womenkind especially, be able otherwise to shed tears at
every light occasion, when they will; yea, although it were
dissembling, like the crocodiles."
When such doctrines as these were openly promulgated by the highest
authority in the realm, and who, in promulgating them, flattered, but
did not force the public opinion, it is not surprising that the sad
delusion should have increased and multiplied, until the race of
wizards and witches replenished the earth. The reputation which he lost
by being afraid of a naked sword, he more than regained by his courage
in combating the devil. The Kirk showed itself a most zealous
coadjutor, especially during those halcyon days when it was not at
issue with the King upon other matters of doctrine and prerogative.