Edinburgh and Leith Witches--Black Catalogue--Witches
Burned and Drowned--James VI. and the
Witches--Complaint to the Scottish Privy Council of
Barbarous Conduct--Relics of Superstition--Images
found at Arthur Seat--Witch-finders in Edinburgh and
Leith--Royal Commission to Magistrates and Ministers
to search for and put Witches to Death--Wife of a
Judge in Edinburgh meeting a Witch's Fate--Repeal of
the Laws against Witchcraft--Opposition to Acts being
Repealed--Judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland
against a Change of the Law--Witches in Edinburgh and
Leith in the Sixteenth Century--James Reid--Agnes
Finnie, the Potter-row Witch--Alexander Hamilton, the
Warlock--The Devil and Hamilton burning a Provost's
Mill--Janet Barker curing a Bewitched Man--Margaret
Hutchison, a habit-and-repute Witch--Young Laird of
Duddingston--Major Weir and his Magical Staff--A
Magical Distaff--Agnes Williamson, a Haddingtonshire
Witch--Elizabeth Bathgate of Eyemouth--Isabella Young
of Eastbarns burned at the Castlehill.
Against Edinburgh and Leith stands a black catalogue of judicial
murders of supposed witches and warlocks. At the Cross, Gallow Lee,
between Edinburgh and Leith, and on the sands of the latter town,
unknown numbers of unhappy creatures, male and female, were executed
in a most barbarous manner, for the imaginary crime of witchcraft.
Nearly all the victims were first tortured to make them confess, and
afterwards some of them were worried, and then burned; others were
hanged at the Cross, Gallow Lee; and not a few supposed witches were
fastened to a stake on South Leith sands, and allowed to remain there
until the tide terminated their miseries.
Of James VI., and the witches who persecuted him, we have treated in
chapter XXIV.; but it may be further mentioned that in his time an
unprecedented number of reputed witches were put to death in
Edinburgh. His brutish judges displayed unwonted activity in bringing
men and women to an untimely end, because they knew their zeal brought
them into royal favour. A time, however, came when the nation could no
longer suffer the barbarities of bygone periods to be continued.
Accordingly, in 1608 a complaint was made to the Scottish Privy
Council against persons in power for so torturing the hapless women
that they died amid smoke and flame, blaspheming the Most High, and
uttering imprecations against their fellow-creatures.
In the Antiquarian Museum of Edinburgh are a few relics of
superstitious times. They consist of small figures, representing human
beings, which were found in the crevice of a rock at Arthur Seat, and
are, no doubt, figures formed for magical purposes. In the Museum are
also to be seen implements of torture, to be more particularly noticed
in chapter LXIII. Edinburgh and Leith, like every large town, had
professional witch-finders. Royal commissions were issued to
magistrates and ministers of the Church, giving them power to search
for, torture, and put to death, either by fire or water, every one
guilty of witchcraft. Rich and poor were suspected. Even nobles were
accused of witchcraft; and the wife of a senator of the College of
Justice, in Edinburgh, did not escape a witch's fate. As indicative of
the belief in witchcraft in high quarters about the middle of last
century, we find that, when the Bill for the repeal of the Act against
witches was introduced into Parliament, in 1735, it was opposed by
persons from whom better sense might have been expected. Notably among
them is named a judge of our Supreme Law Court in Scotland. Let us
look back, however, to years antecedent to 1735, and see how it fared
with witches in Edinburgh and elsewhere.
Near the latter end of the sixteenth century, Janet Stewart, belonging
to Edinburgh, Christian Levingstone, Bessie Aitken, residing in Leith,
and Christina Sadler of Blackhouse, were noted witches, who did much
mischief to persons and property.
James Reid was instructed by the devil how to heal infirm people by
the application of silk-laces, south-running water, and grease. He
cured Sarah Borthwick by giving her south-running water from the
Schriff-breyis well, and casting salt and wheat about her.
Agnes Finnie, an indweller in the Potter-row, Edinburgh, was indicted
before a judge and a jury, on twenty articles of indictment, charging
her with witchcraft and sorcery. The libel set forth that she had been
guilty of laying on and taking off grievous sickness and diseases from
people. Under one count it was set forth that Finnie having had a
difference in June preceding with Christina Dickson, the accused, in
great wrath, uttered these words, "The devil ride about the town with
you and yours," and that shortly thereafter the said Christina's
daughter, in her return from Dalkeith to Edinburgh, fell and broke her
leg, which was caused, if the libel was truly drawn up, by the
devilish threats and sorceries of the said Agnes Finnie. By way of
aggravation of her crimes, it was stated she had confessed, at her
first examination before the South-west Kirk-session of Edinburgh,
that she had been commonly called a rank witch. She was convicted of
nearly all the charges brought against her, and suffered accordingly.
Alexander Hamilton, a warlock, was indicted for sorcery. He was
enticed away by the devil (so the complainant made it appear), in the
likeness of a black man, to Kingstoun Hills, East Lothian. In
consideration of the poor man renouncing his baptism, and promising to
obey his Satanic master, that grim contractor, on his part, engaged
that the accused should never want. The panel thereafter often called
Satan up by means of beating the ground three times with a fir-stick;
and he answered to the summons, sometimes like a corbie, and sometimes
like a cat or dog. By the devil's assistance, Hamilton injured those
who hurt him. In particular, he burned Provost Cockburn's mill, full
of corn, by pulling out three stalks of corn from the Provost's
stacks, and burning them at Gairnetoune Hill. From the indictment it
would appear the devil instructed him how to prepare an ointment from
the oil of spikenard and heart's grease, to cure diseases. A lady of
rank having offended him, he and two witches, in Salton Wood, raised
the devil, who appearing, gave him the "bottom of blue due," and bade
him lay it at the lady's door, and that the panel, having disposed of
the "bottom of blue due," as directed, the lady and her eldest
daughter died soon thereafter. All the charges being solemnly admitted
by the criminal, he was worried at a stake and burned.
Janet Barker, a servant, confessed to the magistrates and ministers of
Edinburgh that she had cured a young man who had been bewitched, by
giving him a waistcoat she had received from the devil; and by placing
under a door a black card which she had also obtained from Satan.
Margaret Hutchison was found guilty, in 1661, of being
habit-and-repute a witch--a supposed fact spoken to by the young laird
of Duddingston; and of putting a disease on her servant maid, and
thereafter removing it to a cat, soon after found dead near the
servant's bed.
Major Weir, who ended this life, or rather whose existence was ended,
in Edinburgh in the year 1670, was an enchanter who performed many
unaccountable actions in his day. According to the statement of his
sister, his whole magical power proceeded from a staff he possessed.
The major's sister had at the same time a distaff which often spun
yarn for her without any one handling it. At night she left the
distaff empty, and in the morning it was full.
In the year 1662 Agnes Williamson, residing at Samuelston,
Haddingtonshire, was indicted for witchcraft. She was charged, _inter
alia_, with taking the strength out of her neighbour's meal by her
enchantments; with raising a whirlwind, and thereby throwing her
neighbour Carfrae into the water, where he saw her and other witches
swimming about; with telling a neighbour that Carfrae would lose five
hundred merks, and, by her sorcery, setting fire to his malt kiln;
with renouncing her baptism, and taking the new name of "Nannie
Luckfoot." The jury brought in a verdict of guilty as to her being
habit-and-repute a witch, but they acquitted her of all the other
charges.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century Elizabeth Bathgate, spouse
of Alexander Pae, maltman in Eyemouth, was prosecuted at the instance
of the Lord Advocate for sorcery. The charges exhibited against her
were eighteen in number, from which the following are selected:--
"Causing the death of George Sprot's child by giving
it an enchanted egg. Throwing the said George Sprot
into extreme poverty by her sorcery. Making a horse
sweat to death through the same means, and killing an
ox by dancing on the rigging of the byre in which the
animal stood. Using conjurations and running
withershinns in the mill of Eyemouth. Standing
bare-legged in her 'sark-vallie-coat,' at twelve
o'clock at night, conferring with the devil, who was
dressed in green clothes. Receiving a horse shoe from
the devil, and laying it in a secret part of the door,
that all her business in-doors might prosper. Casting
away and sinking George Huldie's ship with several
persons therein."
After a long trial, she was acquitted.
In the year 1629 Isabella Young, spouse of George Smith, portioner,
Eastbarns, was indicted for witchcraft and sorcery. There were many
acts of witchcraft and sorcery libelled against her, extending over a
period of many years. The Lords of Justiciary, before whom the trial
took place, found her guilty, and sentenced her to be worried at a
stake, and thereafter burned to ashes on the Castle Hill.