Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

Witch-hunting in early modern Scotland:

a peasant movement or governmental initiative?

B.A. Major Thesis

By Tom Zahradnek

Supervisor: PhDr. Lidia Kyzlinkov, M. Litt.

Brno 2006

2

Acknowledgement:

I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Lidia Kyzlinkov for her time and her advice.

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the materials listed in the

bibliography.

3

Contents:

Introduction.........4

I. Popular witchcraft-beliefs...5

I.1. General Background and Distinctions..5

II.2. Charmers......6

I.2.1. Rituals of the charmers9

II. Demonization of the with-beliefs and the Demonic Pact..13

III. Witch-hunting and Prosecutions of Witchcraft...19

III.1. History of Witch-hunting.19

III.2. The Process..21

III.3. Social Control...30

IV. Victims......32

IV.1. Classification of the Scottish Witches..32

IV.2. Gendering the Witches.33

V. Decline of the Witch-hunt38

VI. Conclusion42

Bibliography.......44

4

Introduction

The History of early modern Scotland was clouded by extensive witch-hunting. In my thesis

I explore the period of Scottish witch-hunting from 1563, when witchcraft officially became

an offence de jure punishable by death, to 1736, when it ceased to be a crime. I focus on the

witchcraft beliefs in Scotland, its practitioners and how these people became targets of the

prosecutions. I pay special attention to what caused the witch-hunts and why they occurred

when they did. Im not presenting thorough statistics, discussing individual trials or individual

panics in details as this kind of research would present enough information for a book, rather

than thesis. Instead, I want to explore general context of Scottish witch-hunting of early

modern period with a special attention to one of this particularly intriguing and often

neglected aspects.

The popular literature and movies such as The crucible (1996) often present he witch-

hunts as peasant movements driven by superstition of common folks. This view is also shared

by many scholars advocating the bottom-up process of witch-hunting. My task and main

theme of this thesis is to present an inverted concept; one that explores witch-hunting in terms

of highly centralized governmental operation.

I divide my work into six chapters. In the first chapter I offer a background to Scottish

witch-beliefs of the period explored. In the second chapter I focus on the demonization of

these popular beliefs by the Protestant Church. In chapter three I describe the legal structure

responsible for trying the crime of witchcraft, and the process from an accusation to passing

of a sentence. Chapter four explores the nature of the targets of the witch-panics and the fifth

how the witch-panics came to an end. The Sixth chapter offers a conclusion and a summary of

the points I made throughout my thesis.

5

I. Popular Witchcraft-beliefs

I.1. General Background and Distinctions

The idea of witchcraft is not universal in primitive or pre-industrial societies, but it is widely

present. In attempt to identify a universal element of witchcraft in such a variety of cultures

across time and space, Larner defines witchcraft as an evil power. Furthermore this power is

distinguished from physical force or any other mechanism or natural phenomenon within the

technological understanding of the society concerned. Witchcraft is a supernatural evil and its

practitioners were therefore evil persons. (Larner, 7)

A belief in the existence of the figure traditionally understood as a witch in the English

language can be found in every inhabited continent of the world. Ronald Hutton in his essay

The global context of the Scottish with-hunt identifies five general factors of this figure that

have a certain degree of universality despite often significant differences between cultures and

their ideologies. First, it is a person who uses supernatural powers to cause misfortune or

injury to others. Second, the person usually harms neighbors or kin rather than strangers.

Third, this person works not for straightforward material gain but from envy or malice. He or

she is either inherently evil or possessed by evil force. Fourth, the appearance of such a figure

is not an isolated event. The witch works in a tradition, either by inheritance, training or

initiation. Fifth, this person can be opposed by using counter-magic, or by forcing him or her

to revoke their own magic, or by eliminating him or her directly. (Hutton, 4)

Of course, there is a number of factors that modify these constant characteristics such

as social status, gender, whether he or she works as an individual or as a part of a secret

society, acts deliberately or involuntarily and other variables. It is virtually impossible to find

6

an exact parallel elsewhere in the world to the witches found in early modern Scotland with

one exception - charmers.

I.2. Charmers

The presence of witch doctors in tribal societies is quite widespread. In the original sense of

the expression they are individuals who specialize in detecting and removing the magical

harm inflicted by witches, often serving a community and often working for payment. These

specialists would be the first resort of people who suspected that they, or their dependants,

relatives or neighbours, had been injured by witchcraft. A direct action against the suspected

witch would usually only follow a consultation with such an expert, often acting on the

information provided by the latter. These figures are the precise equivalents of those found in

early modern Scotland and referred to by the English names of cunning folk or charmers.

Charming was one feature of witchcraft practice and beliefs, but not all charmers

practiced witchcraft and not all witches practiced charming. Sometimes a person considered

to be a charmer may have been seen by someone else as a witch. Witchcraft, sorcery and

charming were all features of magic. Charming was therefore related to witchcraft practice

and beliefs. It shared many aspects of witchcraft, such as the verbal and somatic elements, yet

it was not entirely the same. Unlike witches, who were labeled by others, charmers knew who

they were and would label themselves as such. There was also a difference between the

perceived source of power of the two groups and, very importantly, their intent. During the

early modern period one obvious distinction between witches and charmers was whether they

caused harm or provided assistance. In short, in Scotland the term charmer was used to

denote individuals who diagnosed and counteracted the effects of harmful witchcraft, cured

some natural diseases, gave healing advices, helped locate lost goods, offered advice about

7

love and predicted the future. (Miller, 2) Witchcraft on the other hand was malicious. As for

the source of their powers, Miller claims, that unlike witchcraft and sorcery, the source of

charming power was not demonic. It was some other source, sometimes human, sometimes

spiritual. On occasion these spirits may have been categorized by others as having been

demonic in form, and sometimes even as the Devil himself, but not by the charmers

themselves.

To understand the importance of a charmer we need to take a closer look at the

medical scene of the period explored. Healing in early modern Scotland was twofold: official

and unofficial. Official healing was sanctioned by the authorities and taught at universities. It

was considered scientific by contemporary society. This does not mean that official healers

had got their facts right in terms of twentieth-century positivist science; but that scientific

healing in early modern period was based upon contemporary physical knowledge and was

liable to intellectual discussion and experiment within the current paradigm. (Larner, 139)

It might sometimes be difficult for us to distinguish between official and unofficial

healing. For example, even official treatment sometimes involved amulets but in early modern

medicine this was based on contemporary scientific assumptions about effects of certain

substances on human bodies. The access to the advice and care of official medical

practitioners was limited to the members of upper class and those of their household. Medical

assistance for the majority of the population was related to unofficial healing, which due to

the absence of an access to professional healers should be considered mainstream, rather than

alternative, medicine.

Unofficial healing, which in the early days of the medical and surgical professions was

equated with the only possible cure, consisted of both practical and commonsense remedies

and rituals. These were sometimes combined. Practical healing concerned the use of herbs and

minerals of established utility and it could be administered without the intervention of any

8

specialist. For ritual healing, assistance of someone with a special knowledge or training, such

as a gardener or a blacksmith or the above mentioned charmer had to be sought. Gardeners

were useful for their knowledge about the effects of certain plants and herbs, blacksmiths

were consulted for their work in mysterious elements of fire.

The diagnoses offered by charmers were based on the principle that diseases or

misfortune were caused by bewitchment. People, animals or objects could be bewitched either

deliberately or accidentally. The rationale behind the charms was the removal of the disease,

or more accurately the force or energy which caused it, by transfer onto someone or

something else or its disposal elsewhere. (Miller, 7) The idea that the disease thus removed

must be transferred to someone else is crucial to our understanding of anti-witch sentiment

and indeed put a charmer in dangerous social situation. Charmers claimed that they were

endowed with certain mystical powers that distinguished them as different and special.

Perhaps God selected them for the purpose. The church and demonologists, however, had a

problem with this explanation. Although pre-Reformation church practice certainly did not

encourage rivals to priests, it was the Protestants who felt most threatened by them. The

Church was reluctant to accept that God might have bestowed special skills on someone, and

it therefore viewed the source of power of charmers as demonic. The authorities, and mainly

the Church, indeed attempted to include incorporate charming into the prosecution of

witchcraft. In 1646 the General Assembly of the Church in Scotland submitted the proposal to

extend the scope of witchcraft act to include charmers:

Because our address to the ordinar judge for the punishment of charming, it is

informed to us that the Acts of Parliament are not expresslie against that sinne, which

the rude and ignorant unto; may it therefor please your lordship that the Act of the 9

Parliament of Queen Marie made against the witches and consulters be enlarged and

extended to charmers, or that such other course be taken as that offence may be

restrained and punished. (qtd. in Miller, 2)

9

The Church punished charmers along with witches although charmers usually got

away with minor punishments, such as monetary fines, public repentance or appearance in

sackcloth. Excommunication was imposed only rarely. Some charmers however, were

prosecuted for witchcraft if their charming actions were categorized as indicating demonic

intervention. This was of course difficult to determine and records show that local authorities

often sought counsel of synod in this matter. The question of whether the practice was

demonic or not, was decided by whether rituals had been used, and whether these involved the

use of words and actions, either alone or in combination. (Miller, 10)

I.2.1. Rituals of the charmers

Joyce Miller in his essay Folk healing aspects of witchcraft practice in seventeenth-

century Scotland gives an exhausting account of charmers practice. Charmers performed a

large variety of rituals. These could be carried out at a particular time of day, week or year; in

a particular place such as a boundary, crossroads, bridge or river; in a particular manner,

perhaps in silence; in particular direction, moving sunwise, anti-sunwise or backwards.

They often included the use of a physical object or substance, such as water, metal,

animals, shoes, clothing, herbs, salt, eggs, wood or wool. The most common motif was water,

especially water from wells, south running water and sea water. The importance of south

running water may be connected with the Indo-European tradition of positive associations

with the right. The right side is aligned with light, day, good and movement to the right. When

facing the east the south is located on the right and so could be seen to have positive

connotations. (qtd. in Miller, 10) Typically, the water was used as ablution, and it was

generally associated with other motifs such as number, an item of clothing, a time of day or a

place.

10

Number was the most frequent motif after water. Number three seems to be the most

significant, but also two, four, five, nine and eleven were used. The symbolism of numbers is

a controversial area, but it is clear that numbers were an important feature of healing rituals

although their specific meaning may be difficult to determine. All the numbers may have had

a particular significance but three is perhaps the easiest one to examine as it can obviously be

associated with the Christian concept of trinity.

Animals, mainly cats, cocks and toads were often used during the rituals; not always

as ingredients though. According to witchcraft folklore traditions, witches were known to

possess so called familiars; demons in the form of pet animals who were helping the

witches with simple tasks and providing them with counsel. An example of the use of animals

as familiars by Scottish witches can be seen in Shakespeares play Macbeth.

FIRST WITCH: I come, Graymalkin

SECOND WITCH: Paddock calls (I.i.8-9)

'Graymalkin' (the cat) and 'Paddock' (the toad) were, as mentioned above, particularly

frequent familiars mentioned in connection with witchcraft.

FIRST WITCH: Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.

SECOND WITCH: Thrice, and once the hedge.pig whined.

THIRD WITCH: Harpier cries, 'tis time, 'tis time. (IV.i.1-3)

Here we have another account of the familiar spirits directing the witches and telling them it

is time to meet or depart.

Macbeth is not the only play of Shakepseare that contains references to witches and

their animal familiars. In his Henry V Shakespeare uses familiar spirits to show that Joan of

Arc Joan is a witch.

11

JOAN OF ARC: Now, ye familiar spirits that are cull'd

Out of the powerful legions under earth ...

Where I was wont to feed you with my blood (V.iii.13-18)

In The Witch of Edmonton, an English Jacobean play by William Rowley, Thomas

Dekker and John Ford, Mother Sawyer obviously has a familiar spirit in the form of a dog.

SAWYER: Comfort me: thou shalt have the teat anon.

DOG: Bow wow: I'll have it now.

SAWYER I am dried up / With cursing and with madness; and have yet

No blood to moisten these sweet lips of thine. (IV.i.151-4)

Quite different was the use of animals, or their parts, in cures for bewitchment.

An animal buried outside the threshold of afflicted persons house or tied around the neck of a

sheep is likely to reflect the belief in disease as an entity which could be transferred elsewhere

or onto some other being. The use of animals however was not confined to charmers.

Although used in different manner animals or, rather, animal products, were recommended by

orthodox practitioners as well. Their prescriptions sometimes included ingredients such as

animal skin, fat, faeces or even boiled frogs.

The remedies offered by charmers in early modern Scotland were as varied as the

treatments prescribed by official healers. Despite the differences between the methods of the

two, they were both founded on logical principles and experience. Knowledge and skill in

charming was both passed on through generations and through empiricism. The charms were

founded on both cultural and religious traditions of the pre-Reformation practice and beliefs.

This does not mean that charming was simply an alternative religious belief system to

Protestantism recognized by fraction of the population. On the contrary, the majority of

society accepted, practiced and understood both. The Church, however, incorporated certain

rituals and beliefs for its own purposes while rejecting others. The pre-Reformation church

12

accepted pleas to saints and pilgrimages to holy sites to help relieve suffering but the

Protestant Church removed those elements as being too Catholic in meaning. It has been

suggested that Protestant Church of Scotland caused a change in the attitude towards the

causes and cures of diseases. The Church wanted sufferers to turn to the comfort of prayer,

personal contemplation and responsibility, rather then using charms or magic. The purpose of

this was to establish a godly state, but a large number of ordinary people were reluctant to

abandon the system they had been following for generations and which provided them with

means to counter the malicious witchcraft.

Charming as one of the aspects of witchcraft also demonstrates that witchcraft was

not always understood in demonic terms. It was a complex, mystifying and extremely

important practice for it provided both spiritual and practical comfort when nothing else

could. It is then no wonder it was practiced long before and long after the period of witch-

hunting.

13

II. Demonization of the with-beliefs and the Demonic Pact

The evidence for witch-beliefs in Scotland comes partly from relatively scarce contemporary

references in journals, sermons, histories, and tracts, but mainly from the records of the

courts, local and central. The material from the courts offers three types of evidence: the

accusations of neighbours, the confessions of the accused, and the indictments and summing

up of the court. (Larner, 135) The accusations represent in their most uncontaminated form

the ideas of peasants about what witches could do. They also indicate these peasants most

central concerns: usually malevolence, cursing and misfortune. The accusation, however,

cannot be regarded as entirely genuine since they were collected and arranged by scribes and

clerks who had a good idea of what kind of accusations stood some chance in courts.

Of the three types of evidence the confessions are the most difficult to evaluate.

Although some confessions were made voluntarily to attract attention, most of them were

extracted under torture or other varying degrees of pressure. Confessions represent an agreed

story between two parties, a witch and an inquisitor, in which the witch drew, through

hallucination or imagination, on a common store of myth, fantasy, and nightmare, to respond

to the inquisitors questions. (Larner, 136) What is particularly striking and important,

however, is the difference between the contents of the confessions and accusations. Unlike

original accusations the confessions were not primarily concerned with personal malice but

diabolism. The principal focus was on the Demonic Pact which came to be regarded by the

Scottish judiciary as a legal minimum for conviction.

The demonization of popular Scottish witch-beliefs was largely contributed to by

James VI of Scotland himself and his Daemonologie. This short work published in 1597 was

written essentially to counter the works of rationalist critics of witch-hunting like Reginald

Scot and Johann Weyer who argued against the belief in witchcraft and demonic magic.

14

James was trying to convince the doubting populace that the assaults of Satan are most

certainly practiced and in this trilogy gives a detailed account of the Devils connection with

the witches. Here are some examples:

I speake first of that part, wherein the Deuill (Devil) oblishes himselfe to them by

formes, I meane in what shape or fashion he shall come vnto them, when they call

vpon him. And by effectes, I vnderstand, in what special sorts of seruices he bindes

himselfe to be subject vnto them. The qualitie of these formes and effectes, is lesse or

greater, according to the skil and art of the Magician. (20)

All Magicians, Diuines, Enchanters, Sorcerers, Witches, & whatsouer of that kinde

that consultes with the Deuill, plainelie prohibited, and alike threatned against Lawe of

God. (29)

These two degrees now of persones, that practises this craft, answers to the passions in

them, which the Deuil vsed as meanes to intyse them to his seruice, for such of them

as are in great miserie and pouertie, he allures to follow him, by promising vnto them

greate riches, and worldlie commoditie. (32)

It is interesting to trace James obsession with witches. James was in his younger years

a firm believer in the power and danger of witchcraft and was himself convinced of a plot by

witches to kill him and his queen during a sea voyage. James married princess Anne of

Denmark by proxy in 1589. She sailed for Scotland, but was driven back by storms which the

Danish admiral Peter Munk blamed on witches in Copenhagen. James then went to Denmark

himself, where he spent the winter and may have absorbed Continental views on witchcraft.

On his return to Scotland in 1590 he again encountered storms at sea, subsequently blamed on

a group of Scottish witches. James himself took over some of the interrogation of these people

and was convinced that they had been trying to kill him by raising storms, by working on wax

images, and by manufacturing poison. (Thompson)

The association of witches with storms was quite common for the period, as can be

seen, for example, in Shakespeares Macbeth, where the weird sisters are introduced to the

stage during thunder and lightning.

15

Following his ascension to the throne of England, James seems to have lost much of

his interest in witchcraft but his tracts in Daemonologie addressing the Demonic Pact were to

inevitably shape the Scottish witch-hunting for decades to come.

The Demonic Pact was a ritual in which an individual gave himself or herself over to

the Devils service in return for certain favours. It consisted of the renunciation of baptism,

sexual intercourse with the Devil, and finally receiving of the Devils mark. The formula for

the renunciation of baptism occurred repetitiously in the confessions and indictments.

A ritual was performed in which the new witch put one hand on her head and another

on the sole of her foot and promised to the Devil all that lay between. A variant was

laying a hand on the head and giving all under it to the Devil. (Larner, 148)

The Pact was then sealed with sexual intercourse, conferring of one or more marks and

sometimes conferring of a new name. The sexual intercourse with the Devil, often called

carnal dealings, was nearly essential aspect of womans version of the Pact. Obvious

problems arise in case of male witches. Sodomy with the Devil is entirely absent from the

indictments of male witches, therefore it would be right to assume that relationships of male

witches with the Devil were asexual. The bestowal of the Devils mark, on the other hand,

applied to all witches, male and female alike.

In attempt to conceptualize witches relation to the Devil presented in confessions

Lauren Martin identifies three other types of a union that resembled the Demonic Pact in early

modern Scotland in more or less respects. These were bonds of manrent, covenant theology

and marriage. The manrent in Scottish society was contracted by the heads of families looking

to the feudal lord for territorial protection. This relationship resembled the Demonic Pact in

some aspects. Both represent a hierarchical relationship between the superior and inferior on

the basis of homage and fealty. But the Demonic Pact was a heterosexual union which

16

involved the gendered notions of subservience while bonds of manrent enacted a union of the

same sexes where hierarchical differentiation was that of a degree, rather than kind. The

feudal lord was ranked higher because of wealth or status, not by nature. (Martin, 7)

Covenant theology resembles Old Testament notions of people with a special

relationship to God. As Christina Larner puts it:

The covenanted people were Gods people, firmly bound to him in special relationship

by a special promise. The Demonic Pact was therefore, for the Scots, a particularly

horrific inversion. (Larner, 172)

Although the Devil had personal relationships with individual witches and was also head of

all witches the Demonic Pact cannot be seen as a total inversion of the covenant, for like the

bonds of manrent, also covenant with God is missing the heterosexual element and

partnership status of the Demonic Pact.

The marriage, however, shares with the Demonic Pact both the similar power

differentiation and notions of heterosexual union involving sex. Moreover, just like a husband

gained rights over the person and goods of his wife in marriage, the Devil similarly gained

a special power over his witches, namely sexual access to the witchs body, dominion over the

witchs actions in life and future rights to the witchs soul.

The Demonic Pact was a pact between the witch and the Devil. But how did the Scots

see the Devil? Confessions provide us with a full picture of collective beliefs about the Devil

and his relation with mankind. This source, however, was affected by interaction with

officials more than the accusations. The picture of the Devil then contains complex mixture of

demonological and popular beliefs. One such account comes from the most famous of North

Berwick trials in 1590s where Satan himself was said to have appeared and spoken from the

pulpit:

17

His face was terrible, his nose was like the beak of an eagle, his hands and legs were

hairy, with claws upon his hands and feet like the griffon and he spoke with rough,

deep voice. (qtd. in Macdonald, 2)

By the early seventeenth century the popular images of the Devil were as stereotyped

as they were ever to become. Occasionally, he appeared in an animal form, usually that of a

dog, but more typically as a man, often rather scruffy, dark, with big hands and cloven feet.

Many suspects reported that the Devil took a shape of their husbands. Larner explains this

phenomenon as result of the inquisitors questions about sexual intercourse with the Devil.

Under the pressure, the women supposed that if they indeed had carnal dealings with the

Devil, it must have been some extra marital intercourse in which they indulged. In the absence

of those it must indeed have been in the shape of their husbands. Many complained that the

Devils nature was cold. This idea may be related to the scientific theory that the Devil took

on a body of condensed air. (qtd. in Larner, 149)

We need to look beyond these stereotypical elements of the confessions to get to the

bottom of the true reasons behind the witch-hunts. By peasantry and elite alike the Devil was

seen as the ultimate source of evil but in the confessions he certainly does not appear as a

great enemy of God and humanity. This relative lack of demonic features requires us to take a

second look.

Apart from stereotypical appearance of the Devil in Demonic Pacts, which was minor

in the very least, there seems to be a little concern to explore his role further. Macdonald

claims that those confessions that included further references to witches meetings presided

by the Devil were scarce, but even in these the main concern of the inquisitors was how many

meetings the individual witches attended and who was present, rather than what evil deeds

were performed there; clearly in an attempt to generate more names. In the light of this the

belief in the Devil and the Demonic Pact can no longer explain the severity of Scottish witch-

hunting. Macdonald further notes that when looking in greater detail at the cases, one notices,

18

that the Devil appears most frequently in the documents which come from the central

government, namely the Court of Justiciary1 and the Privy Council

2, so our concern should

now be: why would central authorities hunt the witches if not for their allegiance to the Devil.

1 The High Court of Justiciary is Scotland's supreme criminal court that sits in Edinburgh.

2 A Privy Council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, especially in a monarchy. England and

Scotland had separate Privy Councils until the Act of Union 1707.

19

III. Witch-hunting and Prosecutions of Witchcraft

III.1. History of Witch-hunting

The witch-hunting in early modern Scotland and Europe in general, can only be fully

understood in relation to the Reformation movement. To prove this point a long backward

projection is necessary.

When the sources for ancient belief are brought together from all over continental

Europe, including the Greek, Roman and Germanic linguistic spheres, they reveal a

preoccupation with the classic global stereotype of the witch in all the five points mentioned

in chapter II. It is a concept very similar to one we see in early modern Europe. The ancient

European penalty for committing a murder by witchcraft was, likewise in early modern

Europe, execution or excommunication. The virtual absence of witch-hunting in the Middle

Ages, according to Hutton, can be accounted for in terms of a single solvent force,

Christianity, which ended witch trials in every society in which it was adopted as the official

religion. It did so with a simple and novel theological argument: that if the cosmos was

controlled by a single all-powerful and benevolent deity, then magic could not operate unless

that deity willed it. (Hutton, 9)

Another reason for the medieval hiatus can be explicable in terms of social

stratification, mainly the separation of the Church and State. The Medieval Church, secure in

vast wealth and status, did not try to control secular rulers or to construct a unified theocracy.

It sometimes wanted to promote crusading or to repress heresy, but was generally satisfied

with the status quo, in which both secular rulers and the common people respected its rights

and rites. Such a mood of complacency was not the one that would foster witch-hunting;

people at all social levels did believe in witches, but did not feel threatened by them.

20

Witchcraft accusations occasionally became a political weapon but did not represent a

sustained effort to modify the behavior of the common folk or rouse their concerns about

witchcraft. This lack of concern was partly because the late-medieval ruling class was quite a

small group. King, nobles, lairds3, bishops and abbots

4 formed its core; this group numbered

in dozens. The number of people from the elite who were in regular contact with the common

folk was small, so there were few people who might be faced with the challenge of being

ruled in a sense of getting them to modify their behavior. With the Reformation this began

to change. Lairds became more numerous, and professional groups arose, notably lawyers and

Protestant ministers, who were not part of the community. With a development of statue law

and bureaucracy, this expanding elites own activities were more closely enmeshed in

governmental regulation than ever before. Newly established lesser lairds and parish ministers

were in daily contact with the common folk, but were not subject to community values. They

remained above the peasants, and knew it was their duty to rule. Familiar with the community

as they were, they were confronted daily with aspects of its lack of conformity to the newly

received norms of decent and godly behavior.

Before the Reformation of 1560, the authorities responsible for punishment of the

witches in Scotland were the church courts. The church courts could not impose a death

sentence and the condemned prisoner was usually handed over to the secular authorities for

execution. Nonetheless, the prosecutions were carried out by the Church. The authority of the

church courts largely diminished in 1560 as a result of an act of the Reformation Parliament,

leading to a period of judicial confusion. Along with the Reformation came the statute of

1563, bringing witchcraft in Scotland within the jurisdiction of the secular criminal law.

3 A laird in Scottish contexts is a male who has power and authority. It can have different meanings depending

on the context of use. In Scotland the word 'Laird' means owner of a landed estate, or more simply 'landowner'.

4 The word abbot, meaning father, has been used as a Christian clerical title in various, mainly monastic,

meanings.

21

The statute created a complex legal machine. It had three main components: the local

church courts (Kirk sessions5 and presbyteries

6); the criminal courts where the accused

witches were actually tried; and the organs of central government, notably the Privy Council.

Although the Witchcraft Act of 1563 did not cause immediate witch panics, it was a certain

pre-condition of the witch-hunts of the 1590s and the seventeenth century. It brought

witchcraft formally into the criminal law at a time when the law and the legal practice were

about to develop rapidly, and despite its brevity and its skeptical wording the witch-hunters

and the lawyers of the seventeenth century found it more than adequate for their purposes. It

is then no wonder that in the 1649 the Witchcraft Act was ratified and confirmed as it stood.

III.2. The Process

The general procedure for the prosecution of witchcraft, and also other crimes, under this new

system can be, according to Goodare, divided into five stages. The first stage was the

occurrence of an unsanctioned and deviant act, the recognition that this act should be classed

as a crime, and the identification of a suspect. With witchcraft this stage was usually more

interesting, and certainly more complicated, in comparison with other capital crimes like

murder. No wonder a great deal of what has been written on witch-hunting has been about

what witchcraft was thought to be and how witches were identified and labelled. There were

two principal ways in which the process of prosecuting witches might be initiated. The first

was through the accusation of neighbours. The second was through the accusation made by

other accused witches. Those were not mutually exclusive and either or both might occur.

Although the initial impulse came frequently from another witch, the evidence of neighbours

5 The Kirk Session was made up of the minister and elders of the church and its task was to maintain Christian

standards of behaviour within the parish.

6 Presbyteries were regional bodies superior to Kirk Sessions made up of a minister and an elder from each

parish, as well as theological college lecturers and retired ministers.

22

was regarded in law as more significant. The reputation was of particular importance in the

production of a witch in Scotland. Alongside the individual charges of maleficence we

frequently find that the accused was of ill fame, a rank witch, by habit and repute a

witch, of evil repute. (Larner, 103) The importance of the character of the accused is

interesting in relation to the modern law where such aspects are considered improper, but in

seventeenth-century Scotland this was a legal virtue. The lack of such reputation could work

in favour of the accused when other things were against her.

In the second stage, the community would decide that justice required the suspect to

receive a criminal trial. This decision would be focused on, and probably led by, an aggrieved

individual, such as a surviving relative in murder cases. It was conventional for a victim of a

crime to act as the prosecutor in court. He or she had to go to the nearest court with

jurisdiction over the crime concerned to make his complaint and demand a trial.

The third stage was thus a decision by those responsible for that court whether to hold

a criminal trial. This decision was made nominally by the courts judge, though probably in

practice by the clerk to the court. It might be accompanied by an order to arrest the suspect.

Witches were normally imprisoned in tollbooth or a barn. There were no purpose-built gaols

in seventeenth-century Scotland since imprisonment was not a standard punishment but a pre-

trial convenience. These improvised prisons were insecure and escapes seem to have been

common. Imprisoned witches were usually guarded by neighbors who were paid for the

service. This was also a period during which the minister and elders would come in and

interrogate the suspect in an attempt to secure a confession. The decision whether to hold a

trial or not was based on prima facie evidence that a crime had been committed and that there

was a case against the suspect. They were very well aware of the type of evidence that would

convict a witch in the High Court. Maleficence alone would not normally be sufficient, so the

main purpose of the preliminary informal inquisition was to extract a confession of the

23

Demonic Pact which was regarded by the courts as the essence of witchcraft. Additional

confessions of particular acts of witchcraft were also useful but the courts were properly

satisfied only by a statement that the accused had renounced her baptism and became the

Devils servant. (Larner, 107)

Various methods were used to extract the confessions. Officials used sleep

deprivation, pricking for the witchs mark, threats of torture and direct torture. Larner claims

that compared to the Roman law, where torture seems to have been taken for granted, there

has been certain ambiguity that surrounded its use in Scotland. Perhaps because of their

reluctance to use direct torture the Scots used sleep deprivation widely as a routine method of

extracting confession of the Demonic Pact. There are some individual variations in the

amount of sleep deprivation before hallucination begins but not fundamental. It is strange that

the authorities thought that it was a reasonable method of getting at the truth because they

were well aware of the hallucinogenic effects. The application of direct torture frequently

accompanied or succeeded sleep deprivation. In the 1590s the government supported by

James VI made a positive recommendation that torture should be used to extract confessions

and the name of accomplices. James argued that the Devil had such a grip on his servants that

only extreme pain could cause this grip to slip. Methods of direct torture are fairly familiar.

The boots whereby the legs were crushed, the thumbscrews, burning with hot irons, the

turcas for tearing out nails, were all mentioned in the complaints and appeals of imprisoned

witches. (Larner, 108)

The use of torture was proclaimed illegal by the Scottish Privy Council in 1662. This

did not effectively stop the practice but the confessions extracted without torture came to be

regarded as being more valid. Both sleep deprivation and direct torture were used to extract

confessions and to incriminate others. Various ordeals had a different use. Their idea was to

provide additional circumstantial evidence of guilt. Swimming the witch was an ordeal widely

24

known on the continent and in England. The witch had her wrists tied to her ankles and was

thrown into the water. If she sank, she was innocent; if she floated, she was a witch as the

Devil would keep her up. The purpose of this was not to drown the suspect as the ropes and

planks were kept ready if she sank. Despite its frequent use elsewhere, it seems to have been

a very unusual ordeal in Scotland. The most frequent type of ordeal in Scotland was pricking

for the Witchs mark. The witch pricker was the key figure in this process. His role was to

examine the suspect for unusual bodily marks and then to test these marks by pricking them to

find out whether they were insensible. The theory behind this was that the Devil completed

the Pact by nipping the witch and this mark was made insensible to pain and would not bleed.

The presence of such a mark was thus an evidence of the Demonic Pact. To test the sensitivity

of such mark the witch prickers usually thrust a pin-like object into it and watched for

reactions. In records there are many stereotypical descriptions of the ruthless process.

She did nather find the preins (pins) when it was out into any of the said marks nor did

they blood when they were taken out again: and when shoe was asked quahir shoe

thocht the preins were put in, shoe pointed at a pairt of hir body distant from the place

quahir the preins were put in, they were lang preins of thrie inches or theirabout in

length. (qtd. in Larner, 111)

After rubbing over the whole body with his palms he slipt in the pin and it seems with

shame and feare being dashed they felt it not, but he left it in the flesh deep to the head

and desired them too find it and take it out. (qtd. in Larner, 111)

The absence of sensation may sometimes have been caused by the shock of the experience to

which they were being subjected, but the prickers were undoubtedly a consciously fraudulent

body of men with knowledge of anatomy and knew exactly what parts of the body could be

most successfully assaulted. They likely had knowledge of the pressure points and the points

used by acupuncturists, which would explain the absence of bleeding and pain of the victims

respectively. Despite the exposure of many professional prickers, the system retained its

credibility throughout the hunt. Pricking was so routinous that most indictments simply noted

25

that the accused had confessed and the mark has been found. For the most unfortunate the

application to the Privy Council followed to try the witch, and the decision was made by the

Council whether to try the witch locally or whether she was to be transported to Edinburgh for

the trial.

The fourth stage would be the trial itself where the prosecution and defence put their

cases, and the decision on guilt or innocence was made by an assize of local men who were

expected to be familiar with the facts. In the local criminal courts the witches rarely had a

benefit of a lawyer to their defense; it is then no surprise that more often than not the

conviction followed. The cases which came to the High Court in Edinburgh where the

accused was represented by a lawyer had a higher rate of acquittals. The lawyers argued at the

court in terms of general contemporary assumptions. Larner stresses that it was out of the

question to defend a witch by attacking the position of witchcraft in criminal law. The nearest

that any lawyer could get to such an approach was by pouring scorn on particular details of a

given set of evidence.

The arguments which could be used by the defence once the case had reached the

court were threefold: The most important of these was the argument from nature and was

based on the current state of scientific understanding. These arguments were related to

accusations of maleficence and suggested that they had natural rather than supernatural cause;

the second category was ridicule and was sometimes related to the first; and the third was the

last resort if the accused had already confessed. In that case the only hope was to suggest that

the woman was of unsound mind. In the later stages of witch-hunting it was also possible to

present a formal complaint about the torture to extract confessions. If the case of the defense

was found insufficient, conviction and sentence followed.

The passing of the sentence represented the fifth stage. Witchcraft was a capital crime,

and the majority of convictions resulted in the execution. The court would fix a date for the

26

execution, usually only few days ahead. This allowed just enough time to engage a hangman,

usually a local locksmith, and arrange for supplies of fuel. The execution was a great public

occasion during which the whole community would be in attendance. The witch was normally

first strangled and then her dead or unconscious body was burned, sometimes in a tar barrel.

(Larner, 113) There are also accounts of witches being burned alive.

they were brunt quick (alive) eftir sic ane crewell maner, that sum of thame deit in

despair, renunceand and blasphemeand; and utheris, half brunt, brak out of the fyre,

and wes cast quick in it agane, quhill they wer brunt to the deid. (qtd. in Larner, 115)

As we can see a prosecution was fairly complicated and faced several obstacles. In the

first stage, people might not agree that an unsanctioned act was criminal at all, or might have

no idea about the suspect. In the second stage, arguments about a particular suspects

culpability might stop short of a consensus demanding a trial. Suspected witches and their

relatives could manage to persuade their neighbours not to take the case to the court. A

counter charge of slander against the accusers was the first line of defence and was most

successfully pursued by the more powerful. For those unable to press slander charges

successfully, the best remedy at this point was escape, either before or after the arrest. In the

third stage, the clerk to the court might tell the aggrieved neighbors to go away because their

prima facie was too weak. At the fourth and fifth stages, the assize might acquit, or the judge

might impose a more lenient sentence.

The third stage the decision on whether to hold a criminal trial, was a crucial point at

which the formal machinery of justice was activated. The fourth and fifth stages were often

formalities. The third stage was also the point at which the central government became

involved. In witchcraft cases, however, the decision to hold a criminal trial was not the point

at which governmental organs, though not central, first became involved with the case. In

most cases the church had already begun. The local courts of the Church, newly created since

27

the Reformation, were very much bodies of government; indeed they were some of the most

powerful bodies that many people experienced. They also fitted neatly into an existing

structure of civil authority. Before a witch was tried by the criminal court, she or he had

usually been identified by the Kirk session, and had often been arrested and interrogated in

attempt to obtain a confession. The Kirk session might also have collected depositions from

aggrieved neighbors, or have searched the suspect for the witchs mark. Local church courts

are found at the background of many witchcraft cases, but it was not authorized to try witches.

The criminal court, although was, had to seek the authorization of the central government.

This brings us to the question how witchcraft were trials authorized. The authorization

took form of commissions of justiciary. They were normally issued in response to a request

by the would-be commissioners, who came to the court with a story about a crime and

arguments about why they were the most appropriate people to punish it. Such commissioners

would usually be lairds, magistrates or royal burghers. Commissions were issued in the name

of the king. Before James VIs departure for England in 1603, the process might even require

him to sign some documents, but he could not inform himself about the details of each case

and in practice, the responsibility was largely with his advisers. (Goodare, 126) He could take

advice of his trusted noblemen or from the Privy Council members, which, unlike the

noblemen, had expertise in law. Commissions of justiciary were sometimes obtained wholly

through informal lobbying instead receiving formal consideration by the Council. There were

two types of commissions of justiciary: quarter seal commissions and signet commissions.

Quarter seal commissions were old fashioned and rare type issued by chancery and authorized

by the monarch. Since chancery was a pen-pushing department rather than a decision-making

centre, the quarter seal commissions were often issued on the basis of informal lobbying.

More common were the signet commissions. They could only rarely be obtained through

lobbying because the signet was the seal used by the Privy Council, indicating therefore that

28

they were authorized by the Council. They were also signed by the king, a practice denoting

not that he had made the decision personally, nor even that he had read the document, but that

he had taken his councilors advice. (Goodare, 127) Most commissions of justiciary were for

the trial of named individuals, but there were also general commissions to try all cases of the

crime within a locality (usually within specified time limit). Such commissions facilitated

mass prosecutions, and logically were more common during periods of panic. The council de

facto had a monopoly over witchcraft trials and was in effect conducting the trial itself.

Formally it was carrying out preliminary examination of the evidence and its decision was the

one that determined the suspects fate. The Council demanded that the prosecutions evidence

be placed on the table, and scrutinized it carefully. If the prosecution failed to prove its case,

the commission would be refused and the suspect would go free. If the case was proven, a

commission would be issued, with the understanding that conviction and execution would

follow. And conviction and execution did usually follow for there was an extremely low

acquittal rate. The suspects who were going to be acquitted were in effect acquitted by the

council itself refusing to grant the commission. (Goodare, 131)

As seen above, witch-hunting in Scotland was a remarkably centralized governmental

operation. Apart from the prosecution of treason and sedition, it is hard to think of any other

use of the criminal law that was so firmly controlled at the highest levels of government. After

1598, hardly any witches were executed except as a result of deliberate decision by the central

authorities. As Goodare puts it, the Kirk sessions did not seem to be worried by not being able

to try witches themselves. They were content to accept a supporting role of identifying

witches and conducting preliminary investigation of guilt; they did not seek to control the key

decisions on who was actually guilty. Local requests for the Privy Council guidance indicate

that they respected the Council and trusted its judgment. Since the Privy Council did not have

29

local witch-finding agents directly under its command, the inquisitors of the Kirk session

blended into the central structure with a striking harmony.

This was the legal machinery of early modern Scotland but there is still a question of

what activated it. Researchers of Scottish witch-hunting such who advocate a bottom-up

process such as Briggs or Marwick are correct in claiming that there could never have been

witch-hunts without neighbor quarrels to start the processes off. However, neighborhood

disputes only led to the denunciation of handfuls of individual witches. It is doubtful that such

disputes could accelerate to produce hundreds of suspects in matter of months. We need to

look for another explanation for the great national panics of 1590-1, 1597, 1628-30, 1649 and

1661-2 in which about sixty percent of all witchcraft trials occurred. (qtd. in Goodare) Each of

the panics had unique elements but the general pattern of periodic national panics should be

commented on for there are striking similarities between them.

The panics were probably not deliberately planned by the Privy councilors. There is no

evidence of any concrete central initiative. Cases began to occur in which the initial suspect or

suspects named accomplices. Soon witchcraft would be transformed from the problem of

individual witches with a commonly recognized reputation into the problem of ramified

underground conspiracy. Everywhere one looked, one could not see individual witches, but

witches with a number of accomplices. To deal with this threat of secret and conspiratorial

witchcraft is the reason why the authorities took the initiatives we describe as panic.

For witch-hunting to take off, both central and local authorities had to panic. The local

authorities were in the front line, in touch with the coming people and able to generate more

fresh suspects. Central authorities provided essential support by granting trial commissions

without which the local authorities could not act and by shifting readily towards commissions

to try groups. Both local and central authorities thus came to act inquisitorially, seeking out

witches rather than merely responding to complaints from the witches neighborhood. The

30

Kirk session, which identified majority of the witches, was a fully inquisitorial body. There

was no jury, and the minister and elders combined the roles of prosecutor and judge. With the

Kirk session in the front line, all the institutions of church and state suddenly engaged in the

battle against Satan; or at least thats how it seemed. Their true motives are less apparent.

III.3. Social Control

To understand the dynamics of witch-hunting it is not necessary to look at what

motivated the common people, but what motivated the elite. It was the elite, after all, who

controlled the demand for and supply of witches in the form of commissions. If the elites

concern was not the Devil, what was the reason for their interest in hunting witches? To

understand this we must see the witch-hunt not in isolation, but as a part of a far broader

program intended to control the thoughts, values and behaviors of the entire population. The

witch-hunt needs to be seen as part of this program, a program which attacked everything

from the celebration of Christmas to going to holy wells, from sexual behavior to the use of

charms to cure an animal or a person. Local institutions of the Church did not only pursue

witchcraft cases but spent a great deal of time attempting to alter patterns of sexual behavior,

in particular around pre-marital sex but also surrounding adultery. The Church attempted to

establish a godly society and the secular authorities were willing to go along with most

elements of this program.

Witch-hunting in Scotland was a Protestant business. After all, the witchcraft statute

was passed in 1563, only three years after the Reformation. There was, of course, nothing

distinctive about Protestantism when it came to which-hunting for many Catholic countries

pursued witches with an equal zeal. Early modern reformation movements, whether Protestant

or Catholic, were seeking to impose a new model of Christianity in which ordinary people

31

would be personally responsible for their salvation, and deviants from the holy norm would

face punishment. They might claim to be providing a service to the community, but their

primary role was coercive, stamping out ungodliness wherever it could be found. As

Macdonald acknowledges, the essential nature of the crime of witchcraft was its ungodliness,

not maleficence against neighbours or allegiance with the Devil. This ungodliness was so

fundamental that it did not even require a specific pact with the Devil. (Macdonald, 18) This

point can be further strengthened by exploring the nature of the targets of witch-hunts.

32

IV. The Victims

IV.1. Classification of the Scottish Witches

As Larner claims, the witches of Scotland were, like in the rest of the rural Europe,

predominantly middle-aged or elderly women of middling or lower peasant status. The

sources are not often directly helpful in establishing a greater social detail. It is unusual for the

occupation or age of a suspect to be recorded. The average witch was the wife or widow of a

craftsman, shopkeeper or tenant farmer, probably fairly near the bottom of the social

structure. Those at the very bottom of Scottish scale and in a sense outside the system were

criminals, paupers, gypsies, entertainers and wandering wage laborers, all generally summed

up by the name of vagabond.

The majority appeared to have a certain stable position in society, though usually a

low and often semi-dependent one. Scottish women who sought or involuntarily received the

accolade of witch were poor but they were not always solitary. The women who were the

classic focus of witchcraft accusation were frequently, as it turns out, impoverished not

because they were widows or single women with no supporters or independent means of

livelihood, but married to impoverished men. Records of the marital status are better than

those of a social status; about half of those whose status is recorded were in fact married at the

time of their arrest. Some witches were solitary, but solitariness as such does not appear to

have been an important element in the composition of a Scottish witch. Nor does ugliness

appear to have been of much importance. Although the stereotype of ugly, old woman

certainly existed in Scotland, there is little evidence it had actual connection with the accused

witches.

33

IV.2. Gendering the Witches

Witchcraft was predominantly a womans crime. About eighty percent of witches were

women. The presence of up to twenty percent of male witches calls for investigation. Male

suspects were often accused of other crimes besides witchcraft. Urban male suspects could be

a source of income to the authorities. For this theory speaks the fact that nearly all Scottish

male suspects turned out to be either husband or brother of female suspect and therefore

inheritor of her property. Other male suspects were notorious villains or solitary cunning men

such as charmers. The main focus of witch-hunts, however, was on female witches.

Why was witchcraft in Scotland, as elsewhere in Europe so strongly gender-related?

The relationship between women and witchcraft is quite obvious: witches were women; all

women were potential witches. This is not to say, however, that witch-hunting was the same

as woman hunting. Witches were hunted for being witches in first place. The ungodliness

witches stood for was not actually gender-specific. The Devil himself was a male after all.

Witch-hunting was directed against for ideological reasons against the enemies of God, and

the fact that about eighty percent of them were women was, though not accidental, one degree

away from an attack on women as such. (Larner, 92)

As the women stereotype is concerned, witches were seen to be predominantly women

long time before any witch-hunting. This stereotype has its root in the Aristotelian view of

women as imperfectly human a failure of the process of conception and the Judaeo-

Christian view of women as the source of sin and the fall of man. Since witchcraft involved a

rejection of what are regarded as the noblest human attributes women were the first suspects.

Women were intrinsically and innately more prone to malice, sensuality, and evil in general

and were also less capable of reasoning than men were. King James VI in his Daemonologie

explained womens attraction to witchcraft in following way:

34

PHILOMATHES. But before yee goe further, permit mee I pray you to interrupt you

one worde, which yee haue put mee in memorie of, by speaking of Women. What can

be the cause that there are twentie women giuen to that craft, where ther is one man?

EPISTHEMON. The reason is easie, for as that sexe is frailer then man is, so is it

easier to be intrapped in these grosse snares of the Deuill, as was ouer well proued to

be true, by the Serpents deceiuing of Eua at the beginning, which makes him the

homelier with that sexe sensine. (43-44)

Women also had a tendency to use words in situations of personal confrontation where men

were more prone to physical violence. The culture which attributed magical efficacy to verbal

curses made accusations of witchcraft easier.

The majority of local witchcraft accusations were triggered by quarrels about womens

work and household duties. Although the reasons for quarrels were not always recorded in

trial documents, the objects of magical harm usually were. Martin states that witches were

thought to attack things, animals of people vital to the productive capacity of the household of

the accuser. The actual participant in the quarrel was not always the one harmed by the witch.

More often than not their cows, crops, spouses or children were bewitched. Women were

largely responsible for production of milk, butter and ale. It is therefore not surprising that

these were thought to be particularly vulnerable to witchcraft. Dairy cows seem to be the most

frequent livestock targeted by witchcraft malice. After a dispute with the witchcraft suspect,

butter would not churn, milk would turn into blood, or cows, bulls and oxen might go mad or

die. Ale would mysteriously go flat or turn bitter. (Martin, 15) The quarrels that women

engaged in should be seen as verbal work. It was essential for household survival and

economic security that women barter and haggle over prices, occasionally browbeat a

competitor into accepting a price or term of trade, and perhaps intimidate neighbors.

Quarrels about womens work were the backbone of evidence used by prosecutors to

demonize women and their productive and social roles within early modern Scottish society.

Without a confession, though, the role of the Devil could only be inferred, because the

35

relationship of a witch with the Devil was by definition secret. The association of the Devil

with women, marriage and work in both legal definition of witchcraft and in local quarrels

indicates a profound unease with women in society. This still does not mean that witch-

hunting was a cynical mask for woman-hunting. Rather, it means that women, marriage and

womens work were points of tension within the multiple conceptual relationships that made

up witchcraft beliefs and trials. Scottish witch-beliefs were structured by, and in turn helped

to structure, the way people thought about and feared women in work, position and power in

their households and in the social structure and economy of Scottish community.

Women were feared as a source of disorder in patriarchal society. Larner states several

possible reasons for this fear. At the level of popular witch-beliefs there was a number of

reasons for this fear. Through womens life-bearing and menstruating capacities they were

considered potential owners of strange dangerous powers. For example, a contact with the

menstrual blood was thought to make the corn wither; iron and steel presently take rust; or

bees in the hive die. But not only menstruating women were to be feared. So too were women

as child bearers. It was only by exhibiting a total control over the lives and bodies of their

women that men could know that their children were their own. They were also feared in the

sexual act. The fact that they were receptive, not potent, and could receive indefinitely,

whether pleasurably or not, generated the myth of insatiability. Because it was thought that

women through insatiable lusts might either lead men astray or hold them to ridicule for their

incapacity, witches were alleged to cause impotence and to satisfy their own lusts at orgies

with demons.

Although it may be argued that all women were potential witches, in practice some

women were labelled as witches by others while other women labelled themselves. Exploring

the motives of those who embraced the role of a witch helps us understand their attraction for

witchcraft. This attraction of witchcraft becomes clear when we ask why the witches were

36

drawn from the ranks of the poor. Apart from the obvious fact that it was socially easier to

accuse those who were the least able to defend themselves, witchcraft had a particular

attraction to the very poor. Some of these people felt themselves to be totally impotent. The

normal channels of expression were denied to them and they could not better their condition.

Witchcraft could under certain circumstances be a mean of improving ones condition when

everything else failed. It was the fear of witchcraft what bestowed power on those believed to

be witches and provided a way of modifying the behavior of those more advantageously

positioned. More than that, it was a direct way of providing benefits for themselves. Those

who confessed to the Demonic Pact also revealed the exact nature of the promises which the

Devil had made to them. It was nothing in the fashion of the classic aristocratic pacts of Dr.

Faustus type where great gifts are offered in return for the individual immortal soul of the

human concerned. The economic value to the Devil of the soul of a seventeenth-century

peasant was not so great. Scottish women at the margins of society did not expect that their

soul would qualify them for silk and riches. Instead, they said that the Devil promised them

mere freedom from the extremes of poverty and starvation. Typically he told them that they

should never want. (Larner, 95)

Witch-hunting was the hunting of women who did not fulfill the male view of how

women ought to conduct themselves. In terms of ideology, the case for witch-hunting being

seen as woman-hunt is more convincing. The religion of the Reformation demanded that

women for the first time became fully responsible for their own souls. The preachers were

indeed referring to men and women in their sermons. But along with this new personal

responsibility they preached the ritual and moral inferiority of women. Witchcraft as a choice

was only possible for women who had free will and personal responsibility attributed to them.

This represented a considerable change in the status of women in Scotland. Up to the time of

secularization of the crime of witchcraft, their misdemeanors had been the responsibility of

37

husbands and fathers and their punishments whippings appropriate to children. As witches

under new legal apparatus they became adult criminals acting in a manner for which their

husbands could not be deemed responsible. The pursuit of witches could therefore be seen as

a rearguard action against the emergence of women as independent adults. The women who

were accused were those who challenged the patriarchal view of the ideal woman. They were

accused not only by men but also by other women because women who conformed to the

male image of them felt threatened by any identification of themselves with those who did

not.

Witchcraft in Scotland was also almost the only womans crime in this period. If one

looks at the central criminal records it appears that apart from a little adultery, a little incest, a

surprisingly small amount of infanticide, and (as Covenanters) a bit of rebellion, women were

not reaching the Court of Justiciary. (Larner, 91) This indeed suggests that witch-hunting

could be identified as woman hunting. Nevertheless while witch-hunting and woman hunting

are closely related they cannot be completely equated with each other and regarded as one and

the same phenomenon. The demand for ideological conformity was a much wider aspect of

witch-hunting than one that concerned the status of women. The fact that a high proportion of

those accused were women was indirectly related to the central purpose of necessity to

enforce the moral and ideological conformity in the newly established godly state. The

women were viewed as witches not because they were women or because of the pact with the

Devil, but because they were known as witches by their neighbours; as someone who could

harm, and a troublesome and quarrelsome neighbour. In the godly society which the Church

was trying to establish and which other members of the elite so zealously supported, any

powers to harm or heal belonged only to God. The witches were, in this sense, a threat to the

building of this godly society. That threat was irrespective of any belief in the Devil; witches

were a threat just by their very existence.

38

V. Decline of the Witch-hunt

It is interesting to account for the decline of Scottish witch-hunting as this too can

retrospectively strengthen the concept of witch-hunting being a governmental operation.

During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, prosecutions and

executions for witchcraft in Scotland declined in number and eventually came to an end. The

decline was marked by a reduction in the number of trials, a rise in the number of acquittals,

and a drop in the execution rate. The last executions recorded in the central records took place

in 1706 while the last witch-trial, one of the questionable legitimacy, occurred in 1727, a mere

nine years before British Parliament repealed the Scottish witchcraft act of 1563. The British

statute of 1736 officially determined that witchcraft in Scotland as well as in England was no

longer a crime. (Levack, 1)

Unfortunately, the essential concern of historians traditionally was with why

witchcraft trials began rather than why they came to an end. There is only a handful of studies

at our disposal regarding this issue. The decline can be, according to Levack, accounted for at

two levels; in philosophical terms and in terms of a judicial revolution. The two should not be

seen as mutually exclusive but, rather complementary. The philosophical level was related to

the emergence of modern rationalism, the rise of science, and as a result, gradual dispelling of

ignorance and superstition. If we attribute the decline solely to these reasons, however, we run

into difficulties. The main problem is that the expression of skeptical ideas, especially those

that denied the possibility of the crime of witchcraft, either had little impact among the

intellectual elite or took place after witchcraft prosecutions had already begun to wane. There

were skeptical voices throughout the entire period of witch-hunting but they did not

undermine the prosecutions. Even the most prominent critics of witch-hunting never

challenged the intellectual foundations of witch-believes. The farthest they would go was

39

challenging some of their aspects. A typical skeptical attitude of the period can be seen in

following quotation:

So as to witches that there may be such I have noe doubt, nor never had, it is a matter

of fact that I was never judge of. But the parliaments of France and other judicatories

who are perswaded of the being of witches never try them nou because of the

experience they have had that its impossible to distinguish possession from nature in

disorder, and they chuse rather to let the guilty escape than to punish innocent. (qtd. in

Wasser, 1)

The decline of Scottish witchcraft prosecution, therefore, took place within the context of the

general belief in the reality of the crime. This calls for alternative explanations. In particular,

it encourages taking a legal path mentioned by Levack and focus on the development of the

judicial process. This development was characterized by increasing demand for legal caution

by the central government following the events of the great Scottish witch-hunt of 1661-2.

That panic was so large, involving a total of 664 named witches, and the death toll so high,

that it almost inevitably called attention to the procedural irregularities that characterized it.

(Levack, 4) The abuses identified specifically in the records of the Privy Council were the

unauthorized arrests of suspects, the torture and pricking of suspects without proper warrant,

and the use of other illegal means to extract confessions. The determination of the central

government to prevent these abuses from recurring found expression in changes in the way in

which the witchcraft prosecutions were handled in Scotland after 1662.

These changes were, according to Levack, threefold. Firstly, there was a significant

increase in the number of trials that were conducted, or more closely supervised, by central

judicial authorities. Prior to 1662 the Scottish government had not followed a consistent

policy regarding witch-hunting. Through granting of commissions the central government

either inhibited or stimulated witch-hunting. This can be seen on the major national hunts.

These breakdowns in the system were caused by a lax approach of the government to

granting commissions of justiciary without carefully considering whether the trial was

40

warranted or whether the due process had been followed in the arrest and interrogation of the

accused. Especially during the periods of intense prosecutions the government issued

commissions almost routinely in response to local requests. After 1662 central judicial

authorities succeeded in imposing effective checks on witch-hunting. They did so by reducing

the number of commissions and at the same time funneling local cases into the high court in

Edinburgh; an attempt to centralize and rationalize the criminal justice system that reduced

the number of trials and increased the number of acquittals.

Secondly, as a result of this increased control of the centre, there was a reduction in

the incidence of judicial torture and the more frequent dismissal of cases in which it had been

used illegally. As I mentioned in the chapter on process, torture played an important role in

securing the confession necessary for conviction, and also in obtaining the names of

accomplices. The wave of critique of torture that swept through seventeenth-century Scotland

played an important role in reducing the number of convictions. The core of this critique was

not the torture itself but the fact that it was being used without a proper authority. The law of

torture in Scotland was that it could be administered only when specifically warranted by the

Privy Council or the Parliament. Yet, as Levack claims, there is abundance of evidence that

torture was regularly applied in witchcraft cases even without a proper authorization. The

Councils proclamation of 1662 prohibiting the use of torture together with its reluctance to

grant torture warrants to local magistrates further reduced the number of trials.

Finally, in all witchcraft trials onward there was a more careful consideration of the

evidence and greater adherence to strict standards of judicial proof. In Scotland this

development was related to a greater participation of lawyers in witchcraft trials. Until the late

seventeenth century, very few Scottish witches could afford the cost of legal representation,

and those who could were usually tried at the high court in Edinburgh. Towards the end of the

seventeenth century, however, lawyers represented witches in Scotland more frequently even

41

in some of the local cases. Lawyers could have a dramatic impact on the course of a trial; they

could point out the insufficiency of the evidence, procedural irregularities or have the trial

moved to Edinburgh. The more careful evaluation of evidence in witchcraft cases can be seen

in the growing reluctance of lawyers and judges to accept confessions, traditionally regarded

as the queen of proofs, as sufficient proof of guilt.

The judicial skepticism as mentioned above undoubtedly contributed to the decline of

witch-hunting. Like the philosophical skepticism, however, it could not bring an end to

witchcraft prosecutions by itself. This can be seen on the fact that in the course of the last

major witch-hunt of 1696-1700, a long time after these new judicial measures were put to use,

witches were still being successfully tried and even executed.

To find the last missing part in the puzzle that symbolized the end of the era of witch-

hunting, we need to look back at what brought them about in first place. If there was one idea

that dominated all others in seventeenth-century Scotland, it was that of the godly state in

which it was the duty of the secular arm to impose the will of God upon the people. Since the

rise of witch-hunting was the outcome of the emergence of the godly state, its fall was

connected with the chronological point at which the establishment of kingdom of God ceased

to be a political objective. After the Glorious Revolution of 1689 the state became more

secular and the strive for godliness was thus slowly but inevitably replaced by the pursuit of

liberty, enlightenment and other secular alternatives.

42

VI. Conclusion

Witch-hunting in Scotland can only be fully understood in relation to the Scottish

Reformation. The Reformation brought witchcraft under the jurisdiction of secular authorities

and introduced a complex legal system that fostered witch-hunting.

Thusly empowered, the secular authorities zealously accepted their new role and

joined the Church in campaign for the reform of morality and social life by redefining as evil

a diverse range of beliefs, practices and customs that were found mostly among the women of

lower social classes. To strengthen their cause the Scottish Protestants formulated a complex

demonology which formed a pillar of early modern witchcraft prosecutions. This

demonology, however, had little to do with the actual perceiving of the witch as persona non

grata. The witches were prosecuted for their ungodliness which made them a threat to the

godly society that Protestant Church was trying to establish.

The vision of godly state extended into secular politics at both local and national

levels. The role of the central authorities is crucial because it was the through the

commissions that were issued by the government, how witch trials were authorized. By

readily handing out commissions to try not just individuals but whole groups the government

allowed local witch-hunts to transform into a national witch-craze that recurred several times.

Only when new judicial measures, namely greater emphasis on the evidence, lower

regard for confessions and prohibition of a torture were introduced, did the prosecutions start

to diminish. These measures were logical outcome of a growing sentiment among the elite;

sentiment that no longer accepted Godly state as a political objective and replaced it with the

pursuit of liberty, enlightenment and other secular alternatives.

In light of these facts, the witch-panics that swept across the early modern Scotland

cannot be considered peasant movements. Rather, they were measures of social control

43

characteristic for the period, through which some of the ideological struggles between the

Church and State were realized, particularly in relation to the questions of spiritual and

political authority.

44

Bibliography

Works cited and consulted:

Butler, Jon. "Witchcraft, Healing, and Historians' Crazes." Journal of Social History

18 (1984): 111-8.

Goodare, Julian. Witch-hunting and the Scottish state. Scottish witch-hunt in

context. Ed. Julian Goodare. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. 122-145

Hutton, Ronald. The global context of the Scottish witch-hunt. Scottish witch-hunt in

context. Ed. Julian Goodare. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. 16-32

James VI and I. Daemonologie. 1597. Sacred Texts. 26 Nov. 2006

< http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/kjd/index.htm>

Larner, Christina. Enemies of God: Witch Hunt in Scotland. Edinburgh: John Donald

Publishers Ltd, 2000.

Levack, Brian P. The decline and end of Scottish witch-hunting. Scottish witch-hunt

in context. Ed. Julian Goodare. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. 166-181

Macdonald, Stuart. In search of the Devil in Fife witchcraft cases, 1560-1705.

Scottish witch-hunt in context. Ed. Julian Goodare. Manchester: Manchester University Press,

2002. 33-50

45

Martin, Lauren. The Devil and the domestic: witchcraft, quarrels and womens work

in Scorland. Scottish witch-hunt in context. Ed. Julian Goodare. Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 2002. 73-89

Miller, Joyce. Devices and directions: folk healing aspects of witchcraft practice in

seventeenth-century Scotland. Scottish witch-hunt in context. Ed. Julian Goodare.

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. 90-105

Normand, Lawrence and Roberts, Gareth. Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland:

James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick Witches. Exeter: University of Exeter Press,

2000.

Roper, Trevor. The European witch-craze of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1969

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992.

Sharpe, J. A. "Witches and Persecuting Societies." Journal of Historical Sociology 3

(1990): 75-86.

Thompson, Edward H. Macbeth, King James and the Witches.1993. University of

Dundee, Scotland. 26 Nov. 2006

46

Wasser, Michael. The western witch-hunt of 1697-1700: the last major witch-hunt in

Scotland. Scottish witch-hunt in context. Ed. Julian Goodare. Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 2002. 146-165

Annotated Bibliography of the witch hunts (15th-17th Century)

Witchcraft Bibliography Project Online

The Complete Works of William-Shakespeare