Witchcraft in America. Charles Wentworth Upham

      Chapter VII.

       Table of Contents

      Scotland one of the most Superstitious Countries in Europe—Scott's Relation of the Barbarities perpetrated in the Witch-trials under the auspices of James VI.—The Fate of Agnes Sampson, Euphane MacCalzean, &c.—Irrational Conduct of the Courts of Justice—Causes of voluntary Witch-confessions—Testimony of Sir G. Mackenzie, &c.—Trial and Execution of Margaret Barclay—Computation of the number of Witches who suffered death in England and Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Witches burned alive at Edinburgh in 1608—The Lancashire Witches—Sir Thomas Overbury and Dr. Forman—Margaret Flower and Lord Rosse.

Scotland, by the physical features of the country and by the character and habits of the people, is eminently apt for the reception of the magical and supernatural of any kind;131 and during the century from 1563 it was almost entirely subject to the dominion of Satan. Sir Walter Scott has narrated some of the most prominent cases and trials in the northern part of the island. The series may be said to commence from the confederated conspiracy of hell to prevent the union of James VI. with the Princess Anne of Denmark. An overwhelming tempest at sea during the voyage of these anti-papal, anti-diabolic royal personages was the appointed means of their destruction.

The human agents were Agnes Sampson, the wise wife of Keith (one of the better sort, who cured diseases, &c.); Dame Euphane MacCalzean, widow of a senator of the College of Justice, and a Catholic; Dr. John Fian or Cunninghame, a man of some learning, and of much skill in poison as well as in magic; Barbara Napier or Douglas; Geillis Duncan; with about thirty other women of the lowest condition. 'When the monarch of Scotland sprung this strong covey of his favourite game, they afforded the Privy Council and himself sport for the greatest part of the remaining winter. He attended on the examinations himself.... Agnes Sampson, after being an hour tortured by the twisting of a cord around her head according to the custom of the buccaneers, confessed that she had consulted with one Richard Grahame concerning the probable length of the king's life and the means of shortening it. But Satan, to whom at length they resorted for advice, told them in French respecting King James, Il est un homme de Dieu. The poor woman also acknowledged that she had held a meeting with those of her sisterhood, who had charmed a cat by certain spells, having four joints of men knit to its feet, which they threw into the sea to excite a tempest: they embarked in sieves with much mirth and jollity, the fiend rolling himself before them upon the waves dimly seen, and resembling a huge haystack in size and appearance. They went on board of a foreign ship richly laden with wines, where, invisible to the crew, they feasted till the sport grew tiresome; and then Satan sunk the vessel and all on board. Fian or Cunninghame was also visited by the sharpest tortures, ordinary and extraordinary. The nails were torn from his fingers with smiths' pincers; pins were driven into the places which the nails usually defended; his knees were crushed in the boots; his finger-bones were splintered in the pilniewincks. At length his constancy, hitherto sustained, as the bystanders supposed, by the help of the devil, was fairly overcome; and he gave an account of a great witch-meeting at North Berwick, where they paced round the church withershins—i. e. in reverse of the motion of the sun. Fian then blew into the lock of the church door, whereupon the bolts gave way: the unhallowed crew entered, and their master the devil appeared to his servants in the shape of a black man occupying the pulpit. He was saluted with a "Hail, Master!" but the company were dissatisfied with his not having brought a picture of the king, repeatedly promised, which was to place his Majesty at the mercy of this infernal crew.... The devil, on this memorable occasion, forgot himself, and called Fian by his own name instead of the demoniacal sobriquet of Rob the Rowan, which had been assigned to him as Master of the Rows or Rolls. This was considered as bad taste; and the rule is still observed at every rendezvous of forgers, smugglers, or the like, where it is accounted very indifferent manners to name an individual by his own name in case of affording ground of evidence which may upon a day of trial be brought against him. Satan, something disconcerted, concluded the evening with a divertissement and a dance after his own manner. The former consisted in disinterring a new-buried corpse, and dividing it in fragments among the company; and the ball was maintained by well-nigh two hundred persons, who danced a ring dance.... Dr. Fian, muffled, led the ring, and was highly honoured, generally acting as clerk or recorder. King James was deeply interested in those mysterious meetings, and took great delight to be present at the examinations of the accused. He sent for Geillis Duncan, and caused her to play before him the same tune to which Satan and his companions led the brawl in North Berwick churchyard. His ears were gratified in another way: for at this meeting it was said the witches demanded of the devil why he did bear such enmity against the king, who returned the flattering answer, that the king was the greatest enemy whom he had in the world. Almost all these poor wretches were executed: nor did Euphane MacCalzean's station in life save her from the common doom, which was strangling to death and burning to ashes thereafter. The majority of the jury which tried Barbara Napier, having acquitted her of attendance at the North Berwick meeting, were themselves threatened with a trial for wilful error upon an assize, and could only escape from severe censure and punishment by pleading guilty, and submitting themselves to the king's pleasure. The alterations and trenching,' adds Scott, 'which lately took place on the Castle-hill at Edinburgh for the purpose of forming the new approach to the city from the west, displayed the ashes of the numbers who had perished in this manner, of whom a large proportion must have been executed between 1590—when the great discovery was made concerning Euphane MacCalzean and the wise wife of Keith and their accomplices—and the union of the crowns.'132

      Euphane's exceptional doom was 'to be bound to the stake, and burned in ashes quick to the death.' 'Burning quick' was not an uncommon sentence: if the less cruel one of hanging or strangling first and afterwards burning was more usual. Thirty warlocks and witches was the total number executed on June 25th, 1591. A few, like Dr. Cunninghame, may have been really experienced in the use of poison and poisonous drugs. The art of poisoning has been practised perhaps almost as extensively as (often coextensively with) that of sorcery; a tremendous and mostly inscrutable crime which science, in all ages, has been able more surely to conceal than to detect.

      Two facts eminently illustrate the barbarous iniquity of the Courts of Justice when dealing with their witch prisoners. An expressed malediction, or frequently an almost inaudible mutter, followed by the coincident fulfilment of the imprecation, was accepted eagerly by the judges as sufficient proof (an antecedent one, contrary to the boasted principle of English law at least, which assumes the innocence until the guilt has been proved, of the accused) of the crime of the person arraigned. And they complacently attributed to conscious guilt the ravings produced by an excruciating torture—that equally inhuman and irrational invention of judicial cruelty; confidently boasting that they were careful to sentence no person without previous confession duly made.

      But these confessions not seldom were partly extracted from a natural wish to be freed from the persecution of neighbours as well as from present bodily torture. Sir George Mackenzie, Lord Advocate of Scotland during the period of the greatest fury, and himself president at many of the trials, a believer, among other cases in his Criminal Law, 1678, relates that of a condemned witch who had confessed judicially to him and afterwards '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. Another told me that she was afraid the devil would challenge a right to her after she was said to be his servant, and would haunt her, as the minister said when he was desiring her to confess, and therefore she desired to die. And really,' admits the learned judge, 'ministers are oft-times indiscreet in their zeal to have poor creatures to confess in this; and I recommend to judges that the wisest ministers should be sent to them; and that those who are sent should be cautious in this