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The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–1662

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Brian P. Levack
Brian P. Levack*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
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Extract

During 1661 and 1662 Scotland experienced one of the largest witch hunts in its history. Within the space of sixteen months no fewer than 660 persons were publicly accused of various acts of sorcery and diabolism. The hunt began to the east of Edinburgh in the villages and small burghs of Midlothian and East Lothian, where 206 individuals were named as witches between April and December 1661. The hunt did not remain restricted to that area, however, as the privy council busily issued commissions to local authorities throughout the country to try suspected witches. We do not know how many people were executed during the hunt, but the report of John Ray, the English naturalist, that 120 were believed to have been burned during his visit to Scotland suggests that the total number was substantial. It is true that some of the witches tried in the justiciary court (the central Scottish criminal court, also known as the justice court) were acquitted, and a number of those who were simply named as accomplices never actually came to trial. This should in no way, however, detract from the size and importance of the hunt. At no other time in Scottish history, with the possible exception of 1597, were so many people accused of witchcraft within such a brief period of time. Indeed, the hunt, which involved four times the number of persons accused of witchcraft at Salem in 1692, was comparable to the large witch hunts that occurred on the European continent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , Fall 1980 , pp. 90 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1980

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References

I am grateful to Christina Lamer for commenting on an earlier draft of this article.

1 This number includes not only individuals tried for witchcraft and those for whom trials were commissioned, but also those who were merely named as witches in the course of proceedings against others. Most of the names can be located in Larner, C., Lee, C.H., and McLachlan, H.V., A Source-Book of Scottish Witchcraft (hereafter Source-Book) (Glasgow, 1977)Google Scholar. A total of thirty-eight names not included in Source-Book can be found in the Scottish Record Office (hereafter SRO), JC 26/27 (justiciary court processes), CH (kirk sessions records) and PA 7 (records of parliament).

2 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland (hereafter R.P.C.) 3rd ser., I, 1v. Legge, F., “Witchcraft in Scotland,” The Scottish Review, XVIII (1891), 274Google Scholar, estimates that about 450 witches were executed during the period 1660-63. There is, in fact, hard evidence for only sixty-five executions and one suicide of accused witches during the two-year period 1661-62. It is likely, however, that a great majority of those tried by local authorities upon receipt of a commission from the privy council or parliament were executed. See Larner, C., “Hekserij als delict in Schotland,” Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, XX (1978), 180Google Scholar.

3 See pp. 103-04.

4 The number of persons known to have been accused at Salem is 165. See Demos, J., “Underlying Themes in the Witchcraft of Seventeenth-Century New England,” American Historical Review, LXXV (1970), 1314Google Scholar. Boyer, P. and Nissenbaum, S., Salem Possessed (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), p. 190Google Scholar, work with only 142 accusations. For the size of the hunts at Sasbach and Oppenau, Germany, see Midelfort, H.C.E., Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany 1562-1684 (Stanford, 1972), p. 137Google Scholar. These hunts were of course more restricted geographically than the Scottish hunt of 1661-62.

5 Sharpe, C.K., A Historical Account of the Belief in Witchcraft in Scotland (London, 1884), pp. 125–26Google Scholar.

6 Chambers, R., Domestic Annals of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1858), II, 277Google Scholar; Mathieson, W.L., Politics and Religion (Glasgow, 1902), II, 182–83Google Scholar; Trevor-Roper, H.R., “Scotland and the Puritan Revolution,” in Religion, the Reformation and Social Change (London, 1967), pp. 440–41Google Scholar.

7 See Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1971), pp. 438–49Google Scholar for a discussion of the weakness of continental witch beliefs in England.

8 Ewen, C.L., Witch Hunting and Witch Trials (London, 1929), p. 112Google Scholar, estimates that fewer than 1,000 witches were executed in England. Larner, , “Hekserij,” Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, XX, 181Google Scholar, sets the figure for Scotland at less than 1,500. In comparing these figures, however, one must consider the differential between the populations of the two countries. The total number of persons executed for witchcraft throughout Europe was probably not more than 100,000. See Monter, E.W., “The Pedestal and the Stake: Courtly Love and Witchcraft,” in Becoming Visible, Bridenthal, R.E.W. and Koonz, C. (eds.), (Boston, 1977), pp. 129–30Google Scholar.

9 The only real hunt was the operation conducted by Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne in 1645-46. See Notestein, W., A History of Witchcraft in England (Washington, D.C., 1911), pp. 167–79Google Scholar, and Macfarlane, A., Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 1970), pp. 135–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 SRO, articles against Andrew Laidlawe (Laidly), 1671, JC 26/38. Laidlawe was set at liberty. See SRO, JC 2/13.

11 Firth, C.H. (ed.), Scotland and the Commonwealth [Scottish History Society, XVIII] (Edinburgh, 1895), pp. 367–68Google Scholar; Chambers, , Domestic Annals, II, 220Google Scholar.

12 Kinloch, G.R. (ed.), The Diary of Mr. John Lamont of Newton, 1649-71 [Maitland Club, VII] (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 47Google Scholar.

13 SRO, confession of John Bayne, 4 January 1654, JC 26/16.

14 Source-Book, pp. 15-16, 53-55, 209-10.

15 Ibid., pp. 16-25, 55-57, 211-14. Seven of the witches executed in 1659 are listed more than once. The increase in prosecutions in 1658 and 1659 might be attributable to the majority of Scottish commissioners during those years. See M'Millan, A.R.G., “The Judicial System of the Commonwealth in Scotland,” Juridical Review, XLIX (1937), 240Google Scholar.

16 Laing, D. (ed.), The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, A.M. [Bannatyne Club, LXXIII] (Edinburgh, 1841–1842), III, 436Google Scholar. This letter is dated 31 January 1661, but the first half of it was written in 1659, as both internal evidence and the author himself indicate. See p. 437.

17 SRO, extracts from the records of the kirk of Tranent, 25 November 1660, JC 26/26.

18 The minute books reveal that the commissioners actually sat until 5 July 1659. SRO, JC 6/5. The English parliament attempted to resolve this crisis. See Journals of the House of Commons, VII, 659, 775Google Scholar. A bill of union was introduced shortly after the Long Parliament was recalled in July 1659, but parliament was dissolved before the third reading. In October, commissioners were instructed to see that Scots had justice administered to them, but there is no record of actual legal proceedings. See BL, Egerton MS 1048, fol. 177.

19 Laing, , Letters of Baillie, III, 430. See above, n. 16Google Scholar.

20 Firth, C.H. (ed.), Scotland and the Protectorate [Scottish History Society, XXXI] (Edinburgh, 1899), pp. 391–92Google Scholar.

21 Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland (hereafter A.P.S.), VII, app., p. 31Google Scholar.

22 Black, G.F., A Calendar of Cases of Witchcraft in Scotland, 1510-1727 (New York, 1938), p. 65Google Scholar.

23 SRO, petition against Christian Wilson, 6 June 1661, PA 7/9/1, and proceedings against Wilson, GD 103/2/3/11, item 1.

24 Jennet Wilson, Jennet Watt, Margaret Litle, and Jennet Fergreive. SRO, Newbattle kirk session, 11 and 14 August 1661, CH 2/276/4. The confessing witch was John MacMillan (McWilliam), who was executed on 5 February 1656. SRO, JC 6/5.

25 SRO, Jonet Millar process papers, JC 26/27. See also SRO, Kirkliston kirk session, 14 August 1659, CH 2/229/1.

26 It was not at all unusual for suspicions to develop over a number of years before action was taken against a particular witch. And witchcraft was, according to learned tradition, a habitual crime.

27 Black, , Calendar, p. 13Google Scholar; Legge, , “Witchcraft in Scotland,” Scottish Review, XVIII, 260–69Google Scholar; Smith, J. I., “The Transition to the Modern Law,” in An Introduction to Scottish Legal History [Stair Society, XX] (Edinburgh, 1959), pp. 42–43Google Scholar.

28 R.P.C., 3rd ser., I, 1v.

29 Trevor-Roper, , “Scotland and the Puritan Revolution,” in Religion, the Reformation and Social Change, pp. 440–41Google Scholar.

30 Lay elders were of course only quasi-clerical figures. See Donaldson, G., The Scottish Reformation (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 186–87Google Scholar. Irrespective of how one labels them, they form a part of the clerical organization that Black and others consider to have been a main source of Scottish witchcraft prosecutions.

31 This was Janet Cock, against whom three dittays were drawn up. All three are in SRO, JC 26/27. Cock was acquitted on 10 September 1661, but liberty was denied 18 September. See SRO, warrant for witnesses, 11 November 1661, JC 26/27. Cock was convicted on 11 November. SRO, JC 2/10. See also Scott-Moncrieff, W.G. (ed.), The Records of the Proceedings of the Justiciary Court, Edinburgh, 1661-1678, I [Scottish History Society, XLVIII] (Edinburgh, 1905), pp. 13–21Google Scholar.

32 SRO, CH 2/84/3, fols. 17v. For similar proceedings at Dalkeith before the Great Hunt see CH 2/84/2, fols. 29, 44v

33 SRO, CH 2/283/2, fols. 56v-57.

34 Ibid., fol. 55; Inveresk kirk session, 4 June 1661, CH 2/531/1.

35 SRO, report of presbytery of Irvine, 2 February 1658, JC 26/24; Reid, A.G. (ed.), The Diary of Andrew Hay of Craignethan 1659-1660 [Scottish History Society, XXXIX] (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 145n, 195, 243Google Scholar.

36 Pitcairn, R. (ed.), Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland [Bannatyne Club, XLII] (Edinburgh, 1833), III, 600Google Scholar.

37 SRO, CH 2/424/4.

38 Neither the kirk session of Newton nor that of Edmonston would take action against Agnes Johnston, although the elders of Edmonston did express a hope that the civil authorities would proceed against her for witchcraft. SRO, Newton kirk session, 4 August, 15 September 1661, CH 2/283/2, fols. 55v-57.

39 See for example SRO, Humbie kirk session, 7 July 1661, CH 2/389/1.

40 SRO, Inveresk kirk session, 5 November and 3 December 1661, CH 2/531/1.

41 A.P.S., VII, app., p. 31; VII, 123. For the confused judicial situation in January 1661, see SirLauder, John, Historical Notices of Scotish Affairs, Laing, D. (ed.), [Bannatyne Club, LXXXVII] (Edinburgh, 1848), I, 1, 3Google Scholar.

42 R.P.C., 3rd ser., I, 11-12.

43 A.P.S., VII, app., p. 78.

44 Ibid., p. 31.

45 SRO, JC 26/27, passim; Newbattle kirk session, 23 June 1661, CH 2/276/4. Although these records include numerous charges of maleficia made in 1661, there is no record of the specific maleficia allegedly perpetrated at Samuelston.

46 A.P.S., VII, app., p. 31.

47 [James VI], Daemonologie (Edinburgh, 1597), p. 80Google Scholar.

48 Larner, , “Hekserij,” Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, XX, p. 184Google Scholar. The Newbattle kirk session rebuked Janet Litle on 7 August 1661 for saying that every man and woman had so many marks like witches. SRO, CH 2/276/4.

49 Dalyell, J.G., The Darker Superstitions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), p. 643Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., p. 640. At Newbattle Jennet Wilson, Jennet Watt, and Isobel Fergusson all asked for the pricker. SRO, Newbattle kirk session, 3 July and 14 August 1661, CH 2/276/4.

51 For the activities of the prickers before 1659 see SRO, case of Janet Bruce, 1657, JC 26/22 and JC 6/5.

52 Source-Book, pp. 21-24.

53 Kincaid, using a “great long pin,” searched Christian Cranstoun, Jonet Thomson, Barbara Cochrane, Marioun Lynn, Helen Simbeard, and Marioun Guild, and it is almost certain that he searched the other Tranent witches as well. SRO, Tranent witches process papers, 1659, JC 26/26. Kincaid was practicing his trade as early as 1649. See Pitcairn, , Criminal Trials, III, 599Google Scholar.

54 For Kincaid's activity in Midlothian see Black, G.F., Some Unpublished Scottish Witchcraft Trials (New York, 1941), pp. 38–45Google Scholar.

55 See Garrett, C., “Women and Witches: Patterns of Analysis,” Signs, III (1977), 461–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohn, N., Europe's Inner Demons (New York, 1975), pp. 248–53Google Scholar; Monter, , “Pedestal and the Stake,” in Becoming Visible, pp. 128–35Google Scholar.

56 Summers, M. (ed.), The Malleus Maleficarum (New York, 1971), pp. 41–47Google Scholar.

57 For a discussion of the introduction of learned notions of diabolism in medieval witchcraft trials, see Kieckhefer, R., European Witch Trials (London, 1976), pp. 73–92Google Scholar.

58 SRO, Newton kirk session, CH 2/283/2, fols. 55v-57, passim; Sharpe, , Witchcraft in Scotland, pp. 129–30Google Scholar. Johnston had been delated by Janet Dail of Newton. See SRO, Musselburgh witches process papers, 29 July 1661, JC 26/27. A few days after being imprisoned, Johnston escaped. SRO, CH 2/283/2, fol. 59.

59 SRO, Inveresk kirk session, 17 July 1655, CH 2/531/1.

60 SRO, Dalkeith kirk session, 16 November 1658, CH 2/84/2, fol. 39v.

61 SRO, Inveresk kirk session, 4 June 1661, CH 2/531/1.

62 Black, Unpublished Trials, p. 36.

63 SRO, dittay against Cock, 18 June 1661, JC 26/27; Black, Unpublished Trials, p. 36.

64 SRO, dittay against Margaret Allen, 14 November 1661, JC 26/27.

65 SRO, dittay against Cock, 11 November 1661, JC 26/27. This was the third dittay against her. Cock was accused of threatening Lithgob that he would not have the power to stand, after which he was bedridden for three months.

66 Jonet Millar allegedly enchanted the milk of Helen Black when the latter refused to give her some butter. Millar was also held responsible for the death of James Wilkie's horse after he refused to lend it to her for a shilling. Margaret Hutchinson became angry at Harry Balfour because he refused to do some work for her. SRO, Dudingston witches and Jonet Millar process papers, JC 26/27.

67 Macfarlane, , Witchcraft, pp. 147-56, 173-76, 205–06Google Scholar; Boyer, and Nissenbaum, , Salem Possessed, pp. 209–16Google Scholar. Both authors argue that witchcraft accusations arose at a “critical stage” in the emergence of an individualistic ethic. It should be noted, however, that at Salem those villagers who wished to preserve the old order accused their more entrepreneurial antagonists (as well as some members of their own group), whereas in Essex, England, the situation was reversed.

68 Boyer, and Nissenbaum, , Salem Possessed, pp. 32–33Google Scholar; Midelfort, , Witch Hunting, p. 194Google Scholar.

69 Numerous implications are recorded in SRO, JC 26/27. In East Lothian, Helen Deanes and Anna Pilmore, both of whom had been named in the Earl of Haddington's petition of 3 April 1661, implicated a total of fourteen persons on 24 April, the day that the commission established by parliament sentenced seven witches to death. See SRO, PA 7/23/1. Thirteen of these fourteen had been named as witches, together with Deanes and Pilmore in 1649 but had not been convicted, mainly because a sufficiently empowered commission had not been established. Compare the names in PA 7/9/1, fol. 42 and PA 7/23/1 with R.P.C., 2nd ser., VIII, 205. In place of Jonet Wast, accused in 1649, Helen Wast was named. Commissions to try seven of these individuals were established on 9 May and 6 June 1661. R.P.C., 2nd ser., VIII, 199, 248.

70 See for example the case of Janet Stoddart, SRO, Inveresk kirk session, 5 November 1661, CH 2/531/1. In November 1661, the Earl of Haddington asked that Agnes Williamson, who had been kept in prison eight months at the charge of himself and his tenants, be either tried or set at liberty. R.P.C., 3rd ser., I, 78.

71 SirMackenzie, George, The Laws and Customes of Scotland in Matters Criminal (Edinburgh, 1678), p. 104Google Scholar. See also Scott-Moncrieff, , Justiciary Court Proceedings, I, 34Google Scholar.

72 For the dittays against Cock see above, n. 63, 65. For those against Hutchinson see Scott-Moncrieff, , Justiciary Court Proceedings, I, 9, 11Google Scholar; SRO, Dudingston witches process papers, JC 26/27.

73 Millar, having been delated by six confessing witches in 1650, was examined before the kirk session of Kirkliston on 14 August 1659. She confessed on 26 August, but the session, requiring more verification, requested the presence of the Lairds of Dundas and Carlowrie and two J.P.s from the sheriffdom of Linlithgow. In their presence, Millar admitted that she had made a confession, denying that she had been tortured but claiming that the constable, Robert Wilson, had promised that if she were to confess, she might return home afterwards. SRO, Kirkliston kirk session, 14 August 1659, CH 2/229/1; Jonet Millar process papers, JC 26/27. In 1661 Millar was confined to the tolbooth in Edinburgh, but since no witnesses would compear, the justice deputies sent her back to Kirkliston on 5 July to be tried by such commissioners as the parliament or the council should nominate. See Scott-Moncrieff, , Justiciary Court Proceedings, I, 3Google Scholar. This trial was to have taken place on 10 September, but on 20 August Millar was tried together with a number of witches from Dudingston and was declared not guilty by a plurality. At an unknown date new dittays were drafted. The justice deputes, however, would not allow her to be tried at Kirkliston, as previously planned, since she had already been acquitted. See SRO, Dudingston witches and Jonet Millar process papers, JC 26/27; JC 2/10. There is no doubt that Jonet Millar of Kirkliston (Source-Book, nos. 403, 2812, 2813) was the same person as the Jonet Millar tried with the Dudingston witches (no. 392). Compare the articles in the various dittays and also the Kirkliston kirk session proceedings, 14 August 1659.

74 Mackenzie, Mackenzie, Laws and Customes, pp. 80–108Google Scholar. See also SirGeorge, , Pleadings in Some Remarkable Cases (Edinburgh, 1673), pp. 185–97Google Scholar.

75 There was only one witchcraft case between 1663 and 1669. See Source-Book, p. 40.

76 R.P.C., 3rd ser., I, passim; Source-Book, pp. 125-42. The privy council met for the first time on 13 July 1661, the day after parliament adjourned.

77 Larner, , “Hekserij,” Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, XX, 180Google Scholar, estimates that 95 percent of all privy council commissions resulted in convictions.

78 R.P.C., 3rd ser., I, 198.

79 Ibid., pp. 187, 210.

80 Even in 1658, when local authorities were proceeding against more witches than in the previous few years, they were careful to deny that any torture had been used to extract confessions. See SRO, testification of the justices of the peace, 19 July 1658, JC 26/24. The Claim of Right prohibited the use of torture without evidence or in ordinary crimes. A complete prohibition of torture was enacted in 1708 (7 Anne, c. 21, sec. 8).

81 Prickers, including one Cowan, a pupil of Kincaid, became active again in 1677, but the council imprisoned him. See Neill, W.N., “The Professional Pricker and His Test for Witchcraft,” Scottish Historical Review, XIX (1922), 209Google Scholar.

82 R.P.C., 3rd ser., I, 319; II, 165, 635.

83 See Source-Book, pp. 238-39; Smout, T.C., A History of the Scottish People, 1560-1830 (New York, 1969), p. 206Google Scholar.

84 Henningsen, G., “The Papers of Alonso de Salazar Frias,” Temenos, V (1969), pp. 85–96Google Scholar.

85 Ibid., 96-103. Of the 1,802 individuals who confessed, 1,384 were girls under twelve or boys under fourteen years of age.

86 Mackenzie, , Pleadings, p. 185Google Scholar; Laws and Customes, pp. 81-85.

87 Mackenzie, , Laws and Customes, p. 85Google Scholar.

88 Ibid., pp. 85-86.

89 Ibid., pp. 89-90.

90 Ibid., p. 91.

91 Ibid., p. 105.

92 For specific references to the Great Hunt in Mackenzie, , Laws and Customes, see pp. 90, 93, 97, 104, 105, 106Google Scholar.

93 Lee, M. Jr., The Cabal (Urbana, 1965), p. 36Google Scholar.

94 The Rescissory Act of 28 March 1661 annulled all the acts of the “pretended” parliaments of the 1640s, and a further act of the same day declared that the Rescissory Act extended to all the pretended parliaments since 1633. On 6 September 1661 Charles ordered the restoration of the Scottish episcopacy by royal proclamation. See Davies, G. and Hardacre, P., “The Restoration of the Scottish Episcopacy, 1660-1661,” J.B.S., I (1962), 45–50Google Scholar. It is difficult to determine how popular the restoration of the episcopacy was. See Lee, M. Jr., “Comment on the Restoration of the Scottish Episcopacy, 1660-1661,” J.B.S., I (1962), 52–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Cowan, I.B., The Scottish Convenanters, 1660-1688 (London, 1976), p. 45Google Scholar.

95 Kittredge, G.L., Witchcraft in Old and New England (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), pp. 279, 372CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that outbreaks of witch hunting are likely to accompany or follow crises in politics and religion because of the “perturbed condition of the public mind.” This episode can be regarded as one hunt that occurred after, or perhaps in the very late stages of such a crisis. Witch hunts generally took place after, rather than during, periods of warfare. See Midelfort, , Witch Hunting, p. 75Google Scholar; Monter, E. W., Witchcraft in France and Switzerland (Ithaca, 1976), pp. 47, 81Google Scholar.

96 Kirkton, J., The Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland, Sharpe, C.K. (ed.) (Edinburgh, 1817), p. 126Google Scholar. One of the pictures was that of an old hag holding the Covenant.