The Politics of Witch-hunts in Scotland: Popular Belief from 1563-1736

Quincy Morgan Standage

HIST 342: The European Witch-hunts

Dr. Wolbrink

December 4, 2019
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Political liability and conspiracy were central to the witch-hunts in early modern

Scotland. The witch-hunts of Scotland are defined by five panics: 1590-1591, 1597, 1628-1631,

1649-1650, and 1661-1662. Each of these panics demonstrate a systematic judicial fear of

witches occurring at both the local and central level. The involvement of all social classes in the

witch-hunts demonstrates a societal fear of witches versus the common trope of peasant belief as

the only dimension to the persecution of witches. However, each social class was affected

differently by accusations of witchcraft and richer witches were more likely to fight accusations

because of their wealth, familial reputation, and lands at stake. Giving legitimacy to local beliefs

and accusations, the introduction of the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 instituted the idea of

capital offense and helped stimulate the judicial proceedings of witchcraft.1 From this a rash of

prosecutions occurred focusing on the dangers that witches presented to the newly established

reign of King James VI and the establishment of witchcraft commissions. The centralization of

witch-hunting by James VI was critical to establishing witch-hunting as a secularly motivated

undertaking primarily occurring in the Lowlands of Scotland. This centralization was fueled by

the increase in the issuance of commissions to persecute witches in different regions of Scotland.

The regionality of witch-hunting directed at the central government level and the focus on

popular belief in Scotland also points to the societal necessity to pursue local witches. An

instable and developing monarchy, issues of economic stability, social class tensions, and

political rivalry were catalysts for the rash of prosecutions occurring in Scotland during the

witch-hunts.

Initial estimates of accusations, trials, and executions in Scotland during the witch-hunts

range from 4,500 to 30,000. Scholar Christina Larner, who pioneered statistical analyses on the

1
Julian Goodare, introduction to The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
2002), 5.
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witch-hunts in the 1980s, estimated 2,208 cases of witchcraft over a period of 173 years.2

Building on her extensive data analysis of the Scottish witch-hunts, Lauren Martin and Joyce

Miller demonstrate that cases with sentencing pursued was limited to 307 cases: “from this we

know that 206 people were to be executed, 52 acquittal or released, 27 banished, 11 declared

fugitive, 6 excommunicated and 2 put to the horn (outlawed).”3 A consensus is furthered by the

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, a comprehensive primary source database, which argues that

there are 305 known trials which resulted in sentencing.4 It is important to note that in the

Scottish case, “over one-third of known witchcraft accusations were in the counties of the

Lothians - Edinburgh, Haddington and Linlithgow,”5 a coastal region of the lowlands of

Scotland. Several scholars have pointed to the lack of accusations occurring in the Highlands of

Scotland despite an even distribution of the Scottish population.6 Plausible answers for this range

from the idea that the emerging state was not as effective in the Highlands to the idea that urban

centers, which primarily reside in the southern provinces were more likely to prosecute witches.7

The issue of regionality of the witch-hunts in Scotland reveals the relevance of popular belief

and the role of local politics in the instigation of the five major panics. For a panic to occur, local

ministers or leaders in the community had to view witch-hunting as a threat to the emerging

godly state. The central government’s involvement in provincial persecutions through the

issuance of official commissions demonstrates the monarchy’s ability to harness popular belief to

increase their political legitimacy and viability among the developing Scottish monarchy.
2
Lauren Martin and Joyce Miller, “Some Findings from the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft,” In Witchcraft and Belief
in Early Modern Scotland (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
3
Martin and Miller, “Survey of Scottish Witchcraft” 51-70.
4
“Introduction to Scottish Witchcraft,” Survey of Scottish Witchcraft (The University of Edinburgh), accessed
December 27, 2019, https://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches/introduction.html).
5
Martin and Miller, “Survey of Scottish Witchcraft,” In Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 58.
6
Survey of Scottish Witchcraft - Introduction to Scottish Witchcraft, accessed November 22, 2019
http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches/introduction.html.
7
Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology
and the North Berwick Witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000).
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From the beginning of King James VI’s rule in 1567, Scotland had a volatile political

environment where concerns of political legitimacy plagued the infancy of his rule. Lawrence

Normand and Gareth Roberts attribute King James VI’s ascension to the Scottish crown as a

cause for issues associated with witchcraft in Scotland. Issues plaguing the Crown included “the

years of famine of 1585-7 and also of mismanagement of the currency, the late 1580s saw the

destruction of economic confidence and the ‘disrupting [of] traditional relationships in every

sector of the economy.’”8 Economic fluctuation and mismanagement led King James VI to seek

ways to legitimize the Crown and provide answers to explain these issues that effected all

Scottish citizens. In his 1597 publication Daemonologie, he singlehandedly demonstrated the

power witches held over Scottish society and the dangers they posed to both the Crown and the

citizens of Scotland. In this treatise on witch-hunting, King James VI asserts that “these witches

[…] being enticed either for the desire of revenge or of worldly riches, their whole practices are

either to hurt men and their goods, or what they possess, for satisfying of their cruel minds in the

former […] to satisfy their greedy desire in the last point.”9 King James VI’s discomfort with

witchcraft and in particular its political implications furthered the justification for prosecutions

related to witchcraft. The idea of political upheaval and greed as a contributing factor to the

witch-hunts is demonstrated by King James VI’s assertion that witchcraft hurt both men and

goods demonstrating the political nature of the Scottish witch-hunts.

During his reign King James VI described witchcraft as a political tool cast by his rivals

for his political misfortune. In 1591 Agnes Sampson, an old woman accused and tried during the

North Berwick Witch trials, confessed to causing a storm during the Queen’s homecoming to

8
Normand and Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick
Witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), 30.
9
James VI, “Demonology, in Form of a Dialogue,” Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology
and the North Berwick Witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), 385.
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Scotland.10 Her confession linked witches conjuring storms and causing an interruption of

commerce, to an action against the emerging political state. King James VI took this confession

and campaigned widely on the idea that his political position and the citizens of Scotland were in

grave danger from the threats of witchcraft. Accusations hurled by the state pertaining to

witchcraft are a hallmark of the political career of James VI, who was outraged by the existence

of witches. King James VI focused on witchcraft as the source of many of his political issues and

heavily regulated the judicial authority of Scotland in response.11 In the eyes of the Crown,

witches were a direct threat to their political stability.

The Crown’s attempt to control the moral and religious lives of its constituents was

focused on creating a godly state in Scotland. Increasing demands from the secular regime to

regulate the moral view of citizens led to the alienation and increased persecutions of Scottish

women. Historian Julian Goodare argues that “the labeling of so many women as witches – itself

a process with a strong sexual component, particularly fornication with the Devil – was a leading

aspect of the godly state’s claim to regulate the moral lives of all its citizens.”12 Using morality

as a method of social control and disseminating it through popular belief was detrimental to

women regardless of wealth.13 The instability of the Crown and the growth of Scotland’s

monarchy led to Scotland being a hotspot of witchcraft accusations among Protestant Europe.

Pre-trial investigations were often left to local church courts such as the kirk session or the

presbytery. The ad hoc tribunals that these courts established focused on the principles of the

godly state. Goodare asserts that “such ad hoc local courts tried about nine-tenths of the witches,

10
Normand and Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick
Witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), 231-246.
11
Normand and Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick
Witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000).
12
Julian Goodare, “Women and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland,” Social History 23, no. 3 (October 1998): 288–308.
13
See particularly Goodare, “Women and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland” In Social History 23, no. 3 for more
information regarding gender roles and the godly state’s involvement in Scottish society.
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with most of the remainder being sent to the central justiciary court in Edinburgh.”14 Later in the

witch-hunts local courts came under the control of the Crown through further judicial scrutiny

and more restrictions on the issuance of commissions. This was primarily done because focus on

tightening up judicial processes led to the Crown’s belief that commissions fanned the flame of

prosecutions through popular belief rather than accessing the relative guilt of an individual.

Therefore, the threat of witchcraft was perpetrated at both the central and the local level

which fed into popular belief surrounding witches. Popular belief of witches through folklore and

the printing press demonstrated the ability of popular belief to mobilize a community to act

against a perceived threat. The use of the printing press to expand witch-hunting in Northern

Europe can be seen through its utilization by King James VI’s publication and distribution of

Daemonologie.15 Because of the printing press Daemonologie was distributed in both England

and Scotland and linked both communities. The use of printing machines to disseminate

pamphlets is also exhibited in a 1591 English pamphlet titled “Newes from Scotland” which

provided information about ongoing trials and notices of executions from Scotland.16 Despite the

close ties of both states, Scotland prosecuted and executed more witches per capita than

England.17 Pamphlets of women and executions were more graphic in Scotland versus the

relatively tame literature of England. Tame in the sense that it had less pictures and descriptions

of torture and had fewer links to the erotic through phallic symbols and the sexualization of

women. Normand and Roberts argue that recent studies have “shown how ‘close and complex

14
Julian Goodare, “Witchcraft in Scotland” In The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and
Colonial America, edited by Brian P. Levack, 300–317 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2013.
15
Normand and Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick
Witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000).
16
“Witchcraft and Demonology in: Scotland,” Virtual Exhibitions, University of Glasglow, accessed September 30,
2019, https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/specialcollections/virtualexhibitions/damnedart/scotland/#d.en.18937.
17
Survey of Scottish Witchcraft - Introduction to Scottish Witchcraft,
http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches/introduction.html.
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the relationships were between printed and oral media, urban and rural communities, and

different levels of the local and national social hierarchy.’”18 Despite avid witch-hunters being

present in both states, Scotland’s witches were interrogated under torture, dissimilar to England,

largely due to a popular resentment of torture in England. The example of torture not being

widely accepted in English society validates the power of popular opinion in how accusations

and judicial oversight is employed. The differences between England and Scotland in pamphlets,

and judicial processes shaped the variance in popular beliefs between both states.

Elements of political and economic dissidence can be seen in accusations and

interrogations of political rivals. Examples of men in urban Scotland who were under heavy

debts and were accused of witchcraft because of these unpaid debts, not because of the

individuals’ particular link to witchcraft practices. Debts are also tied to the elite class because of

the income rents they took from peasants for land or lodging. Therefore, economic instability

linked a few unfortunate individuals to accusations of witchcraft as a tool to extract a debt.

Goodare asserts “a feeling of the immediacy of divine – or diabolical – intervention in the world

could also have raised peasants’ concerns about witchcraft […] the elite, for whom famine

threatened their income from rents, could have felt this too.”19 The immediacy of economic

instability as a way in which witches were pursued in Scotland, is distinctly different from

England and mainland Europe. Another example is the political and monetarily fueled feud

between Agnes Brown and renowned Scottish witch-hunter James Kennoway. Kennoway,

heavily indebted to elites in the Edinburgh community, accused Agnes Brown of witchcraft in an

attempt to collect her estate.20 Scholar Louise Yeoman argues that “Agnes was Kennoway’s only
18
Normand and Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick
Witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), 53-54.
19
Julian Goodare, “The Scottish Witchcraft Panic of 1597,” In The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2002), 53.
20
Louise Yeoman, “Hunting the Rich Witch in Scotland: High-status Witchcraft Suspects and their Prosecutors,
1590-1650,” in The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context, ed. Julian Goodare (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
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hope of recouping some of his expenses for his involvement in the hunt […] Kennoway’s

description of her as a ‘bastard gotten in adulterie,’ combined with her wealth, perhaps explains

why she was targeted in the first place.”21 The urgency and monetary interests from both

individuals and witch-hunters explains how the witch-hunts were stimulated by different reasons

for initial accusations.

Commissions were a useful tool of the central authority of Scotland to control local kirk

sessions and witchcraft trials to keep judicial control and integrity. These commissions were

primarily established to influence the political and judicial life of local communities because of

the diverse background of individuals seeking the prosecutions of witches.22 Commissions were

influenced by provincial popular belief in Scotland and often their issuance demonstrates a

region rife with fear of witches and the implications of witchcraft. In certain regions, the central

authority of Scotland used the introduction of commissions to gain support and legitimacy in

rural areas. Commissions became a political tool to demonstrate the political power and control

of the central authority of Scotland. This also allowed the central government to both participate

in and restrain the major panics surrounding witchcraft prosecutions in Scotland.

A diverse set of individuals from varying social classes are responsible for making

witchcraft accusations. Accusations leveraged against witches in their communities stimulated

the central authority to grant commissions to local authorities. Louise Yeoman argues that witch-

hunters were primarily “bailies, clerks, and ministers, who had actively promoted the initial

phase of the witch-hunt […] led to depositions being presented to the privy council asking for a

commission […] these were local men whose credibility was enough to turn gossip into action,

2002), 116.
21
Yeoman, “Hunting the Rich Witch in Scotland: High-status Witchcraft Suspects and their Prosecutors, 1590-
1650,” 116.
22
Yeoman, “Hunting the Rich Witch in Scotland: High-status Witchcraft Suspects and their Prosecutors, 1590-
1650.”
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and to direct the action in the way that they chose.”23 These individuals invoked power in the

community through their status either as burgesses, merchants, ministers, or sheriffs.24 While

ministers prosecuted witches for the fear of religious corruption. The motivation of secular

authorities including merchants or sheriffs stemmed from a fear of economic downturn and the

physical and political implications of witchcraft. In Scotland both religious and secular

authorities were concerned with controlling witchcraft for fear of the touted physical dangers it

presented. However, witch-hunting was primarily an activity perpetrated by secular authorities.25

The issuance of commissions demonstrates a secular centralization of authority for political gain

and the increase of witchcraft centered prosecutions.

The introduction of a commission to a community in Scotland fueled an increase in

accusations and community angst surrounding their neighbors and suspected witches. The

beginnings of the North Berwick Witch trials represents one of the earliest Scottish panics and is

an excellent example of a surge of accusations of witchcraft touching different social classes in a

singular panic. In this case, neighbors accused neighbors, townspeople, and elites. In 1591 Agnes

Sampson was a victim of this particular outbreak of prosecutions and was largely targeted

because of her reputation as a healer in the community. Sampson was an elder healer in the

community who was accused after the death of her husband. Her reputation as a healer can be

seen in her trial records which offer the specific prayers she used to heal others. Sampson was

described by authorities as crippled, deranged, and possessing the mark of a witch.26 She was

primarily accused of killing a young boy in her care and in her trial records was often blamed for
23
Yeoman, “Hunting the Rich Witch in Scotland: High-status Witchcraft Suspects and their Prosecutors, 1590-
1650,” 111.
24
Yeoman, “Hunting the Rich Witch in Scotland: High-status Witchcraft Suspects and their Prosecutors, 1590-
1650,” 111.
25
Goodare, “Witchcraft in Scotland,” In The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial
America.
26
Normand and Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick
Witches.
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the death of those she was unsuccessfully able to treat. Several other individuals caught in the

North Berwick panic include Barbara Napier and Euphame MacCalzean. During the trial of both

Agnes Sampson and Barbara Napier they were tortured and named a multitude of other

suspected witches, fanning the flame.27

The trial records of Agnes Sampson demonstrate two different examples of witchcraft

used for personal political motives. The first is the political threat concerning King James VI in

1591 regarding the return of Queen Anne of Denmark to Scotland and the conjuring of a storm to

keep her from returning. Her confession, reveals the call to action: “ye shall warn the rest of the

sisters to raise the wind, this day at eleven hours, to stay the queen’s coming in Scotland […]

they should make the storm universal throughout the sea.”28 This confession branded Agnes

Sampson as an enemy of the monarchy. Sampson’s confession also increased King James VI’s

fears and prosecutions surrounding witches existing in Scotland who were acting against the

monarchy.

The second political crime involves John Moscrop and Euphame MacCalzean who were

embroiled in family issues after the death of Euphame’s husband in 1591. John Moscrop, her

father-in-law, accused her of witchcraft and political conspiracy with issues including inheritance

and attempted murder. Sampson was accused of “making a picture of wax to the similitude of Mr

John Moscrop, father-in-law to Euphame MacCalzean at the said Euphame’s desire, for the

destruction of the said Mr John […] and raised the Sprite who conjured the picture to serve for

the destruction of the said Mr John.”29 MacCalzean’s ties to Sampson are notable because both

were prosecuted in the North Berwick Witch trials beginning in 1590. Another factor
27
Normand and Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick
Witches.
28
“The Trial of Agnes Sampson,” In Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North
Berwick Witches, edited by Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts (Exeter: University of Exeter, 2000).
29
“The Trial of Agnes Sampson,” In Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North
Berwick Witches, edited by Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts (Exeter: University of Exeter, 2000).
 Standage 11

surrounding MacCalzean’s involvement was her family wealth and issues of inheritance rife in

her family. MacCalzean was a sole heiress of a wealthy family fortune and frequently disputed

with Moscrop over issues of inheritance.30 Themes of economic stability, gender constructs, and

political rivalry are demonstrated by Moscrop’s deliberate attempt to use Sampson’s confession

as a tool to convict both Sampson and MacCalzean of witchcraft.

Accused of holding meetings with Agnes Sampson, the trial of Barbara Napier

demonstrates how interrogator’s focused on finding more individuals, to implicate in their

investigations. Napier’s case, when brought to trial, had many community figureheads in

attendance. Her own family testified on her behalf and several male figures from her family

represented her interests at trial. The trial record indicates that Agnes Sampson taught Napier the

ways of witchcraft and their secret meetings were a focus of the trial and indicative of the panic

surrounding the North Berwick witches and their doings in the community31. Agnes Sampson

was a landmark case for the monarchy regarding political witchcraft and Barbara Napier was the

subsequent case. These two women were heavily focused on by central authorities and extensive

judicial controls were used in their trials because of the direct ties of their accusations to the

Crown, specifically King James VI.

In May of 1591, during Napier’s trial, she was accused of witchcraft, theft, and

suspicions of murder. One of the charges against her states “for consulting with Annie Sampson

anent the making of umwhile Archibald, earl of Angus’s picture to his destruction.”32 Archibald

Douglas, the earl in question, was a religious zealot whose death was attributed to Barbara

30
Yeoman, “Hunting the Rich Witch in Scotland: High-status Witchcraft Suspects and their Prosecutors, 1590-
1650,” in The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context, ed. Julian Goodare (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002).
31
“The Trial of Agnes Sampson,” In Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North
Berwick Witches, edited by Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts (Exeter: University of Exeter, 2000).
32
“The Trial of Barbara Napier,” In Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North
Berwick Witches, edited by Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), 249.
 Standage 12

Napier.33 However, the court deferred her execution because of a pregnancy and Napier was not

pursued further. Agnes Sampson was then attributed with the crime of killing Douglas through

witchcraft after Napier’s release. As a result of Napier’s familial influence, a petition for willful

error was filed against the assessors on June 7th, 1591.34 This demonstrates the agency that wealth

provided Napier in the face of witchcraft accusations from higher members of social classes.

The ability of an individual of wealth to escape prosecutions regarding witchcraft is a

defining trait of the elites of Scottish society, who often legally fought against accusations for

fear of a tarnished name and political reputation. Scholar Stuart Macdonald asserts that the elites

played a role in the increase in political persecutions because “to understand this we must see the

witch-hunt not in isolation, but as part of a far broader programme intended to control the

thoughts, values, and behaviours of the entire population.”35 Napier’s case provides an excellent

example of elite persecution occurring as the result of the death of a member of the upper social

class, sometimes attributed to witchcraft by another member of the same political status. This

demonstrates how witchcraft can be used as a tool of persecution for those who have political or

personal vendettas.

In Scotland, accusations of witchcraft led society through a myriad of panics often flamed

by the accusations of those detained and tortured. The five subsequent panics indicate the

continued popular belief in witchcraft and the way in which it was used as a tool to describe

political misfortune. Sole female heiresses were often targeted for their wealth due to a political

or familial feud.36 Witchcraft can also be seen as a mechanism for settling debts. The attempted

33
“The Trial of Barbara Napier,” In Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North
Berwick Witches, 247-260.
34
“The Trial of Barbara Napier,” 247-260.
35
Stuart Macdonald, “The Devil in Fife Witchcraft Cases,” In The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2002), 49.
36
Yeoman, “Hunting the Rich Witch in Scotland: High-status Witchcraft Suspects and their Prosecutors, 1590-
1650.”
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creation of a godly state compounded the issue of witchcraft at the providential level and by the

end of the five panics forced the central authority to take back judicial control and scrutiny from

local courts. King James VI’s development into Scotland’s main political authority and the

centralization of witch-hunting in Scotland led to the end of the panics at the provincial level.

However, the economic and political toll of the witch-hunts is a notable feature of Scottish

history.

Bibliography

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