Bullet point 1 - The origins of the persecution

• Gilly Duncan’s Confession

  • She was a young maidservant
  • Had healing abilities - many made miraculous recoveries
  • In 1590, David Seaton questioned her over these skills as well as stealing and absence from work.
  • She would not answer so he tortured her with thumbscrews and cords tightened around her head.
  • A witches mark was found on her throat and she confessed.
  • She was taken to prison and named other witches, including wives of respectable Edinburgh gentlemen.
  • Maybe they’d had an affair and this was another motive.
• The impact of James VI’s voyage from Denmark

  • James married Anne of Denmark
  • She attempted to sail to Scotland three times, firstly in September 1589, but each time her fleet was driven back by storms
  • A Danish Admiral, Peter Munk, said it was witchcraft
  • James travelled to Denmark in October 1589 after a stormy journey, staying until spring 1590
  • James and Anne’s journey back to Scotland was perilous, one ship in the fleet was lost, witches were blamed
• • The connection between Danish and Scottish witchcraft was first made in 1590, a number of Danish witches had been arrested for conjuring up storms affecting Anne
  • The initial 1590-91 accusations were associated with storms and 1597 with famine and disease.
• The extent to which Danish witch hunting influenced events in Scotland

  • No evidence James was interested in witchcraft before 1590
  • quoted play called ‘Flyting‘ in a 1584 essay
  • The Witchcraft Act 1563 forbade anyone from using witchcraft or sorcery, but it treated witchcraft with a degree of scepticism and was rarely enforced
  • James would have been aware of refs to a diabolic pact in a case tried in 1552
  • In Denmark James met scientists and philosophers who held strong beliefs in group witch trials, including astronomer Tycho Brahe and Calvinist theologian Niels Hemmingsen.
• • Hemmingsen had written a book called ‘Avoiding Magic and Superstition‘ in 1575 which confirmed maleficium but denied pact with the devil.
  • Denmark laws forbade the use of torture (1547) and guaranteed appeals against local court decisions could be heard in high court in Copenhagen (1576)
  • Danish trials rarely made reference to a satanic pact
  • Lutheran Bishops were concerned with witches: Peter Palladius encouraged Christians to speak up when they suspected a witch
• • When looking into reasons for the failed fleet, Anna Koldings was interrogated and possibly tortured illegally until she names other women. AK and 12 others executed