In 1590, North Berwick was a small village on the coast of Scotland, a short distance east of Edinburgh. A quiet, unassuming place, it was to become the centre of a series of trials that horrified all of Scotland, England and Wales. From the first hints of witchcraft and foul play, detailed investigations undertaken by the King of Scotland himself gradually uncovered a vast plot to use satanic powers to take over the country itself. The leader of this heinous coven, Agnes Sampson, became the first person to be executed in Scotland for witchcraft, and several of her group followed her.
The story says that in the late autumn of 1590, a large coven of perhaps as many as 200 witches – both men and women – came together in an empty church near to North Berwick. Their goal was to conjure up a murderous storm, and use it to kill the King of Scotland himself. The spell called for the sacrifice of a black cat – one that had been specially prepared. First the cat was christened with the name of a recently-dead local sailor, in a mocking send-up of Christian ceremony. It was then passed through the flame of a large fire repeatedly, burning and torturing it as it absorbed certain herbs and incenses from the material that was being burnt.
The dead man’s corpse had been stolen from the local cemetery, and the witches hacked off the hands, feet and genitals of the man. The hands were tied to the semi-conscious cat’s forward paws, left to left, right to right. The feet were tied to its rear paws, again left to left. Finally, the penis and testicles were threaded through and tied to the cat’s belly. When the preparations were complete, one of the witches carried the prepared cat to the pier at Leith village, and cast it into the sea with a final invocation.
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Tantallon Castle, North Berwick by Thomas Moran
No sooner had the cat sunk under the water than the skies turned as black as pitch, and a howling wind erupted. Within moments, a terrible storm was in full force. A ship that was sailing in to Leith from Kinghorn was caught up and dashed against rocks, killing many sailors, but the witches kept the storm going. Their object wasn’t just mayhem and death, it was the specific murder of King James of Scotland, on his way back to the country from Denmark with his new wife. The witches kept the storm rolling and directed it throughout the night, targeting the man-of-war carrying the royal couple. To their horror and dread however, it managed to ride through the storm, avoiding destruction.
The first hints of the story emerged accidentally, during an investigation into suspected witchcraft in the Edinburgh area. Geillis Duncan, a young woman who worked as a servant in the city, had become known for her skills in nursing the sick back to health. This attracted attention. Geillis worked for a deputy bailiff named David Smeaton. He observed that she used to sneak out of the house some nights. Her destination on these occasions was a friend’s house, an older woman. Geillis and her friend were in the habit of taking in any person who was injured, ill or otherwise in distress. They then proceeded to heal these poor unfortunates as best they could. They patched up all manner of people effectively and quickly, and started developing a good reputation as healers.
Naturally, this gave Bailiff Smeaton grounds for great suspicion. How could such things be done naturally and lawfully? He could not imagine it, and so was certain that his main was performing her healing through “extraordinary and unlawful means”. To help investigate his suspicions, Smeaton had Geillis put to the question. The girl was tortured for several days, first by means of a form of early thumbscrew called “pilliwinkes” that were progressively tightened, forcing nail-heads and studden screws through the flesh and bone of the fingers, and then by binding her head with rope and winching it so tight that it ripped through skin and flesh. However, she held out until the questioners claimed to have found a witch-mark – a numb spot which did not respond to being jabbed with a needle – located on her neck. Finally, she confessed to having had the help of the devil in healing the sick.
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In The Berwick Graveyard by Lee Kindness
Under further questioning, Geillis named a selection of fellow witches, including Agnes Sampson, Agnes Tompson, Dr James Fian, Barbara Napier and Euphemia McCalyan. Agnes Sampson – a ‘grave and matronly gentlewoman’ – was revealed as the eldest and most senior of the witches, and was called in. Agnes initially refused to confess to any wrong-doing, so her interrogators shaved every hair from her body and searched for a devil’s mark of some sort, as had been found on Geillis Duncan. Once they had spotted a likely mark, then proceeded to torture the woman in a similar manner to Geillis, with a binding-rope around her head and neck. When that did not yield results, they forced an iron ‘bridle’ into her mouth. This gouged into her tongue, lips and cheeks, and prevented her from sleeping. She broke within a few days, and started confessing, and King James was there to listen to her confessions.
Agnes Sampson proved a fairly creative confessor. She started modestly, as Geillis had – they had used magic spells to cure diseases, she had a satanic familiar in the form of a dog called elva, and so on. Agnes’ tales quickly became more colourful, however. She readily implicated the others named by Geillis, and brought yet more people into the list. Eventually, the network would spread to seventy or so people who were implicated in the plot, including a local nobleman, the Earl of Bothwell. According to Agnes, large groups of witches held regular conventions together at the North Berwick church, of up to 90 women and six men. They lit the place up with black candles, got drunk on wine, and worshipped Satan with chants. Geillis Duncan provided musical entertainment on a Jew’s harp.
On the occasion of October 31st 1590, the devil had come to the congregation, and they had worshipped him by performing the obscene kiss on his backside. The devil then instructed them on how to use the magic of images to turn spells against the king, and have given them the instructions on how to prepare the magical cat sacrifice to raise a storm. They were ordered to destroy James and his bride, Anne. When Agnes Thomson asked the devil why he was so determined that James should be killed, the dark one answered that James was his greatest enemy in all the world, and that he hated and feared him. Agnes Sampson then explained the ritual with the cat and the attempt to sink James’ ship. The king, recalling that his voyage home had been rough, immediately concluded that the matter was true, and that he was in mortal danger. Agnes was burnt at the stake shortly afterwards, and Geillis followed her very quickly.
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The Trial of the Berwick Witches
One of the people mentioned by Geillis was Dr. James Fian, the master of Saltpans school. Like the others, he initially refused to confess to any wrongdoing, but after a period of some days being questioned by the torturers, recanted and was prepared to give details and name names. Fian admitted that he served as clark of the coven. His ob was to bear witness to recording the names of the witches at each coven gathering, and that he would be sure to take their oaths of service to the devil. He would also write down and record any specific matter that the devil ordered him to record.
Fian then gave an example of his magic by telling the inquisitors about a love spell that he had attempted to cast on a young local gentlewoman who had caught his eye. Having spotted the girl, he went to her brother, who he taught, and persuaded the lad to get him some of his sister’s hair from her head while she was asleep. The brother – ignorant of the reason – agreed, and tried to do just that. Unfortunately, the girl woke up, and yelled for their mother. When the mother questioned her son and forced the story out of him, she became suspicious of the reasons for the request. She directed the lad to get some hairs from one of the family’s cows to give to the schoolmaster. The lad obeyed, and Fian, none the wiser, cast his spell. He was both surprised and dismayed to then be followed around by the cow for some days.
Fian was tortured further, but did not confess to anything further despite the King’s best attempts. It is recorded that Fian’s legs were totally destroyed by the torture process – the ‘boots’. This cruel device was basically a pair of spiked wedges which ran the entire length from knee to ankle, roped around each leg. The torturer would ask a question, and then hammer the ‘boot’ tighter. Typically, questioning continued until the wedges were so close together that legs were reduced to useless marrow-soaked shards. Death frequently followed. It is known that Fian’s corpse was burned in late January 1591. A fourth member of the conspiracy, Agnes Thomson, was also burned at the stake.
King James, feeling vindicated by his uncovering of such heinous plots against him – and justly proud of his status as the devil’s main enemy on earth – went on to write a scholarly treatise, “Demonology”, based on what he had learnt. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, James became king of England as well. In his opinion, the English witchcraft laws were weak and lenient, and he did his best to strengthen them, to help bring justice and the rule of God across the Kingdom. Not coincidentally, James I holds the record for hanging more witches than any other English monarch.
It was finally ascertained that nine individuals had been the ringleaders of the North Berwick coven. These were Agnes Sampson, her daughter (whose name is unrecorded), Agnes Thomson, Barbara Napier, Donald Robson, Geillis Duncan, Euphemia McCalyan, James Fian and Margaret Thomsoun. Almost sixty other individuals were named as lesser members. Agnes Samson, Agnes Thomson, James Fian and Geillis Duncan were executed as witches. The rest may simply have been imprisoned, or even released after their ‘questioning’.
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