Latest / The Story of Scotland: Clans, Crowns, and the Fight for Identity — Fexingo History / Scotland's Witch Trials: The Burning Times in the Lowlands
Transcript
- Lucas: You know, when we think about the dark chapters in Scottish history, the witch trials don't always come first — but they should. Between the 1560s and the early 1700s, Scotland executed more people for witchcraft per capita than almost anywhere else in Europe. Luna: Wait, really? More than in Germany or France? Lucas: Absolutely. Estimates vary, but somewhere between three and four thousand people were executed in Scotland during that period. That's a staggering number for a country with a population that barely topped a million. And the most famous cluster of trials happened in the 1590s, centred on a small coastal town called North Berwick. Luna: North Berwick — that's east of Edinburgh, right? Lucas: That's the one. And the whole affair began with a storm. In 1589, King James VI — who was twenty-three at the time — had just married Anne of Denmark by proxy. She set sail for Scotland, but her ship got caught in a terrifying North Sea gale and was forced to turn back to Norway. James, being the romantic — or maybe just the determined monarch — decided to sail out and fetch her himself. Lucas: They eventually married in Oslo and spent the winter in Denmark. But while they were there, James heard whispers that witchcraft might have been behind the storm. Danish witches had already been burned for supposedly raising winds against Anne's fleet. And when James returned to Scotland in 1590, the same suspicions began to surface at home. Luna: So the king himself became convinced there was a conspiracy? Lucas: He did. And it spiralled quickly. A woman named Geillis Duncan, a maidservant in the town of Tranent, was accused by her master of having supernatural abilities — she'd been secretly curing the sick with herbs. Under torture, she named several other people, including a schoolteacher named John Fian and a respected local healer named Agnes Sampson. Lucas: Agnes Sampson is a particularly tragic figure. She was an elderly woman, known in her community for her medical knowledge. But under torture — and I mean brutal torture, including the 'thrawing of the head' with a rope and sleep deprivation — she confessed to attending a witches' sabbath at the Auld Kirk in North Berwick. She claimed the devil had preached to them from the pulpit. Luna: The devil preached from the pulpit? That's a pretty wild detail to just invent. Lucas: It is. But remember, these confessions were extracted under unimaginable pressure. Agnes Sampson's testimony was remarkably detailed. She said the witches had cast a charm into the sea to raise the storm that nearly killed Anne of Denmark — using a dead cat, body parts, and incantations. Lucas: King James was so intrigued — and horrified — that he interrogated Agnes Sampson himself. According to contemporary accounts, she whispered something in his ear that revealed a private conversation between James and his new bride on their wedding night. Whether she actually knew that or it was a lucky guess, it convinced the king that she had genuine demonic knowledge. Luna: That's chilling. And this was the same James who later wrote a book about demonology, right? Lucas: Exactly. In 1597, he published Daemonologie, a treatise arguing for the reality of witchcraft and urging its prosecution. It's a fascinating document because it shows James trying to distinguish between 'white' magic and 'black' — but in practice, any supernatural claim was dangerous. The book was widely read and influenced witch-hunters across Europe. Lucas: The North Berwick trials set a pattern. They involved torture, which was technically illegal under Scots law except by royal warrant — but James provided those warrants freely. They also introduced the figure of the 'witch-pricker', someone who searched the accused's body for the devil's mark, an insensitive spot that supposedly proved their guilt. Luna: So they'd just poke people with needles until they found a spot that didn't bleed? Lucas: Pretty much. And if the accused didn't flinch, that was considered proof. The most notorious witch-pricker in Scotland was a man named John Kincaid, who travelled the country in the 1590s offering his services. He'd often work with local ministers and magistrates, and he was paid per witch he uncovered. So there was a clear financial incentive. Luna: It sounds like a scam as much as a witch hunt. Lucas: It absolutely was. Kincaid was eventually exposed as a fraud — he'd use a retractable needle or blunt the tip on purpose — but by then, hundreds of people had been executed on his testimony. And it's worth noting that the vast majority of the accused were women, though men were also targeted. In some areas, up to eighty percent of those executed were female. Lucas: Now, the legal framework for all this was the Witchcraft Act of 1563, passed shortly after the Scottish Reformation. It made witchcraft a civil crime, not just a church offence. And because Scotland had a system of judicial torture — unlike England, where it was rare — confessions were easier to extract. That's a big reason why the Scottish witch hunts were so deadly. Luna: I didn't realise the legal system played such a big role. In England, you had to have a jury trial, right? Lucas: Yes, and torture was generally forbidden. But in Scotland, the Privy Council could authorise torture, and local courts were often eager to prosecute. The combination of royal interest, a legal system that prized confessions, and local anxieties over crop failures, illness, or social change created a perfect storm. Lucas: The North Berwick case had another layer too: politics. Some historians argue that James VI used the witch trials to strengthen his authority after a period of instability. By positioning himself as the defender of true religion against demonic forces, he could rally support and distract from other problems. It's a theme we see in many witch hunts across Europe. Luna: So it's a bit like how fear of outsiders or conspiracies gets used today? Lucas: Exactly. The accused were often social outsiders — elderly widows, healers, people with sharp tongues, or those who inherited property that others wanted. Accusations could settle old scores. And once someone was named, the torture system made it almost impossible to recant. You confessed, or you were tortured until you did. Lucas: After James VI left for England in 1603 to become James I, the witch hunts didn't stop, but they did become less centralised. The peak came in the 1640s and 50s, during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth period, when local courts were even more active. The last execution for witchcraft in Scotland was in 1722, when a woman named Janet Horne was burned at Dornoch. Luna: That's so late — 1722, that's almost the Enlightenment. Lucas: It is. And it's a reminder that the 'burning times' weren't just a medieval phenomenon. The Scottish Enlightenment was just beginning, but in the Highlands and remote areas, old beliefs persisted. The Witchcraft Act itself wasn't repealed until 1736 — the same year it was repealed in England. By then, the judicial machine had ground to a halt, but the scars remained. Lucas: You know, this is exactly the kind of history that shows how fragile justice can be. And it's also the kind of story that takes a lot of digging to uncover. Which brings me to something I've been meaning to mention. Luna: Oh? Lucas: Part of what keeps these deep-dive episodes going — well, honestly, a lot of it — is listener support. If you've been getting something out of these conversations, a couple of dollars a month over at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo genuinely makes a difference. It keeps the show ad-free and lets me spend the extra hours in archives and old texts. Luna: Yeah, and it's not like we're promising anything flashy — just that the show keeps going. And keeps getting better. Lucas: Right. So anyway, back to the witch trials. One of the most haunting aspects is how ordinary the accused often were. Take Agnes Sampson — she was a healer, a woman of some standing in her community. She wasn't a deranged outcast. She was someone people trusted. And that's what makes it so unsettling. Luna: It's the ordinariness that gets you. These weren't caricatures. Lucas: Exactly. And when you look at the records — court transcripts, kirk session minutes — you see real people trying to navigate a world where a bad harvest or a neighbour's illness could be blamed on you. The witch trials are a mirror of society's fears, and Scotland's are particularly well-documented. We have more surviving records from Scotland, proportionally, than from many other countries. Luna: So we can actually trace individual stories? Lucas: To an extent. There's a project called the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, based at the University of Edinburgh, that has compiled a database of everyone known to have been accused, tried, or executed. It's an incredible resource. And it shows patterns — the accusations often spiked during periods of economic stress or political uncertainty, like the 1590s or the 1640s. Lucas: One thing that surprised me is how local the hunts could be. In the county of Fife, for example, there were intense outbreaks where dozens of people were executed in a single year, while neighbouring counties saw very few. It depended on the zeal of local ministers, the presence of a witch-pricker, or even the personal animosities of the laird. Luna: So the luck of the draw could decide whether you lived or died. Lucas: Pretty much. And it's a reminder that history isn't just about kings and battles — it's about the quiet violence that happens in communities. The witch trials are part of Scotland's story that we don't always talk about, but they shaped the culture profoundly. The fear lingered in folk memory for generations. Lucas: I think that's one reason why, when we look at Scottish identity today — with its strong sense of fairness and its suspicion of authority — some of that might trace back to these traumatic episodes. People learned that the state could turn on you without warning. And that's not a lesson easily forgotten. Luna: It makes you wonder what other stories are still buried in the archives.