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164. The North Berwick Witch Trials · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
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Speaker 1: The history podcast. It's not your history class with me,
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Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlewood, History Harlotte, and we're off books.
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Speaker 1: Who's feeling away bit lightheaded right now because I have
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Speaker 1: had two nose bleeds today. I haven't had a nose
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Speaker 1: bleed in twenty five years. So I guess who has
0:24
Speaker 1: to go get their blood pressure checked tomorrow? Oh my,
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Speaker 1: oh my? And so yes, more gig information is coming
0:33
Speaker 1: out soon for dates in Ireland. I do have the
0:38
Speaker 1: London Show November eighth. If you haven't got your tickets yet,
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Speaker 1: get your damn tickets because once they're gone, they're gone.
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Speaker 1: And I don't know if I'm going to make it
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Speaker 1: to the UK next year, depending on how things work out.
0:51
Speaker 1: So busy, busy bee. So that is happening. Oh I've
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Speaker 1: got blood on myself. Honestly, I just started bleeding at
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Speaker 1: work and then as I was walking home, I was
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Speaker 1: like five minutes away from the house and I'm like, oh,
1:08
Speaker 1: my nose is bleeding again, And next thing you know,
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Speaker 1: blood has covered half of my face. I look like
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Speaker 1: a messy vampire really, which fitting for the season because
1:18
Speaker 1: it's you know, the Halloween season, and I was like,
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Speaker 1: oh God, what if I scare all the children on
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Speaker 1: the street as I'm walking home? Like I can't do that.
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Speaker 1: So I'm trying to like cover myself up, and all
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Speaker 1: I keep thinking is like, why don't I have a
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Speaker 1: tampon in my bag because that would have like plugged
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Speaker 1: this up real good. But I'm also next month is
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Speaker 1: my birthday month, so I'm working on like stuff I
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Speaker 1: really love stuff that's very me. So instead of having
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Speaker 1: like a full month of a specific topic like the witches,
1:55
Speaker 1: you know which is which is picky bitches, I'm going
1:58
Speaker 1: to be doing like one on week on cults, in
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Speaker 1: one week on something else and all that kind of
2:04
Speaker 1: good stuff. But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie,
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Speaker 1: quit your jibber jabber in fact me, In fact you
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Speaker 1: I will. But first we have to get a source
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Speaker 1: on Our sources are The Story of Witches by willow Wincham, Witches,
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Speaker 1: Midwives and Nurses by Barbara Enrich and Deildra, English Queen
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Speaker 1: James by Gareth Russell. Agents of Witchcraft in Early modern
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Speaker 1: Italy and Denmark by Louise Nihom Calstrop. Witchcraft in early
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Speaker 1: modern Scotland, James, the Sex Demonology and the North Berwick
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Speaker 1: witch Trials by Lawrence Normand the framework for the Scottish
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Speaker 1: witch hunting in the now fifteen nineties Scottish Witchcraft Trials
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Speaker 1: by Julian Goodea and Helen Williamson. And of course we
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Speaker 1: have our old friends history dot Com and biography dot Com.
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Speaker 1: I will sit incomfortably good. Then let's begin. Before I
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Speaker 1: actually get into this episode, I should warn anyone and
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Speaker 1: everyone that you know this is the abuse of women
3:30
Speaker 1: in history, you know, so be prepared. If you are
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Speaker 1: uncomfortable with torture, abuse, assault, attacks on women physically and
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Speaker 1: verbally I suppose, and death murder. This might not be
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Speaker 1: the episode for you. You might want to exit stage left
3:54
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next time. But for the rest
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Speaker 1: of you it would be both difficult and they're right
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Speaker 1: foolish to try and talk about the history of witches
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Speaker 1: and not discuss King James's part in it. King James
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Speaker 1: the six of Scotland, first of England, who also tried
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Speaker 1: to get Parliament to call him the King of Great Britain.
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Speaker 1: And they will look not pal like. You cannot demand
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Speaker 1: your own nickname when you give yourself a nickname that
4:32
Speaker 1: that's just not cool. Okay, that's not a thing that
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Speaker 1: you do. But King James the six of Scotland, first
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Speaker 1: of England, was instrumental in fanning the flames of witch fever.
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Speaker 1: He even wrote the book on it and some Jesus
4:49
Speaker 1: fan fiction. But that's nearly who another. If you listen
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Speaker 1: to the previous episode regarding the Pendle Witches, you may
4:57
Speaker 1: already know. But if you haven't, or you want a
5:01
Speaker 1: way bit of a refresher, let's slip into some context. Women, yes,
5:08
Speaker 1: mainly women, had been accused of witchcraft for centuries. Like
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Speaker 1: if you want the stats, it's approximately eighty five percent
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Speaker 1: of those accused of witchcraft where women, okay, some men,
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Speaker 1: some children, majority adult women. They were accused of cavorting
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Speaker 1: with the devil or his demons for everything from angry words, accidents,
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Speaker 1: natural disasters, anything that could not be explained or that
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Speaker 1: needed a villain. So when things happen in life, like
5:48
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, you want a cause. You
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Speaker 1: want something or someone to blame for whatever incident has occurred.
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Speaker 1: Like nobody likes the idea that stuff just happens, no rhyme,
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Speaker 1: no reason, but stuff happens, right, and there isn't always
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Speaker 1: a solution. There isn't always a reason or a cause.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes stuff happens and you cannot stop it. That's why
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Speaker 1: I'm terrified in natural disasters, because it's stronger than me.
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Speaker 1: And so you need escapegoat, you need someone to blame
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Speaker 1: ento witches because like magic has been infused in culture,
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Speaker 1: like for as long as people have lived. Although a
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Speaker 1: lot of what some people call it witchcraft and like
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Speaker 1: alchemy and the like is just science that people didn't
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Speaker 1: understand yet, but it is what it is. So the
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Speaker 1: witch trials, they occurred as early as the thirteenth century.
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Speaker 1: Now they may have been earlier, but we do not
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Speaker 1: have the documentation to support that. But they really hit
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Speaker 1: their stride between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe
7:15
Speaker 1: and the New World, in like North America, patriarchal societies
7:21
Speaker 1: in which men held the positions of power, legal, political,
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Speaker 1: religious areas that were typically under the rule of christiandom.
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Speaker 1: I could have just said Christianity, didn't I, But now
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Speaker 1: christiandom I've said it. Now the words are out there.
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Speaker 1: The spread and grip of Christianity throughout the Western world
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Speaker 1: pushed the older religions to sort of the edges the
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Speaker 1: fringes of society to the uncommon now older religions sort
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Speaker 1: of different older all these they become associated with evil
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Speaker 1: and witchcraft. And not only do you have that spreading
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Speaker 1: its wings, but religious upheaval played a great part when
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Speaker 1: the Christian Church split, So the Roman Catholic Church as
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Speaker 1: it is now known, it's splintered with the introduction of
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Speaker 1: Protestant Christianity, which created distrust within communities. So you had,
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Speaker 1: you know, Christianity, and so you would have like Roman
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Speaker 1: Catholic sort of that Christian side, and then you would
8:43
Speaker 1: have Eastern Orthodox. Those were the two big boys in
8:47
Speaker 1: the whole Christian system. And then Christianity starts splintering off, right,
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Speaker 1: So you've got Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran. I think the
9:01
Speaker 1: humanos were one. There's just Christians, kind of Christians. Christian
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Speaker 1: lights can't believe they lot of Christians, you know, there's everybody, right,
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Speaker 1: So on top of religion, you have economic and societal
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Speaker 1: challenges which led to many women, some men, and yes,
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Speaker 1: even a few children being accused of witchcraft. And as
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Speaker 1: I said in the previous podcast episode on the pendle witches.
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Speaker 1: Whenever there is a rise in moral conservatism, there is
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Speaker 1: also an application of other ring in society, in which
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Speaker 1: the marginalized are demonized, dehumanized, and branded as morally corrupt.
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Speaker 1: Women wear convenient scapegoats for plague, pestilence, famine, and a
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Speaker 1: storm you see. But we'll get to that in a moment.
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Speaker 1: The Malias Malvicarum was originally published in fourteen eighty six
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Speaker 1: by a Dominican inquisitor, Heinrich Kramer, translated as The Hammer
10:12
Speaker 1: of the Witches. This misogynistic, vitriolic text is a very
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Speaker 1: very lengthy witch hunting manual, and it was sold in
10:24
Speaker 1: bookstalls and cathedral and university towns. But it wasn't just there.
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Speaker 1: It was popular because it had a vast readership. It
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Speaker 1: spread beyond the clergy, right beyond religious leaders. You had
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Speaker 1: the gentry and the nobles. Royals were reading this, Kings, queens, dukes, everybody, right.
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Speaker 1: This wasn't something on the fringes. This was very much
10:53
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to think of, if we ever get
10:56
Speaker 1: another Game of Thrones book, well we probably not. He's
10:59
Speaker 1: probably gonna before it comes out, unless it's already written sidebar,
11:05
Speaker 1: What if George R. Martin has Martin Martin marn that
11:11
Speaker 1: was weird. If George R. R. Martin has written Wins
11:17
Speaker 1: the Winter, he's written the end of Game of Thrones
11:21
Speaker 1: or a Song of Ice and Fire. If he has
11:25
Speaker 1: written the ending to the saga of the Song of
11:27
Speaker 1: Ice and Fire and he's got it set aside only
11:30
Speaker 1: to be published upon his demise, so that you know,
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Speaker 1: he doesn't have to deal with the backlash and the
11:37
Speaker 1: like people's feelings regarding the end of the story, because
11:41
Speaker 1: I have a feeling it's like that probably if he
11:44
Speaker 1: has finished it, because you know, the TV show was
11:48
Speaker 1: good to a point and then they just like, I've
11:53
Speaker 1: never seen something lose momentum as quickly as that. But anyway,
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Speaker 1: back to this, So King James of Scotland, King James
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Speaker 1: the sixth of Scotland, I should say, was one such
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Speaker 1: reader of books. I don't like that. I've got a
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Speaker 1: darky taste in my mouth there. No, I'm the reader
12:25
Speaker 1: of books. You're just a book reader. Yeah. James had
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Speaker 1: become King of Scotland when he was only thirteen months old,
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Speaker 1: when his mother, Mary, Queen of Scotts, was forced to
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Speaker 1: abdicate the throne. So you may notice that he is
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Speaker 1: King James of Scotland and she is Mary, Queen of Scott's.
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Speaker 1: So like before Hitton right, the whole concept of being
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Speaker 1: like the crowned person in Scotland, right, wasn't that you
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Speaker 1: were a ruler of the land. You were a ruler
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Speaker 1: of the people. You represented the people. So you would
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Speaker 1: have been King of Scots Queen of Scots, not King
13:15
Speaker 1: of Queen of Scotland like that was the idea behind it.
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Speaker 1: But he's like, no, no, no, no, I am the
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Speaker 1: King of Scotland. So Mary, Mary Queen of Scots was
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Speaker 1: a Catholic, but Scotland had undergone a Protestant Reformation, and
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Speaker 1: so James had been raised to be an obedient Protestant king.
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Speaker 1: Being Protestant was something that was going to hold him
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Speaker 1: in good stead royally flash politically, as Queen Elizabeth the First,
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Speaker 1: who was Church of England and also Protestant, had no heirs,
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Speaker 1: and so good Queen Bess would be looking for an
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Speaker 1: heir to the throne of England and Wales, a Protestant
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Speaker 1: heir to the throne like I'm not sure when it was,
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Speaker 1: but it did happen that they changed the law, like
14:15
Speaker 1: Parliament changed the law so that no Catholic could become
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Speaker 1: like the King or Queen of England. Anyway, Scotland had
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Speaker 1: been in turmoil since James ascended the throne, with many,
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Speaker 1: and I do mean many kidnapping and murderer attempts on
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Speaker 1: the young King's life, and events like the Black Dinner
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Speaker 1: would make an impact on the manner in which James
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Speaker 1: would dole out punishment in the name of self preservation.
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Speaker 1: When James the sixth of Scotland was twenty three, it
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Speaker 1: had not got unnoticed by everyone around him, everyone important
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Speaker 1: that he avoided women, lacked an aitr and had many
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Speaker 1: intense attachments with male friends. Here's the thing. Legitimate children
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Speaker 1: were necessary in carrying on the royal line, and so
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Speaker 1: a marriage was on the cards. Like you had to
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Speaker 1: be married, you had to have a legitimate air. This
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Speaker 1: was something that was required in order for the legacy
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Speaker 1: to continue, because if not, like it's a power struggle,
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Speaker 1: it's an issue. And James, he had been raised and
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Speaker 1: molded in such a way that like they wanted this
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Speaker 1: to continue to create the Scotland that they wanted, and
15:48
Speaker 1: so he needed to get hitched. A marriage was arranged
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Speaker 1: between James and Anna of Denmark. She would then change
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Speaker 1: her name to Anne, because that's what happened. You'd be
16:02
Speaker 1: whatever your name was in the country you were from,
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Speaker 1: and then you would come over after you got married
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Speaker 1: and you change your name. Like Catherine of Aragon, she
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Speaker 1: was Carolina like because she was fucking Spanish, you know,
16:19
Speaker 1: and her name was changed when she moved, you know.
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Speaker 1: So Anne was a princess, a daughter of the Danish
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Speaker 1: Norwegian king Frederick the second. So Denmark Norway was one
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Speaker 1: kingdom at the time, and it was a Protestant nation.
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Speaker 1: It had what was called a real union, so it
16:44
Speaker 1: was a dual monarchy. Yeah. So it was also fairly
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Speaker 1: close with Scotland. It had a shared history and of
16:52
Speaker 1: course it had like the Orkney Islands, they were like
16:55
Speaker 1: close to Norway, like Stavanga in Norway is actually closer
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Speaker 1: to Burgh than London is. Like many royal marriages at
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Speaker 1: the time, the couple were wed by proxy, and what
17:09
Speaker 1: that means is that the ach are of service and
17:13
Speaker 1: someone stands in for the bride or the groom in
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Speaker 1: their respective locations. And this was really common with sort
17:21
Speaker 1: of royal marriages. It was like, here's a little like
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Speaker 1: proxy wedding, and then they would have like a proper
17:29
Speaker 1: royal wedding after right as it was necessary. So Anne,
17:35
Speaker 1: she's like fourteen at the time, which is a little
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Speaker 1: younger than James who's twenty three, and she's about to
17:44
Speaker 1: set sail for Scotland. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans.
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Speaker 1: There is an unprecedented storm during storm season and Anne
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Speaker 1: is unable to get there, so she actually sails from
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Speaker 1: Denmark and then has to turn around because it's so
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Speaker 1: stormy and has to return to Norway, like Norway is
18:10
Speaker 1: the only place she can go. So when James's male
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Speaker 1: order bride doesn't arrive by the estimated shipping date, he
18:19
Speaker 1: takes mattals into his own hands. And by his own hands,
18:23
Speaker 1: I mean a well trained group of semen, oh sorry,
18:28
Speaker 1: a well trained group of semen would help James traverse
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Speaker 1: across the North Sea to collect his new bride. And
18:38
Speaker 1: because he has to sail there, he has to get
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Speaker 1: to her before like the storm season gets too bad,
18:44
Speaker 1: like before the seas get too rough, and so he
18:49
Speaker 1: has to like contact Queen Elizabeth the first. He has
18:54
Speaker 1: to like write her letter or get the ambassador to
18:57
Speaker 1: do it, and he has to inform them that he's
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Speaker 1: sailing to get his bride, that it's not like a
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Speaker 1: war fleet. He's like, I just want to let you know,
19:09
Speaker 1: because like the English Navy at this point was doing
19:13
Speaker 1: very well. And James is like, ah, I don't I'm
19:16
Speaker 1: not doing anything. I'm not doing anything at all. Don't
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Speaker 1: be scared, and don't destroy my fleet of ships. So
19:25
Speaker 1: off he sails to Norway to get to his new
19:31
Speaker 1: bride and they are together for the first time, and
19:35
Speaker 1: they traveled down to Copenhagen in Denmark, and this is
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Speaker 1: where he is exposed to the Danish royal court and
19:46
Speaker 1: as it turns out, his new in laws, where they
19:50
Speaker 1: believed that they knew the exact cause of this emergency,
19:54
Speaker 1: which is which is spooky bitches. Witch hunting had been
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Speaker 1: the norm in the south section of Denmark Norway for
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Speaker 1: over forty years, with the first documented executions in fifteen forty.
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Speaker 1: As far back as the fifteen thirties, it was seen
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Speaker 1: as the duty of godly people to hunt down witches
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Speaker 1: like wolves. When Denmark Norway had converted to Protestantism from Catholicism,
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Speaker 1: it was expected that such extremest views would peter out.
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Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, they did not. In fact, demonologists would use
20:37
Speaker 1: the terms like heresy, apostasy, idolatry, sacrilege, and Catholicism to
20:46
Speaker 1: describe witchcraft. Basically, anything non Protestant could fall under the
20:53
Speaker 1: veil of witchcraft. And what's interesting is that it's not
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Speaker 1: the clergy, it's not the church leaders pushing this narrative
21:01
Speaker 1: at the time, but royal officials. And it was here
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Speaker 1: that James had arrived, James who had been raised by
21:11
Speaker 1: the most dua of Christians. Now I would say that
21:16
Speaker 1: Scottish Presbyterians, like historically were as miserable as sin, but
21:22
Speaker 1: sinning's not allowed. So Queen Anne's fleet had tried to
21:28
Speaker 1: pass through Denmark Skagarak straight six times and failed. On
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Speaker 1: the last attempt, her boat began to leak and they
21:38
Speaker 1: had to retreat to the nearest port, and that was
21:41
Speaker 1: in Oslo, and like Oslo is the capital of Norway,
21:46
Speaker 1: and that is actually where her and James met in
21:49
Speaker 1: person for the first time, and that's when they got
21:52
Speaker 1: married properly officially in person irl. So like she tried
22:00
Speaker 1: times did make it had to just retreat so once
22:07
Speaker 1: is just weather, twice is disheartening, but six storms, well
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Speaker 1: that's witchcraft and magic. The newly wed royal couple spent
22:20
Speaker 1: Christmas at Anne's brother, King Christian, the Fourth Court at Hellsingle,
22:26
Speaker 1: where admirals and courtiers were arguing over whether witches had
22:31
Speaker 1: attacked the royal family. So here's the thing. By preventing
22:38
Speaker 1: the queen to get to the king and have the
22:40
Speaker 1: royal wedding and the royal bedding, most importantly, this would
22:46
Speaker 1: prevent royal heirs being produced. And so this is an
22:51
Speaker 1: attack on the line of succession. And anyone who has
22:56
Speaker 1: heard anything about Henry the Eighth no is and I
22:58
Speaker 1: understand it's a different country, but this is sort of
23:01
Speaker 1: a general rule with a lot of royals and the lineage, right,
23:08
Speaker 1: and it is the idea that the line of succession,
23:11
Speaker 1: and to attack the line of succession is to attack
23:15
Speaker 1: the crown itself. Any attempt to poison or destroy the
23:20
Speaker 1: line of succession for a lot of countries was considered treason.
23:28
Speaker 1: So the following summer it was alleged that witches had
23:33
Speaker 1: caused sea storms by sending demons out to the ships
23:37
Speaker 1: in barrels. Obviously because they may be demonic entities, but
23:43
Speaker 1: flying is out with the realm of possibility. And so
23:48
Speaker 1: these demons that had floated across the sea and barrels
23:55
Speaker 1: had attacked the hull of Queen Anne's ships. This resulted
24:04
Speaker 1: in Anna Colding's Karen Viffus, Maroon, Morgens's Maron mad Brogus
24:12
Speaker 1: and eight others put on trial for witchcraft in Copenhagen.
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Speaker 1: These women were tortured and they confessed, and two of
24:23
Speaker 1: them were executed. Like they confessed to causing storms by
24:33
Speaker 1: sending demons out in barrels to attack the hull of
24:40
Speaker 1: the queen's ships while making a storm, which honestly just
24:45
Speaker 1: feels like they don't have a lot of respect for
24:47
Speaker 1: the demons also, but in all seriousness, two women were
24:55
Speaker 1: executed for allegedly sending demons in barrels to attack a
25:04
Speaker 1: ship on the North Sea or not. Wasn't even on
25:07
Speaker 1: the North Sea at that point, but it's, you know,
25:10
Speaker 1: on a treacherous part of the sea. The royal couple
25:16
Speaker 1: sailed to Scotland in May after the storm season, but
25:22
Speaker 1: this journey was also plagued with bad weather, and by
25:27
Speaker 1: bad weather I mean a terrible storm naturally, both the
25:35
Speaker 1: Scottish and the Dano Norwegian royal families believed that witches
25:40
Speaker 1: were plotting to murder them. Back in Scotland, the Scottish
25:45
Speaker 1: Witchcraft Act had been introduced in fifteen sixty three, which
25:50
Speaker 1: is almost thirty years prior. This was a serious offense
25:57
Speaker 1: practicing any form of witchcraft, even insulting with a witch,
26:01
Speaker 1: was punishable by death, and King James was going to
26:06
Speaker 1: utilize these laws to set up his new tribunal, the
26:11
Speaker 1: purpose of which was to route out all of the
26:13
Speaker 1: witches in his kingdom. King James the Sex of Scotland
26:25
Speaker 1: has just returned from Denmark, which was being very overt
26:30
Speaker 1: with its tackling of witchery and the like, and so
26:35
Speaker 1: he has this mixed in with his extreme religious upbringing
26:40
Speaker 1: and obsession with demonology like.
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Speaker 2: In.
26:45
Speaker 1: Something to remember as well is that the accusation of
26:50
Speaker 1: witchcraft was a legitimate or legal way to target any
26:57
Speaker 1: women that a royal man may feel threatened by. It's
27:02
Speaker 1: just another avenue to take. It's a possibility that James
27:10
Speaker 1: the Sex may have been concerned by female power. England
27:15
Speaker 1: had had two female rulers, two queens, one after the other,
27:20
Speaker 1: Mary and Elizabeth led the country of England. So he's
27:27
Speaker 1: grown up surrounded by female power in the more powerful nation,
27:32
Speaker 1: you know, because it was at the time, like again,
27:36
Speaker 1: he had to write a little to Elizabeth to be like, hey,
27:40
Speaker 1: don't attack my ships. I'm just trying to get my wife.
27:44
Speaker 1: So he already had that and his own mother, who
27:50
Speaker 1: was probably just an idea to him really because he
27:55
Speaker 1: didn't know her. Because again, he became king at thirteen months.
28:01
Speaker 1: His own mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, was the Scottish
28:06
Speaker 1: monarch who was accused of plotting the murder of her husband,
28:11
Speaker 1: his father, Lord Darnley, and then married the chief suspect
28:17
Speaker 1: of her late husband's murder. And James was raised by
28:24
Speaker 1: Protestant men, fostered by them in a way, and so
28:28
Speaker 1: when she rebelled and tried to reclaim her throne, James's
28:32
Speaker 1: foster father, the Earl of mar was poisoned, then the
28:38
Speaker 1: Earl of Morton, who succeeded him, was executed, and then
28:42
Speaker 1: the Earl of Lennox, who may or may not have
28:44
Speaker 1: been his lover, was also executed, which is basically a
28:47
Speaker 1: domino effect of things happening for him, and so James
28:52
Speaker 1: has grown up surrounded by dominant women, Elizabeth who held
28:57
Speaker 1: power and was the only one who could give him more,
29:02
Speaker 1: and his mother, a possibly murderous militant who had been
29:06
Speaker 1: executed by the woman who held all the cards right
29:15
Speaker 1: and all his life he has grown up with the
29:18
Speaker 1: threat of danger of being kidnapped or killed, plots galore
29:24
Speaker 1: against him. So I wouldn't be surprised that that kind
29:27
Speaker 1: of environment would make someone I don't know slightly paranoid.
29:34
Speaker 1: So yes, when he returns to Scotland with his new bride,
29:39
Speaker 1: James is there and he doesn't believe that it was
29:42
Speaker 1: merely Danish witches attacking him. He feared that enemies within
29:47
Speaker 1: his own court had employed witches to attack him. Of course,
29:53
Speaker 1: a witch would still need a good view of the North, say,
29:56
Speaker 1: in order to cast a prominent spell on it, and
30:00
Speaker 1: that will which will bring us to the coastal town
30:05
Speaker 1: of north Berwick, but not yet. So a lot of
30:10
Speaker 1: previous witch accusations in Europe had dealings with the Devil specifically,
30:16
Speaker 1: and that the devil witches were direct enemies of God's
30:19
Speaker 1: church and they attacked the church. That kind of it's
30:27
Speaker 1: kind of a gist, you know, Wherebas James had a
30:32
Speaker 1: more royally focused version of demonology. Effectively, he believed that
30:39
Speaker 1: there was an international conspiracy of witches, hundreds of them
30:44
Speaker 1: deliberately attacking kings. What's going on? It's a conspiracy of witches. Okay,
30:52
Speaker 1: I need to put that on a T shirt, right,
30:53
Speaker 1: don't I? What's this conspiracy of witches attacking kings? Since
31:00
Speaker 1: fifteen forty James suspected his own cousin, Francis Stewart, the
31:08
Speaker 1: Earl of Bothwell, the man who he had left in
31:11
Speaker 1: charge of the country while he sailed to Denmark, Norway
31:16
Speaker 1: to retrieve his new wife. He suspected him of using
31:22
Speaker 1: magic to try and depose him, which brings us to
31:29
Speaker 1: two women, Gailish Duncan and Agnes Samson Gelish known as
31:35
Speaker 1: Gilly Outland of Fans. Yes, this was clearly a deliberate choice. Okay,
31:43
Speaker 1: clearly a choice. They named a character after her. Yes,
31:47
Speaker 1: So Gilly was a servant of David Setton, a belly
31:51
Speaker 1: or magistrate of Tranant and Lothian. This town was only
31:57
Speaker 1: like ten miles outside of Edinburgh, and it's the home
32:01
Speaker 1: of Lord seven, David's very important cousin. So that he
32:06
Speaker 1: actually acted as like a man of the chamber for
32:10
Speaker 1: him and stuff because he was like fancier than he
32:13
Speaker 1: was because David is not titled, like he's doing well
32:19
Speaker 1: for himself, but he doesn't have that. So Gilly, although
32:25
Speaker 1: she worked for the belly during the day, cooking, cleaning laundry,
32:31
Speaker 1: she was also busy in the evenings. Known as a healer,
32:36
Speaker 1: she knew enough remedies to care for those in need.
32:41
Speaker 1: Her employer, of course, believed that she was using magic
32:45
Speaker 1: to cure people because as a woman, she couldn't possibly
32:49
Speaker 1: have any knowledge of medicine. I mean legally at the time,
32:54
Speaker 1: she wasn't allowed to study medicine. But people didn't survive
33:03
Speaker 1: for fifteen hundred years without knowing a thing or two
33:06
Speaker 1: about witch plant makes the itching stop, or soothes your throat,
33:13
Speaker 1: or cams of fever. Suspecting his servant of toiling over
33:18
Speaker 1: a cauldron and using the dark arts, he did what
33:23
Speaker 1: was the most reasonable thing at the time, which was
33:28
Speaker 1: to illegally and unofficially torture her with thumbscrews to get
33:33
Speaker 1: her to confess to the crime of witchcraft. As with
33:40
Speaker 1: most confessions, Gilly provided a list of women who were
33:44
Speaker 1: also possibly witches, one of which being Agnes Samson, who
33:52
Speaker 1: was actually imprisoned at this time. So Agnes hailed from
33:58
Speaker 1: never Keith, which is Neil, Haddington, and she was suspected
34:02
Speaker 1: by churchmen and local magistrates for witchery. And she was
34:08
Speaker 1: a bigger fish to fry than Gilly, as her patients
34:12
Speaker 1: were of higher birth. Like this is the funny thing.
34:18
Speaker 1: It's like word of mouth is the best form of promotion,
34:22
Speaker 1: and clearly someone got help from her. And then it
34:25
Speaker 1: spreads and it spreads and it spreads, and it just
34:28
Speaker 1: shows you that like witchcraft is, it's illegal, like consulting
34:33
Speaker 1: with a witch is illegal and is punishable by death.
34:39
Speaker 1: But when you're desperate enough, you don't care who cures
34:42
Speaker 1: you sometimes, you know what I mean. So Agnes is
34:48
Speaker 1: viewed as one of the cunning folk, and cunning is
34:55
Speaker 1: someone with old knowledge and cures, you know, the old ways.
35:01
Speaker 1: And her supposed patients so allegedly's these were ladies Little
35:08
Speaker 1: Dean and Roslin, the lady of Kilberbarton, Laird Parky's daughter,
35:14
Speaker 1: Laird Rychiel's son, and the wife of the Sheriff of Haddington.
35:22
Speaker 1: And if this is true, if these people did seek
35:26
Speaker 1: out Agnes for cures and treatments, well they are just
35:32
Speaker 1: as guilty as she is in the eyes of the
35:36
Speaker 1: law with the Witchcraft Act, They're all to blame, which
35:42
Speaker 1: brings us to the wives and daughters of the wealthy
35:48
Speaker 1: Lord Patrick Edmonston. They claim to have been attacked by
35:53
Speaker 1: the grin, a supernatural black dog, and when questioned torture,
36:03
Speaker 1: Agnes said that she utilized the demon dog to use
36:08
Speaker 1: its magic powers to reveal which patients would live or die.
36:13
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm no point wasting the poultice. I
36:16
Speaker 1: suppose the dog revealed to her that the dowager Lady
36:21
Speaker 1: Euphone would die, but at least two of her daughters
36:26
Speaker 1: would survive, but not all. The devil had a plan,
36:32
Speaker 1: an Agnes, She's thrown a spanner in the works because
36:37
Speaker 1: she saved Lady Torrance. TI to Torrance, No, don't do it.
36:45
Speaker 1: Don't do it, Kerry, You're stronger than this. No, I'm not.
36:51
Speaker 1: I'm sixy, I'm cute, I'm Papi alerda boot, I'm bitching
36:55
Speaker 1: great hair, the boys I love to stare. I'm wanted,
36:58
Speaker 1: I'm hat, I'm everything you're not. I'm pretty I'm.
37:01
Speaker 3: Cool, I dominate the school. Who am I just guess?
37:05
Speaker 3: Guys want to touch my chest. I'm rocking a smile
37:08
Speaker 3: and nanny think I'm vile. I fly and I jump.
37:11
Speaker 3: You can look, but don't you hump whoo. I'm major,
37:13
Speaker 3: I roar, I swear, I'm not a whore. We cheer
37:16
Speaker 3: and we lead, we at like we're on speed. Hey,
37:19
Speaker 3: that's because we're beautiful. Well, we don't let you either.
37:22
Speaker 3: We're't your leaders. We are your leaders.
37:24
Speaker 1: Rocal So sorry about that sidebar. I couldn't. I had to.
37:30
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Well I even keep it in while I ah,
37:37
Speaker 1: you know what if you did it along with me?
37:39
Speaker 1: By the way, you're my people. Okay, so where was I?
37:46
Speaker 1: Lady Torrance? So, Lady Torrance also known as Elizabeth Pringle,
37:52
Speaker 1: that's one of Lady Edmonton's daughtles. She saves her from
37:56
Speaker 1: drowning herself. So she like just there's a spanner in
38:01
Speaker 1: the works, like she stops it from happening, right, And
38:05
Speaker 1: the way that she stops her from drowning, like the
38:08
Speaker 1: way that she makes us happen is that she has
38:12
Speaker 1: a variation of the apostles creed. For those of you
38:17
Speaker 1: who will not raise to mumble things in drafty buildings
38:21
Speaker 1: with stained glass depictions of a man wearing only a
38:23
Speaker 1: loincloth heading to his very public death is a Catholic prayer,
38:30
Speaker 1: and well for Agnes it was a personal prayer, and
38:36
Speaker 1: others they may have seen it as a bastardization of
38:40
Speaker 1: the Apostles creed, although for people like Agnes, religions seeped in.
38:47
Speaker 1: They blended the old with the new, like folklore and
38:52
Speaker 1: traditional healing methods, they all sort of came together. Christianity
38:59
Speaker 1: sort of meshed with traditional culture.
39:04
Speaker 2: Right.
39:04
Speaker 1: So when Christianity first sort of made its way into
39:08
Speaker 1: the isles, so like Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, all those
39:13
Speaker 1: all those areas, it's sort of mixed in with the folklore.
39:18
Speaker 1: Now you see this very very obviously in Irish sort
39:23
Speaker 1: of legends, meds, legends tales, right, because it's sort of
39:27
Speaker 1: like Christianity becomes a sort of improv it's very much yes,
39:33
Speaker 1: and it's that sort of idea of yes, and that's
39:36
Speaker 1: what Christianity is in a lot of these tales. And
39:39
Speaker 1: I think the most obvious is like the Children of Lure,
39:42
Speaker 1: So it's Clanler, which is the the children are turned
39:45
Speaker 1: into swans by the evil stepmother, because that's just a
39:49
Speaker 1: theme throughout all stories apparently, so they are cursed. They
39:55
Speaker 1: are cursed to live their lives as swans, and they're
39:58
Speaker 1: sent to like these three terrible places, and they end
40:01
Speaker 1: up telling their story to a bard, because a bard
40:04
Speaker 1: is how like information gets around. So the bard goes
40:08
Speaker 1: on and tells their stories. And that's usually kind of
40:12
Speaker 1: where the traditional end of it would be. But there
40:17
Speaker 1: became a yes, and which is like they're found by
40:21
Speaker 1: a monk who because they can speak and sing like humans,
40:25
Speaker 1: but they're swans. So there are swans and they're singing
40:29
Speaker 1: and talking, and so they learn prayer and they sing
40:32
Speaker 1: like a mass and the curse is broken and they
40:36
Speaker 1: all die. But the thing is, it's like they turn
40:39
Speaker 1: to human and then they die. And that's because all
40:42
Speaker 1: of our stories end in a very depressing way. But
40:45
Speaker 1: like the monk wasn't originally in the story. It was
40:49
Speaker 1: just tacked on, and this kind of happens. They're like
40:52
Speaker 1: different pieces, and so the easiest way for something to
40:58
Speaker 1: be part of a culture, which would be part of
41:00
Speaker 1: a culture is to actually integrate, is to meld and
41:03
Speaker 1: mesh and mix. And this happened with sort of traditional
41:10
Speaker 1: cultural healings, medicines and Christianity like they would meld. And
41:15
Speaker 1: this is where someone like Agnes exists. So Agnes has
41:21
Speaker 1: a prayer, one taught to her by her father. And
41:26
Speaker 1: the way that this works is that if she makes
41:29
Speaker 1: it through the full prayer, you're gonna survive. If she
41:34
Speaker 1: does not make it through the entire prayer uninterrupted, if
41:39
Speaker 1: she's interrupted in any way, if someone like bursts in,
41:46
Speaker 1: if someone comes into the room or talks to her
41:48
Speaker 1: or anything like that and stops her doing the prayer,
41:51
Speaker 1: or if she messes up the words that she's doing
41:53
Speaker 1: it like you're gonna die like That's that's how it works.
42:01
Speaker 1: And this is Agnes's prayer. I trow an almighty God
42:07
Speaker 1: that wrought both heaven and earth and all of naught
42:11
Speaker 1: into his dear son Christ Jesus, into that napoly Lord,
42:17
Speaker 1: I true was gotten of the holy Ghost, born of
42:21
Speaker 1: the Virgin Mary, stop it to heaven that all will
42:25
Speaker 1: then and sits at his father's right hand. He bare
42:30
Speaker 1: us come and there to doom, both quick and dead,
42:33
Speaker 1: as he thought convene. I trow also in the holy
42:37
Speaker 1: Ghost and Holy cook. My hope is most that holy
42:42
Speaker 1: ship were Hallowa's winds to ask forgiveness of my sins,
42:46
Speaker 1: and signed her eyes in flesh and bone the life
42:49
Speaker 1: that nevermore has gained. Thou, sayest, Lord, loved mocked be
42:54
Speaker 1: ye that formed and made mankind of me. Thou cost
42:58
Speaker 1: me on the Holy Cross, and lent me body, soul
43:02
Speaker 1: and voice, and ordained me to Heaven's bliss. Wherefore I
43:06
Speaker 1: thank THEE Lord of this and all your hallowerers loved
43:12
Speaker 1: be to pray to them, to pray to me and
43:15
Speaker 1: keep me from that felon fee and from the sin
43:18
Speaker 1: that soul would slay. Thou Lord, for thy bitter passion
43:23
Speaker 1: to keep me from sin and worldly shame and endless damnation.
43:28
Speaker 1: Grant me the joy never will be gain. Sweet Jesus
43:33
Speaker 1: Christus Amen. But prayer was not the only weapon in
43:38
Speaker 1: her arsenal. She brought special charms, a token for under
43:42
Speaker 1: your pillow, and another at the foot of your bed.
43:46
Speaker 1: And this was followed by another prayer. And when she
43:50
Speaker 1: repeated this, she would hold you tight all kinds of
43:55
Speaker 1: ills that ever may be in Christ's name. I conjure Thee.
44:00
Speaker 1: I conjure THEE be more and less with all the
44:03
Speaker 1: virtues of the mass, and right so by the nail
44:07
Speaker 1: sore that nailed Jesus, and no more and right so
44:12
Speaker 1: by the same blood, the direct over the ruffel rood,
44:16
Speaker 1: forth of the flesh and of the bone, and in
44:19
Speaker 1: the earth and in the stone, I conjure thee in
44:23
Speaker 1: the Lord's name. And so she does this prayer and
44:31
Speaker 1: taking of the pain and suffering of the patient, right
44:37
Speaker 1: and taking it upon herself. So she removes the sickness,
44:42
Speaker 1: the illness, the pain, and sort of absorbs it. Weakened
44:47
Speaker 1: by the experience, Agnes would be helped home by her daughter,
44:52
Speaker 1: and the next morning, after a night of agony, the
44:55
Speaker 1: sickness is thrown from her window and onto a passing door.
45:02
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody needed to know that information because
45:05
Speaker 1: specifically a passing dog, which makes me wonder how often
45:11
Speaker 1: were dogs passing by her window that she was throwing
45:15
Speaker 1: illness upon it? And also, what are you deliberately hurting dogs? Agnes?
45:23
Speaker 1: I mean I was on your side until now. I
45:25
Speaker 1: mean I'm still on your side because you don't deserve
45:28
Speaker 1: what's coming. So the dog, the stuff will be thrown
45:33
Speaker 1: at the dog or the I don't know, the idea
45:36
Speaker 1: of illness slash pain would be thrown at the dog
45:40
Speaker 1: and that's when the patient would start to heal. Now
45:47
Speaker 1: this was a fairly common practice for healers of the
45:50
Speaker 1: time to take the sickness and then sort of pass
45:54
Speaker 1: it on, like to send it away. But the prayers
46:00
Speaker 1: and all of the sort of idolatry that she that
46:04
Speaker 1: she referenced, these these are Catholic in nature. She had
46:10
Speaker 1: learned them from her father. And this is like she
46:13
Speaker 1: even knew the Latin, like the prayer of Ave Maria, right,
46:18
Speaker 1: because Latin was how church was taught, how church was taught.
46:22
Speaker 1: That was all of your salmons and the Catholic Church
46:25
Speaker 1: were in Latin. That was just how it worked, right,
46:29
Speaker 1: And this would have all have been taught to her,
46:33
Speaker 1: like everything that she learned from her father was before
46:36
Speaker 1: the Protestant Reformation had taken hold in Scotland. It would
46:40
Speaker 1: have been what he knew. And with changes, especially changes
46:45
Speaker 1: over an entire country, like they start in sort of
46:50
Speaker 1: the cities and the populated areas, and then they spread
46:53
Speaker 1: out and like in her father's time they were revered
47:01
Speaker 1: holy words. But now in the Protestant state, and in
47:06
Speaker 1: the mouth of a woman, they were dangerous words. Indeed,
47:11
Speaker 1: another accused, which Janet Kennedy, claimed that she had been
47:16
Speaker 1: compelled to meet with Agnes Samson and that her magic
47:20
Speaker 1: was too strong to resist. Like. Agnes Samson was sort of,
47:27
Speaker 1: i want to say, kind of had a reputation, not
47:31
Speaker 1: quite like a celebrity, but she was well known, and
47:35
Speaker 1: so she was known as a healer, as a person
47:38
Speaker 1: who cured ales and the like. She did so much,
47:43
Speaker 1: and so when her name is brought about, well people
47:49
Speaker 1: recognize it. When Agnes and Gilly were both questioned, they
47:57
Speaker 1: admitted that Agnes had conspired with Danish witches to interfere
48:02
Speaker 1: in royal affairs and to stop the queen making it
48:06
Speaker 1: to Scottish shores. This would be a fatal confession. I'm
48:17
Speaker 1: not saying it's suspicious. I'm just saying that if the
48:21
Speaker 1: very Protestant king returns home and sets up a tribunal
48:25
Speaker 1: to hunt out witches, and this Catholic gentry adjacent magistrate
48:32
Speaker 1: is suddenly like, here's a witch conveniently chopping carrots in
48:36
Speaker 1: my kitchen, I'm just saying I'd have questions the news
48:49
Speaker 1: of these two witches catches the twenty something year old
48:53
Speaker 1: King's attention, and he tells royal officials that the witches
48:58
Speaker 1: were to be tried in Edinburgh, not their hometowns, and
49:03
Speaker 1: he would preside over the trial himself. The women were
49:10
Speaker 1: to be tried in King James the sixth of Scotland's
49:13
Speaker 1: own home, the Palace Hollywood House, with its Inner Council
49:19
Speaker 1: in attendance and a token jury of local gentry. Of course,
49:26
Speaker 1: the King's decision to try the witchess himself transformed what
49:31
Speaker 1: would have been a local hearing into a national show trial. Unsurprisingly,
49:38
Speaker 1: when the king is leading a trial, it is no
49:40
Speaker 1: longer a normal court process. It is a show, a
49:44
Speaker 1: flex of power, and inevitably would lead to injustice. Galis
49:51
Speaker 1: Duncan and Agnes Samson are questioned by the King himself
49:56
Speaker 1: and then named more suspects, more accused. He took great
50:03
Speaker 1: delight presiding over the trial and his active participation in it,
50:08
Speaker 1: not only for his skewed perception of justice, but as
50:13
Speaker 1: a power play of King James the six facing those
50:18
Speaker 1: who threatened him with ungodly magic. Later that year, the
50:25
Speaker 1: women were tortured to discover which had attempted to curse
50:30
Speaker 1: him and his new wife in this this is fucking horrid.
50:38
Speaker 1: Agnes's entire body had been shaved as jailor searched her
50:42
Speaker 1: for a devil's mark, a spot or wort allegedly made
50:47
Speaker 1: by a demon or familiar. They saw nothing on her
50:52
Speaker 1: naked skin, and so they shaved her her head, her armpits,
50:58
Speaker 1: her pubis. A rope tightly wrapped around her head and
51:03
Speaker 1: squeezed at the temples until she squirmed and cried in agony.
51:10
Speaker 1: It was only when she was sexually assaulted that a
51:13
Speaker 1: mark was found, A mark discovered when her privities were searched,
51:21
Speaker 1: her genitals. I swear whenever they claim to find something
51:27
Speaker 1: between the legs, like it's a witch's what it's a
51:31
Speaker 1: secret nipple, it's between the legs, it's a clitoris right?
51:36
Speaker 1: Like they found something between the legs and my men
51:39
Speaker 1: are like, oh, what's this mmm. I'm convinced. And Agnes
51:45
Speaker 1: was strong. She had survived this long. She had been arrested,
51:50
Speaker 1: questioned by the king, imprisoned, and tortured. But this this
51:57
Speaker 1: made her say, fuck this for a game of soldiers,
52:00
Speaker 1: this was too much. It was this sexual assault that
52:04
Speaker 1: led to her giving a false confession. Other suspects like
52:11
Speaker 1: Janet Stratton and Donald Robinson publicly claimed that they had
52:15
Speaker 1: been tortured into giving false evidence in the trial. Unsurprisingly,
52:21
Speaker 1: all of the suspects parroted off exactly what the King
52:25
Speaker 1: wanted to hear and Gilly. The thing of a Gilly
52:30
Speaker 1: is we don't even know if she actually knew Agnes
52:33
Speaker 1: before the trials, like, had she heard of her? Was
52:39
Speaker 1: the information fed to her? We don't know, but she
52:45
Speaker 1: had stated that Agnes had conspired to thwart the King's
52:50
Speaker 1: marriage since the previous storms. In November in fifteen eighty nine, Allegedly,
52:57
Speaker 1: Agnes Samson proclaimed to Gilly, now the King is going
53:03
Speaker 1: to fetch his wife, but I shall be there before them,
53:09
Speaker 1: and Agnes she agreed to the statement. In court in
53:13
Speaker 1: late fifteen ninety, almost a year after the alleged magic attack,
53:20
Speaker 1: Agnes told the court that the devil himself had told
53:23
Speaker 1: her that the queen could not reach Scotland unless the
53:26
Speaker 1: King fetched her, which feels like the devil is like,
53:35
Speaker 1: you know what, she needs to be accompanied by her husband.
53:39
Speaker 1: I don't think it's fair that she travels an unaccompanied
53:42
Speaker 1: queen without a king that's just not right, like the
53:46
Speaker 1: devil said that, really, really, And what's the nail in
53:53
Speaker 1: the coffin? Is that Agnes says that she asked if
53:57
Speaker 1: the king should have any bales, like she asked the devil,
54:03
Speaker 1: and she said that she had magically been there at
54:07
Speaker 1: his wedding night, and she proved it by whispering in
54:12
Speaker 1: the King's ear the very words that he had said
54:15
Speaker 1: to his new wife. This is something that people bring
54:19
Speaker 1: up actually all the time when it comes to Agnes Samson.
54:22
Speaker 1: They're like, how did she know? How could she possibly
54:25
Speaker 1: have any concept of what was said? As if royals
54:32
Speaker 1: were not constantly surrounded by.
54:35
Speaker 4: Servants, Right, there were constantly servants that they have learned
54:41
Speaker 4: to ignore. Right, it's less lips the sink ships, you dipshits,
54:47
Speaker 4: not demons and bartles. But to King James the sixth
54:52
Speaker 4: of Scotland, those words were proof of magic, not by
55:00
Speaker 4: gossipy elevants or anything. And Gailis Duncan and Agnes Samson
55:06
Speaker 4: were both poor, uneducated people, and like many rope into
55:12
Speaker 4: the trial, they were used to a world where powerful
55:15
Speaker 4: men spoke for them and spoke over them, and to
55:20
Speaker 4: be questioned by the king himself.
55:22
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's a level of power that would instill
55:28
Speaker 1: fear in them. And so Agnes she didn't defy her prosecutors.
55:35
Speaker 1: When she was asked when she started serving the devil,
55:38
Speaker 1: she gave an answer. When she was widowed, an isolated,
55:43
Speaker 1: impoverished women who shared a bed with her youngest children
55:46
Speaker 1: for warmth, a woman who struggled, a woman who used
55:52
Speaker 1: the knowledge passed on to her from her father to
55:56
Speaker 1: try and keep her head above water. And Gilly said
56:01
Speaker 1: that she and the others worked for the Earl of
56:03
Speaker 1: Bothwell to provide gold in silver for Agnes and her
56:08
Speaker 1: children to provide for them. After the trial, Gully admitted
56:16
Speaker 1: to slandering Agnes and that she had been afraid and
56:20
Speaker 1: was tortured into lying. The claims they made during the trial,
56:26
Speaker 1: which served to reinforce King James's belief in demonology. Those
56:31
Speaker 1: claims got wilder and wilder. They claimed to have created
56:37
Speaker 1: a storm during storm season on a particularly rough part
56:44
Speaker 1: of the sea via a Danish Scottish witch alliance Copenhagen.
56:52
Speaker 1: Witches sent a black dog to swim underneath and damage
56:57
Speaker 1: the royal ships, especially the keel of Queen Anne's personal ship. Meanwhile,
57:07
Speaker 1: in Leith, a christened cat, a christened cat was thrown
57:15
Speaker 1: into the sea with limbs robbed from the graves of
57:18
Speaker 1: dead men, and yet no mention of demons in barrels.
57:27
Speaker 1: Then allegedlies the devil made Agnes molded a wax picture
57:33
Speaker 1: of the king, and she would shake some evil at
57:37
Speaker 1: it and then melt it, which would then dissolve the
57:41
Speaker 1: king's life. The witches were also to kill and roast
57:47
Speaker 1: a toad and then hang it up and let the
57:51
Speaker 1: poison drop out onto an oyster shell mixed with stale
57:55
Speaker 1: urine and an adult's skin, which was to be dropped
58:00
Speaker 1: onto the king or like rubbed onto his clothing to
58:04
Speaker 1: then poison him. They were then to convene at north
58:10
Speaker 1: Berwick with over one hundred delegates, six men and buckets
58:15
Speaker 1: of buckets of women. So the Sabbath meeting of the
58:21
Speaker 1: witch cult was held in Saint Andrew's Kirk, which is
58:25
Speaker 1: like the church in North Berwick, twenty whole miles north
58:31
Speaker 1: of near Keith, with an inverted church service that mocked
58:35
Speaker 1: the Christian rights. She claimed to have sailed to the
58:40
Speaker 1: church on sieves. She claimed to have sailed to the
58:47
Speaker 1: church on sieves right, seves the thing that you seve
58:53
Speaker 1: flower in you sift with the sevens full of holes?
58:57
Speaker 1: How did she magic? Clearly she magic sailed, But that's okay.
59:03
Speaker 1: I mean she did originally say that her like brother
59:05
Speaker 1: in law or son in law or like some man
59:09
Speaker 1: had driven her up, and then she was like, no,
59:12
Speaker 1: I sailed on a sev. So she gets there, and
59:18
Speaker 1: which is they're dancing jigs and reels up at North
59:22
Speaker 1: Berwick and Gilly is playing the jew trump. Okay, that's
59:26
Speaker 1: j eu. It's also known as the jew harp, and
59:31
Speaker 1: it's it's a mouth harp or and I looked this
59:36
Speaker 1: up a lamellophone instrument. I feel like mouth harp is
59:42
Speaker 1: the nicest termount of all of them. Here. So there's dancing,
59:47
Speaker 1: there's like some music going on, and they break into
59:50
Speaker 1: the church using black magic. And there a local schoolmaster
59:57
Speaker 1: took a roll call of everyone there allegedlies. Gayla's Duncan here,
1:00:06
Speaker 1: Agnes Samson here, b al Zebab here? What okay? The
1:00:12
Speaker 1: devil himself demanded a report of all the work done
1:00:16
Speaker 1: in his name since the last meeting, because he really
1:00:21
Speaker 1: likes paperwork. Say, what do you want about that fallen angel,
1:00:24
Speaker 1: but he really loves a spreadsheet. The devil had it
1:00:29
Speaker 1: in for King James specifically because direct quote, the King
1:00:36
Speaker 1: is the greatest enemy he hath in the world. So
1:00:42
Speaker 1: this plays very much into the sort of idolatry, the
1:00:49
Speaker 1: imagery of how James presents himself. So King James he
1:00:53
Speaker 1: instills in his son Charles the divine right of kings,
1:01:00
Speaker 1: right that you are destined by God, chosen by God
1:01:05
Speaker 1: to rule, right, you are an agent of God, you
1:01:08
Speaker 1: are all powerful. Right, And it shows how he sees
1:01:14
Speaker 1: himself like he is the early modern version of a superhero. Right,
1:01:20
Speaker 1: that's how he sees himself. And so after the devil
1:01:23
Speaker 1: does his we speech, all of the witches have to
1:01:28
Speaker 1: rim him. That's just how you become a witch. You
1:01:32
Speaker 1: have to rim the devil anyway. The supposed witches were
1:01:39
Speaker 1: kept in prison at Hollywood House through the Christmas of
1:01:42
Speaker 1: fifteen ninety and the trial dragged on through fifteen ninety one,
1:01:48
Speaker 1: and as the trial progressed, the list of accused in
1:01:51
Speaker 1: this magical conspiracy against the Crown grew. The court tried
1:01:56
Speaker 1: to check the demonological element in the confessions, sort of
1:02:02
Speaker 1: planning confrontation to weed out leasings, which is like lies
1:02:06
Speaker 1: or mistress, and the stories all followed the same core plot,
1:02:12
Speaker 1: although the coven itself its attendance varied from person to person,
1:02:17
Speaker 1: Like it was often, this was often overlooked that like
1:02:23
Speaker 1: nobody could agree, who the hell was there? How can
1:02:27
Speaker 1: you not agree they had a role call allegedlies. The
1:02:32
Speaker 1: accusations of witchery spread and spread even to the city
1:02:36
Speaker 1: of Edinburgh and the respectable ladies within using magic to
1:02:40
Speaker 1: win favorite court, receiving anti mourning sickness cures ginger. They
1:02:48
Speaker 1: just called ginger a magic ring, some magic poison, seduction,
1:02:55
Speaker 1: charms and remedies to ease labor in childbirth. The wealthy
1:03:02
Speaker 1: women could at least afford lawyers. They could not stop
1:03:06
Speaker 1: the trials because well, the king was in charge. But
1:03:10
Speaker 1: the woman who didn't have that family support or funding,
1:03:15
Speaker 1: like that power behind them al they didn't stand a chance.
1:03:21
Speaker 1: At the end of her trial on the twenty seventh
1:03:24
Speaker 1: of January fifteen ninety one, Agnes Simpson was found guilty.
1:03:31
Speaker 1: She confessed to fifty eight of the one hundred and
1:03:35
Speaker 1: two charges brought against her. She was found guilty and
1:03:42
Speaker 1: was taken to Edinburgh Castle and imprisoned until a stake
1:03:47
Speaker 1: empire could be built. It took a day. She was
1:03:55
Speaker 1: taken to the stake on the twenty eighth of January
1:03:59
Speaker 1: fifty ninety one. She was manually strangled. So here's the thing.
1:04:06
Speaker 1: Strangling a person is not a quick act.
1:04:09
Speaker 2: It is.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: Time consuming. It takes a lot to choke someone. It's
1:04:16
Speaker 1: not an easy or quick act to do. And it's
1:04:21
Speaker 1: one of those methods of killing which I think is
1:04:25
Speaker 1: quite personal, like you have to have determination to finish that.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: She's taken out to the stake, manually strangled and then
1:04:38
Speaker 1: her dead body dumped onto the pile and burned to
1:04:43
Speaker 1: ashes to cleanse. Like the whole point of burning, which
1:04:47
Speaker 1: is the whole point of burning them, was to cleanse,
1:04:53
Speaker 1: like fire cleanse the soul that cleansed the evils out,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: you know. Gillie Duncan, she was still being questioned in
1:05:03
Speaker 1: December of fifteen ninety one. She was being tried alongside
1:05:09
Speaker 1: Agnes's daughter Bessie Thompson. Also charged were the schoolmaster John Fian.
1:05:15
Speaker 1: John was the one accused of telling fortunes and doing
1:05:19
Speaker 1: magic tricks, and also of being the man who did
1:05:23
Speaker 1: the rocal. He was tortured with hammers and metal leggings
1:05:29
Speaker 1: before he was executed. More were accused of conspiring to
1:05:34
Speaker 1: depose the king and put Francis Stewart, the Earl of Bothwell,
1:05:38
Speaker 1: on the throne in his stead. So many people were
1:05:42
Speaker 1: accused in this, in this conspiracy, Marion Ranking, Janet Campbell,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: Maggie Thompson, Kate Gray, Isabelle Lauder, Alexander Whitelaw, Janet Fairley,
1:05:56
Speaker 1: Marion Paddleson, Janet Nicholson, Barbera Napier, Helen White. You've found
1:06:00
Speaker 1: Micalsian and many many more. And what's interesting is in
1:06:07
Speaker 1: this accusation of trying to get rid of him and
1:06:10
Speaker 1: replace him with someone else. In this trial, there isn't
1:06:15
Speaker 1: a motive. There's no motive. There is no reason given
1:06:21
Speaker 1: as to why they would want to remove him and
1:06:24
Speaker 1: replace him with his cousin. It's never brought up, it's
1:06:28
Speaker 1: never questioned, it's never considered. Like all of these people
1:06:33
Speaker 1: are accused, what's the motive? Like, why why would they care,
1:06:40
Speaker 1: especially the people out like rurally, people living out with Edinburgh,
1:06:45
Speaker 1: the people who were not directly affected, Like why would
1:06:49
Speaker 1: they care? Who was king? Like I didn't vote for
1:06:52
Speaker 1: you. You don't vote for kings. It's like I didn't. Now
1:06:57
Speaker 1: we are a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: You're fooling yourself, so now'll be hopeful for kings. Strange
1:07:06
Speaker 1: women in pods distributing sold to not be a basis
1:07:09
Speaker 1: of a system of government anyway. Why would they care
1:07:13
Speaker 1: whose king? For a lot of them, it wouldn't affect them,
1:07:16
Speaker 1: you know. Gilly Duncan and Bessie Thompson were found guilty
1:07:22
Speaker 1: and executed side by side on the fourth of December
1:07:26
Speaker 1: fifteen ninety one Edcastle Hill outside Edinburgh Castle. You've and
1:07:34
Speaker 1: Michalsian was burned alive on the fifteenth of June fifteen
1:07:38
Speaker 1: ninety one because she had tried to use witchcraft to
1:07:42
Speaker 1: try and murder her husband and father in law and
1:07:46
Speaker 1: magically seduce another man. So here's a fun fact. In
1:07:52
Speaker 1: this patriarchal society, any any crimes like this against your
1:07:56
Speaker 1: husband were considered petty treason and because of that eu
1:08:03
Speaker 1: Fin got bud alive at the stake barber Napier, she
1:08:11
Speaker 1: is acquitted like so they're like the jury's like she's
1:08:14
Speaker 1: not a witch. And then King James put the jury
1:08:19
Speaker 1: on trial, and so they had to reverse it, like
1:08:24
Speaker 1: they had to reverse their acquittal. Like he wanted her
1:08:30
Speaker 1: to be disembowled publicly. He wanted barber Napier to be
1:08:35
Speaker 1: publicly disembowled. Then it was discovered that she was pregnant,
1:08:41
Speaker 1: and she says, fuck this for a game, as Soldiers
1:08:46
Speaker 1: disappears from history. She's just gone, right, she leads, like,
1:08:51
Speaker 1: there's no grave, there's no mention of her death, there's nothing,
1:08:56
Speaker 1: like I think she just left and created a new
1:08:58
Speaker 1: identity or something. Is like it's a period of time
1:09:01
Speaker 1: where you could do that. The Earl of Bothwell got
1:09:06
Speaker 1: the heck at a dodge being named as the instigator
1:09:09
Speaker 1: of the witchcraft conspiracy, and you only were turned in
1:09:14
Speaker 1: fifteen ninety three when it had all cooled town a
1:09:17
Speaker 1: wee bit and he was acquitted thanks to being a
1:09:21
Speaker 1: rich dude under courtier of course, So like he heard
1:09:25
Speaker 1: all these people on his side being like James, really
1:09:28
Speaker 1: it wasn't him. Clearly the witches wanted you to think
1:09:31
Speaker 1: it was him, because they're witches, witches, spooky bitches all
1:09:39
Speaker 1: in all, Somewhere between seventy to two hundred people were
1:09:43
Speaker 1: rounded up and accused of being witches. Like that is
1:09:49
Speaker 1: for this trial, Like we don't have an exact number
1:09:53
Speaker 1: just because of the amount of accusations that are being
1:09:57
Speaker 1: thrown about over the next century, Like over the next
1:10:02
Speaker 1: century or so, over four thousand people were executed in
1:10:08
Speaker 1: Scotland for the crime of witchcraft. Like Scotland didn't have
1:10:13
Speaker 1: that massive a population anyway, but four thousand, that's a lot.
1:10:20
Speaker 1: That is quite a lot. After the North Berwick Witch Trials,
1:10:25
Speaker 1: King James the sixth of Scotland continued with his witch
1:10:28
Speaker 1: obsession and he writes and publishes a three part book
1:10:33
Speaker 1: called Demonology in fifteen ninety seven. Six years later, he
1:10:40
Speaker 1: ascends to the English throne and continues pushing the witch
1:10:44
Speaker 1: hunting narratives, which led to the death of even more
1:10:49
Speaker 1: innocent people. So ends us story, and so ends us
1:10:58
Speaker 1: story of the north witch Trials. It's interesting right that
1:11:03
Speaker 1: it's North Berwick that is the name of the witch trials,
1:11:08
Speaker 1: not like the Edinburgh witch trials, because they were held
1:11:11
Speaker 1: in Edinburgh, not King James's witch trials, not that, but
1:11:15
Speaker 1: North Berwick, the town where they allegedly broke into a
1:11:19
Speaker 1: church and through a dead cat into the sea, Like
1:11:22
Speaker 1: that's that. I can't they got christened as well. First
1:11:26
Speaker 1: of all, who did they get to christen the cat?
1:11:29
Speaker 1: Who did that? Who was like, let's baptize this feline?
1:11:33
Speaker 1: Who who was going to do that? But it's interesting
1:11:37
Speaker 1: that it was named this like it made it. Oh,
1:11:40
Speaker 1: it's out there, it's up there, it's away, it's not here,
1:11:43
Speaker 1: it's there. And King James, what an actual shit. I
1:11:55
Speaker 1: hate King James so much, so this ends our story.
1:12:02
Speaker 1: I may have got a bit angry into it full
1:12:06
Speaker 1: on a wee bit. Sorry if you were listening with
1:12:08
Speaker 1: headphones on, I'm sorry, but I just get so pissed
1:12:12
Speaker 1: off because so many innocent people, marginalized people especially, died
1:12:23
Speaker 1: and died horribly because this man thought that women made
1:12:30
Speaker 1: a storm happen and put demons in barrels, Like I mean,
1:12:36
Speaker 1: like he knew about the Danish witch trials. He knew
1:12:39
Speaker 1: about those, he was aware of those, right, and his
1:12:46
Speaker 1: obsession it just it just snowballed and it made it
1:12:52
Speaker 1: grow and it just shows really, I mean, the majority
1:12:56
Speaker 1: of people were women. That's not an accident. But we
1:13:02
Speaker 1: will continue on with more witchy history next week. So
1:13:07
Speaker 1: if you liked my retelling of the North Beric Witch Trials.
1:13:11
Speaker 1: Apologies for any of the names I must pronounced from
1:13:14
Speaker 1: Norwork and Denmark. So it's time, I guess to tell
1:13:21
Speaker 1: you where you can fight me, which is everywhere. I'm everywhere.
1:13:24
Speaker 1: I'm in your cupboard now, No, I'm fuck me sideways.
1:13:31
Speaker 1: I am on all of the socials. I don't really
1:13:33
Speaker 1: use X, but I'm on all of the socials. I
1:13:35
Speaker 1: have something happening soon, I've got news, news is coming,
1:13:39
Speaker 1: and yes, it is recommendation time. How could I go
1:13:43
Speaker 1: without recommendation time. So for listening, let's fight those demons
1:13:54
Speaker 1: Baby Golden by Hunterricks. Okay, no, Golden by Hunterricks. I
1:14:02
Speaker 1: get feelings when I listen to this song, like human emotions.
1:14:06
Speaker 1: I don't really like those, but apparently I have to
1:14:08
Speaker 1: have them, so I love it. I love Golden by Hunterricks,
1:14:13
Speaker 1: and I think they deserve it. And it's a bloody
1:14:18
Speaker 1: bop by the way. For reading now, of course, I
1:14:23
Speaker 1: am going to recommend Queen James by Gareth Russell because
1:14:29
Speaker 1: it's just it's so good, so good, and watching you
1:14:36
Speaker 1: know what I've been watching, right, Rivals Jilly Coople's. She
1:14:41
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Rivals and it's now a TV
1:14:43
Speaker 1: show and it stars David Tennant and Danny Dwyer.
1:14:47
Speaker 2: And I I have never been more attracted to Danny
1:14:52
Speaker 2: Dyer in my life, Like I was never really into
1:14:55
Speaker 2: Danny Dyer, but seeing him as like a middle aged,
1:15:00
Speaker 2: mustachioed schlubby man who's like really really sweet.
1:15:09
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, right, I love a
1:15:12
Speaker 1: lost cause, I think, but be still my heart, Fred
1:15:17
Speaker 1: Fred Okay, be still my heart. But also rip Jolly Cooper,
1:15:22
Speaker 1: which is like why I ended up watching it because
1:15:24
Speaker 1: I was like, I have never paid attention to her stuff,
1:15:27
Speaker 1: but I should, and so I watched it and huzza,
1:15:32
Speaker 1: but yes, So that is it. That is everything for
1:15:35
Speaker 1: this evening, and I shall bid you good night. Adios
1:15:40
Speaker 1: au revoir of Where Is Them? My friends, Bye bye