NORTH BERWICK IN SCOTLAND 1590-91 to 1597

• Accused of w.c by employer, Daivd Seaton - rep for healing and 'stealing'
• Tortured with piliwinks and cords around her neck - only confessed when the Devil's mark on her throat 
• Some of the accomplices she named were the wives of respectable Edinburgh gentlemen 

DENAMRK VOYAGE AND INFLUENCES 

• Anne of Denmark's fleet set back by storms - admirable Peter Munk claimed it was w.c ...
• Possible influence on James (according to Larner): Theologian Niels Hemminsen. Wrote a book on magic in 1575 - but Denmark was very Maleficarum based.
• Denmark has a long history around legal action against witches - Anna Koldings confesed to disturbing royal voyages - gave up 5 names including wife of Copenhagen borgmaster

AGNES: old, rep of being a cunning woman. King James interrogated her 

• he was sceptical until she repeated his wedding night conversation with Anne.
• Devil’s mark found also.
• She was the leader of the coven, she accused: Napier, Graham, McCalyan

FIAN: schoolmaster charge with 20 counts of witchcraft & high treason

• Tortured, escaped, tortured. He refused to confessed.
• Mixed with locals, affairs with married women
• knew Greek and Latin, illiterate suspicion 

JAMES:  was in the centre of the trials; his mother fled and was executed - fears he'd be catholic. Belief of the divine right

Links of torture approival and Newes From Scotland 

Involvement of Bothwell

• Friends with Napier, she wrote to him whilst on trial.
• He encouraged James to go to Denmark 
• broke into his house and almost reached James’s bedroom
• found guilty of witchcraft in his absence – 1612 dies in poverty in Naples

70 PEOPLE IMPLICATED BUT NOT ALL EXECUTED 

JUDICIAL PROCEDURE, LACK OF STRONG CENTRAL AUTHORITY 

"General Commission", Kirk-State Comission, 1592

Larner: “License for indiscriminate witch-hunt

Levack: “Not significant – not the central government behind witch-hunts // privy council responded to localities // only 6 commissions in total.

Result of King losing political battle with the kirk // Briggs: post 1592 witch-hunts had intellectual underpinning of kirk” – names put in a box and kirk dealt with the hunts

Big power struggle between James and the Kirk

Daemonologie: an attempt to convince those doubtful on witches, outlines how to spot and witch and what they witches are capable of e.g. pact with Devil, Coven’s etc.

Not as intense role, had input with Margaret Aitken // most interrogations and trials at a local level, came at a time of bad harvest.