11
Laura Paterson
The sayde Doctor Fian was soone after araigned, condemned, and adjudged by the law to die, and then to bee burned according to the lawe of that lande, provided in that behalfe. Whereupon hee was put into a carte, and beeing first strangled, hee was immediatly put into a great fire, being readie provided for that purpose, and there burned in the Castle hill of Edenbrough on a Saterdaie in the ende of Januarie last past, 1591.1
What became of Scottish witches after their death sentence was proclaimed? How, where, when and by whom were witches executed, and what can this tell us about the attitudes of early modern Scottish society towards the crime of witchcraft? By studying the surviving accounts of the expenses sustained in trying and executing Scottish witches, a good deal of information can be brought together about this. The process was both laborious and expensive, yet the hunting and destruction of witches was still considered to be a worthwhile pursuit and was carried on into the eighteenth century.
I
The execution process may be best understood if it is placed in context. This chapter thus begins with a brief account of the earlier stages in which witches were processed. Expenses could include the initial costs of the imprisonment of the suspected witch, including food and drink to sustain her, as well as the cost of the process for extracting a confession. In March 1596, the council of Aberdeen granted £20 to Gilbert Bairnis for ‘the expenses maid be him in sustenatioun of the witches preceding that date’.2 A dispute between the parish of Balmerino and the magistrates of Cupar saw the magistrates refuse to house a suspected witch in the town prison, suspecting that the parish would not pay for the witch’s incarceration. The magistrates’ alternative offer, imprisonment in the thieves’ hole, was refused by the parish as it was not considered a secure place where the suspect could be watched. As Stuart Macdonald argues, secure imprisonment was important for obtaining a confession.3
Over and above these basic imprisonment costs there would often be expenses incurred during the extraction of a confession from the suspect. In a number of cases the expenses for men to watch the witch are recorded. In 1649, this process cost the estate of Burntcastle £45, which paid two men to watch the suspected witch Margaret Dunhame for the space of thirty days.4 This implies that in at least some cases, if not the majority, the process of watching or waking was being employed to induce suspects to confess.5 The expense account for Margaret Dunhame also records the payment of £6 to John Kincaid, the infamous witch-pricker, for ‘brodding’ the witch.6 A professional witch-pricker would insert needles into a suspect’s body in an attempt to find the witch’s mark.
Such a confession was normally required, before a commission would be granted, by the privy council, to try the witch.7 After a confession was extracted, a member of the community would travel to Edinburgh to petition the privy council for a commission, which would allow the local magistrates to try the witch within their local parish. This was often the single largest item of expenditure and in some cases these expenses could soar to astronomical heights. This is clearly shown in the case of an unknown estate that hoped to gain a commission to try thirteen witches. This cost £310 9s. 4d. when the local laird travelled to Edinburgh to petition the king’s advocate.8
If and when a commission was granted, a trial would be held. For those witches who were tried locally, the granting of this commission may as well have been a death sentence. The people of the witch’s community had already decided that the witch in question was an extremely dangerous individual and a threat to Christian society. One study, taking the peak period of Scottish witchcraft trials as 1620–1674, has found that local trials then had an execution rate of 87 per cent.9
II
Once the sentence was passed, preparations began immediately for the execution. One of the most pressing concerns must have been to find someone who was willing to execute the witch. The large towns, including Edinburgh and Aberdeen, appear to have had professional executioners; the Aberdeen accounts consistently refer to the executioner as Jon Justice (possibly a pseudonym).10 However, in many of the smaller towns and parishes there was no one willing to carry out the gruesome task.
The occupation of executioner was unpopular in the early modern period. The executioner was paid to torment, maim and kill people for money. If the executioner’s infamy is considered in terms of a code of honour system, it becomes more enlightening. This theory may be particularly applicable in Scotland, where, during the early seventeenth century, James VI was still struggling to tackle the problem of blood feuds, which saw elite Scottish families attempting to restore their honour through fights and feuds. Pieter Spierenburg relates this argument to that of medieval society’s view of the knight, as opposed to the mercenary: ‘the valiant knight was a hero, but the mercenary never acquired his status’.11 The executioner was hated because he was using physical violence against a person unconnected with himself and receiving payment for this act, which was considered dishonourable. The infamy with which the executioner was treated usually extended to his wife and children. The position of executioner was thus a difficult one to fill and in many cases the role of executioner was hereditary. There is at least one Scottish example of this, in 1629, where the son of the executioner was paid 12s. to act as the dempster at the executions of three witches in Peebles.12 The dempster was a traditional official who pronounced the sentence and who was sometimes expected to double as the executioner.13
Executioners could be shared. William Coke and Alison Dick were due to be executed in Kirkcaldy in 1633; a man was sent to Culross to collect an executioner from there.14 Attitudes towards the executioner might help to explain the accommodation afforded to him. For the execution of a witch in Kirkcudbright in 1698, William Kirk was paid 4s. per day for twenty days in which he was accommodated in the prison.15 Perhaps there was no one in the locality willing to take the executioner into their home or inn. There were other instances, throughout Europe, where the executioner’s infamy was considered ‘contagious’, damaging the reputation of any who associated with him.16 In some communities the touch of the executioner, or even objects which he had touched, could be contagious.
If the executioner could cope with the bloody work, and with the infamy that came with it, then his position could be lucrative. The executioner whose task it was to end the lives of three unfortunate witches in Peebles was paid £10 in 1633. He and his son were accommodated by Johnne Frank, who received £3 12s. for his troubles.17 In many cases, the executioner would also receive expenses. William Kirk was granted 1s. on 20 August 1698 to purchase drink and ‘ane leg of mutton’, and also various grants following this to ensure that he had a reasonable stay.18 It was clearly important to ensure the satisfaction of the executioner.
III
The cost of the prosecution and execution of a convicted witch could seriously mount up. Costs amounted to £92 14s. in 1649 with the case of Margaret Dunhame, payable by the estate of Burntcastle. The factor who took the account of the expenses, Alexander Louddon, deducted £27 which Dunhame had of her own, which was claimed by the estate.19 The seizure of a witch’s goods appears to have been common – if she or he had any worth seizing. In 1644, after the conviction of Catherine Logie, the bailies of South Queensferry were instructed to enter her home and seize upon what could be found. These possessions were used to cover the expense of her execution.20 Paula Hughes’s study of trial commissions granted by the committee of estates in the panic of 1649–1650 shows that one in five of the commissions ordered an inventory of the witch’s goods to be taken, which may give some idea of the proportion of witches who were thought to have property worth confiscating.21
In some cases, the ‘escheat’ of a convicted witch (the right to collect their moveable property, nominally forfeited to the crown) could be gifted to relatives or friends. However, the local authorities might contest such a gift. In 1675, the magistrates and burgh council of Culross complained that despite the ‘great panes and expense this place has been at in prosequieting the four witches to deathe’, there were diverse people receiving the gift of the witches’ escheat. They commissioned John Kennoway, the burgh clerk, to petition the exchequer to grant the escheat to the burgh or, failing this, he was to ask that whoever obtained the escheat should pay the costs of the execution: ‘whosoever get the gift they may be ordered to take it with the burdene of the said accompt’. In 1677, the magistrates and council were still attempting to recover the cost of the execution from those who had received the escheat.22 It is clear then that most localities would expect, or at least hope, to receive the goods of the witch once they were convicted of witchcraft.
More efforts seem to have been made to recover the property of witches who were actually known to have property. This can be seen in a case in Dumfries in 1659, when Helen Muirhead was singled out from among nine witches who were ordered to be taken to the ‘ordinar place of execution for the burgh of Dumfries’ and executed. Their moveable goods were to be escheated. However, the particular instructions for Muirhead’s moveable goods were that they were to be ‘intromitted with by the Shereff of Nithsdaile, to seize upon and herrie the samin for the king’s use’.23 Muirhead has been estimated by the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft to have been in her early fifties; she had recently been widowed. The accusation appears to have arisen over a dispute with her brother-in-law over her terce – her right to a liferent interest in her deceased husband’s land. It seems that Muirhead’s moveable property was considered worth confiscating. As she was a widow, the property was also hers alone, while a married woman’s moveable property was under the control of her husband.
If the escheat of the convicted witch was unavailable, or failed to cover the total cost of the prosecution and execution, then the recovery of these expenses had to be sought elsewhere. The authorities would often order the relatives of the convicted witch to pay for the execution. In South Queensferry in 1644, the session decreed that James Lowrie should be responsible for the expenses of burning his wife. He was also ordered to pay for the burning of the beggar witch Marion Stein, as well as making up the deficit of the expenses for the burning of the witch Catherine Logie, if her moveable goods did not cover the cost of her execution.24 There are a number of other examples of husbands being forced to pay for their wives’ executions, and in one case in 1643 John Dawson was forced to pay for the burning of his mother.25
In many cases, the expenses could not be reclaimed in this way, and the executions drained the finances of the local community. In Kirkcaldy in 1633, the expenses of executing William Coke and Alison Dick were split almost evenly between the burgh (£17 1s.) and the kirk session (£17 10s.).26 The presbytery of Dalkeith appealed to the privy council in 1628 to allow them to confiscate the escheat of the best-off witches to pay for their many other prosecutions. These had been such a drain on their community that they had been forced to ‘take money out of the boxe of the poore of their presbyterie’.27
There were thus very few financial beneficiaries from witch-hunting in Scotland. Those who appear to have benefited most were the witch-prickers and the executioners.28 They were rarely established members of the community and cannot have instigated a witch-hunt for financial gain. The fact that Scottish society was willing to invest time and resources into the process of prosecuting witches is an important aspect of Scottish witch-hunting.
IV
Attitudes towards the crime of witchcraft were also displayed through the choice of execution site. Sites chosen for executions of criminals were rich in symbolism, which could relate to not only the crime committed by the individual, but also that individual’s status within their community. In some areas there seems to have been a deliberate correlation between the choice of execution site and the crime committed. A study of these correlations may be most effectively shown through the execution sites chosen in the city of Edinburgh – a place where particularly large numbers were executed, because many witches from elsewhere were sent for trial to the central justiciary court there.
The most prominent Edinburgh execution sites were Castle Hill and the Gallowlee between Edinburgh and Leith (what is now Pilrig). There were also a few early examples where the witch was sentenced to be executed north of the Brig O’ Leith (what is now North Leith). In Edinburgh it is evident that particular sites were reserved for particular crimes, but the authorities also considered the right of a particular social class to receive their execution in a particular area.
The Mercat Cross, adjacent to St Giles Cathedral and the Tolbooth, was used for various other criminals, but is only known to have been used in four witchcraft cases – three beheadings and one hanging. The beheadings were of three members of the aristocratic Erskine family (Robert Erskine and two of his sisters), while the hanging was of Jean Weir.29 All of these cases, as we shall see, involved other crimes as well as witchcraft. Beheading was considered to be honourable, and was usually only granted to the upper echelons of society. Esther Cohen has argued that execution within the town instead of the peripheries was less shameful for the criminal, which might suggest that the condemned was considered to be someone of importance.30
The Gallowlee, on the boundary between the jurisdictions of Edinburgh and Leith, was the second most prominent site after Castle Hill.31 The two miles between Edinburgh and its port of Leith were not urbanised, but the road between them was well used by merchants and traders. This site could therefore attract crowds from both Edinburgh and Leith. The fact that the gallows also occupied a site beyond the bounds of both Edinburgh and Leith also supports Cohen’s emphasis on the peripheries of the town. Similarly, in Aberdeen, witches were taken into the hills outside the town for execution.32
The most common place for Edinburgh’s witchcraft executions was Castle Hill. This had earlier been the single most common place for the execution (also by burning) of Protestant heretics between 1528 and 1558.33 As with the Gallowlee and other sites, Castle Hill was beyond the boundaries of the town – an area of open space separating the Castle itself from the built-up area around the head of the High Street and Lawnmarket. Prisoners would often be housed in the Tolbooth, next to St Giles Cathedral in the High Street. The prisoners were then ‘dragged at the horse’s tail’, tied to a hurdle, to their place of execution. The symbolism suggests that the criminal had committed a crime so heinous that their feet were not fit to walk on the earth. The central location of the Tolbooth and the short distance to Castle Hill meant that many of the people from the market place could follow the procession along the High Street, to witness the execution; there would also be room for crowds in the Castle Hill space. The Castle, perched on its volcanic crag, dominated the whole of the Edinburgh area. The smoke from the pyre would have been seen from almost all public areas in the town and for miles beyond.
The authorities’ choice of location for the execution was only one aspect of staging a successful spectacle. The choice of particular days and times also feature in the records, which refer to the execution of witches. In some cases a specific day was assigned for executions to take place. In Dumfries, witches were always executed on the Wednesday following the trial.34 Some cases record a specific time of day for the executions to take place – usually between two and four in the afternoon.35 One of the ways in which the execution of Euphemia MacCalzean in 1591 was unusual was that it was ‘about aucht hours at nycht’.36 By having specific days and times, which would be known to the local people, the authorities ensured that a crowd would turn out for the spectacle. Indeed, it is obvious that crowds did turn out to see the execution of witches, sometimes in large numbers. The financial account of the execution of Margaret Bane in Aberdeen in 1597 records the cost of someone carrying four spars to the site of the execution, which would be used to ‘withstand the preas of the pepill’.37 This shows that the authorities anticipated a crowd. Two of the four spars were broken, which suggests that the crowd was either so large that its press against the spars was too much for them to bear, or that there was some commotion where the crowd intentionally pushed against the barrier.
The condemned victim may have been allowed to make a last speech. There is hardly any information about this (it would not have been recorded in our main sources, the financial accounts), but there are one or two indications. Two of the North Berwick witches, Geillis Duncan and Bessie Thomson, were able to make long statements at the Castle Hill of Edinburgh ‘after they had been delivered free’ (presumably they had arrived bound to a hurdle) on 4 December 1591. Duncan and Thomson declared that their confessions implicating Barbara Napier and Euphemia MacCalzean had been false. These retractions were orchestrated by Napier’s and MacCalzean’s supporters, who included several bailies and other important people, so this was not a routine occasion.38 There is some information for a more typical witch, Margaret Barclay, executed at Irvine in 1618. Under torture she had suffered agonies of indecision, alternately affirming her confession and then retracting it. At the place of execution she told the minister that her confession of her own guilt had been true, but that her accusation of witchcraft against Isobel Crawford had been false. ‘And sua utterit thir wordis – God’s blessing and myne be among you all, and pray for me; and hir braith chokit be the executioner, hir handis being up to the heavins, uttering thir wordis – Lord ressave my saull in his mercie.’39 Later in 1658 Colonel Sawrey reported on the execution of the convicted witch Janett Saers. The minister, who would usually be present at executions of convicted criminals, would have urged Janett Saers to confess to her crimes to which she replied, ‘Sir, I am shortly to appear before the Judge of all the earth, and a lye may damne my soule to hell. I am cleare of witchcraft, for which I am presently to suffer.’40 This was the last opportunity for witches to confess their true guilt or innocence with only the destination of their immortal souls to consider. Perhaps they believed that if they went to their deaths having confessed to their true beliefs, God would forgive them and save them from eternal damnation.
It is, therefore, clear that the Scottish authorities took care in their choice of site, day and time of execution. The location of the site of the execution was critical to the message that the authorities wished to portray. The sites would be specially chosen to ensure that the burning could be seen from afar, especially by the local community, to reinforce the authority of the magistrates. They wished to create a spectacle not only for those living locally, but also for any visitors who might be passing. It seems that Scottish society wished to make a statement about its determination to rid itself of those who committed sinful acts. These spectacles of justice display an attempt, by the authorities, to make visible the public order and restore the balance of society.
V
In Scotland, by far the most common method for executing a witch was strangling and burning. The vast majority of cases where the method of execution has been recorded show this. Some of the few cases where a different method was used can be explained by examining the individual cases more closely. A rare case in which the victim was hanged occurred in 1670. This was Jean Weir, the sister of the prominent Edinburgh citizen Major Thomas Weir, who was also executed. Despite part of the accusations against Jean involving witchcraft, the main focus of her crime was her incestuous relationship with her brother, which probably explains why she did not suffer the traditional death for witchcraft.41 Another case in which the crime was not simply ‘witchcraft’ was that of Donald McIlmichael, executed in Inveraray in 1677. He was explicitly prosecuted under the 1563 witchcraft act, but the crime of which he was convicted was that of ‘theft and of consulting with evill spirits sundry times’ – and he was hanged.42
A similar pattern emerges in the few cases of beheading. Robert Erskine and his sisters Annas and Issobell Erskine have already been mentioned; they were found guilty of consulting with witches, poisoning and treasonable murder.43 For their crimes they were beheaded at Edinburgh’s Mercat Cross in 1614. The accusation that the Erskines had consulted witches, a crime incorporated in Scotland’s witchcraft act, seemed to take a less prominent place in their crimes; therefore they were not subjected to the traditional witch’s death.44
According to the Witchcraft Survey, around 12 per cent of Scottish witches were sentenced to burn alive. However, in these cases the Survey has taken those sentences that order the witch to be burnt literally, and it is probably an overestimate. Certainly there were a small number of cases where the convicted witch was burnt alive – possibly if a witch had committed a particularly serious and wicked offence. One infamous example is the case of Euphemia MacCalzean, one of the North Berwick witches of 1591, in whose case the king took a personal interest. There is also an account of witches being burnt alive in Brechin in 1608, by an unknown court (perhaps the regality court), in a manner that the privy council regarded as illegal:
they were brunt quick [i.e. alive] eftir sic ane crewell manner, that sum of thame deit [i.e. died] in despair, renunceand and blaspheme-and and utheris, half brunt brak out of the fyre, and was cast quick in it again, quhill they were brunt to the deid.45
The most common method of execution, the sentence given out in 85 per cent of the 141 known cases where a sentence was recorded, was that of strangling and burning. A typical sentence of this type was as follows:
To be tane be the lockman, hir hands bund, and be caried to the head of the Lon [loan, i.e. lane], the place of execution, and ther knit to ane staik, wiried to the death, and brunt in asses.46
These sentences, which stipulate that the witch should be ‘wiried’ (strangled) at the stake, imply that the method of strangulation should be garrotting. By this method the victim is tied to the garrotte or strangling-pole with their back against it while the executioner tightens a cord, wrapped around their neck, with a stick. However, the financial accounts of a few executions indicate that the method of strangulation was hanging. In Peebles in 1628, and Dumfries in 1650, the expense accounts for the execution of witches include the cost of erection of a gibbet.47 This implies that these witches would first be hanged before their bodies were burnt, in which case a stake would perhaps not be needed. Such a process is clear for Helen Stewart in Shetland, who was burnt ‘when she had hung some little time on the Gibbet’.48 References to ‘hanging’ could mean strangulation at a stake, though, as in 1612 with the order by the Haddington sheriff court ‘that the said Bessie Hendersoun salbe tane and careit to the sandis of Hadingtoun and there bound to ane staik quhill and hangit to the deit and there efter to be brunt in aschis’.49 Once the strangulation (by whichever method) was completed, the pyre would be lit.
VI
This brings us to the actual burning of the witch’s body. The materials for building the pyre varied somewhat, but peat and coal were common base materials. In Aberdeen peat was the material of choice, presumably because this was available locally while coal was not. The materials used were usually recorded in ‘loads’; the size of these loads is not clear and perhaps varied, but a ‘load’ was probably several hundred pounds.50 Ten loads of coal were used to burn Johne Fian in Edinburgh in 1590, whereas only five loads of coal and three loads of peat were needed to burn three witches in Peebles in 1628.51 The materials could be quite costly: when Aberdeen burnt Helen Gray and Agnes Webster in 1597, twenty-two loads of peat were required at a cost of £2 15s.52
Coal and peat were heavy and long-burning fuels, hard to light. Additional easily combustible materials were used to encourage the fire in its initial stages – most commonly heather and broom, presumably dried. In some of the accounts, particularly those from Aberdeen in 1597, there are also references to tar barrels and iron barrels. The tar, and in some cases resin, would be used within the pyre, and perhaps would also be spread over the completed pyre, to help the fire burn efficiently. Iron barrels were cheap barrels for dry goods, made of wood and with iron straps. These were most likely used to create a stable base for the pyre, ensuring that the piles of other materials did not collapse. The iron could have been salvaged afterwards for reuse.53 The pyre built around a wooden stake would have had to be secure enough for both the witch and the executioner to climb up and balance upon it while the witch was strangled against the stake, and to ensure that it would support the weight of the witch during the burning process.
The local community must usually have been involved in the building of pyres. In a slander case brought by Grissel Urrall in Elgin in 1622, we encounter a woman who was keen to join the task force for this purpose: ‘Janet Gordoun deponit that Jeane Bonyman, spous to Alexander Lesly, said scho houpit in God to cary peitis to the bak of the Ladie hill to burne hir [Urrall] as hir mother suld hawe bein brunt.’54 Women, as well as men, were used to heavy lifting and carting. If the witch had been unpopular during her lifetime, the work of assembling the pyre could have been a welcome task engendering a spirit of community togetherness.
At the centre of the pyre would be set the stake. This would be crafted by a carpenter before being transported to the site of the execution. Tentative calculations suggest that this stake would be in the region of five metres in length. This is based on the need for the stake to be secured underground to stabilise it, and to leave sufficient height to construct the pyre around it and secure the witch on top. The stake is likely to have been secured underground at an approximately one metre depth, and the first two metres of the stake above ground would have been hidden by the raw materials of the pyre. Finally the top part of the stake would be approximately two metres in order to give the necessary support for the witch to be first strangled against and then to support the weight of the body during the burning process. If the stake was not secured sufficiently underground then it might begin to lean sideways taking the witch with it away from the flames. Perhaps this is what happened in the Brechin case, mentioned above, when the witches who were being burnt alive managed to break out of the fire. The fairly high cost of the stake, including the raw material (timber was scarce in much of Scotland), the working of it into a stake and the setting of it into the ground in order to stabilise it, reflects its importance in the execution process. Throughout the witchcraft executions of 1597 this process cost Aberdeen 13s. 4d. for each stake. In most of these cases, one stake appears to have been used for burning several witches; for example, Christian Mitchell, Bessie Thom and Isobel Baron appear to have been tied to the same stake.55 Woodcuts of the martyrdoms of English heretics often show the same practice.
VII
Once lit, the pyre would reach high temperatures. The maximum temperature achievable with wood is around 1,000°C, while the coal and peat would reach higher temperatures of around 1,300°C.56 However, it is unlikely that these maximum temperatures would have been achieved in practice. Experimental pyres, constructed largely of wood, reached a maximum temperature of around 800–900°C within half an hour of being lit.57 However, in a pyre much of the heat is lost to the atmo-sphere and, unlike in a modern crematorium, the heat is focused only on one side of the body. It is almost impossible to keep a uniform temperature across the pyre, so the peripheries are cooler than the centre. Wind strength and directional changes would affect the temperature of the pyre. Strong winds would make it burn faster, but not necessarily more efficiently; it would be more likely to cause the burn to be uneven, which might result in the collapse of the pyre. Rain, depending on the weight, would also cause the cessation of the pyre or at least a reduction in the temperature.
The experimental pyres did not contain peat or coal, and, although these materials are capable of reaching higher temperatures, they are also likely to take longer to achieve any real heat. Most Scottish pyres were made up primarily of peat. It was important that the fire was tended in all weather conditions to ensure that it reached its optimum temperature and remained at this level for as long as possible. It would take a minimum of half an hour for a pyre built of wood to reach the temperature of a cremator, but it is likely to have taken longer than this for the peat and coal to reach this temperature. It has been estimated that the pyre would take around two hours to burn down; however, after this time it is expected that remains of the body would rest on the bed of hot ash.58 If the pyre was burnt overnight, the majority of the soft tissue and bone material would be destroyed.
VIII
It is nevertheless likely that there would have been some bodily remains left in the ashes. In most cases there would be bone fragments, and the ashes formed during the destruction of the rest of the body would be left mixed with the ashes of the pyre itself. What became of these remains is not clear, but it is unlikely that they would be left where the wind could blow them through the town. It has been suggested that the ‘Witches’ Lake’, a bay of the sea, in St Andrews was used to dispose of executed witches’ ashes.59 In other cases the witches’ ashes may simply have been raked over and buried at the foot of the gallows. Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1830 that ‘The alterations and trenching which lately took place for the purpose of improving the Castlehill of Edinburgh displayed the ashes of the numbers who had perished in this manner.’60
What is clear, however, is that the witches would not be given a decent Christian burial within a churchyard. Throughout the period in question Scotland was an intensely religious country, especially following the Reformation in 1560. The Reformation saw Scotland adopt Protestant Calvinism and reject its Catholic heritage. It is clear that Scotland took its religion very seriously; this even involved revolting against Charles I during the period which has become known as the Scottish Revolution. In a Protestant Calvinist country, such as Scotland, a witch was considered to be the inverse of someone who embraced Christ. In the eyes of many leading churchmen witchcraft was not considered in terms of the social menace, but in terms of the sin against God. Thus, witchcraft was considered to have a dominant position within the hierarchy of sin.61
It would appear that this intensely religious aspect of witchcraft had a direct effect on the way witchcraft cases were dealt with. If a person was understood to be a witch they would be considered a threat to the community in which they lived. Although the church itself was forbidden to have the blood on its hands by executing the witch, it could influence the method of punishment. Strangling and burning should be seen as having deeply religious symbolism. It was rare for other criminals to be burnt in Scotland; apart from witches, there were only the Protestant heretics before the Reformation and a handful of women who committed husband-murder. Witchcraft was evidently a crime which was considered beyond purely civil punishment. While the body of a murderer or common thief would often be kept on public display, which would add to the infamy of the individual, the total eradication of the body was an even greater disgrace.
This tradition of separating public display of bodies from the total eradication of bodies can be traced throughout history. As early as the first century Tacitus noted in his Germania two peculiarities in the German punitive system. He noted that different penalties were reserved for crimes that should be publicised by hanging, including traitors and deserters, and shameful crimes, which saw the culprit buried out of sight under a hurdle in a swamp. It has been argued that the deed of punishment belonged to a ‘common European substratum of custom, which was quite deliberately kept unaltered’ in order to ensure the understanding between the authorities and the spectators at the execution.62 The actions of authorities in early modern Scotland certainly prove that they intended to send a strong message about crime and its punishment in a way that would have been clearly understood by the public. In order to publicise the punishment they had received for their crimes the bodies of many executed criminals hung on the gibbet for days before being buried at the foot of the gallows. The witches’ crimes, however, were first publicised by the performance associated with the strangling and burning their bodies in a highly visible location, but the result of this punishment was the complete eradication of the witches’ bodies. Perhaps burning the body of the convicted witch was a specific practice associated with purging the community of sin.
A Christian burial was considered extremely important, not least in the eyes of the populace. It is likely that many held literal interpretations of the resurrection. This literal belief that the physical body would be raised up on the Day of Judgement made the burial of dead bodies vitally important to pre-industrial Christian society. There was also a popular belief that if a body was buried incorrectly then the soul might ‘walk’.63 Early modern people may have had less of a sense of distinction between the body and the mind. Those who were dying in this period appeared to have as much concern over the fate of their body as the destination of the soul. Those sufficiently well informed in theology were not expecting to prevent the resurrection of the body in the final ‘generall jugement’, since even the damned were to be resurrected. The Confession of Faith of 1560 stated that ‘the sey sall gif hir deid, the eird [i.e. earth] thay that thairin be inclosit, yea the eternal our God sall streiche out his hand on the dust’, whereupon the damned would be ‘tormentit for ever, asweill in thair awin bodyis, as in thair saulis’.64 But how widely this was known is an open question.
The importance of Christian burial, which took place within the churchyard and with traditional religious rites, can be seen in society’s treatment of the unfortunate members of their communities. Paupers who could not afford to pay for their own burial would usually be granted a Christian burial, paid for by the parish. In some of these cases the pauper might be permitted the use of a communal coffin, which at least granted him the dignity of being carried to his grave in the proper manner.65 Even criminals, although they were tried under a legal system which could prescribe death for crimes as petty as picking pockets, were not usually denied a Christian burial. Only a crime such as treason would see the denial of this right. In this case, the criminal would often be buried at the foot of the gallows, usually after having their body parts displayed at various points around the city.66
Other members of society who were denied a Christian burial included those who had committed suicide. Suicides’ bodies were normally buried outside the churchyard, and were sometimes subjected to additional punishments (official, popular or both) such as being dragged to their burial place or being exposed on a gibbet before burial – though stakes were not driven through their bodies, unlike in some parts of England.67 Stillborn babies were also denied Christian burial. These were considered to be barely human, and certainly not Christian, as they had not been baptised. As a result the midwife who delivered the baby was to dispose of it in a secret place where no one would ever find it.68
It appears then, in most cases, that individuals who had been baptised received a Christian burial, and only in a few noticeable cases was the body disposed of in some other manner. This demonstrates the importance of the Christian burial to early modern society. It also reflects upon the actions and situations of those individuals who were not considered worthy of a Christian burial. In the majority of these cases the individuals had, through direct or indirect means, been considered to have offended God. However, despite their actions, and the community’s unwillingness to allow their bodies to contaminate those of the good Christians who were buried in the churchyard, the bodies were not completely destroyed.
The fate of Scottish witches, however, was first to be strangled to death and then to have their dead bodies burnt. The body of the witch was being punished after her physical death, which would support the theory that the early modern society of Scotland still considered the body to be responsible for the actions of the individual. The society wished to punish the witch beyond death by making bodily resurrection impossible. It is also likely that the witch’s body was considered to be contaminated by evil, like that of an individual who had committed suicide.
This process of punishing the body of a deceased person for crimes they committed during life is clearly apparent in witchcraft cases. Janet Smellie, who was accused of witchcraft in 1649, committed suicide in prison. The magistrates, ‘with the advyse of Mr William Adair, minister, ordained that the corpse of Jonet Smelie, a witch who had died in the Tolbuith, salbe drawin upoune ane slaid to the gallowis foot and brunt in asches’.69 The dead body of a witch could still be considered to be tainted with their sins and could contaminate the community if not destroyed. The witch’s actions of renouncing her baptism and accepting the Devil as her master clearly made her not only unworthy of a Christian burial, but also so evil that her whole existence must be totally eradicated. Perhaps, this attitude towards witches, and the crimes they committed, can explain the steely determination of early modern Scots to seek out and destroy witches in their communities, regardless of the cost.
IX
This determination led to an estimated 2,500 executions being carried out between the imposition of the witchcraft act in 1563 and its repeal in 1736.70 Although the cost of prosecution was an unwelcome burden upon the community, and the prospect of recovering the expenses was often unlikely, the local communities of Scotland were still driven to hunt witches. Contrary to any suggestions that witch-hunting was carried out by individuals who desired to profit from the process, the opposite seems to have been at work in Scotland. Scottish society’s determination to purge itself of witches outweighed the financial burden of the witch-hunts.
Having convicted an individual for witchcraft, the authorities wished to stage a spectacle, perhaps to display the godliness of their community, by executing the witch in a highly visible location. This religious aspect of the crime of witchcraft, in Scotland, is particularly clear from the methods of execution. Usually a convicted witch would be sentenced to strangle and burn. The burning of the witch’s body represented an attempt to punish the witch not only in life, but also in death. The witch’s body was totally eradicated and as such would be denied a Christian burial. Early modern Scottish society believed that the crime of witchcraft was so evil that it had to be completely destroyed, along with the witch’s body.
Notes
1. Newes from Scotland (London: William Wright, n.d. [c. 1591]), sig. D2v.–D3r.; cf. Normand and Roberts (eds.), Witchcraft, 323.
2. Spalding Misc., v, 66.
3. Stuart Macdonald, The Witches of Fife: Witch-hunting in a Scottish Shire, 1560–1710 (East Linton, 2002), 136.
4. Hugo Arnot, A Collection and Abridgement of Celebrated Criminal Trials in Scotland, 1536–1784 (Edinburgh, 1785), 434.
5. Stuart Macdonald, ‘Torture and the Scottish witch-hunt: a re-examination’, Scottish Tradition, 27 (2002), 95–114, at p. 102.
6. Arnot, Criminal Trials, 434.
7. Christina Larner, Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland (London, 1981), 107.
8. RPC, 3rd ser., vi, 628–9.
9. Liv Helene Willumsen, ‘Seventeenth-Century Witchcraft Trials in Scotland and Northern Norway’ (University of Edinburgh PhD thesis, 2008), 65–6.
10. On at least one occasion in 1616, Perth’s executioner was appointed by the kirk session, reporting to the burgh council: The Perth Kirk Session Books, 1577–1590 (SHS, 2012), 15.
11. Pieter Spierenburg, The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression from a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience (Cambridge, 1984), 28.
12. Charters and Documents Relating to the Burgh of Peebles, with Extracts from the Records of the Burgh, 1165–1710, ed. William Chambers (Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1872), 416.
13. Sheriff Court Book of Fife, 1515–1522, ed. William C. Dickinson (SHS, 1928), p. lxix.
14. David Webster (ed.), Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight (Edinburgh, 1820), 123–4.
15. John Maxwell Wood, Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the South-Western District of Scotland (Dumfries, 1911), 78–9.
16. Spierenburg, Spectacle of Suffering, 18–19.
17. Peebles Charters, 416.
18. Wood, Witchcraft and Superstitious Record, 78–9.
19. Arnot, Criminal Trials, 434.
20. Alexander Morison, Historical Notes on the Ancient and Royal Burgh of Queensferry (Bathgate, 1927), 78.
21. Paula Hughes, ‘The 1649–50 Scottish Witch-Hunt, with Particular Reference to the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale’ (University of Strathclyde PhD thesis, 2008), 76.
22. David Beveridge, Culross and Tulliallan; or, Perthshire on Forth, Its History and Antiquities, Etc., 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1885), i, 350. John Kennoway was probably related to James Kennoway, a previous burgh clerk of Culross, another keen witch-hunter with an interest in a witch’s property: Louise Yeoman, ‘Hunting the rich witch in Scotland: high-status witchcraft suspects and their persecutors, 1590–1650’, in Julian Goodare (ed.), The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester, 2002), 106–21, at pp. 115–18.
23. William M’Dowall, History of the Burgh of Dumfries: With Notices of Nithsdale, Annandale, and the Western Border (3rd edn., Dumfries, 1906), 407.
24. Morison, Royal Burgh of Queensferry, 78.
25. David Cook, Annals of Pittenweem, 1526–1793 (Anstruther, 1867), 49–50.
26. Peebles Charters, 416.
27. RPC, 2nd ser., ii, 469–70.
28. On prickers, see W. N. Neill, ‘The professional pricker and his test for witchcraft’, SHR, 19 (1922), 205–13.
29. SSW.
30. Esther Cohen, The Crossroads of Justice: Law and Culture in Late Medieval France (Leiden, 1993), 189.
31. This site was used for executing Thomas Aikenhead in 1697 and is discussed by Michael F. Graham, The Blasphemies of Thomas Aikenhead: Boundaries of Belief on the Eve of the Enlightenment (Edinburgh, 2008), 2–3.
32. SSW.
33. Jane E. A. Dawson, ‘The Scottish Reformation and the theatre of martyrdom’, in Diana Wood (ed.), Martyrs and Martyrologies (Woodbridge: Studies in Church History vol. 30, 1993), 259–70, at p. 260.
34. SSW.
35. Ibid.
36. Sir William Fraser, Memorials of the Earls of Haddington, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1889), i, 81. This was on 25 June, so it would still have been daylight.
37. Spalding Misc., v, 66.
38. Normand and Roberts (eds.), Witchcraft, 197–9.
39. Trial, Confession, and Execution of Isobel Inch, John Stewart, Margaret Barclay & Isobel Crawford, for Witchcraft, at Irvine, anno 1618 (Ardrossan and Saltcoats, n.d. [1855]), 14.
40. C. H. Firth (ed.), Scotland and the Protectorate (SHS, 1899), 382.
41. SSW.
42. HP, iii, 36–8.
43. SSW.
44. Part of the 1563 act had said that it was a crime to consult witches, but this was never implemented: Julian Goodare, ‘The Scottish witchcraft act’, Church History, 74 (2005), 39–67, at pp. 56–8.
45. RPC, xiv, 605.
46. RPC, 2nd ser., viii, 355–60.
47. Peebles Charters, 416; A. E. Truckell, ‘Unpublished witchcraft trials’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 3rd ser., 51 (1975), 48–58, at p. 57.
48. George Sinclair, Satans Invisible World Discovered, ed. Thomas G. Stevenson (Edinburgh, 1871), 14 (relation 1).
49. NRS, Haddington sheriff court, extract decree books, 1611–14, SC40/7/13, fo. 92v. I am grateful to Dr Harriet Cornell for this reference.
50. R. D. Connor and A. D. C. Simpson, Weights and Measures in Scotland: A European Perspective (East Linton, 2004), 128, 130.
51. Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, Marguerite Wood (ed.), A.D. 1589–1603 [Etc.] (Edinburgh, 1927), 333–4; Peebles Charters, 416.
52. Spalding Misc., v, 68.
53. I am grateful for advice on ironwork from Dr Aaron Allen.
54. Records of Elgin, 1234–1800, 2 vols., ed. William Cramond (New Spalding Club, 1903–8), ii, 172.
55. Spalding Misc., v, 66–7.
56. Christopher W. Schmidt and Steve A. Symes, The Analysis of Burned Human Remains (London, 2008), 4.
57. Ibid., 165.
58. Ibid., 167.
59. Larner, Enemies of God, 110.
60. Sir Walter Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (London, 1884: first published 1830), 254.
61. Larner, Enemies of God, 165–8.
62. Cohen, Crossroads of Justice, 191–2.
63. Clare Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England (London, 1984), 60.
64. APS, ii, 534, c. 1 (RPS, A1560/8/3).
65. Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, 62.
66. Ibid., 69–70.
67. R. A. Houston, Punishing the Dead? Suicide, Lordship and Community in Britain, 1500–1830 (Oxford, 2010), 211–22, 229–45.
68. Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, 83.
69. John H. Pagan, Annals of Ayr in the Olden Time, 1560–1692 (Ayr, 1897), 109.
70. Willumsen, ‘Seventeenth-Century Witchcraft Trials’, 66.