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Curses · Witches and witch trials

The North Berwick Witches

When
1590–1592 date from records made at the time
Where
Ruins of St Andrew's Auld Kirk, North Berwick, Scotland, United Kingdom
Verdict
Explained

On Halloween night 1590 witches were said to meet the Devil in the church at North Berwick to sink King James VI's ship. The king questioned the accused himself.

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56.06°, -2.72° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

In 1589 King James VI of Scotland sailed to Denmark for his bride, Anne of Denmark. On the way back the fleet was battered by violent storms, and in Copenhagen witches were accused of raising them. Soon an investigation began in Scotland too. It started with Geillis Duncan, a servant in Tranent who had suddenly begun to heal the sick. Under torture she named others, including the elderly midwife Agnes Sampson and the schoolmaster John Fian. According to the confessions, on Halloween night 1590 more than two hundred witches sailed in sieves to the old church at North Berwick, where the Devil, from the pulpit, ordered them to destroy the king. James took part in the interrogations himself. According to the pamphlet “Newes from Scotland,” he was convinced only when Sampson whispered to him the words he had spoken to Anne on their wedding night. Sampson was strangled and burned in Edinburgh, and Fian, cruelly tortured, was burned at the stake. Accusations reached more than 70 people, including the Earl of Bothwell.

Witnesses

King James VI and his council, the accused and their confessions; the events are described in the pamphlet “Newes from Scotland” (1591), and in 1597 the king himself published the treatise “Daemonologie.”

Explanations and hypotheses

Historians see the trials as the product of belief in witchcraft, political rivalry (the accusation against the Earl of Bothwell) and torture that produced ever more fantastic confessions. The case launched a wave of witch hunts in Scotland – between 1560 and 1707, historians estimate that some 2,500 people were executed there. In 2022 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon formally apologised on behalf of the Scottish government for the persecution of those accused of witchcraft.

Explained The phenomenon has a widely accepted, down-to-earth explanation.

Sources

  1. University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections – Newes from Scotland (1591)
  2. The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft (University of Edinburgh)
  3. Maria Cramer, Scotland Apologizes for History of Witchcraft Persecution (The New York Times, 2022)

More: Wikipedia (en)