PITCAIRN'S SCOTCH CRIMINAL TRIALS—WITCHCRAFT.*

THE object of Mr. PITCAIRN'S work is expressed in his preface—to put beyond the chance of destruction the valuable materials contained ni the Books of Adjournal of the Justiciary Court. Considerable por- tions of these records have already been lost; and the character in which the more ancient part of what remains is written, renders it a sealed book to the generality of readers. The present is the first at- tempt to give the contents of the records entire ; what have hitherto appeared have consisted of selections only. For the purpose of enabling some future writer to frame a connected history of a form of criminal judicature which the Scottish lawyers deservedly value, the plan adopted by Mr. PITCAIRN is the preferable one ; but as the work necessarily contains many trifling, and, we must say it, tedious details, —and as, even with all the advantages of a fair type and good paper; the language, to those who are but moderately skilled in old English, is not very intelligible,—we much doubt if i': will prove interesting to the general reader. For the latter, a book on the plan of ARNOTT'S is best adapted, where only such cases appear as are remarkable from their novelty, or from some peculiarity in the mode of their treatment. In giving an account of a work in which no arrangement but the loose and remotely consequential one of lime is observed, it is uo easy task to adhere to anything like system. These trials are, with one remarkable exception, which we shall notice by and by, almost all for climes of violence. Slaughter in all its forms and shades figures in every page. Nor, is there anything of peculiar atrocity even, to relieve the monotony of the charges. The crime next in frequency is robbery. One of the earliest of the trials for this offence discloses some curious particulars of the travelling state of the better sort of Scottish tradesmen in the sixteenth century. John Ley-es is charged, on the 18th November 1569, with plundering John Murdo, a tailor of Edinburgh, and his wife, of 35 crowns of the sun, 6 angel nobles, 2 rose nobles, I Harry noble, 1 Portugal ducat, 18 different gold coins Scottish, 1 forty-shilling piece, 2 English testoons, 4 pounds money, a gold chain, three obligations for sums owing to Mr. John Murdo aforesaid, and a sorrel nag, with its harness, value 801., a cloak, hat, sword, whinyard, and five pounds of silver, which was in John's purse—the rest was in his wife's. Leyes, who was "domed," had attacked the tower of Waughton with three hundred men, " feed and salaried soldiers," previous to " unbesetting" the tailor. There are several trials for adultery, and some for incest. Three charges of the latter crime are against three females of the Borthwick family; but they were acquitted. There is a charge of treason against a party of rioters in the county of Mearns, for a " rag- ment and ryme in name ofJohnne the Commonweale." It was no light matter to be accused of treason in those days, for not only might any one, however infamous or influenced, be received as a witness against the culprit, but his advocates were not permitted Co plead unless by permission of the Judges to that effect. In the earlier pages of the first part, there are a number of cases of persons absent from the fields of Linlithgow, of Biggar, of Langside, and others. There are also several trials connected with the " raid" of Gowrie, but they throw no new light on that mysterious transaction. The following formidable names appear charged with the slaughter of the " Captain of Clan- ranald,"—Johnne Dow, Mackewyne Wickewyn, Doulevig Mac Coule Mac Condoquhy Roy, Donald Mac Cayne Mac Condoquhy Roy, Evan Mae Williame Mae Cayne Dow. They were adjudged to the "horn,"—having, we suppose, given Highland bail for their appearance. The other extremity of the kingdom, in a case of slaughter also, gives us such names as "Jock Pyle of the Raw," " Andrew Hall of the Sykes," " Jock Hall, called Percy's Jock," and various others, whom the writings of SCOTT have made familiar to our ears. Among the thefts, is a rather curious one charged against David Leith, a surgeon and stonehewer, who with some others is accused of plundering the churchyard of Daviot, in Aberdeenshire, of its tombstones. The man of two trades was convicted, and fined ten pounds for each stone. In the trials connected with the murder of Darnley in 1581, the charge against John Binning, tried June 3rd, is—" treasonably raising fire within the same (the King's house,) with a large quantity of powder, through violence of the which the said whole lodging was raised and blown into the air, and his Grace (the King) was most awfully and treasonably slain, murdered, and destroyed." In Morton's trial, how- ever, which took place on the 1st, the crime is described as murder by way of hamesucken (assault of a person under his own roof); and the King is said to have been slain and murdered while buried in sleep. The burning of the house constitutes another point in the indictment. We come now to a class of trials that offer more food for specula- tion—we mean the trials for witchcraft.

The first of these, which is unaccompanied by any particulars, occurs in 1572. The party was one Janet Boyman, spouse of William Steill. This woman, as all that were tried in after times, was "convict and brent." The next is the case of Bessie Dunlop, of Lyne, near Dairy in Ayrshire. Bessie was " fylit," as the phrase was—that is, found guilty—on her own confession. Her familiar was a certain Thorn Reid, whose advices seem to have savoured for the most part of any thing rather than the spirit of malice. Thorn appeared in the shape of an elderly man, with a grey beard, clad in a (Trey coat, with sleeves of the old fashion, grey breeches, and white stockings, a black bonnet,

* Trials and other Proceedings in Matters Criminal, before the High Court of Justi- ciary in Scotland: selected from the Records of that Court, and from Original Manu- scripts preserved in the General Register House, Edinburgh. By Robert Pitcairn, Wri- ter to his Majesty's Signet, Ike. Part I. and II. Edinburgh, 1829. Tait. and a white stick in his hand. Thom made his advances to Bessie ika propitious moment, when her cow had died, her husband and chillt were sick, and she herself but newly risen from childbed. His conversa- tion was prefaced by a " Sancta Maria,"—which sufficiently shows to what church he belonged ; yet, strange to tell, his first proposal was that Bessie should renounce her baptism. Thom introduced Bessie to the court of Faery, twelve of whom she saw at one time. It is not a little :curious, that Ayrshire is still famed for its "good people."* He instructed her in the virtues of divers herbs, by salves composed of which, she healed many of her neighbours ; and these healings, which bespeak a kindly devil, form the burden of her accusation. She was

burnt. The next trial that is reported at length, is that of Alison Peir-

son, of ByTes, East Lothian. Alison began when she was only twelve years old : her familiar appeared in the shape of her cousin, Mr. Wil-

liam Sympson. Peirson seems to have been fatuous : she had lost the power of her left side, which in the indictment is attributed to a blow from the Devil. This poor wretch also had the gift of healing. One

of her recipes for Bishop Adamson consisted of a boiled fowl and a flaggon of claret, with ewe milk and some other things. The ease of Catharine Ross, Lady Fowlis, in 1577, is strictly one of poisoning ;

crime which persons labouring under the imputation of witchcraft, and necessarily hating and hated by all around them, were not unlikely

to practise. Nor is it unlikely that these poisoners practised on the credulity of the assassins who solicited their assistance, by selling them charms as well as deadly drugs. Lady Fowlis was acquitted, but only in consequence of the strong interest made for her : had she been a person of little note, the twentieth part of the cranes laid to her charge would have " brent her in assis." The only other ease that is worthy of particular notice, is that of John Cuningham. or Dr. Fian, school- master of Preston, in the neighbourhood of Tmnent. A curious account of Fian (a reprint) was published some ten years ago by a libliopolu circumforaneus named WEBSTER. Mr. PITCAIRN gives WEBSTER'S pamphlet, with some corrections, as well as the record of the trial. Fian seems to have fallen a sacrifice to the malevolence of a woman in a neighbouring village, whose children he educated. One of the principal charges against him was raising winds and mists, with a view to impede the progress of JAMES when bringing home his Queen from Denmark. Under the torture of the boot, he was induced to make a confession in the terms dictated by his accusers ; the King presiding while it was recorded. Two days after, he contrived to escape from prison, and returned to his house at Prestonpans. He was par- sued, and captured, again tortured in a manner too horrible for de- scription, and then carried forth and executed. He died professing his innocence,—" so deeply," quoth the charitable historian of his fate, " had the Devil entered into his 'heart." Agnes Thompson or Samp- son, one of his alleged companions, was also convicted and burnt. The late Mr. GIFFORD endeavours to defend King JAMES in regard to the famous treatise on " Demonologie," by stating, that when a stripling, he had been made to assist at the Scotch witch trials. The tender King, when he pushed on the torture of Cuningham, was a stripling of four-and-twenty. The " Demonologie," was not published until 1597, when JAMES was thirty-one,—long after REGINALD SCOT (to whose treatise by the by, it is professedly an answer) had shown, with a soundness of logic and of feeling which the royal pedant was as incapable of understanding as of emulating, the utter folly and ground- lessness of the opinions to which JAMES gave the stamp of fashion and authority.

The history of Witchcraft presents us with a very singular picture of human weakness. It is true, that even in our own times we find the vulgar and unenlightened led away by fancies as strange as their an- cestors were ; but there is no longer a universality of folly. If JOANNA SOUTHCOT had her votaries, and the "Sinner Saved" his followers, the great mass of the community, and all the literary and reflecting part of it, saw through the raving of the one and the hypocrisy of the other. It was not so in good King JAMIE'S days ; when, and for a long period after, to doubt whether a miserable, old, bent-double wretch, possessed, by diabolical aid, powers such as no mortal ever received from divine assistance, would have gone far to subject the sceptic to the punishment appointed for the peculiar servants of Satan. The father of magic and witchcraft, as is well known to antiquaries, was Ham, the graceless son of Noah. As he was not permitted to carry his books into the ark, he carved his secrets on substances which were likely to withstand the action of water, and buried them until he came forth again. Of the witches in Israel it is unnecessary to speak, unless to observe that Endor sufficiently proves that Ham's secrets did not die with him. Coming down to classical times, we find that sor- ceresses were as rife in Greece and Rome as they had been in Judea. Every one has read of the incantations of Medea—ride EURIPIDES and Own; and if more definite authority were required, HORACE is at hand. His description of the plunging of a free-born boy up to the neck in the earth, by a witch called Canidia and others, in order to • form a love philtre out of his exsichated liver, is familiar to the least careful inquirer. Nor is the singular expedient by which the God of the Gardens, on another occasion, contrived to disperse a company of the same unhallowed description, less known. Indeed it has been ob- served, that scents are very powerful for the routing of the imps of darkness as well as their servants. Tobit and the liver of the fish is an instance of the one, as the explosion of Priapus is of the other. The connexion between the classic and what are emphatically termed the dark ages—between Canidia and her sisters aforesaid, and Michael Scot, who of all sorcerers that we have heard described was as powerful after he was dead as before—is somewhat obscurely traced, doubtless for the want of a sacer vales, a police reporter, to note the particulars. But that the traffic between men and the

* Burns's "Halloween."

Devil was as regular during the interval that separates these two worthies as it had been between the times of the witch of Endor and those of Canidia, admits of no reasonable doubt. • It has been supposed that witchcraft was peculiar to the glorious Reformation ; and that women never had recourse to the Devil so long as they could have re- course to the priest. Seeing the very small bounds that divide a Jesuit

from the foul Fiend, we might be inclined to follow this doctrine, were it not contradicted by historical documents. King JAMES indeed, in

his treatise, observes, that the Old Serpent operated during the prevalence of Papistry for the most part by ghosts and spirits, and by witches " sensyne ;" but the royal dialogist was mistaken in this par- ticular. In fact, witches and ghosts have in all ages gone hand in hand ; and whenever the latter begin to diminish, it is invariably found that the breed of the former fall off. As little to the purpose are the remarks or rather sneers of the royal author. about the necessity of holy water to form magicians' circles ; it being a matter of no- toriety, that, pnevious to the Reformation, holy water was the only mode of detecting either magicians or their masters. At the same time, it must be observed, that during the reign of the ancient religion, witchcraft was intimately mixed up with heresy ; while under the dominion of the modern religion, it was almost always connected with Catholicity. The Devil indeed, contrary to the proverbial example of another long-tailed animal, seems ever most attached to a falling house, and invariably lends his countenance, such as it is, to the weaker party.

The act of 33d HENRY VIII., cap. 8, declared the practice of witchcraft, or any such diabolical arts, to be felony without benefit of clergy. This act of HENRY was confirmed and amended by the 1st JAMES I., cap. 12. The existence of HENRY'S act sufficiently vindicates the Scots from the honour of being the first to punish witches with the highest penalties of the law, for the first Scottish enactment to the same effect was only passed in the 9th Parliament of MARY, in 1563. Like other fashions, the burning of witches gra- dually descended from the more to the less enlightened of the Euro- pean communities. Nearly about the same time that the people of England were passing laws for hanging witches, the famous CORNELIUS AGRIPPA successfully pleaded the cause of a poor girl accused of witchcraft at Metz, and got her accusers condemned in her stead. Forty years after this, as we have just stated, the propriety of putting -people to death for dealing with the Devil was at last acknowledged in Scotland.

• The most celebrated writer on the subject of witchcraft, with rela- tion to its punishment we mean, is BODIN. As his rules are drawn up with all imaginable minuteness, and as he seems to have been less troubled than most writers on the subject with any disturbing pangs of justice or humanity, he is very properly esteemed high authority.

If a woman—and by the term woman, we may once for all observe, that in the case of witches, it means a very old, ugly, ignorant, poor, weak, and worthless woman, for all these ingredients are necessairy—if a woman cursed any man, woman, child, or creature, and it died, slowly or suddenly, soon or late, she was a witch. It is to be noticed, that old women, being in general of irritable tempers, were in the habit, in those days (and old women are very much given to scolding yet), of wishing anything that offended them at the Devil ; and as most things offend an indifferent temper, from the master seated on the dais to the pig wallowing in the mire, in process of lime it commonly hap- pened, that the whole family passed in succession under such a male- diction. Whether, therefore, the lord fell sick or the sow was measled, it was all the same with the witch, for she had cursed them both.

Flying through the air is notable evidence of witchcraft ; and so much the more to be believed that it is impossible, for were it possible it would be no craft at all. This was a common test of diabolical power. Dr. Flan, whose case we have already described, was charged with flying after a cat. He was only raised about fourteen feet above the ground, but most witch flights were higher. For the preparations necessary and the manner of setting forth on these a6ial journies, are they not written in the chronicles of the witches of Fife, by the great Meister Hoc° of Ettrick ? The advantage to the ministration of jus- tice, from the flying capabilities of witches, was great : they could never prove an alibi, which from their subtlety they might otherwise have often done. It was no answer to a charge of witchery in London, that the alleged perpetrator was at the moment twining her distaff at John o' Groats.

It is difficult to see how an honest person can know anything of witches, and therefore dishonesty was no objection in a witness. For the same reason, heretics or Papists, according as the Judge was Papist or Protestant, participators of the crime, even witches them- selves, might condemn other witches. In the ease of seven old women, burnt at Fossaway in Fife, the first witch gave evidence against herself and another; and the first part of her testimony convicted herself, and the second her neighbour. The second, in like manner, convicted the third, the third the fourth, and so on to the seventh. This pleasant way of knocking down one prop of the Devil by the agency of another, was very much practised.

A witch might challenge a witness on the ground that he had as- saulted her, and would have killed her. This was held to betoken en-

mity. But if the witness declared he did so because she was a witch, his

testimony was unimpeachable, for he only did what every one else was bound to do. Two witnesses, according to strict law, were necessary for conviction ; but it was not necessary for them to depose to the same fact. If Jane lost her cow, Margaret her sow, and Elizabeth her butter, by the charms of Anne, then Anne was burned. In Scot-

land, where charges of witchcraft commonly originated with the Kirk- Session, a box was Flaced in the church, into which accusations might be privately dropped. These boxes were opened once a fort- night, and the parties inculpated proceeded against' When the clergy had done with them, they were given to the magistrate, and burnt salon les regles.

It was held by some, that if the mother were a witch, the daughter must be a witch also.—si saga sit mater sic etiam filia; and as the

one might be lawfully burnt without proof, so the other might be law-

fully burnt without trial. This doctrine seems naturally to flow from ,orhat is laid down by BODIN touching Incubi. The Incubi were certain

accommodating spirits that paw-paw witches entertained, and which they were in the habit of admitting to their chambers even when their hus- bands were there. Children that sprung from such agency make, quoth

BODIN, " the best of all witches." King JAMES demurs to the power of the Devil to beget children. The Devil, he argues, has no body of his own, and how can he propagate beings that have ? When he assumes a human shape in order to pay court to a female, the body he wears must be that of some dead man—who, as all the world knows, can beget no- thing ; or of some living man—who, if he have a child by his paramour, must have one in his own likeness. Sometimes indeed, as the King observes, Satan, out of devilish pleasantry, will tumefy a silly woman, and make her believe she is with imp ; and when she is put to bed, will slip into the wise woman's hand " a stock or a stone, or some mon- strous Larne," stolen away from its grieving mother ; but this trick of the Old One has evidently nothing to do with diabolical generation. We conclude therefore with JamEs, that the rule si saga must be dis- charged.

When a witch was to be examined, the greatest circumspection on the part of the Judge was necessary. Her hair was first of all to be shaven, in order to disclose the witch's mark ; for so long as that was undiscovered, she would not speak a word. The mark was ever concealed in some place where a simple man would least think of looking for it ; and therefore the most strict investigation of every part was prescribed. It happened, in a few rare cases, that every attempt at discovery failed. The .1Ifalleus Maleficarum mentions an instance of a witch, whose mark was placed between the skin and the flesh ; and had it not been accidentally discovered at the stake, and cut out, all the coals of Newcastle would not have burnt her. BODIN has a case of a witch that would not hang from a similar cause. The witch was to be brought into court "backward, bending down and de- scribing crosses all the way,"—that is to say, if she were a heretic witch: if she were Catholic, the crosses would be safely dispensed with. The judge was to speak her kindly at first, and persuade her, by every cunning argument, to confess ; but if she would not speak out by fair means, then she was to be compelled to do so by foul. In Scotland, the accustomed instruments of confession were the thumbikins, the bootikins, and the pilnewinks, diversified occasionally with cords drawn tight round the head, plucking out of the nails, and other gentle appli- ances. But of all the methods employed, thrusting sharp instruments under the nails was the most efficacious ; for, as BODIN says, it would make a witch confess any thing. We have stated that any evidence might be examined against a witch. King JAMES (-rives a most satisfactory reason for the practice. "We receive any witness," quoth he, "in charges of treason against an earthly king; a fortiori ought we to receive any witness in charges of treason against the heavenly king." There is no replying to so logi- cal an inference. Proceeding on the sound principle that the witch should coute qui coute be convicted, the court might put her advocate into the box, and examine him also. Much truth was not of course expected from a lawyer, but in such cases the smallest crumb was pre- cious. Only witches could be evidence touching witch assemblies, for none else could be present.. There are but two exceptions in the books : one is that of the worthy man who penned the narrative of the burning of the Windsor witches, of whom honourable mention is made by REGINALD SCOTT. He says that in. God's speed he catne in upon the unhallowed band when in the midst of their orgies ; and not onlysaw, but engaged with the Devil their president, and sorely wounded him with a sword. The gash emitted a strong smell of sulphur. The other is the case of a man who, by practising -the same spell, contrived to follow his wife through the air, and to witness her pranks. He was hanged for not peach ing. We think this was rather hard dealing,--hut the precedent is not likely to be drawn into practice : there are few men who, having an opportunity of hanging their wives, would rather hang themselves than take advantage of it

Witches could cry piteously enough, but they were incapable of shedding tears, except three from the right eye, in which the Fiend in- dulged them. This they well knew, and would often endeavour, by wetting their cheeks, to impose on a simple judge. The trial by tears was a favourite one, and with great reason much relied on. The form of adjuration is a curiosity in its way ; it runs as follows :

" I conjure thee, by the amorous tears which Jesus Christ our Saviour shed upon the cross for the salvation of the world ; and by the most earnest and burning tears of his mother, the most glorious Virgin Mary, sprinkled upon his wounds late in the evening ; and by all the tears which every saint and elect vessel of God hath poured out here in the world, and from whose eyes he bath wiped away all tears ; that, if thou be without fault, thou weep abun- dantly, and if thou be guilty, that thou weep in nowise. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen !' Although, as we have stated, witchcraft was not confined to the days of the Reformation, yet it no doubt received a considerable accession of strength in consequence of the subversion of the old faith. In truth, it was found difficult to beat the Romanists out of their strong hold in the New Testament, where the supremacy of Peter, as they contended, was clearly set forth ; and therefore their opponents had recourse to the Old Testament, which was more in the nature of a debatable ground. From the Old Testament the Protestants drew by far the greater pait of their spiritual as well as political examples, mid the witch of Endor followed in the crowd. The follies to which JAMES added the sanction of royal authority lost nothing of their influence in the reign of his son, •nor during the period of the Commonwealth. In CROMWELL'S time, forty persons suffered as witches and wizards in one year, and in one county. The laws of JAMES and HENRY re- mained =repealed and partially acted upon, till the time of GEORGE II., when the profession of witchcraft was made a misdemeanour. The last case of fair (not legal) murder of a witch in Great Britain, tOok place, we believe, in a town on the coast of Fife, about fourscore years ago. Witches still exist, but British specimens are now extremely 'rare. The writer of this article was a sojourner for sonic time in the Island of Jersey, about five-and-twenty years ago, when witches were as rife in that secluded district as they were in Scotland in the days of good King JAMES. He was specially invited, on one occasion, to -visit a family where one of the most noted hags in the island had been playing her pranks. The sufferer was a fair health'? girl, about ten

_ years of age. The inflictions were not very severe, amounting at the most to a pinch or two. • He inspected the child's • arm, and certainly it was pinched, and as certainly the pinches were declared to have been produced without visible agency ; but this last fact he was not enabled to verify.

, Every thing that is good decays. In a few years the dreams of our fathers will have fleeted away from these their last and lingering hold. The \vilehes of St. Owen are already anointing themselves for their last flight to that limbo of vanity where their sisters of England have now for nearly a century been gathered. The progress of science is indeed slow—so slow, that sanguine and short-sighted men will some- times doubt of its reality. As we stand on the shore and watch the ad- vancing of the tide, wave after wave appears to fall into the same line ; lot gradually, though imperceptibly, the dry is invaded, the small locls disappear, and the large ones are narrowed. It is even so with the advances of truth. In the north, the south, the east, and the west, v,•e still behold numerous barren tracts, far above the level of the still eaters that roll around them. But upward and onward the everlasting flood presses, and will press, until the utmost aspirations of benevo- imce and philosophy are gratified—until, to borrow the language of Scripture, every valley is tilled up, and every mountain is brought low, and the whole earth is filled with the glory of truth as the waters cover the channels of the deep.