78 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
Scotland
Under a
Spell
1590-91
People are executed on charges
of having met with the devil at
North Berwick in a plot to harm
King James VI and his new
bride, Anne of Denmark.1563
Following the Reformation in
Scotland, the Scottish Parliament
criminalizes witchcraft. There
is no immediate surge
of prosecutions.1597
James VI publishes his book
on witchcraft, Daemonologie.
Six years later, in 1603, he will
succeed Queen Elizabeth I as
King James I of England.1628
A spate of witch-burnings in
Germany, linked to religious
tensions unleashed in the
Thirty Years’ War, sparks
Scotland’s third witch panic.1662
The last intensive witchcraft
panic sweeps Scotland. In the
years that follow, the state
becomes increasingly skeptical
about allegations of witchcraft.1704-05
After the authorities refuse to
try would-be witches in the
fishing town of Pittenweem,
villagers murder a suspect
themselves by crushing her.DANGEROUS
WATER S
Tantallon Castle
(above) sits near North
Berwick, Scotland,
where witches
allegedly worked to
sink the ships of King
James VI and his
consort, Queen Anne.D
uring the late 1500s Scotland be-
lieved the devil was at work in the
land. Locals talked about his ability
to raise storms, kill livestock, and
spread deadly illness. Satan sought
to undermine human society from within and
was recruiting secret agents to do his bidding.
Those diabolical actors were witches, and the
authorities believed they had to be eradicated
for the sake of the kingdom.
Scotland was not alone in falling victim to
witchcraft panics in the late 16th century and
first half of the 17th century. Witch-hunting
plagued Europe, beginning in the 15th cen-
tury when the idea that witches worshipped
the devil began to take hold. Burgundy, Italy,
Switzerland, Germany, and Scandinavia all
endured outbreaks of witch panics during this
time. After the Reformation divided Eu-
rope into Protestant and Catholic in the
ANNE OF DENMARK IN A 1614
PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO MARCUS
GHEERAERTS THE YOUNGER.
PALACE OF HOLYROODHOUSE,
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
BRIDGEMAN/ACICLEARVIEW/AGE FOTOSTOCK1736
Nine years after the last
execution in Scotland of a
convicted witch, the British
Parliament repeals the
1562 Witchcraft Act.