page_title: Witch trials in early modern Scotland
section_title: Nature of the trials
hierarchical_section_title: Witch trials in early modern Scotland / Nature of the trials
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraving of needles used to prick suspected witches and so to determine their guilt
context_page_description: Witch trials in early modern Scotland were the judicial proceedings in Scotland between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century concerned with crimes of witchcraft, part of a series of witch trials in Early Modern Europe. In the late middle age there were a handful of prosecutions for harm done through witchcraft, but the passing of the Witchcraft Act 1563 made witchcraft, or consulting with witches, capital crimes. The first major issue of trials under the new act were the North Berwick witch trials, beginning in 1589, in which King James VI played a major part as "victim" and investigator. He became interested in witchcraft and published a defence of witch-hunting in the Daemonologie in 1597, but he appears to have become increasingly sceptical and eventually took steps to limit prosecutions.
  An estimated 4,000 to 6,000 people, mostly from the Scottish Lowlands, were tried for witchcraft in this period, a much higher rate than for neighbouring England. There were major series of trials in 1590–91, 1597, 1628–31, 1649–50 and 1661–62. Seventy-five per cent of the accused were women.
context_section_description: Although Scotland had probably about one quarter of the population of England, it had three times the number of witchcraft prosecutions, at an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 over the entire period. This was about four times the European average. The overwhelming majority were in the Lowlands, where the Kirk had more control, despite the evidence that basic magical beliefs were very widespread in the Highlands. Persecution of witchcraft in Orkney differed from the mainland with most trials taking place before 1650. Large series of trials included those in 1590–91 and the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597, which took place across Scotland from March to October. At least 400 people were put on trial for various forms of diabolism. The number of those executed as a result of these trials is unknown, but is believed to be about 200. Later major trials included hunts in 1628–31 and 1649–50. Probably the most intense witch-hunt was in 1661–62, which involved some 664 named witches in four counties.
  Most of the accused, some 75%, were women, though some men were also executed as witches or as warlocks. Modern estimates indicate that over 1,500 persons were executed. Most of these were older women, with some younger women and men accused because they were related to an accused witch, usually as daughters and husbands. Some men were accused because they were folk healers who were felt to have misused their powers, although folk healers as a group were not targeted. Most were not vagrants or beggars, but settled members of their communities. Most had built a reputation for witchcraft over years, which resulted in prosecution when a "victim" suffered ill fortune, particularly after a curse had been issued. The use of curses by some women as a means of acquiring social power may have made this process more likely to occur.
  Almost all witchcraft prosecutions took place in secular courts under the provisions of the 1563 Act. In 1649 the religiously radical Covenanter regime passed a new witchcraft act that ratified the existing act and extended it to deal with consulters of "Devils and familiar spirits", who would now be punished with death. There were three main types of court in which accused witches could be tried. First was the Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, which took cases from all over Scotland, with a heavy bias to the local region. Next were the circuit courts, presided over by judges from the central courts and held in the various shires of the country. Finally, there were a series of ad hoc local courts, held under commissions by the Privy Council or Parliament and staffed by local landholders and gentlemen to try witches in the places where they were accused. Based on known outcomes, the execution rates for the local courts was much higher than the courts run by professional lawyers, with the local courts executing some 90 per cent of the accused, the Judiciary Court 55 per cent, but the circuit courts only 16 per cent. After the revocation of the standing commissions in 1597, the pursuit of witchcraft was largely taken over by kirk sessions, disciplinary committees run by the parish elite, and was often used to attack "superstitious" and Catholic practices. The central courts only launched a trial when the Privy Council issued a commission, although the council did not have full control over prosecutions in the Court of Judiciary.
  Scottish witchcraft trials were notable for their use of pricking, in which a suspect's skin was pierced with needles, pins and bodkins as it was believed that they would possess a Devil's mark through which they could not feel pain. Professional prickers included John Kincaid and John Dick, whose actions helped set off the outbreak of witch-hunting in  1661–62, and whose exposure as frauds, and subsequent imprisonment, helped end the trials. Judicial torture was used in some high-profile cases, like that of John Fine, one of the witches accused of plotting the death of the king in 1590, whose feet were crushed in a shin press, known as the boots. However, these cases were relatively rare. Confessio
caption: False witch-pricking bodkins from Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584