Witches of Fife
Page 7
Map 5 – Fife, 1560–1710. Cases by parish.
Map 6 – Fife, 1649. Cases by parish.
Between what we can identify as the years of major witch-hunting and the cases of an isolated individual, are the years when we discover cases of two accused, three accused, or more; the types of cases referred to as ‘small panics’.17 Here too, these cases seem to be focused in particular areas, areas which developed a history of witch-hunting. In many cases the area which had a history of witch-hunting was a particular parish. For example, the six accusations of witchcraft in Inverkeithing in 1621 were followed by a much larger hunt within the same parish two years later.18 Inverkeithing witnessed an even larger hunt in 1649. The latter hunt has often been blamed upon a particular ecclesiastical crisis, sparked by the minister Mr. Walter Bruce.19 Yet, such a discussion needs to take place against an awareness of the fact that Inverkeithing was the only parish in Fife to produce on its own as many accusations of witchcraft as it did in 1623.20 The links between hunts are often difficult to determine.
Attempts to establish patterns or organize the witch-hunt are difficult. In Fife, terms such as ‘large panics’ are not particularly helpful. There were few years apart from the national hunts when more than ten individuals were involved. Seen from above and looking at a national scale, such categories may seem reasonable. Seen from below, watching how accusations move from parish to parish, these same categories seem less helpful. The situation was very complex with a mixture of all shapes and sizes of hunts. What does seem apparent is that presbytery boundaries were important. Cases were not spread all over Fife, but tended, as in the major hunts, to be contained within a particular presbytery. There were five years in which small hunts were contained within a particular presbytery. For example, in 1624 the neighbouring parishes of Culross and Torryburn, saw nine cases and a single case respectively (see Map 7). This pattern was repeated in the other four years. The presbytery of Kirkcaldy experienced such small hunts in 1626, 1627, and 1638. In Cupar Presbytery in 1646 Jonet Mitchell and Marie Mitchells of the parish of Kilmany were slandered as witches by Grissel Thomson, who appears to have been from the neighbouring parish of Cupar. Thomson had, by this point, been executed. Fortunately for Jonet Mitchells and Marie Mitchells, the presbytery ruled that, as neither had ever been accused prior to this, it was unfair to debar them from communion, based solely upon the accusation of one witch. They were cleared of the accusation.21
Map 7 – Fife, 1624. Cases by parish.
Map 8 – Fife, 1630. Cases by parish.
While witch-hunting tended to be localized, occurring in a single parish or presbytery, there are exceptions to this even in years when there was not a major hunt underway. At times cases appeared in parishes in two different presbyteries. The year in which the most cases of this sort appeared was at the very end of the witch-hunt in Fife, 1704, when 6 accusations occurred in Torryburn (Dunfermline presbytery) and 7 occurred in Pittenweem (Kirkcaldy presbytery). In 1621 cases were scattered from Crail (1) in St. Andrew’s Presbytery to Kirkcaldy (2) in Kirkcaldy Presbytery to Inverkeithing (6) and Culross (1) in Dunfermline Presbytery. In 1630 (see Map 8) isolated cases in St. Andrews and Torryburn, bracketed a major outbreak in the presbytery of Kirkcaldy, focussed on Dysart (11 cases) and including another case in the neighbouring parish of Wemyss. Similar patterns occurred in 1642, 1645, 1648, and 1656. The importance of the presbytery bounds in terms of witch-hunts is inconclusive when we simply look at the pattern from year to year, yet of all the geographical factors which could be examined–topography, proximity to Edinburgh, inland versus sea–it comes closest to giving a shape to the witch-hunt. We will, therefore, study the witch-hunt as it occurred in each of the four presbyteries. We will consider whether or not it is a useful level at which to study the witch-hunt. Were there features of the presbytery which contributed to witch-hunting? What role did it, and indeed other church courts, play? In order to investigate these and other questions, we turn over the next chapters to a narrative of the witch-hunt, beginning with the presbytery of Cupar.
Notes
1.
Gilmore’s thesis Witchcraft and the Church of Scotland (Glasgow, 1948) explored these themes. The data he used came from records from across Scotland, most of which were available in printed form. Gilmore’s interest was to try to describe how each court level (General Assembly, synod, presbytery, kirk session) dealt with allegations of witchcraft. The result, while at times fascinating, can be rather repetitive. Gilmore’s concern was with the institution’s response to the issue of witchcraft. The current study is more interested in the actual cases themselves, at whichever church court level they were pursued. The geographic boundary of the presbytery is used both in order to focus the discussion and because the results of the research have shown that this was an important geographical unit in the history of the witch-hunt in Fife.
2.
A. Ian Dunlop,’The Polity of the Scottish Church 1600–37,’ Scottish Church History Society Records 1 (1958): 161–84, attempted to determine how the church courts worked by looking closely at one period. Michael F. Graham, The Uses of Reform: ‘Godly Discipline and Popular Behaviour in Scotland and Beyond, 1560–1610 (New York: E.J. Brill, 1996), studies both discipline and how it was implemented in greater depth.
3.
Jane E. A. Dawson, ‘’The Face of Ane Perfect Reformed Kyrk’: St. Andrews and the Early Scottish Reformation,’ in Humanism and Reform: the church in Europe, England and Scotland 1400–1643: essays in honour of James K. Cameron, ed. James Kirk (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 421.
4.
Ibid.,427. Graham, The Uses of Reform, 147. Graham also gives a definition of church discipline and speaks of the role played by the secular authorities on p. 1.
5.
Stephen J. Davies, ‘The Courts and Scottish Legal System 1600–1747: The Case of Stirlingshire,’ in Crime and the Law: the Social History of Crime in Western Europe since 1500, ed. V.A.C. Gattrell, Bruce Lenman and Geoffery Parker (London: Europa, 1980), 120–54.
6.
Davies, ‘Scottish Legal System,’ 131.
7.
Ibid., 149.
8.
Ian D. Whyte, Scotland Before the Industrial Revolution: An Economic & Social History c.1050 – c. 1750 (Harlow: Longmans, 1995), has produced an important survey of the current state of information on Scottish social and economic history in this period. One simple demographic fact we do not have an answer for is whether the national population in the seventeenth century grew or declined, 113.
9.
Cases 2214, 2215. The editorial decision was made in working on the SWHDB to place two of these women in Fife and two in Galloway. Original source, Alexander Peterkins, ed. The Booke of the Universal Kirk of Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Publishing company, 1839), 44.
10.
Case 13. Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland Vol. 1, (Edinburgh: Bannatyne, 1833), 162–165. Where precisely ‘Byrehill’ was is unclear. Hugo Arnot, A Collection and Abridgement of Celebrated Criminal Trials in Scotland (Edinburgh: G.W. Smellie, 1785; Reprint, Edinburgh, 1885), 390.
11.
Case 139.
12.
Case 3081. Acts of the Parliament of Scotland. vol 6, part 2, 463.
13.
Data for graph and text derived from the SWHDB.
14.
Larner, Enemies of God, calls attention to Pittenweem as an area where intense study could be done, 82. Brown, in Discovering Fife, 60, argues it was the worst place for witch-hunting in Scotland. Pittenweem’s reputation can be explained by the lateness of some prominent cases and the pamphlet war that ensued: A Just Reproof to the False Reports and Unjust Calumnies in the Foregoing Letters, A True and Full Relation of the Witches at Pittenweem to which is added . . . and An Answer of
a Letter from a Gentleman in Fife to a Nobleman, CONTAINING A Brief Account of the Barbarous and illegal Treatment, these poor Women accused of Witchcraft, met with from the Bailies of Pittenweem and others, with some Observations thereon; to which is added, An Account of the horrid and Barbarous Murder, in a Letter from a Gentleman in Fife, to his Friend in Edinburgh, February 5th, 1705, all date from 1704/5 and are collected in D. Webster, A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft (Edinburgh, 1820). The folk song, ‘Burn the witch of Pittenweem’, may have further added to the notoriety of the parish.
15.
SWHDB.
16.
Euphame Lochoir (3134), Mark Smith, A Study and Annotated edition of the Register of the Minutes of the Presbytery of St. Andrew’s, volume 1 (Ph. D. diss., University of St. Andrews, 1985), 51; William Hutchen (3134), The Presbyterie Booke of Kirkcaldie (PBK), 92. Hutchen’s case will be discussed further; Elspeth Kirkland (2936) William Ross, Aberdour and Inchcolme: Being Historical Notices of the Parish and Monastery in twelve lectures (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1885), 332.
17.
Again, on these categories, see the discussion in the notes to chapter 2.
18.
Larner, Enemies of God, 61–62.
19.
William Stephen, History of Inverkeithing and Rosyth (Aberdeen: G&W Fraser, 1921), 440–41. Richard A. Bensen, South-West Fife and the Scottish Revolution: The Presbytery of Dunfermline, 1633–52 (M. Litt diss., University of Edinburgh, 1978), 175–79, 185–86. Both are correct in attributing to Bruce a major role in this hunt. This case will be discussed in greater detail later. Larner notes one possible link between the Inverkeithing hunts, Enemies of God, 61.
20.
The SBSW lists 22 cases in Inverkeithing in this period, however there is significant duplication. Many of the accused fled and are listed both when warrants are listed for their arrest as fugitives and upon their apprehension. Fifteen individuals can be identified. This was still more than in any other single parish in Fife in a given year outside of a wide-spread panic year. Cases 965–86. The primary source for this information are the commissions contained in the Registers of the Privy Council (RPC), v. 13, 181, 192–193, and 230.
21.
G.R. Kinloch, ed., Selections from the Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, 1641–98 (Edinburgh: 1837), 104. Hereafter, STACUPR. See also Gilmore, Witchcraft and the Church of Scotland, 127–28.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Witch-Hunt in the Presbytery of Cupar
Cupar Presbytery, made up of parishes along the Tay coast and the north central area of Fife, was never an area of intense witch-hunting yet those cases we have from this presbytery remain among the most puzzling and fascinating. The presbytery was established in 1591 and in this period contained nineteen parishes. One of these parishes, Newburgh, was not erected as a separate parish until 1632.1 The area is fairly hilly, having the Lomond hills near Falkland and many steep slopes near the Tay coast. Cupar was the central burgh and apart from Falkland, which featured a royal hunting palace, the only village or town of significance.
Early witchcraft accusations in the presbytery of Cupar: 1590–1655
The first case of suspected witchcraft in the presbytery of Cupar appeared in March of 1590, prior to the outbreak of the royal witch-hunt of that year. The only record of the incident survives in the records of the presbytery of St. Andrews where it is noted on March 16 that ‘Androw Melvin, James Melvin and Thomas Buchanan’ were to visit the parish church of ‘Ebdie’ to examine Nans Murit, a suspect for witchcraft.2 No further reference is made to the case. The area of Newburgh witnessed its first case in 1610 when the widow Grissell Gairdner was accused of various acts of laying illness on people and animals. The minister in the case stated that Grissell had been suspected as ‘ane wicket woman and ane sorcerer’ for fourteen years. Indeed it seems she had been arrested in the 1596–97 period and only escaped being executed, as others apparently were, because of the intervention of her husband. It is unclear what led to the accusations against her at this particular time, but they included consulting with the Devil and one charge of murder by witchcraft. Grissell was executed. She was sixty years old.3
The next known information in this presbytery comes from church courts. The minutes of the Synod of Fife recommended in 1645 that members of the presbytery of Cupar ‘intimate in their several kirks, that
Map 9 – The parishes in Cupar Presbytery.
The presbytery of Cupar
Parish
code
Abdie
1
Auchtermuchty
2
Balmerino
3
Ceres
4
Collessie
5
Creich
6
Cults
7
Cupar
8
Dairsie
9
Dunbog
10
Falkland
11
Flisk
12
Kingskettle
13
Kilmany
14
Logie
15
Monimail
16
Moonsie
17
Newburgh
18
Strathmiglo
19
Bessie Cuper and Jeane Buchane, fugitives from the discipline of the Kirk, suspect for witchcraft within the parish of Creice, that thei may be found out if thei be in the province’.4 Such information given before the Synod served notice to the other presbyteries as well, both in regards to these particular women and to the fact that suspected witches had been discovered within the bounds of the Synod. Both women were unsuccessful in their flight, though their eventual fates are not recorded. What is recorded is that in February 18, 1647, David Barclay, a portioner of Luthrie, appeared before the presbytery of Cupar saying he has brought Bessie Cupar ‘and hir daughter,’ both of whom were suspected as witches, out of Lothian. After asking what he should do with the fugitives, Barclay was informed that he should present them before the session of Creich the next Sunday.5 It is worth noting how effective church courts were in circulating information about suspected witches.
Later that same month, February 1647, the presbytery appointed three individuals, including Walter Greig the minister of Balmerino, to speak with Bessie Cupar and try to bring her to a confession in regard to witchcraft. Their attempt to bring her to a confession having failed, the presbytery moved to have three members of the court approach the magistrates of Cupar for ‘ane ward howse quherins she might be keipt till farder tryelle’.6 Matters were delayed, then referred to the synod of Fife, as also were the cases of ‘sindrie others lying under the sclander of witchecraft and not yet cleared’, and the resolution of this case remains unclear. The last reference has the presbytery writing to Lord Annandale regarding this matter, and a case of incest.7 (This sort of uncertain resolution to a case will become only too frequent in our discussion of Fife.) There is no indication the presbytery ever succeeded in having Bessie Cupar incarcerated.
Jean Buchane’s name appears in the records under quite different circumstances. John Spindie, a merchant of Dalkeith wrote to the presbytery in July 1647 to state that he had married Jean Buchane, but under the name of Jean Patersone. He asked that she might be cleared of any suspicion of witchcraft, ‘that he might have hir for his wife’. The presbytery asked that a certificate of marriage from the minister of Dalkeith be produced, after which they would give an answer.8 Little can be made of this fragmentary excerpt. Still it seems reasonable to assume that even though Bessie Cupar and Jean Buchane were eventually apprehended, neither was executed.
While the presbytery could be zealous in hunting witches, it could also serve as a place where those ac
cused as witches might seek to clear their name. In 1646 two women from the parish of Kilmany, Marie Mitchells and Janet Mitchells, appealed to have the accusations made by Grissel Thomson tried before the presbytery.9 Little is known of the accuser, other than the fact that she had already been executed as a witch. It is not known in which parish in the presbytery of Cupar she was executed, nor when.10 This lack of information proved a problem for the presbytery itself. After Marie and Janet Mitchells’ request that their names be cleared, the presbytery noted that nothing could be found ‘in the clerk’s books in the process concerning Grissel Thompsone or Janet and Marie Mitchell’; still, they knew that Grissel had ‘spake something’ and asked George Thomsone, who was going to the ‘Commission of the Kirke’ and was to investigate further to see what should be done.11 This seems to have been a very important issue at the time. A minute of the Synod of Fife from October 6, 1646 notes that the matter of what to do with someone who has been accused by a confessing witch with no other suspicions was still being considered by the General Assembly.12 On December 31st, George Thomsone reported that he had made enquiries and the opinion was