Witches of Fife
Page 26
69.
Cook, Annals of Pittenweem, 109.
70.
Pittenweem KS CH28333 May 29, 1704.
71.
June 14, 1704 meeting of St. Andrews Presbytery, St. Andrews Presbytery Records, volume 4, St. Andrews University Library Muniments. There is a particular moor around Pittenweem to which Beatrix Laing kept referring which is rendered here as ‘Coves’.
72.
Recorded in Cook, Annals, 109–116, including lengthy notes and comments.
73.
Cook makes no reference to it in amongst all of the other documents he mentions. The SBSW lists the source of information on these cases as the tracts collected and published by Webster. One assumes the compilers of the SBSW were not able to locate the trial records within the central records.
74.
An Answer, 3. Cook, Annals, 116–118. Cook records that five of the women had been released on bail in early August. He also includes the text of the warrant setting one of the accused, Isobell Adam, at liberty for lack of evidence. Seeing that Isobell had already confessed (she was also the only one to admit to having had carnal relation with the Devil) and had been implicated in the supposed murder of a fisherman, these traditionally serious charges were not being taken at face value by the judiciary.
75.
Just Reproof; An Answer; Cook, Annals of Pittenweem, 122. Cook argues that the report in An Answer is too sensational. He agrees with Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions vol. 2 (London: Office of the National Illustrated Library, 1852 edition.), 156, that the mob was trying to swim her. If so, this would be one of the rare examples of this happening. The pressing is also unique. One can’t help but wonder if this idea was carried to Pittenweem by accounts of what had occurred in Salem, where pressing was used against a suspect who would not confess.
76.
Cook, Annals, 119–124. Two of those who fled were supposedly English. Cook leaves the names of those implicated who were from the village blank.
77.
Minute from the town council, May 11, 1705. Quoted in Cook, Annals, 127.
78.
Pittenweem KS CH28333. June 4, 1705.
79.
Quoted in Cook, Annals, 128–129.
80.
Keith Brown, ‘The Laird, his Daughter, her Husband and the Minister: Unravelling a Popular Ballad’ in People and Power: essays in honour of T. C. Smout, ed. Roger Mason and Norman Macdougall (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1992), 112.
81.
Brown, ‘The Laird’, 114.
CHAPTER TEN
Creating a Godly Society: The Witch-Hunters of Fife
While those accused of witchcraft tended toward a certain stereotype, the decision to pursue and prosecute them was at all times in the hands of the elite. The elite was comprised of all those with political, economic or religious power in society such as the clergy, the burgesses, the local lairds, and the nobility. As Christina Larner has suggested it was the elite who controlled both the supply and demand for witches,1 a reality we have witnessed in the telling of the story of the witch-hunt in the various presbyteries. But which group among the elite, the lairds or the clergy? What purpose, if any, did the witch-hunt serve for this group? What was the interaction between the populace at large and those controlling the mechanisms of power, between popular ideas and elite notions? And, what caused the witch-hunting in Fife to cease?
The question of which group among the elite was most interested in witch-hunting has received two distinct answers: the clergy or the lairds. Seeing the clergy as avid witch-hunters was fairly common among works published in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.2 For example, the editors of the Records of the Privy Council noted that it was the clergy, ‘whether individually in their parishes or collectively in their presbyteries, that were zealous for the detection and prosecution’ of the crime of witchcraft.3 Specific ministers, such as Alan Logan of Torryburn and Walter Bruce of Inverkeithing, were also seen as major witch-hunters.4 Gilmore in his thesis on the church and witchcraft saw the clergy playing a key role and as slower to abandon their belief in the reality of witchcraft than were others within Scotland.5 While some local studies have continued to see the clergy as central,6 the role played by the lesser nobility in the witch-hunt has come to be seen as more significant. Isabel Adam argued that the main witch-hunter in the Paisley cases was the laird of Bargarran.7 Christina Larner suggested that it was the lesser nobility who were active in witch-hunting, a fact which Brian Levack stressed in his discussion of the great witch-hunt of 1661–62.8
In some ways the question is artificial. Clergy on their own certainly could not have produced the kinds of witch-hunting which Scotland witnessed. Brian Levack’s statement that as ‘long as witch-craft remained a statutory crime triable in the secular courts, it was difficult for the clergy to take a leading role in its prosecution’ is certainly true.9 Larner noted that it was the ‘landowners rather than the ministers who requested most of the commissions, and they who conducted most of the trials from which the clergy were normally excluded except as witnesses’.10 When it came to the point when commissions were needed to move the process to an assize or trial, the support of the local authorities, be it magistrates, nobility or burgesses, was crucial. In this sense the church could rarely act independently, a fact which was made evident when the local or judicial authorities would not cooperate. The church needed lay support. Commissions were given to the lairds and burgesses. But, that should not lead us to conclude that the role of the church was insignificant, or that the clergy did not take a leading role. We need to consider where most of the interest originated. Who gathered most of the evidence which was needed before a commission to take a witch to trial would even be granted?
The answer, as we have seen, is sometimes less than clear. Where cases originated and who heard the first accusation is in many situations an unanswerable question. Still, the prominent role of the church as the place where we have at least our first information recorded about charmers, consulters and suspected witches is apparent. Katherine Key was charged in 1653 in Newburgh before the session, and the case remained before the session for over two years.11 When John Chalmers, minister of Auchterderran, approached the presbytery of Kirkcaldy in 1632 with his concern about a vagrant woman who seemed to be practising witchcraft, the response demonstrated remarkable confidence: expel her from the parish or have her put to trial. The presbytery did not speak of having to consult with the local nobility or officials, but assumed that Chalmers could and should deal with the situation. That confidence was not misplaced. While in 1616 the session of Kirkcaldy had stated that those accused of charming, consulting with witches or witchcraft itself should be punished by the civil magistrate, this did not mean that the original accusations like those against Isobel Hevrie in 1619, Alison Dick in 1621, or Janet Pirie, Janet Stark and Helen Birrell in 1626 were not heard before the session.12 These cases were investigated by session, and in the case of Alison Dick continued to be pursued in that court. The use of the church steeple in Kirkcaldy as a prison for suspected witches is interesting: Kirkcaldy had a tolbooth which could also (and at times did) serve this purpose.13 The presbytery of Dunfermline not only tried William Chrictoun in 1648 but had him executed.14 The number of cases which had their origins before the church courts is noteworthy. The session and the presbytery played a key role in the initial investigations, investigations which might end with more minor punishments such as repentance within the church or might move on to a full trial which required a confession.
Commissions are an imperfect way of assessing who was behind a witch-hunt. While the names of local officials and lairds were prominent, so was the notation that the individuals suspected had already confessed. To have ‘confessed’ would have meant that someone had already started the process, indeed had already conducted a preliminary hearing
or investigation, and even had the suspect incarcerated and examined. The commissions issued for suspects in Cupar Presbytery in 1662, for those in Kirkcaldy Presbytery in 1621, and for those in Inverkeithing in 1623 all noted that the suspects had confessed. The question remains, who began the process? There are a few occasions when a commission stated that the person named had not confessed. These commissions tend to come later in the seventeenth century in the period after the great witch-hunt at the time of the restoration. The change can be noted within St. Andrews presbytery. While commissions were issued to St. Andrews presbytery in 1662 to put two confessed witches, Elizabeth Clow and Jonnet Annand, to a trial two years later the commission granted in the case of Margaret Guthrie clearly stated she had not yet confessed.15 The commission issued against Issobell Key in 1666 also noted she had not confessed, as did the commission issued for seven witches in Torryburn (Dunfermline presbytery) that same year.16 Still, even these women who had not yet confessed were being detained in the local jails. Some group or body must have met and decided to incarcerate these women. As important a source of information as commissions are, they cannot be used to identify who had initiated the witch-hunt. Instead, they give us a snap shot at the mid-point of the process.
The fact that commissions are an imperfect source for determining who initiated a witch-hunt can be seen from the one case for which we have a virtually complete record, that of Alison Dick and William Coke in 1633. There is nothing in the commission which would signal to us that suspicions had been expressed twelve years previously before a church court. There is nothing in the commission which makes it clear that it was the session of Kirkcaldy which heard the complaint, ordered Alison Dick to be warded, gathered evidence, and eventually obtained a confession. The commission names Coke and Dick as confessing witches and orders them put to an assize with various prominent individuals given the responsibility of seeing that justice was administered. The one fact which might indicate church involvement was the fact that this process had been seen and approved by the Archbishop of St. Andrews.17
The evidence from Fife would tend to argue against Christina Larner and Brian Levack’s identification of the lesser nobility as the driving force within the elite when it came to hunting witches. This is not to say that there were not times when local members of the nobility or the magistrates were dominant. James VI’s role during the hunt in the Lothians in 1590 is clear. Similarly, Brian Levack has demonstrated that the role played by some of the nobility in Haddington during the hunt which followed the restoration was vital. The elite controlled witch-hunting, but at different times different factions could drive that process. For Fife, we can divide the cases we know into three general categories. In the first, we simply are not sure which group among the elite took the lead. This was true of the hunt in Cupar Presbytery in 1661 and 1662. Given the prominence of some of the lairds, in particular Sir John Aitoun, this might have been a royalist reaction, a demonstration of power and support for the monarchy. It might be true that on this occasion ‘the royalist professions of hatred for revolution and rebellion created a public mood, at least in some communities, conducive to witch hunting’.18 Unfortunately, our sources of information about this hunt are sparse. The session records of Newburgh and Falkland make no reference to these events, yet this hunt which spanned the presbytery could have been coordinated by the presbytery whose minutes, unfortunately, have been lost. This is one instance where we have no idea which group among the elite drove the hunt and the evidence we have could be used to argue either group were the initiators.19 Similarly, it is unclear in St. Andrews Presbytery in 1643 who began the hunt. What is evident, is that the presbytery soon became heavily involved.20
The second category are those situations in which burgh officials or the laity took initiative. The bailies of Burntisland were accused by Jonnet Finlason of harassing her and continually putting her to trial, despite the lack of evidence.21 It is from the burgh records of Kirkcaldy from the same period that we learn of the massive hunt there.22 Other complaints from individuals of rough treatment while being held as suspected witches, also mention the bailies. Mary Cunningham complained in 1644 of her harsh treatment at the hands of the bailies of Culross. Still, that complaint needs to be heard in the context of the major ongoing witch-hunt, in which the session of Culross and presbytery of Dunfermline were active.23 Both the ministers and bailies of Dysart were identified by Katherine Chrystie as responsible for her being warded in the tolbooth.24 Finally, there is the unusual incident in 1598 when the laird of Lathocker brutally tortured Geillis Gray. Notably, this occurred in the midst of an ongoing concern for witches by the church, including the presbytery of St. Andrews’ attempts to gain more evidence against her. Indeed, Geillis had been in the custody of Andrew Duncan, the minister of Crail when the laird of Lathocker took her into his own custody.25 What is noticeable is not how many cases there were in which the laity took a leading role, but how few.
Most cases in Fife fall into the third category, where it was the church courts which initiated actions against various individuals. It was church courts in Kirkcaldy, in Pittenweem, in Inverkeithing, in Dysart and many other communities that began the process of investigating charming, consulting and witchcraft itself. It was church courts that continued to pursue Alison Dick, Katherine Chrystie, Katherine Key and others. And it was to church courts that individuals generally turned in order to have their names cleared when community rumour slandered them as witches. The power of church courts in this process can be seen from the fact that some people did not want to appear before a church court at all. In Culross three women who had been banned from taking communion because they were suspected as witches petitioned to have their names cleared by an assize or secular trial, not the session.26 Apparently these women considered it wiser to appear before a secular court. Robert Brown in 1649 continually tried to have his wife warded in the burgh prison house, not the church steeple of Inverkeithing, arrangements which the presbytery vehemently opposed.27 Church courts were the main place where accusations of witchcraft were initiated and they played a vital role in maintaining those initiatives, long after interest had waned. It was the minister of Crail and the presbytery of St. Andrews which attempted in 1675 to obtain a commission against Geilles Robertson, despite the fact that there were no magistrates in the burgh and the seeming lack of interest among other members of the laity.28
The prominent role of church courts in the processing of suspected witches in Fife is clear. Yet this role which church courts played was not given a prominent place in Enemies of God, particularly on the chart, ‘Processing a Witch’. In that chart the session was seen as having a minor role as one of several bodies involved in the initial stages in collecting evidence, after which other bodies were responsible for arrest, examination (including sleep deprivation, pricking or torture which might take place), and the investigation which took place before a commission was sought. The evidence we have seen from Fife stresses that all of these activities occurred within the session or presbytery; indeed the church courts were often the driving force in having the suspect incarcerated, demanded to be present when the suspect was examined, collected evidence, tried to obtain confessions by having the individual warded and watched, and even pushed, when others were unenthusiastic, to obtain commissions. In other parts of Scotland other bodies may have played similar roles, but in Fife the church courts were at the centre of the witch-hunt.
Given this concern on the part of church courts and the clergy for witch-hunting, was one particular theological faction within the clergy more likely to be involved in witch-hunting than others? The difficulties in even beginning to investigate such a question are real. Given how little we know about many of them, how would we differentiate the theology of the various clergy? What meaningful categories would we use? One of the most obvious would be whether or not a particular minister accepted the restoration of episcopacy and bishops after the restoration of the monarch
y. In one sense, this might separate the more radical ‘presbyterians’ who refused to adapt to any other system from those who were more moderate and willing to compromise. Yet, this approach seems wrongheaded. For one thing it fails to recognise the complexity of theological factions, how those who could disagree bitterly on some issues could find common ground on others. David Mullan has noted that while there were divisions among clergy which centred around ‘politics and ceremonies’, there was also much common ground on other issues.29 None of the theological factions argued over the need for church discipline, therefore it seems unlikely that they would be divided on the need to eradicate superstition or witchcraft. William Ross, exploring this question over a century ago, commented that the differences could not be used to explain who was and who was not involved in witch-hunting. He noted that Robert Bruce of Aberdour was involved in hunting witches, both ‘when he was a Presbyterian, but also at a later period when he conformed to Episcopacy’.30 Walter Bruce of Inverkeithing did accept bishops. Andrew Donaldson, minister at Dalgety, did not conform yet during his tenure as minister of the parish witch-hunting had taken place in 1649.31 Obviously, such simplistic categories do not work. Rather than personalities, witch-hunting had its roots in common beliefs among the elites, and a common systemic desire. That desire was for order and for the creation of a godly kingdom. The church courts were the means to that end.
In the pursuit of this godly society, the nobility and others among the elites cooperated. Keith Brown has argued that in the early seventeenth century the elites gradually came to publicly support the church’s official views on sexual morality.32 (The only qualification which should be added is that they supported these views when they were not the ones being hauled in front of church courts for these ‘moral offences’, a state of affairs which held true for most of the seventeenth century.) Indeed, church courts overlapped with other judicial bodies. Magistrates often sat on the session, easily allowing the church court to begin to tap into the power of the civil magistrate.33 In our exploration of the witch-hunt in Fife, the overlap is obvious, for ministers and bailies were able to work closely together. The local lairds served on the commissions. Even late in our period in Pittenweem in 1704, the bailies and session stood together both in their attempts to have the suspected witches taken to trial and in the aftermath of the lynching. The difficulty here was that it was another crucial player among the elite, in this case the judiciary, which broke ranks. We shall return later to the subject of how disunity among the elite affected the outcome of witch-hunting, both throughout and at the close of the seventeenth century.