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mong the lower orders in Scotland generally, whatever may be their religious persuasion.

In many of our parishes, traditionary tales of witches, and specific instances of their preternatural power, are still current, only a few of which have passed through the press. Of the works on this curious subject, "Satan's Invisible World discovered,' by "Master George Sinclar, late Professor of Philosophie at the Colledge of Glasgow," seems to have been received with peculiar favour, the Lords of Council having, by an order, dated at Edinburgh, 26th February 1685, prohibited and discharged all persons "from printing, reprinting, or importing into this kingdome, any copie or copies of the said book, dureing the space of eleven yearis after the date heirof, without license of the author, or his order." The last edition of it which we have seen was printed in 1814; and the editor, without the slightest intimation of any doubts as to the truth of the marvellous narratives it contains, has enriched his work with " some additional relations which have happened in the shire of Renfrew, towns of Pittenweem, Calder, and other places." The Renfrewshire witches, indeed, have been thought to merit the honour of a separate "History," which was published in 1809 by "the Editor of the Paisley Repository." We are sorry that we cannot do as much justice to the old ladies of Pittenweem, who, notwithstanding the very laudable exertions of their minister and magistrates, had the singular good fortune to escape the flames, through the obstinacy of the Privy Council, who could not be prevailed on to bring them to trial. What could be done, however, by these active enemies of the Evil One was not spared. The witches were imprisoned and tortured, and confessed in the usual manner. One of them starved in prison, and the rabble enjoyed "three hours' sport" in murdering another, by the permissive power of the legal guardians of their lives and properties on earth, and of their saintly guide to heaven.

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The better educated classes of Scotland seem by this time to have become rather sceptical about the existence of witches. In the records of the burgh of Pittenweem, we find a minute of a meeting, dated 1st

About the month of March 1704, there lived in the town of Pittenweem a noted witch, Beatrix Layng by name, who came to one Patrick Mortoun, a blacksmith, with an order for some nails, which this person, being otherwise employed at the time, refused to execute. The witch went

June 1704, at which "the minister and
some of the elders were present," where
a bailie and another member of the
town council were "elected and nominat
to goe from this burgh to Edinburgh to
morrow, and deal with Sir Thomas Mon-
crief of that ilk, as justiciar within the re-
gality of St Andrews, to grant comissione
to some gentlemen and burgesses in this
part of the country, for sitting as justices
in this burgh, for takeing trial of these
persones incarcerat in the tolbooth, as sus-
pect guilty of witchcraft; and if Sir Thomas
refuse to make applicatione to the councill,
to take such other methods as they shall
think fitting for that effect." It was also
resolved at the same time to apply" for
advice to the presbyterie." Sir Thomas, it
would appear, had not given these officious
gentlemen much encouragement; for, on
the 12th July thereafter, there is another
entry in the records, nominating two new
commissioners to consult and advyse
with the members of the commission
of the General Assembly of the Kirk now
sitting at Edinburgh, and crave their con-
currence; and also to take the advyse and
concurrence of her Majestie's Advocate, and
of St Rob'. Forbes, one of the clerks of her
Majestie's Privy Council, and principal a-
gent for the royal burrows, what method
and course may be taken in addressing the
Privy Councill, for getting these persones
put to trial and condign punishment, with
all convenient dilligence.' On the 20th
July, these last commissioners report that
the Privy Council had ordained the sus-
pected witches to be transported to Edin-
burgh and judged there, requiring at the
same time information of the names and
confessions of the accused, and the witnes-
ses' names who were to be cited. It is pos-
sible enough, that a trial on the spot be-
fore some 66
gentlemen and burgesses in
this part of the country," would have been
more acceptable to these enlightened guar-
dians of the burgh, as they had at first
wished; for, either for want of evidence, or
on some other account, the witches were
not transported to Edinburgh, nor ever
brought to trial. On the 12th August, all
of them, five in number, were liberated on
bail, apparently in consequence of the in-
terference of the "Erle of Bellcarres and
Lord Anstruther," commissioners of the
Privy Council, with whom the bail bonds
were lodged.

away muttering threats of course, and soon after was detected by the blacksmith in the use of a charm, of which even the literal description is not without its difficulties. "Patrick Mortoun, with another person in company, carrying some fish by the said Beatrix Layng's door, they saw a vessel with water placed at the door, with a burning coal in it, upon which he was presently stricken with an impression that it was a charm designed against him; and upon this, a little after, he sickened." This is the account of the party who had taken so active a concern against the witches, and is given from a pamphlet published in their defence, after their proceedings had drawn upon them the notice of the Privy Council. Convincing, however, as this charm must have been to the magistrates and minister of Pittenweem, as well as to the blacksmith himself, of the diablerie of Layng, other proofs were not wanting. The physicians could not understand Mortoun's distemper: At length he was seized with fits; and in due time delated (accused) Layng and a number of other persons as his tormentors, who were forthwith thrown into prison, and subjected to the usual preparatory process of pricking or brodding, to prevent them from sleeping, and to extort from them a confession of guilt.

"It was upon his (Morton's) accusation allenarly the minister and baillies imprisoned these poor women, and set a guard of drunken fellows about them, who, by pinching and pricking some of them with pins and elsions, (awls,) kept them from sleep for several days and nights together; the marks whereof were seen by severals a month thereafter. This cruel usage made some of them learn to be so wise, as acknowledge every question that was asked them; whereby they found the minister and baillies well pleased, and themselves better treated." t

Nothing on this subject of witchcraft has ever appeared more extraordinary than the confessions of the accused themselves. But this wonder must cease, when we know the

A Just Reproof to the False Reports, &c. printed in 1705.

An Answer of a Letter from a gentleman in Fife to a nobleman, printed 1705.

means by which they were extorted. "Thrusting of pins into the flesh, and keeping the accused from sleep, were the ordinary treatment of a witch. But if the prisoner was endued with uncommon fortitude, other methods were used to extort confession. The boots, the capsie-claws, and the pilniewinks, engines for torturing the legs, the arms, and the fingers, were applied to either sex; and that with such violence, that sometimes the blood would have spouted from the limbs. Loading with heavy irons, and whipping with cords, till the skin and flesh were torn from the bones, have also been the adopted methods of torment."

Of the treatment which the wretched Layng experienced, in consequence of the ridiculous charge we have mentioned, we have some account in a petition which she presented to the Privy Council about a year afterwards, praying for protection against the rabble, who had murdered another woman a few months before, and which detestable outrage does not seem to have had its proper effect upon the darkened intellects of the rulers of that ancient burgh. †

Arnot's Criminal Trials, p. 413. +"Act and Protection to Bettie Laing.

"Att the Palace of Holyrudehouse, "May 1, 1705.

"Anent the supplication given in and presented to his Grace her Maties High Commissioner, and the Lords of her Maties Privy Council, by Bettie Laing, spous to of the town of Pittenweem; humbly shewWilliam Brown, tayleor, and late theasurer ing, that the petitioner having met with most cruell and unchristian treatment in the town of Pittenweem, upon no other ground then bare affection of ane Peter Mortoun, a young man in the said town, who being under a natural disease wch had some strange effects upon his body, pretended that the petitioner, and other persons he named, wer witches, and tormented him: Upon this very insufficient ground the petitioner was thrown into the tolbooth of Pittenweem, by the minister and manot confess that she was a witch, and in gistrates thereof; and because she would compact with the divell, was tortured by keeping her awake without sleep for fyve days and nights together, and by continual precking her with instruments in the shoulders, back, and thighs, that the blood gushed out in great abundance, so that her lyfe was a burden to her;

Janet Corphat, or Cornfoot, who was afterwards murdered by the rab

and they urging her continuallie to confess, the petitioner expressed severall things, as they directed her, to be ride of the present torture; and because she afterwards avowed and publictly told, that what she had said to them of her having seen the divell, &c. was lyes and untruths, they put her in the stocks for severall dayes, and then carried her to the thief's holl, and from that they transported her to a dark dungeon, where she was allowed no maner of licht, nor human converse, and in this condition she laye for fyve moneths together; and at last haveing found means to get out of the said dungeon, she wandered about in strange places in the extremity of hunger and cold, tho' she thanked God she had a competency at home, but dared not come near her own house, because of the fury and rage of the people: And the petitioner being willing to undergoe any legall tryall upon the said cryme whereof she was accused, and for denying of which she had been so inhumanly treated: She confidently presumed his their Lops. would grant her the common benefit of protection to her person till she wer legally convict of crymes rendering her indeserving of it: And this she was necessitat to demand of your Lops. for that she having lately returned to her own house at Pittenweem, expecting to have lived safely and quietly with her husband, the rabble

Grace and

there so menaced and threatened to treat her as they had done Janet Cornfoot a little before, &c. &c. His Grace her Maties High Commissioner, &c. &c. declares the petitioner to be under the protection of the Government; and therefore his Grace and the said Lords appoints and ordains the magistrates of Pittenweem to maintain and defend the petitioner against any tunults and mobbs, insult, and violence that may fall upon or be attempted against her, as they will be answerable," &c. &c. &c.

The magistrates, however, were more careful of their own individual interest than the peace of their burgh, or the lives of their fellow citizens, and seem to have held their clergyman in higher veneration than the Commissioners of the Privy Council. In the burgh records there is the following

minute on this occasion :

"Act anent the Committie of the Privie Counsell, ther tryal of the process anent the Witches.

"Undecimo Maij 1705. "The which day the ballies and counsell, viz. William Borthwick, &c. (thirteen present) being conveened, the said ballie represented to the counsell, that one the nynth day of Maij instant, the Erle of

ble, was also one of those unhappy persons delated by this Mortoun. There was another crime, however, imputed to this woman of a not less. Beatrix extraordinary description. Layng, who seems to have been Satan's chief minister in those parts, happened to quarrel with one Alexander Macgregor, a fisherman-about what we are not told-and forthwith the Devil in person, with this Janet Cornfoot, and "several others in company," set upon poor Macgregor in his bed, with the felonious intent of murdering him in his sleep. Macgregor, however, awaking in good time, and wrestling manfully, his infernal majesty was glad to beat a retreat with his baffled troops. The truth of the thing could not possibly be called in question, for it was confessed by two of the hags who had assisted on the occasion;* and at last, it would appear, by Cornfoot herself also. This poor woman, of course, retracted her confession to some gentlemen whom curiosity had induced to visit her in prison, but begged them "for Christ's sake not to tell that she had done so, else she would be murdered." +

She was murdered nevertheless; and with circumstances of such almost incredible barbarity, that we shall give the account in the words of the writer

Bellcarres and Lord Anstruther, two of her Maties most honoble Privie Counsell, being commissionat to meet here this day for takeing further triall of the murther of Janet Cornfoot, who confest herself guiltie of witchcraft, and anent the way of the townes procedure agst Beatrix Laying, and others, accused for that cryme, the saids Lords requyred that the baillies and whole toune counsell should engage in a bond to protect the said Beatrix Laying agt any rabble should assault her. Which they unanimously refused to doe, in respect she may be murthered in the night without their knowledge, and the penalty of the bond being fyve hundreth merks, they lie also informed the counsell, that these would be obliged to pay it. The said bal

Lords of the Committee of Counsell were to meet here on Saturday nixt, and it was concluded, that the ballie and some of the toune counsell should attend them."

A Just Reproof to the False Reports, &c. p. 7.

+ Account of an horrid and barbarous murder, in a Letter from a gentleman in Fife to a friend in Edinburgh, Feb. 5, 1705.

to whom we have just referred. The woman had escaped from prison, as it would appear, by the connivance of the minister, who, after the attention that began to be paid to her case by persons of rank and influence, seems to have lost all hope of bringing her to the stake, and was, probably, glad to get rid of her. She was apprehended, however, and sent back to Pittenweem by another active clergyinan in the neighbourhood, in the custody of two men, who carried her as a matter of course to the minister, in whose person the offices of priest and king appear to have been harmoniously combined throughout all these proceedings. But the clergyman had nothing to say to her; he was not concerned, he told the rabble; and they might do what they pleased with her.

"They took encouragement from this," says the Fife gentleman, "to fall upon the poor woman, those of the minister's family going along with them, as I hear; they fell upon the poor creature immediately, and beat her unmercifully, tying her so hard with a rope, that she was almost strangled; they dragged her through the streets, and alongst the shore by the heels. A bailie hearing of a rabble near his stair, came out upon them, which made them immediately disappear. But the magistrates, though met together, not taking care to put her into closs custody, for her safety, the rabble gathered again immediate ly, and stretched a rope betwixt a ship and the shoar, to a great height, to which they tied her fast; after which they swinged her to and fro, from one side to another, in the meantime throwing stones at her from all corners, until they were weary. Then they loosed her, and with a mighty swing threw her upon the hard sands; all about being ready in the mean time to receive her with stones and staves, with which they beat her most cruelly. Her daughter in the time of her mother's agony, though she knew of it, durst not adventure to appear, lest the rabble had used her after the same manner, being in a house in great concern and terror, out of natural affection for her mother. They laid a heavy door upon her, with which they prest her so sore, that she cried out to let her up for Christ's sake, and she would tell

VOL. I.

the truth. But when they did let her up, what she said could not satisfy them, and therefore they again laid on the door, and with a heavy weight of stones on it, prest her to death. And to be sure it was so, they called a man with a horse and a sledge, and made him drive over her corp backward and forward several times. When they were sure she was killed outright, they dragged her miserable carcass to Nicolas Lowson's house, where they first found her.

"There was a motion made to treat Nicolas Lowson (another witch) after the same manner immediately; but some of them being wearied with three hours' sport, as they called it, said, 'It would be better to delay her for another day's divertisement; and so they all went off."

To the disgrace of the country, the rabble, who had been so easily dispersed by the magistrates before, do not appear to have experienced any interruption in this protracted murder, which was perpetrated on the 30th January 1705, in one of the most civilized counties of Scotland, and within a few hours' distance of the metropolis. But this was an enormity which it was impossible for a well regulated government to overlook. The Privy Council had lent a deaf ear, as we have seen, to two sets of commissioners from this priest-ridden junto, who do not appear to have been supported either by the presbytery, or the commission of the General Assembly of the kirk; but this very plain hint was still not plain enough for their comprehension. On the present occasion, it was necessary to operate upon their perverted intellects by a more definite expression of disapprobation. Besides this, Mrs White, a witch of the better order, about this time commenced an action against these magistrates for wrongous imprisonment. These proofs of a remarkable improvement in public opinion seem to have put an end to the legal persecution of old women in that quarter,-though, as appears from the order made upon the petition of Beatrix Layng in May thereafter, formerly referred to-not to the belief in the existence of witches. The following paper, of which the title does not exactly correspond with its contents, is transcribed from the original records, and the proceedings D d

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"At Edinr. Feb. 15, 1705.

"The Lords of her Majestie's Privy Counsell doe heirby nominat and appoynt the Earles of Rothes and Hadingtoun, Lords Yester, Advocat, and Enstruther, to be a committie to inquyre into the murder committed upon a woman in Pittenweem, as suspect of witchcraft, and recommends to the said committee to meet to-morrow at twelve o'clock, in the midd-day, and call for Baillie Couts, in Pittenweem, and know at him why he suffered the said murder to be committed, and did not keep the publict peace in the place, and appoynts the solicitors to cite the rest of the Magistrates of the said burgh of Pittenweem, to appear before the said committee and ansuer to what shall be laid to their charge, for their not keeping the peace of the place, as said is, and declares any three of the said committee a quorum, and to report.

r Report of the Committee appointed to inquyre after the Murder committed at Pittenweem.

"At Edinburgh, sederunt the Earle of Rothes, the Lord Yester, the Lord Enstruther, and her Majesties Advocat. The baillies compearing, and having given in a subt information of the matter of fact, with the double of the precognition taken by them anent the murder of Janet Cornfoot, they find that the said Janet was brought from the parish of Lewchars by two men, to the town of Pittenweem, upon the threttieth of Jan" last, about six acloak at night; that the men brought her first to the minister, after she had stayed a little in a private house of the town; and that the minister being for the time at Baillie Cook's house, she was brought before Baillie Cook's door, but not immediately secured as she ought to have been: That when the officer, Peter Innes, after a little time, was found, and sent to secure her, the rable was up, and

that they deforced the officer, and made him flee: That the officer went to the other two baillies and gott their verbal orders, but they concerned themselves no further: That when Baillie Cook heard of the rable, he came out himself and dispersed them, and rescued the poor woman, but found her almost halfe dead, lying within the sea-mark: That she being in that condition, Baillie Cook did not order her to prison, but ordained the officer and four men to take her to a private house: That they carried her to Nicolas Lawson's, other houses being unwilling to receive her: That before Nicolas Lawson's door she was again assaulted, cast down, and murdered. And that it appears the principal actors wer Robert Dalziell, a skipper's son, Walter Watson, in Bruntisland, and one Groundwater, an Orkney man; all three fled."

ever

While these active magistrates displayed so much laudable anxiety to his associates from their jurisdiction, expel the great enemy of mankind and it was not to be expected that they should look with horror on the instruments by which their object The end was probably thought holy was in some degree accomplished. enough to sanctify the means, however irregular. It does not appear that a single individual was brought to trial for the "three hours' sport" of the rabble who murdered Janet Cornfoot. Before the bailies made their appearance in presence of the committee of the Privy Council, they had contrived, indeed, to imprison some of the murderers, but according to the writer of the letter to a nobleman, already quoted," they were not long from the town, when the minister set them at liberty," as it is alleged, by virtue of an order from these magistrates themselves.

The only man accused by Mortoun was one Thomas Brown, who died in prison, "after a great deal of hunger and hardship;" and his remains, as well as those of Janet Cornfoot, were denied Christian burial.

We have said so much of the Pittenweem witches, not because the evidence against them, if Mortoun's pretended fits could deserve such a name, or the murder of two of them, are circumstances in themselves re markable. Hundreds were brought to the stake in Scotland during the

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