The Witches of Bo'ness were a group of women accused of witchcraft in Bo'ness, Scotland in the late 17th century and ultimately executed for this crime. Among the more famous cases noted by historians, in 1679, Margaret Pringle, Bessie Vickar, Annaple Thomsone, and two women both called Margaret Hamilton were all accused of being witches, alongside "warlock" William Craw. [1] [2] [3] The case of these six was "one of the last multiple trials to take place for witchcraft" in Scotland. [4]
During the early modern period in Europe (16th and 17th centuries), accusations, adjudications, and executions of presumed witches were a somewhat commonplace phenomenon, resulting in the violent early deaths of tens of thousands of people, most of them women. Scotland could be said to have been especially active in this regard. [1] Witch hunts occurred during a period of civil strife and social upheavals associated with religious politics in the Protestant church (see: Scottish religion in the seventeenth century, The Killing Time). Indeed, prosecution of witches, scholars suggest, should be conceived of not "in isolation, but should be measured against a wider cultural picture of social control and discipline" (103) (see also: Witchcraft Acts). [5]
Scholars note that certain years exhibited "noticeable peaks" in witch-hunting activity, including 1679 and 1680. [5] Twenty-eight suspects were tried for witchcraft in those two years in the Bo'ness area alone, including the aforementioned six, who were tried together in November 1679. [5]
Margaret Pringle, Bessie Vickar, Annaple Thomsone, and two women both called Margaret Hamilton were tried in November 1679 for witchcraft. They were ultimately found guilty and put to death by local authorities. [1] They confessed a variety of transgressions. All were widows and unmarried at the time. [1]
Annaple Thomson was widowed twice by the time of her trial. She confessed that she was promised a better life by the devil should she enter his service; Satan was allegedly sympathetic to her "poore" and "difficult" life (135). [6] She would host other women at her house regularly where, allegedly, the devil supplied music, sex, and ale. [7] The women were all said to be drunken and libidinous and to have formed a Demonic Pact. [4] Another of the women, one of the Margaret Hamiltons, confessed she met the devil in the form of a black dog and admitted to being in his service for three decades by the time of the trial (133). [7] Historian Lizanne Henderson explains:
The Devil was not an abstract concept, trapped within the pages of the Bible, but could assume corporeal form. He prowled the streets, day and night, and could appear in any shape or disguise of his choosing. He may have spoken to you on your way to market, or entered your home with or without your knowledge. It was not important to actually see the Devil, as he could also enter your thoughts. Nurtured with such high levels of anxiety, it is not difficult to understand how the seeds of witch belief could blossom into full-scale witch persecution (103). [5]
The case of the six was adjudicated locally, and, on December 23, 1679, Margaret Pringle, Bessie Vickar, Annaple Thomsone, and the two Margaret Hamiltons were executed, strangled with wire and burned at the stake. [3]
One analysis considers this case "all the more horrifying for the fact that those who were charged and executed had comparatively little charged against them in the way of malefice." [4] However, another interpretation describes the Bo’ness confessions of 1679–80 as "notable for their high demonic content." [5]
A "Witches Stone" stands near Carriden House in Bo'ness, and serves as commemoration of this and other witch trials that took place in the area.
In 2023 there was an exhibition of thirteen figures, Witches in Words, not Deeds, created by Carolyn Sutton. Thomsone was one of the figures exhibited at Edinburgh's Central Library. [8]
Isobel Gowdie was a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft at Auldearn near Nairn during 1662. Scant information is available about her age or life and, although she was probably executed in line with the usual practice, it is uncertain whether this was the case or if she was allowed to return to the obscurity of her former life as a cottar’s wife. Her detailed testimony, apparently achieved without the use of violent torture, provides one of the most comprehensive insights into European witchcraft folklore at the end of the era of witch-hunts.
European witchcraft is a multifaceted historical and cultural phenomenon that unfolded over centuries, leaving a mark on the continent's social, religious, and legal landscapes. The roots of European witchcraft trace back to classical antiquity when concepts of magic and religion were closely related, and society closely integrated magic and supernatural beliefs. Ancient Rome, then a pagan society, had laws against harmful magic. In the Middle Ages, accusations of heresy and devil worship grew more prevalent. By the early modern period, major witch hunts began to take place, partly fueled by religious tensions, societal anxieties, and economic upheaval. Witches were often viewed as dangerous sorceresses or sorcerers in a pact with the Devil, capable of causing harm through black magic. A feminist interpretation of the witch trials is that misogynist views of women led to the association of women and malevolent witchcraft.
Lizanne Henderson is a Senior Lecturer in history at the University of Glasgow in Dumfries.
Janet Horne was the last person to be executed legally for witchcraft in the British Isles.
Queen of Elphame or "Elf-hame", in the folklore belief of Lowland Scotland and Northern England, designates the elfin queen of Faerie, mentioned in Scottish witch trials. In ballads and contemporary texts, she is referred to as Queen of Elphane, Elphen, or the Fairies. She is equivalent to the Queen of Fairy who rules Faërie or Fairyland. The character as described in witch trials has many parallels with the legends of Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin.
In early modern Scotland, in between the early 16th century and the mid-18th century, judicial proceedings concerned with the crimes of witchcraft took place as 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 1590, 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.
The great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50 was a series of witch trials in Scotland. It is one of five major hunts identified in early modern Scotland and it probably saw the most executions in a single year.
Margaret Bane also called Clerk, was a Scottish midwife and prominent victim of The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597.
Witchcraft in Orkney possibly has its roots in the settlement of Norsemen on the archipelago from the eighth century onwards. Until the early modern period magical powers were accepted as part of the general lifestyle, but witch-hunts began on the mainland of Scotland in about 1550, and the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 made witchcraft or consultation with witches a crime punishable by death. One of the first Orcadians tried and executed for witchcraft was Allison Balfour, in 1594. Balfour, her elderly husband and two young children, were subjected to severe torture for two days to elicit a confession from her.
Elspeth Reoch was an alleged Scottish witch. She was born in Caithness but as a child spent time with relatives on an island in Lochaber prior to travelling to the mainland of Orkney.
The Pittenweem witches were five Scottish women accused of witchcraft in the small fishing village of Pittenweem in Fife on the east coast of Scotland in 1704. Another two women and a man were named as accomplices. Accusations made by a teenage boy, Patrick Morton, against a local woman, Beatrix Layng, led to the death in prison of Thomas Brown, and, in January 1705, the murder of Janet Cornfoot by a lynch mob in the village.
Margaret Aitken, known as the Great Witch of Balwearie, was an important figure in the great Scottish witchcraft panic of 1597 as her actions effectively led to an end of that series of witch trials. After being accused of witchcraft Aitken confessed but then identified hundreds of women as other witches to save her own life. She was exposed as a fraud a few months later and was burnt at the stake.
The Bute witches were six Scottish women accused of witchcraft and interrogated in the parish of Rothesay on Bute during the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–62. The Privy Council granted a Commission of Justiciary for a local trial to be held and four of the women – believed by historians to be Margaret McLevin, Margaret McWilliam, Janet Morrison and Isobell McNicoll – were executed in 1662; a fifth may have died while incarcerated. One woman, Jonet NcNicoll, escaped from prison before she could be executed but when she returned to the island in 1673 the sentence was implemented.
Marie Lamont, also referred to as Mary Lawmont (1646–1662), was executed for witchcraft during the reign of Charles II just after Witchmania had peaked in the United Kingdom. Her youth at the time of her execution made her case unusual.
Janet Boyman, also known as Jonet Boyman or Janet Bowman, was a Scottish woman accused of witchcraft; she was tried and executed in 1572 although the case against her was started in 1570. Her indictment has been described by modern-day scholars, such as Lizanne Henderson, as the earliest and most comprehensive record of witchcraft and fairy belief in Scotland.
Witch trials and witch related accusations were at a high during the early modern period in Britain, a time that spanned from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 18th century.
Alison Pearson was executed for witchcraft. On being tried in 1588, she confessed to visions of a fairy court.
Kirkcudbright Tolbooth is a historic municipal building in Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built between 1627 and 1629 to serve the town as a centre of commercial administration, a meeting place for the council, and a prison, it was used for all these roles until the late eighteenth century when the council moved much of its business to new, larger premises they had constructed across the street; the tolbooth remained in use as a prison until the early nineteenth century, after which it remained in council ownership and was put to a variety of uses.
Margaret Duchill was a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft at Alloa during the year 1658. She was implicated by others and she named other women. She was executed on 1 June 1658.
Pittenweem Parish Church and Tolbooth Steeple is an ecclesiastical and municipal complex in the High Street, Pittenweem, Fife, Scotland. The structure, which is used as the local parish church, is a Category A listed building.
