Elspeth McEwen

Last updated

Elspeth McEwen
Died24 August 1698
Cause of deathExecution
NationalityScottish
Known forBeing burnt as a witch

Elspeth McEwen or McKewan or Elizabeth MacEwan (died 24 August 1698) of Balmaclellan was the most famous convicted witch in Galloway and the last to be burnt at the stake there. [1]

Accusations, imprisonment, torture, trial and execution

As an elderly educated woman (the 'old wife of Bogha') who lived alone, she was accused of tormenting her neighbours, for example by bewitching their poultry, causing hens, ducks or geese to stop (or increase) laying, fall ill or die. [2] She supposedly kept a wooden pin hidden in her rafters, which she used to steal milk from any cow by first touching the udder with the pin. In 1696 she was summoned to the local church session on charges of witchcraft. Among the proofs of her guilt was the evidence that the minister's mare, on which she rode to the session, was terrorised and sweated drops of blood. [3]

McEwen was then imprisoned for two years at the Kirkcudbright Tolbooth. [4] During this time she was tortured to such a degree that she pleaded for the release of death. In March 1698 she was tried for the "horid cryme of witchcraft" [4] and confessed to "a contract and regular commerce with the Devil, and of practising charms and other evil magical acts to the harm of the people". [5] There are detailed records of her imprisonment and trial. [4]

Dalry Kirk-Session, October 15th, 1697 — Given for alimenting Elspet M‘Koun, alledged of witchcraft in prison, £1 1s 0d.

Commission for Judging of Elspeth M‘Cowen and Mary Millar, alleadged Guilty of Witchcraft, 1698. — The Lords of his Majesties privie Councill, being informed that Elspeth M‘Cowen and Mary Millar, both within the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, presently prisoners within the tolboth of Kirkcudbright, are alleaged guilty of the horid cryme of witchcraft, and hes committed severall malifices; and considering it will be a great deall of charges and expenses to bring the saids Elspeth M‘Cowen and Mary Millar to this place, in order to a tryall before the Lords commissioners of justiciary...

On 24 August 1698 she was taken to Silver Craigs in Kirkcudbright where she was strangled and then burnt at the stake. [5] [6] The expenses were carefully accounted: [4]

Item given to the Proveist to give him the day of execution — £2 16s 0d
Item for peits to burn Elspet wt. — £1 4s 0d
Item for twa pecks of colls — £0 16s 0d
Item for towes, small and great — £0 4s 0d
Item for ane tarr barle to Andrew Aitken — £1 4s 0d
Item to Hugh Anderson for carrying of the peits and colls — £0 6s 0d
Item to William Kirk qn she was burning, ane pint of aill — £0 2s 0d
Item payed to Robert Creighton, conform to precept, viz., eight shill Scots for beating the drumm at Elspet M‘Queen’s funerall, and to James Carsson, his wife threeteen shillings drunken by Elspet’s executioner, at seall times — £1 1s 0d

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish Reformation</span> Religious and political movement that established the Church of Scotland

The Scottish Reformation was the process by which Scotland broke with the Papacy and developed a predominantly Calvinist national church, the Church of Scotland, which was strongly Presbyterian in its outlook. It was part of the wider European Protestant Reformation that took place from the 16th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnes Sampson</span> 16th-century Scottish healer and purported witch

Agnes Sampson was a Scottish healer and purported witch. Also known as the "Wise Wife of Keith", Sampson was involved in the North Berwick witch trials in the later part of the sixteenth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Lauder of Beilmouth</span>

Sir Robert Lauder of Beilmouth, Knt., was an armiger, lawyer and Clerk of Exchequer in Scotland. In 1683 he was made a Justice of the Peace for Haddingtonshire. As Robert Lauder of Belhaven he was in the old Scottish parliament for Haddington in 1685, and, as Sir Robert Lauder of Beilmouth, in 1704. He was also Commissioner of Supply for Haddington in 1689 and 1690.

The Islandmagee witch trials were two criminal trials in Carrickfergus in 1711 for alleged witchcraft at Islandmagee. It is believed to have been the last witch trial to take place in Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balmaclellan</span> Human settlement in Scotland

Balmaclellan is a small hillside village of stone houses with slate roofs in a fold of the Galloway hills in south-west Scotland. To the west, across the Ken River, the larger and more prosperous New Galloway lies below the Rhinns of Kells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paisley witches</span> 1697 witch trial

The Paisley witches, also known as the Bargarran witches or the Renfrewshire witches, were tried in Paisley, Renfrewshire, central Scotland, in 1697. Eleven-year-old Christian Shaw, daughter of the Laird of Bargarran, complained of being tormented by some local witches; they included one of her family's servants, Catherine Campbell, whom she had reported to her mother after witnessing her steal a drink of milk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Andrew's-by-the-Green</span> Church in Merchant City, Glasgow

St Andrew's-by-the-Green is an 18th-century category-A-listed former church in Glasgow, Scotland. A Qualified Chapel, it was the first Episcopalian church built in the city. It is situated on the corner of Turnbull Street and Greendyke Street, overlooking Glasgow Green, on the edge of the city's East End.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish society in the early modern era</span> Overview of aspects of Scottish society in the early modern era

Scottish society in the early modern era encompasses the social structure and relations that existed in Scotland between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. It roughly corresponds to the early modern era in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the last Jacobite risings and the beginnings of the industrial revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Witchcraft in Orkney</span> Overview of witch persecution in Orkney, Scotland

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elspeth Reoch</span> Scottish cunning woman; alleged witch (d. 1616)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bute witches</span>

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.

Maud Galt was a lesbian accused of witchcraft in Kilbarchan, Scotland.

Margaret Burges, also known as 'Lady Dalyell', was a Scottish businesswoman from Nether Cramond who was found guilty of witchcraft and executed in Edinburgh in 1629.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Witch trials in Denmark</span>

The Witch trials in Denmark are poorly documented, with the exception of the region of Jylland in the 1609–1687 period. The most intense period in the Danish witchcraft persecutions was the great witch hunt of 1617–1625, when most executions took place, which was affected by a new witchcraft act introduced in 1617.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kirkcudbright Tolbooth</span> Historic municipal building in Scotland

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.

Marie Ruthven, Countess of Atholl, was a Scottish aristocrat.

John Russell was a Scottish lawyer and author. He was involved in witch trials.

Anna Tait or Anne Tait, also known as 'Hononni', was accused of witchcraft in Haddington, East Lothian in 1634 and executed in 1635. Her case revolved around her feelings of grief and guilt which caused her suicidal thoughts for the murder of her first husband and the death of her beloved daughter following a botched home abortion.

The persecution of accused witches in Aberdeen began during the Aberdeen witch trials of 1596-1597 when forty-five women and two men were accused of the offence in the city with 22 women and one man executed for having been found guilty of being witches.

References

  1. "Kirkcudbright Prison Records Revealed – Kirkcudbright History Society". 22 April 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  2. Mackenzie, William (1841). The History of Galloway: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. Kirkcudbright: John Nicholson. pp. 2.342–3.
  3. Henderson, L. (2006). "The survival of witchcraft prosecutions and witch belief in South West Scotland" (PDF). Scottish Historical Review. 85: 52–74. doi:10.3366/shr.2006.0015. ISSN   0036-9241. S2CID   159538376.
  4. 1 2 3 4 J. Maxwell Wood (1911), Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the South-Western District of Scotland, Dumfries, pp. 72–80{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. 1 2 Temperley, Alan (2015). Tales of Galloway. London. ISBN   978-1-78057-838-5. OCLC   1004976693.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. "Women's History Month - Witches of Galloway". Facebook .