163 Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8BN
Located next to the Canongate Kirk, Canongate Tolbooth was where accused Edinburgh witches could be imprisoned and tried but sometimes notorious people from outside Edinburgh were also held here.
One of these was Janet Douglas, a witch-finder and accuser who claimed to have second sight. Janet was aged 12 or 13 and was thought to have come from the Highlands. She gained credibility by posing as mute, playing on beliefs about non-speaking people having supernatural powers. Five people were executed in Paisley in 1677 as a result of her accusations. She created a sensation by claiming to know if people were bewitched and who had bewitched them. That was why she was brought to Edinburgh and incarcerated in the Canongate Tolbooth in March 1679 accused of being ’ane imposter’ alleged to have a ‘familiar’ and to consult with ‘evil spirits’.

©kilnburn, Wikimedia Commons
Sadly, women weren’t only the victims of witch-hunts, sometimes they were perpetrators. They believed in witchcraft just as men did, so they gave evidence against other women (and men) accused of the crime and some were witch-finders (there was even a female witch-pricker). Janet was investigated by the Privy Council between 11 March and 30 March 1679. Eventually she was banished from Scotland. We don’t know where she went next but her witch-accusing career in Scotland was over.
Sources:
- R. L. Harris, ‘Janet Douglas and the Witches of Pollock: The Background of Scepticism in Scotland in the 1670s’, in S. R. McKenna (ed.), Selected Essays on Scottish Language and Literature: A Festschrift in Honor of Allan H. MacLaine (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Melllen, 1992), pp. 97-124.
- Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, January 2003.
- Wikipedia: Janet Douglas