High St, Edinburgh EH1 1RF
The Mercat Cross (market cross) was the symbolic centre of urban government. A few witch-related executions took place here. Richie Graham, the magician and necromancer whose confessions in the North Berwick trials incriminated the Earl of Bothwell, was executed by burning here on 29 February 1592. Then, in 1613, three out of the four siblings from the aristocratic Erskine of Dun family accused of witchcraft were beheaded here. Anna, Helen, Isobel and Robert Erskine were convicted of obtaining poison from an alleged witch in order to kill their nephews and gain the Dun inheritance. The witch who allegedly provided the poison, Janet Irvine, was never caught. Helen Erskine was banished, while Anna, Isobel and Robert were beheaded at the Mercat Cross.
The present structure is a nineteenth-century replacement for the earlier one.
The site of the Mercat Cross in 1791
©S. Hooper (1791),
Wikimedia Commons
Sources:
- Julian Goodare (eds.), Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
- Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, January 2003.