The Gallowlee Execution Site

 History of Witchcraft  No Responses »
Oct 102024
 

19-20 Shrubhill Walk, Edinburgh EH7 4FH

One of Edinburgh’s execution sites, known as the Gallowlee, was on the road between Edinburgh and Leith, which in the seventeenth century were separate towns. Its in-between location was typical for execution sites, which were often on borders or boundaries. It was on a small hill, Shrubhill. The T-shaped gallows is visible on this map from 1682. Witches who were convicted in Edinburgh were sometimes executed at the Gallowlee. Witches were burned on a pyre rather than being hanged on the gallows itself.

Black and white illustrated map of Edinburgh.
John Adair’s Map of Midlothian showing the Gallowlee execution site, now known as Shrubhill
©National Library of Scotland,
Wikimedia Commons

This order by the Edinburgh court of justiciary, 13 September 1678, specifies the Gallowlee as the place of execution for five convicted witches: ‘The Lords Commissioners of justiciary by the mouth of Adam Auld dempster of court decerned and adjudged Margaret Lowes, Isobel Shanks, Margaret Douglas, Helen Forrester and Margaret Smaill to be taken to the Gallowlee of Edinburgh upon Wednesday the eighteenth day of September instant betwixt two and four o’clock in the afternoon and there to be strangled at a stake till they be dead and thereafter to have their bodies burnt to ashes.’ A similar sentence was then passed, 6 November 1678, on Bessie Gourlay, Agnes Somerville and Margaret Souness.

Sources:

  • Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, January 2003.
  • Julian Goodare (eds.), Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Potterow Port

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Oct 102024
 

Potterrow Port, Edinburgh EH8 9AA

Agnes Finnie was one of Edinburgh’s best-documented accused witches. She was a widow who worked as a shopkeeper and moneylender. She sold consumer goods, such as fish and cakes, and made loans to her customers. Potterrow Port, where Finnie’s shop was, continued from where you are standing now down present-day West College Street.

Black and white photo of a short tunnel with an overpass; two people walking through it in the distance.
Underpass at Potterrow Port
©Peter Sigrist, Wikimedia Commons

Finnie had a reputation for quarrelsomeness and for cursing people. Some curses were thought to be just angry words, but if the person who had been cursed then suffered a misfortune, they could decide that it was the curse taking effect. For instance, Finnie quarrelled with John Buchanan, a carpenter who was one of her customers. Each of them made threats to the other one – but Buchanan then suffered a fever overnight. In the morning, he came to Finnie’s house, ordered a pint of ale, and told her that if he suffered another night’s illness ‘he sould mak all the toun to heir tell of it’. He then recovered his health. At the time such reconciliations were supposed to put an end to the matter – but there were 20 charges against Finnie, all of which told stories like Buchanan’s.

Importantly, we don’t always know the ages of the accused witches in Scotland but we do know Agnes Finnie was older (likely around 65) and her age seems to have been a central part of her accusation in particular and her story after some 25 years quarrelling with her neighbours. She was pursued for witchcraft once she was older and widowed which may have made her seem a better target for a witch accusation to her adversaries.

Aerial black and white sketch of the port layout.
Plan of Edinburgh from 1647, showing Potterrow Port in the bottom
left hand corner
©Wikimedia Commons

Age was an important factor in witchcraft accusations across Europe not just Scotland. According to the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, and where we know the recorded age, 64% were aged over 40 years old. Finnie’s case speaks also to community interactions in a culture of honour (where people have to hit back against insults) and about ways in which women’s angry words are perceived in such a culture.

Finnie was arrested in June 1644, brought to trial in December, and executed on Castle Hill on 6 March 1645.

Sources:

  • Wikipedia: Agnes Finnie
  • Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, January 2003.
  • Elizabeth Ewan, Rose Pipes, Jane Rendall and Siân Reynolds (eds.), New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), p. 142.

Scottish Parliament

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Oct 102024
 

Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh EH99 1SP

Calls for legal pardons for witches have recently gathered pace in Scotland. In March 2022 Scotland’s First Minister at the time, Nicola Sturgeon, issued a formal apology to those executed under the Witchcraft Act. The act, which was in effect from 1563 to 1736, made the crime of witchcraft punishable by death. “Today on International Women’s Day, as first minister on behalf of the Scottish government, I am choosing to acknowledge that egregious historic injustice and extend a formal posthumous apology to all of those accused, convicted, vilified or executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563.” Sturgeon said.

Aerial view of lush green parliament grounds with Calton Hill in the background and cloudy skies above.
Scottish Parliament buildings, where the pardons took place in 2022
©Reinhold Möller, Wikimedia Commons

The Witches of Scotland group has been petitioning the Scottish Parliament to pardon those convicted under the act, with Claire Mitchell KC saying it would correct as far as possible a “terrible miscarriage of justice”. A bill proposed in the Scottish Parliament is trying to set the record straight. It could allow for posthumous pardons to thousands of women and men who faced convictions hundreds of years ago.

Sources:

Holyrood Palace

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Oct 102024
 

Palace of Holyrood, Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8DX

During the North Berwick witchcraft panic of 1590-92, some of the interrogations of suspects were carried out in Holyrood Palace, the principal royal residence and also the venue for privy council meetings. King James VI himself took part in some of these interrogations, and even claimed personal credit for having discovered the witches’ guilt. In a speech on 7 June 1591 he boasted: ‘And for these witches, whatsoever hath bene gotten from them hath bene done by me my self’.

Black and white sketch of the palace.
The West front of Holyrood Palace, before it was rebuilt in the 1670’s
©James Gordon of Rothiemay,
Wikimedia Commons

The most important suspect to be interrogated at Holyrood Palace was Agnes Sampson, a ‘wise wife’ and healer from Nether Keith in East Lothian. When she was first brought before the king and his councillors she refused to confess to witchcraft. They ordered her to be taken away and tortured, probably in the Old Tolbooth. There a rope was placed round her head and twisted tightly to cause pain. She also had all her body hair shaved off and was searched for the Devil’s mark; she was told that a mark had been found on her genitals. Broken by this treatment, she was brought back to the palace, where she confessed to everything that she was asked. She was tried, convicted, and executed by burning at Castlehill on 28 January 1591.

Sources:

  • Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts (eds), Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland : James VI’s Demonology and the North Berwick Witches (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000).
  • Wikipedia: Agnes Sampson
  • Elizabeth Ewan, Rose Pipes, Jane Rendall and Siân Reynolds (eds.), New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), p. 376.

Reid’s Close

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Oct 102024
 

Reid’s Close, Edinburgh EH8 8BZ

Sir John Nisbet, Lord Dirleton (1610–1688), was a Scottish lawyer and judge who, as Lord Advocate, led the prosecution of Thomas and Jean Weir in 1670. His Edinburgh townhouse was on the Canongate at the head of Reid’s Close, distinguished by a projecting square turret.

Black and white sketch of an old building with people out front.
John Nisbet, Lord Dirleton’s house on the Canongate
©Cassell’s Old and New Edinburgh vol. III (1870), Wikimedia Commons

In 1663, Nisbet purchased the estate of Dirleton, including Dirleton Castle, in East Lothian. Between 1649 and 1650, in Dirleton, six witches had been accused of dancing upon the green with the Devil and had been imprisoned in the castle dungeon.

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Canongate Tolbooth

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Oct 102024
 

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’.

Photograph of a stone building with a clock extending out; view is looking up the Royal Mile with blue skies in the background.
The Canongate Tolbooth
©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

The High Street

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Oct 102024
 

329 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1SG

Euphemia MacCalzean (pronounced ‘Macall-yon’) owned property on Edinburgh’s High Street and was a victim of the so-called North Berwick witchcraft panic of 1590–92. She inherited wealth from her father, Thomas MacCalzean of Cliftonhall, and from her father-in-law, John Moscrop, both leading Edinburgh lawyers. But Moscrop had two children – not only Patrick Moscrop, married to Euphemia MacCalzean, but also Katherine Moscrop, married to David Seton, bailie of Tranent – and Katherine’s inheritance was much smaller than Patrick’s. David Seton probably resented this. And it was David Seton who initiated the entire witchcraft panic in 1590 by interrogating and torturing his maidservant Geillis Duncan. Duncan in her confession named various names of fellow-witches – including Euphemia MacCalzean. Presumably it was Seton who suggested this name to her.

Color painting of the Royal Mile; St. Giles Cathedral seemingly the subject of the painting.

Edinburgh High Street
©J.M.W. Turner,
Wikimedia Commons

MacCalzean was found guilty, and executed on 25 June 1591 at Castlehill, now the Esplanade. The king granted her estate of Cliftonhall to his favourite Sir James Sandilands of Slamannan, while her house on the High Street was granted to John Shaw, an officer in the royal stables. However, MacCalzean’s execution seems to have been unpopular, and the prosecutions stalled. When the original suspect, Geillis Duncan, was eventually led out to execution on 4 December 1591, she made a public declaration that her confession against Euphemia MacCalzean and other witches had been false. MacCalzean’s husband was among those who witnessed this declaration.

Black and white sketch with women being beaten with a stick as two powerful men look on.

Woodcut depicting accused witches kneeling before King James
©Wikimedia Commons

Sources:

The Tron Kirk

 History of Witchcraft  No Responses »
Oct 102024
 

Craigour Gardens, Edinburgh EH17 7NX

The Tron Kirk is a former parish church in the High Street, built in the 1630s. One of its ministers was William Colville (c.1612–1675) who served at the church between 1641 and 1648. He was also a scholar, and he went on to serve as Principal of the University of Edinburgh from 1662 to 1675. In 1643, he was one of the investigators who interrogated the accused Edinburgh witches Janet Barker and Margaret Lauder. Both were named as witches by a previous confessing witch, Janet Cranston, who was Barker’s next-door neighbour. Their confessions, probably obtained under torture, included stereotyped tales of renouncing their baptism and having sex with the Devil. These ideas came more from educated demonology than from popular belief, indicating the role of educated ministers like William Colville. Lauder later tried to retract her confession, but the court convicted her anyway. Both Barker and Lauder were tried in the Old Tolbooth and sentenced to be strangled and burned at Castlehill on 29 December 1643.

Photograph of a church taken at dusk with some illumination from nearby buildings visible.

The Tron Kirk from
Hunter Square
©N. Chadwick,
Wikimedia Commons

The Tron Kirk was closed as a church in 1952. In recent years the building has been used as a tourist information centre and as a craft market. The name comes from the weighing beam (‘tron’ in Scots), serving the public market.

Sources:

The Mercat Cross

 History of Witchcraft  No Responses »
Oct 102024
 

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.

Black and white sketch of old Edinburgh buildings and busy plaza.

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.

John Knox’s Grave

 History of Witchcraft  No Responses »
Oct 102024
 

Parliament Square, Edinburgh EH1 1RQ

Protestant reformer John Knox died on 24 November 1572 and was buried in Parliament Close (now called Parliament Square). Nine years earlier, on 4 June 1563, the Scottish parliament passed the crucial act against witchcraft that made the offence a secular crime. Knox’s relationship with the act was a close one. The witchcraft act itself, and other acts on godly discipline, were drafted and presented to parliament by a committee of the general assembly of the church; Knox was a member of the committee and may well have drafted the witchcraft act himself.

Flat grave marker with the number 23 painted nearby.

The plaque marking the approximate location of John Knox’s grave in a car park in parliament square
©Kim Traynor, Wikimedia Commons

Knox stands at the threshold of the Scottish witch-hunts. He had a clear view of the Devil as the great enemy of humankind, and was bitterly hostile to the Catholic church, but human witches were less important enemies to him. The text of the 1563 witchcraft act was confusing; it seemed to imply that witches were public practitioners with clients and gave no clear definition of witchcraft that the criminal courts could use. However, the act did state clearly that witchcraft was a crime punishable by death, and it was duly cited as the legal basis for thousands of executions over the next century and a half.

Source:

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