The Devils of Loudun

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"These reiterated and aweful exercises of the dominion of Satan (for such they were universally deemed), impressed all ranks with amazement and terror. The clergy, as was their duty, were the foremost to embrace the cause of a disciple that was engaged in more than spiritual warfare with the grand enemy. Clergymen, by rotation, attended the afflicted p. 38 damsel, to assist the minister of the parish, the family of Bargarran, and other pious Christians, in the expiatory offices of fasting and prayer. A publick fast was ordained by authority of the presbytery. Three popular clergymen successively harangued the trembling audience; and one of them chose for his theme this awful text, "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, for the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast down unto the earth, he persecuted the woman." 3 And the prayers and exhortations of the church were speedily seconded with the weight of the secular arm.

"On the 19th of January, a warrant of Privy Council was issued, 4 which set forth, that there were pregnant grounds of suspicion of witchcraft in the shire of Renfrew, especially from the afflicted aril extraordinary condition of Christian Shaw, daughter of John Shaw of Bargarran. It therefore granted commission to Alexander Lord Blantyre, Sir John Maxwell of Pollock, Sir John Shaw of Greenock, William Cunnyngham of Craigens, Alexander Porterfield of Duchall, —— Caldwall of Glanderstoun, Gavin p. 39 Cochrane of Thornlymuir, Alexander Porterfield of Fullwaod, and Robert Semple sheriff-depute of Renfrew, or any five of them, to interrogate and imprison persons suspected of witchcraft, to examine witnesses, &c. but not upon oath, and to transmit their report before the 10th of March. The act of Privy Council is subscribed thus, 'Polwarth Cancellar, Argyle, Leven, Forfar, Raith, Belhaven, Ja. Steuart, J. Hope, W. Anstruther, J. Maxwell, Ro. Sinclair.'

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"In the report which was presented on the 9th of March, the commissioners represented that there were 'twenty-four persons male and female suspected and accused of witchcraft,' and that further inquiry ought to be made into this crime. Among these unhappy objects of suspicion, it is to be remarked, that there was 'a girl of fourteen, and a boy not twelve years of age.' Agreeable to this report, a new warrant was issued by the Privy Council to most of the commissioners formerly named, with the addition of Lord Hallcraig, Mr. Francis Montgomery of Giffin, Sir John Houston of that Ilk, Mr John Kincaid of Corsbasket, Advocate, and Mr John Stewart younger of Blackhall, Advocate, or any five of them, to meet at Renfrew, Paisley, or Glasgow, to take trial of judge, and do justice upon the foresaid persons; and to sentence the guilty 'to be burned or otherwise executed to death, p. 40 ordained the commissioners to transmit to the Court of Justiciary an authentick extract of their proceedings, to be entered upon its records; and contained a recommendation to the Lords of the Treasury to defray the expences of the trial. The act is subscribed, Polwarth Cancellar. Douglass, Lauderdale, Annandale, Yester, Kintore, Carmichael, W. Anstruther, Arch. Mure.'

"The commissioners, thus empowered, were not remiss in acting under the authority delegated to them. After twenty hours were spent in the examination of witnesses, who gave testimony that the malefices 5 libelled could not have proceeded from natural causes, and that the prisoners were the authors of these malefices.—After five of the unhappy prisoners confessed their own guilt, and criminated their alledged associates—after counsel had been heard on both sides, and the counsel for the prosecution had declared, that 'he would not press the jury with the ordinary severity of threatening an assize of error:' 6 But recommended to them to proceed according to the evidence; and p. 41 loudly declared to them, that although they ought to beware of condemning the innocent, yet if they should acquit the prisoners, in opposition to legal evidence, 'they would be accessory to all the blasphemies, apostacies, murders, tortures, and seductions, whereof these enemies of heaven and earth should hereafter be guilty.' After the jury had spent six hours in deliberation, seven of those miserable persons were condemned to the flames. 7

"The time however fast approached, when these human sacrifices were to be abolished. The last person who was prosecuted before the Lords of Justiciary for witchcraft was Elspeth Rule, who was tried before Lord Anstruther at the Dumfries circuit, on the 3d of May, 1709. 8 No special act of witchcraft was charged against her; the indictment was of a very general nature, that the prisoner was 'habit and repute' 9 p. 42 (that is, generally holden and deemed) a witch; and that she had used threatening expressions against persons at enmity with her, who were afterwards visited with the loss of cattle, or the death of friends, and one of whom run mad. The jury, by a majority of voices, found these articles proved, and the Judge ordained the prisoner to be burned on the cheek, and to be banished Scotland for life. The last person who was brought to the stake in Scotland for the crime of witchcraft was condemned by Captain David Ross of Little Daan 10 sheriff-depute of Sutherland, A.D. 1722.

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"Besides in the sufferings, and tragical end of the persons already specified, human ingenuity seems to have been exhausted in devising variety of torment, against other persons who lay under the suspicion of witchcraft, and who persisted, with astonishing fortitude, in denying the absurd imputation, even when urged with the sharpest tortures. p. 43

From the universal and excessive abhorrence entertained at a witch, a suspicion of that crime, independent of judicial severities, 11 was sufficient to render the unhappy object anxious for death.—Thrusting of pins into the flesh, and keeping the accused from sleep, were the ordinary treatment of a witch. But if the prisoner was endued with uncommon fortitude, other methods were used to extort confession. The 'boots,' the 'caspie-claws,' and the 'pilniewinks, engines for torturing the legs, the arms, and the fingers, were applied to either sex; and that with such violence, that sometimes the blood would have spouted from the limbs. Loading with heavy irons, and whipping with cords, till the skin and flesh were torn from the bones, have also been the adopted methods of torment.

The bloody zeal of those inquisitors attained to a refinement in cruelty so shocking to humanity, 12 and so p. 44 repugnant to justice, as to be almost incredible. Not satisfied with torturing the person of the accused, their ingenious malice assailed the more delicate feelings, and ardent affections of the mind. An aged husband, an infant daughter, would have been tortured in presence of the accused, in order to subdue her resolution.—Nay, death itself 13 did not screen the remains of those miserable persons from the malice of their prosecutors. If an unfortunate woman, trembling at a citation for witchcraft, ended her sufferings by her own hands, she was dragged from her house at a horse's tail, and buried under the gallows.

v2_34:1 p. 35 True narrative of the sufferings and relief of a young girl. Edinburgh, printed by James Watson, 1698.

v2_34:2 St. Matthew, c. 15, v. 22.

v2_34:3 p. 38 Revelations, chap, 12.

v2_34:4 Records of Privy Council, January 19. March 9. April 5 1697.

v2_34:5 p. 40 "Malefice," in the Scots law signifies an act or effect of witchcraft.

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v2_34:6 This was an oblique and most scandalous menace. "Assizes of Error" were declared a grievance by the Estates of Parliament at the Revolution.

v2_34:7 p. 41 The order of Privy Council for recording the Commissioners’ proceedings in the books of Justiciary was not complied with. I am therefore unable to give any further particulars of the catastrophe of these miserable persons, or of the criminal absurdity of those who committed them to the flames.

v2_34:8 Records of Circuit Court of Justiciary, holden at Dumfries May 3, 1709.

v2_34:9 "Habit and repute" is a very dangerous doctrine of the law of Scotland, at that time in full force, by which a man might be hanged altho’ hardly any charge were exhibited against him, but that he had a bad character. For instance, if a man was charged with stealing a pair of old shoes, value threepence, and with being p. 42 "habit and repute" a thief, if the jury found such indictment proved, or such prisoner guilty, the Court would by law be bound to sentence the prisoner to be hanged; if my temerity may be pardoned, for supposing that any such thing exists as a precise established ruin of criminal law in Scotland.

v2_34:10 It is no small disappointment to me that I cannot lay this trial before the reader. The Sheriff Court books of the county of Sutherland were carried off by the Sheriff Clerk about 1735. I am somewhat however consoled for my disappointment, by the politeness shown me by James Traill, Esq. of Hobbister, Advocate, Sheriff-depute of Caithness and Sutherland, who was so obliging as to make a laborious but ineffectual search to recover the books.

v2_34:11 Mackenzie s Criminal Trials, tit. Witchcraft.

v2_34:12 Records of Justiciary, June 24. 1596. When Alison Balfour was accused of witchcraft, she was put in the caspie-claws, where she was kept forty-eight hours; her husband was put in heavy irons, her son put in the boots, where he suffered fifty-seven strokes, and her little daughter, of about seven years of age, put its the pilniewinks, in her presence, in order to make her confess.—She did confess.—She retracted her confession in the course of the trial; and publickly, at p. 44 her execution, declared that the confession was extorted from her by the torments.—The mode of tormenting and executing those miserable women is further illustrated by the authentic account of the expence of burning a witch at Burncastle, near Lauder, A.D. 1649.

v2_34:13 Fountainhall's Decisions, vol. I. p. 6o. October 9, 167
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