North Berwick witch trials
| North Berwick witch trials | |
|---|---|
The North Berwick Witches meet the Devil in the local kirkyard, from a contemporary pamphlet, Newes from Scotland. | |
| Timespan | 1590-92 (2 years) |
| Location | North Berwick, Scotland |
| Number of trials | Debated |
| Guilty verdicts | 70< |
| Executions | 70< |
| Notable sources | Daemonologie by King James VI, Newes from Scotland, Kirk and secular court records |
| Notable personalities | James VI, David Seaton, Nils Hemmingson |
| Notable victims | Geillis Duncan, Agnes Sampson, Dr. John Fian, Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell |
| Occurred within the context of | Scottish Reformation, Scottish Folk Beliefs, Poverty, De-centralised system of government |
| Reasons for beginning | Geillis Duncan’s confession, Scottish Reformation, Failed Crops |
| Reasons for ending | Trials moved on to different parts of Scotland |
The North Berwick witch trials were the trials in 1590 of a number of people from East Lothian, Scotland, accused of witchcraft in the St Andrew's Auld Kirk in North Berwick on Halloween night. They ran for two years, and implicated over 70 people. These included Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, on charges of high treason.
The "witches" allegedly held their covens on the Auld Kirk Green, part of the modern-day North Berwick Harbour area. Confessions were extracted by torture in the Old Tolbooth, Edinburgh. One source for these events is a 1591 pamphlet Newes from Scotland. King James VI wrote a dissertation on witchcraft and necromancy titled Daemonologie in 1597.
The North Berwick trials were among the better known of the large number of witch trials in early modern Scotland between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century.