EARLY SCOTTISH WITCHCRAFT {Part 2}

It is not surprising that ignorance prevailed, nor that superstition was rampant in a people so cut off from the scientific and cultural advances of other communities. Burton noted how the Scottish environment was significant for the kind of magical beliefs it produced: “In a people so far behind their neighbours in domestic organization, poor and hardy, inhabiting a country of mountains, torrents, and rocks, where cultivation was scanty, accustomed to gloomy mists and wild storms, every impression must necessarily assume a corresponding character. Superstition, like fungi and vermin, are existences peculiar to the spot where they appear…. And thus it is that the indications
of witchcraft in Scotland are different from those of the superstition which ill England receives the same name.”
One particularly striking difference was the strong belief ill fairies present among the Scots. This had sprung from Celtic traditions and many tales were told of visits by mortals to the underground homes of the elves and of fairy changelings placed in the cots of human babies. Written records abound of elf-bolts (Stone-Age arrowheads) and other items which support the theory that
the tales of the little people stem from accounts of pre-historic peoples which have been handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. Evidence that these may be founded, to some extent, upon fact was unearthed at the beginning of this century. Between 1905 and 1912 a number of “pygmy” flints were discovered on the banks of the Dee, near Banchory, Aberdeenshire, and dated at about 5000 B.C. Most Of these flint points, arrowheads, etc., are less than half
an inch ill length; as no larger flints have been found on these sites the obvious inference is that the people who used them were pygmies or little people.
A unique situation arose from these beliefs which was repeated nowhere else in the world. Some of the persons accused of possessing magical powers through the agency of the devil, being unable to disprove the charges, tried to explain that the powers were given to them by the fairies in an effort to acquit themselves of a charge of witchcraft. Accordingly fairies were also declared heretic in Scotland along with other woodland spirits and minions of the devil.It was against this background of superstition that the Catholic Church founded in Scotland, very much as it had been in England. As with other countries the wealth and power of the Church grew until it was at its peak in the fourteenth century. The Catholic hierarchy in Scotland was far richer than those of other European communities, but despite this great wealth the ranks of the Church were
none the less corrupt. The lower orders of ecclesiastics were quite illiterate and priests would willingly sell the sacrament for money – probably for magical purposes. The higher orders indulged in vices similar to those of their European brothers, enjoying a privileged depravity which eventually would bring the crusading forces of the Reformation down upon their heads: Cardinal Beaton was said to have fathered seven bastards; while Patrick Hepburn, Bishop of Moray, seems to have had at least fifteen children by different women, Although the people had good cause to be dissatisfied, the Catholic Church was able to keep a firmer hold in Scotland than it had in England, at least for a while. Much of early Scottish history was a series of conflicts between overlord and monarch, with the former trying to safeguard his fief against rivals at all costs and pledging little allegiance to his King in the process. These same chiefs would band together to take action against an unwanted head of state, and there was no king who sat easily on the throne; the lords murdered James I and James 111, rebelled against James 11 and imprisoned James V, James VI and Mary Stewart. But despite this continuous threat the monarchy maintained a tenuous control, principally because it was reinforced by the power and riches
of the Church. Thus supported, the throne could not defy the clergy in any of their practices; if religious reform was to come to Scotland, the initiative had to spring from the discontent of the citizens themselves. By the beginning of the sixteenth century a Protestant infiltration had
begun in Scotland, and anti-Catholic ideas were beginning to take a stronger hold among the people. The dangers presented by this new theology were regarded as sufficiently severe for Cardinal Beaton, the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, to begin a campaign of extermination as soon as he was made Archbishop of St Andrews in 1539. He decreed that all Protestants should be burned as heretics and set about taking over the reins of government himself, so that by the following year James V had become a mere puppet in the hands of the Church. Nor was James unwilling to be a pawn of the clerics: he felt that he was victimized by political witchcraft (one Janet Douglas, Lady of Glamis, had been burned in 1537 on charges of conspiring to poison the King), fiercely believed in omens and evil visitations, and was often tormented by visions of impendingdoom; without the strength of the Church his position would no longer be secure. When James died in December, 1542, the Protestant lords seized power and
placed the Earl of Arran on the throne; Beaton’s aspirations had been circumvented and the time seemed ripe for a religious revolution. Shortly afterwards George Wishart, one of the first spokesmen of the Protestant cause in Scotland, returned to his homeland. Wishart, who called himself the “messenger of the eternal God”, is said to have taught Greek at Montrose in 1558. While there, he denied that Christ was the Redeemer and was subsequently driven from
the town by the Bishop of Brechin. The following year found him in Bristol, where he again came under attack for his ideas. Faced with the prospect of a heretic’s death, he recanted and then fled to Germany, where he became even more convinced of the truth of the Protestant doctrine. Once back in Scotland, Wishart traveled the country preaching against Catholicism.Towards the end of 1543 Arran, together with a great number of lords, switched allegiances. Beaton was reinstated and began imprisoning those who, perhaps because of Wishart’s exhortations, had been rioting in protest against Rome. Ironically, Henry VIII helped to further secure Beaton’s position by his
invasion of Scotland in 1544, for the Cardinal took advantage of the hatredwhich all Scots held for the English and united conflicting factions against the common enemy.

In 1545 John Knox joined Wishart’s company as an aide and bodyguard. Knox held his mentor in great esteem and considered him to be a true prophet. Their association was a short one, for in the same year Wishart was apprehended by the Catholics and proclaimed a heretic and traitor; he died a witch’s death,  strangled and burned at St Andrews. Following Wishart’s execution there was a successful attempt on the life of Cardinal Beaton, and the Catholic Church lost its power as quickly as it had reassumed it only two years before. The populace attacked the monasteries, looting and pillaging as they went, and the lords efficiently took over the lands that had belonged to the Church. The Protestants seized the castle at St Andrews and held it until the intervention of troops from France forced their surrender. It was within the castle, preaching to the rebels and encouraging them, that Knox first assumed the role of a radical and outspoken reformer.
Knox was sentenced to two years in the galleys for his part in the uprising; once freed, he left Scotland and spent the next ten years in England, France and Switzerland espousing the Protestant cause. During this time he took up Calvin’s misogynist philosophy and expanded it into a political ideology. While in Geneva, Knox put forward his ideas in The First Blast of the Trumpet
against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.

Nature doth paint them forth to be weak, frail, inpatient feeble, and foolish, and experience hath declared them to be  inconstant, variable, cruel, and void of the spirit of council and regiment. For these notable faults, which in all ages have been espied in them, men have not only removed them from rule and authority, but also some have thought that men subject to the council and empire of their wives, were unworthy of all public office.

He hoped that such an argument would remove all the women from the thrones of Europe and reinforced his position with an even weaker piece of reasoning, submitting that a queen was an idol to her people and as such committed treason against God; her rule and authority were not, therefore, lawful in the eyes of God.
Although Knox may have intended to attack Catholic queens only, he did not make such a distinction clear and Elizabeth, who was by this time reigning in England, was displeased. When he returned to Scotland in 1558 the Queen, as might be expected, would not permit him to travel through England. But disfavor had not softened Knox’s tone, as Morel, the Chief Pastor of the Genevan Congregation in Paris, made clear in a letter to Calvin. “Knox was for some time
in Dieppe, waiting for a wind to Scotland…. He dared publicly to profess the worst and most infamous of doctrines: ‘Women are unworthy to reign’, ‘Christians may protect themselves from tyrants’. – - . I fear Knox may fill Scotland with his madness.” He did fill Scotland with his madness-the devil’s madness. Although there is no doubt either that he was a sincere man who would not be diverted from his principles or that he did lend strength to the Protestant cause in Scotland, he pursued his goals in a ruthless and unfortunate manner. An expert rabble-rouser, he ‘concluded his incitements to kill the Catholic clergy and level their properties in the most lurid of terms. To Mary of Guise, James’s widow and then Regent of Scotland, he addresses a letter: “To the Generation of Anti-Christ, The Pestilent Prelates and their Shavelings in Scotland”. He
referred to her as a “wanton widow” and implied that she had been the mistress of Beaton and other clerics, all of whom were an “impure crowd of priests and monks.
In taking this attitude Knox was at variance with the true leaders of the Protestant movement in Europe; he went his own way and led his own revolution. He was idolized and imitated, and for generations the pulpits of Scotland were filled by pastors who thundered their interpretations of the Scriptures in the manner he had pioneered. Whereas England had tried to discourage Catholicism by imposing heavy fines, Scotland took direct action and very soon there were few
people who would admit to ties with Rome
Knox, like Wishart, attributed to himself special powers granted by God.  “I dare not deny,” he wrote, “but that God hath revealed unto me secrets unknown to the world”. He referred to himself as the “Prophet” and sanctioned his actions with the glamour of divine approval. This, again, was imitated until eventually no preacher who was worth his salt lacked a reputation for sooth-
saying and working minor miracles.
By 1560 the Catholic Church was practically non-existent in Scotland and the Protestants were in control. It was then that Knox, with certain others, produced a Book of the Policy and Discipline of the Kirk, and from that date the Presbyterian Church can be said to exist. This book was the source from whichthe rigid control on all aspects of the lives of the people emerged, and it gave
the Presbyterian Church more power over the subjects f the King than the Catholic Church had ever had.
This was the situation which had to be faced by Mary Queen of Scots, when she came to take her rightful place on the Scottish throne the following year.

***This is an excerpt from Witchcraft in History by Ronald Holmes. Copyright
1974 by Ronald Holmes. ISBN 0-8065-0575-3