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00:00January 1591. Edinburgh. A woman is about to be executed. Her crime? She is a witch.
00:16Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.
00:22She's been interrogated and tortured and now she'll be strangled and burnt at the
00:29stake. How did the execution of this woman light the fuse on a century of
00:40witch hunts across Britain and the state-sanctioned killing of thousands
00:45more like her?
00:49I'm not sure. In this series I'm reinvestigating some of the most
00:58dramatic and brutal chapters in British history. It wasn't just one generation, it
01:06was three generations losing their lives. Bum bum bum. These stories form part of
01:13our national mythology. They harbor mysteries that have intrigued us for
01:18centuries. It's chilling to think that this could actually be evidence in a
01:22murder investigation. But with the passage of time we have new ways to
01:29unlock their secrets using scientific advances and a modern perspective. It's a
01:35horrible psychosexual form of torture isn't it?
01:39I'm going to uncover forgotten witnesses. I'm going to re-examine old evidence and
01:45follow new clues to get closer to the truth. It is one of the great British
01:53mysteries. It was one of those moments I'm afraid for a historian that makes the
01:56hair stand up on the back of your neck.
02:15Today when we think about witches we think about old hags with pointy hats
02:21and broomsticks and black cats. But witches have a history that's long,
02:28sinister and very real. 400 years ago thousands of ordinary women were
02:34tortured and executed in witch hunts. I want to know who these women were and
02:41why they were killed.
02:52The witch-hunting craze that swept the country 400 years ago began here, just
03:01along the coast from Edinburgh in the small seaside town of North Berwick. The
03:07events that were said to have taken place here would spark the very first
03:11large-scale witch hunt in Scotland. I'm heading to the scene of the crime, the
03:18old Kirk of St. Andrew. Though it looks a bit like a small hut.
03:30Today this is all that remains of a once sizable church. When it was here one
03:37night in October 1519 that a group of witches supposedly gathered. What a great
03:46place for a witch's meeting right on the edge of the sea with a huge craggy
03:51devilish looking rock in the background. This was a time when everyone believed
03:57in witchcraft and this is the story of what happened here. On the night of All
04:04Holland, that means Halloween, a perfect time for some witchy business.
04:14There were a great many witches to the number of 200 and it says that they had
04:24flaggons of wine, they were making merry and drinking and they were singing all
04:33with one voice.
04:39The story goes that the devil was here
04:44and these witches were concocting dangerous spells.
04:51They took a cat and christened it and afterward bound to each part of that cat
05:00the chiefest parts of a dead man and the said cat was put in the sea and then
05:10there did arise such a tempest in the sea as a greater have not been seen.
05:20This storm had been conjured for one purpose, to kill the King of Scotland.
05:28James the Sixth had been returning by ship from Denmark and was lucky to
05:33survive. This all sounds absolutely bonkers but it's all, it makes a crazy
05:48sort of sense. This is exactly the sort of thing that witches are supposed to do
05:51isn't it? They're supposed to play around with corpses and cats. Witches are
05:55supposed to be able to control the weather, it's one of their powers.
06:00It might sound like a fairy tale but what happened here set off a
06:05devastating chain of events. Dozens were executed for this alleged plot and it
06:13triggered a century of persecution across the British Isles. Thousands more
06:19would be killed for the crime of witchcraft, some of them men, the majority
06:24women.
06:31To understand why this story had such impact I want to see the original text
06:38for myself. It's held here at the University of Glasgow archives. It's a
06:46pamphlet printed in London called News from Scotland and it gives a full
06:51account of this plot against the King and the trial of those held responsible.
06:57Only a very few of these pamphlets survive.
07:04This little book is more than 400 years old. It's an account, in fact
07:13it's quite a sensational tabloidy account of the first major witch hunt in
07:18Scotland. It was written in 1591 shortly after the events it describes. I have
07:25picked up many many old books and it never gets old. It's a pleasure every
07:31single time. You can't open it too wide, don't want it to snap. Here's a little
07:39summary. It's a true discourse of the apprehension of sundry witches lately
07:46taken in Scotland, whereof some are executed and some are yet imprisoned.
07:56These must be the witches, they're all bustling along in a sort of girl gang.
08:01And it's pretty clear that they are witches, because here is the devil.
08:06He's in a pulpit, he's making a sermon like a priest would do, but he's the flip
08:11image of a priest he is in fact. The devil. And these witches here at the top,
08:15they are working magic with their cauldron. They have cooked up a storm
08:22that has destroyed His Majesty's ship. You can see it's been wrecked, people are
08:27falling into the waves, and these are the witches who disrupted the King's
08:32journey back from Denmark.
08:37This pamphlet was commissioned by King James himself. It was distributed in
08:43England to tell the story of his triumph against the witches' wicked plot. It's
08:50clearly designed to be dramatic. Hmm, so this is quite emotive language here.
08:55They're not just witches, they are wicked and detestable witches. They had
09:00seduced by their sorcery a number of others to be as bad as themselves. So
09:08this is a problem. The number of witches in Scotland is growing. There are more
09:13and more of them every day. We should be very afraid. The author tells us that God
09:20have lately overthrown and hindered the intentions and wicked dealings of a
09:28great number of ungodly creatures, no better than devils. News from Scotland
09:36paints witches as a serious threat to order and stability, and the witch hunt
09:42as the necessary means by which the godly can prevail. But why was the
09:48Scottish King so eager to tell the English about his triumph over evil?
10:00The late 16th century was a time of huge political and religious upheaval. The
10:09Reformation was sweeping across Europe, as Protestants rejected the Pope's
10:14authority, and centuries of Catholicism. Here in Scotland, James was the
10:21figurehead for this new Protestant Church, but he also had his eye on the
10:26English throne. Queen Elizabeth I was getting older, she had no children.
10:31James was positioning himself as a strong and godly ruler, as a worthy
10:37successor to the Crown of England.
10:43Did James VI's desire for greater power play a part in the ramping up of a war
10:49against witches? Edinburgh's National Portrait Gallery has a painting of James
10:56VI, dating from this time. James has just turned 24. He has already had two
11:03decades of his reign, and a very turbulent reign it has been. Remember, he's
11:08still quite a young king, sort of dealing with noble factions and quarrels, and he
11:13doesn't have the all-important heir. So am I right that in 1590, James has just
11:17got married? Yes, he's just got married to Anna of Denmark. She's just a teenager,
11:22she is his new bride, and of course now James has the hope that they're going to
11:27have children, they're going to produce heirs. But there's been a few problems in
11:31getting her from Denmark to Scotland, haven't there? Anna's meant to be coming
11:35to Scotland, but there are these terrible storms, and her ship springs
11:39a leak, and the Admiral in charge of the fleet says, no, we have to turn back. And
11:43James makes a decision, I'm going to go to Anna. Originally he's driven back by
11:49storms, he has to go back into one of the Fife ports and then try again. But
11:54eventually they make it through, but he's had to leave his country. I mean, okay, he
11:58has taken a lot of his nobles and gentlemen with him, where he can keep an
12:03eye on them, but he has had to leave Scotland. It's a risk. Yes. So these storms, this
12:09business of the weather in the North Sea, is psychologically onerous to him. It's
12:13more than inconvenient, it's dangerous. He's had to take risks to his personal
12:18safety to overcome it. Yes, and remember, with only James, there's no air. If James
12:23goes down with the ship, Scotland is plunged into chaos. Louise, how familiar
12:29do you think James was with the idea of witches and witchcraft? Witchcraft has
12:34been around in Scotland from before the Reformation. The important thing is that
12:38people believed that witchcraft is real, and it's also about living in a
12:44providential world, where you believe God is looking over everything. So if the
12:49king is godly, then God blesses him, God blesses his rule, God blesses his country
12:54and people. Now if you annoy God by letting sinners like witches go unpunished,
12:58well that's when God might visit your country with famines and plagues and
13:01losses in battle. So, you know, to show you're a good, strong king, you must show
13:07you're a godly king, upholding God's law, and especially against the enemies of
13:11God, the witches. What better way to prove that you're a righteous and godly king
13:19than to triumph in a face-off with witches? That pamphlet, News from Scotland,
13:25was clearly good spin for James. But who were the real women of North Berwick,
13:32branded as witches, arrested and burnt at the stake?
13:42It's not easy to uncover the story of these ordinary women. They would have
13:48been illiterate, so left no testimony of their own, and many witch trial documents
13:53have been lost. This book is a history of King James VI. It's contemporary,
14:02it was written in his lifetime, and there's a whole section in it about
14:09witches, and there should be a reference to the very first woman to be executed
14:15in the North Berwick witch hunt. And here, I think, yes, is her name, Agnes
14:25Sampson.
14:32Agnes Sampson, grace wife, that means midwife. Somebody who brings you God's
14:42grace when you're giving birth. And it says, Alias Callit, which means otherwise
14:50called the wise wife of Keith. That means a wise woman, a folk healer, somebody with
15:01slightly mysterious powers, and it looks like she's from Keith.
15:09So, how on earth did Agnes Sampson, midwife and folk healer, get caught up in
15:17this brutal witch hunt?
15:25The answer could lie in the role she played in her community, and in the tools
15:30of her trade. Hidden away in the storerooms at the National Museum of
15:36Scotland is a unique collection of everyday objects with magical powers.
15:46Well, what we have here is a selection of some of our large collection of charms
15:52and amulets, which are reputed to have superstitious powers. So, these were
15:57objects put to protect you, and they are also curative.
16:04So, what sort of a world are we looking into here then? One where people probably
16:10believed in God, but also believed in a load of other sorts of supernatural
16:13powers. We have religious belief, belief in God, that is able to coexist in their
16:19mind quite happily with the supernatural. So, a belief in fairies, malevolent elves,
16:25evil witches. What's this neat little black one that looks like a Christmas
16:30pudding tied up with a ribbon? This is a seed pod that's come all the way, possibly
16:36from the Caribbean, and it's floated on the Gulf Stream so local people, ordinary
16:41people, would pick them up off the beaches and use these to help them
16:46during childbirth. And as a result, they are called Mary's Nut. Mary's Nut? Yes,
16:52St. Mary's Nut. So, it's really Mother Mary's protection in childbirth. So, it's
16:58that combination of a religious belief allied to something that is more of a
17:02folk belief and a superstitious belief. And is it the sort of thing that you'd
17:06lend to your friend when she was pregnant? Yeah, I think you could. And then pass it on? Yeah, but
17:11you'd probably want your own one anyway, because you're probably giving birth
17:14quite a lot. Oh, many times. Yes, a lot of use for the Mary's Nuts. Yeah. This one
17:20catches my eye. Well, this little cross is a wonderful example of something every
17:26day that anyone could have owned. It's made from rowan, and the rowan tree is
17:31supposed to be protective against evil spirits. So, you might just carry this. You
17:37could have it on your person, or you could have it under your pillow. And you
17:41planted rowan trees in your gardens to keep away the evil spirits. So, how does
17:46a folk healer fit into this world of the amulets and the charms? So, you'll
17:52have had these as your everyday item for everyday protection. And you would bring
17:57in someone, like a healer, a wise woman, when something's gone really badly wrong.
18:03She will have had knowledge of herbs and so on, like a homeopath today. But they
18:07are also presumed to have magical powers. This sounds like witchcraft. What's the
18:14difference between folk healing and witchery? The witch is living within the
18:18community and associated with evil things. Evil spirits, nasty things
18:24happening, disease, crops failing. The folk healer is associated with good things. So,
18:31the folk healer is on your side, and the witch is against you. Indeed, she's a
18:35witch buster, because she's associated with getting rid of those evil spirits.
18:44Agnes would have been a pillar of her community. So, how did that change? And why
18:50did she become branded as a witch accused of plotting to kill the king?
19:01I want to see where the wise wife of Keefe lived. Her village lies in the East
19:09Lothian countryside, about 20 miles south of North Berwick. So, I guess that's the
19:15remains of the village. Looks like it's only one house just now. But up here, this
19:22way, is the remains of the church.
19:30I'm looking for the ruin that I think is through the Sea of Nettles. Makes a
19:36change from being in the library.
19:45It's great to think that Agnes herself would have stood here. This would have
19:51been where she came. To services. Here since the 12th century, Agnes's village
20:02church would have been Catholic for almost 300 years, decorated with murals
20:07and alive with the chanting of Latin mass. But from the 1560s, her church was
20:16becoming Protestant. The shockwaves of the Reformation were felt even in remote
20:22villages, like this one. The church was stripped of its Catholic adornments. The
20:29Latin mass was banned. Now, Catholic belief and folk belief had sort of
20:35peacefully coexisted. But I'm starting to wonder whether, as Catholic gave way to
20:42Protestant, a folk healer like Agnes might have been caught in the crossfire.
20:49Religious change brought huge upheaval, even for a small rural village like
20:55Agnes's. And they faced other difficulties too. It was a period that's
21:01sometimes called the Little Ice Age. Winters were getting colder. I do know
21:06that in the 1580s there was a big famine in Scotland and population was rising.
21:12There was more competition for resources. There must have been more fear and
21:18suspicion and trouble of various kinds, as there always is when something bad
21:23happens. There must have been a sense that something was going wrong and that
21:28somebody must be to blame.
21:35A folk healer like Agnes trod a fine line between being someone people called
21:42upon when they needed help and someone they blamed when misfortune struck.
21:53It makes me wonder what triggered the first accusation against Agnes. News from
22:10Scotland claims she was denounced as a witch by a local servant girl called
22:15Gaylist Duncan. But I can't find any evidence to back that up. What I have
22:20uncovered is this document describing a church leaders meeting. 15th of September
22:271589, the minutes of the synod say they've ordered the Presbytery of
22:34Haddington, that's the local church committee in Haddington, to summon before
22:39them Agnes Sampson, suspected of witchcraft. So here it is in black and
22:47white on the 15th of September 1589 we have the first reference to Agnes
22:53Sampson in connection with witchcraft. This is a year before Agnes was
23:00implicated in the North Berwick plot to kill the king. It doesn't tell me exactly
23:06what she's accused of, but we do know what happened next.
23:17By this time the Scottish Church was in the hands of radical Protestant
23:21reformers who'd been led by John Knox. Knox had wanted to create a new godly
23:27state based on the pure message of the Bible, obedience and discipline, ushering
23:33in a new age of religious puritanism in Scotland.
23:39This is St. Mary's Church in Haddington. Both North Berwick and Agnes's village
23:48of Keefe came under its jurisdiction and it was here that church elders first put
23:56Agnes under investigation as a suspected witch.
24:01Hello? And this church was at the forefront of the religious and moral
24:14reforms sweeping the country. Hello, will you be Stuart? Hello, I'm Stuart, yes.
24:20It's really nice to meet you Stuart. Welcome to St. Mary's. Thank you for
24:24having me. Not at all. So Stuart, what's your connection to this really huge and
24:29beautiful church? Well, I'm a member of the church and I'm also one of a team
24:33who guide visitors around during our open season and my late wife was the
24:38minister here for 10 years. Is that quite unusual to be a female minister in Scotland?
24:43Nowadays, there have been female ministers in the Church of Scotland for over 50
24:46years, but it's relatively recent, yes, and my wife was the first one here. The
24:52first one here, a trailblazer. Absolutely. Now, I know, every historian knows
24:57that in the 16th century, the big thing that happens in Scotland is the
25:01Reformation, which is led by John Knox. He's a Haddington boy, isn't he?
25:06Well, John Knox was born about 200 yards from where we're standing on the other
25:10side of the river and he was almost certainly baptized in this church. Oh, wow.
25:15So this church, he was baptized here. This is right at the cutting edge of the
25:20Reformation then, this place. And how would you characterize this Scottish
25:26Reformation religion that John Knox was keen on? Of course, it was a much simpler,
25:30stricter and very, in some ways, very harsh religion. So what kind of behaviour
25:36did the Reformed Scottish Church disapprove of? What we might describe as
25:42frivolous behaviour, singing, dancing, drinking and, of course, fornication. You
25:47could be called up in front of the congregation if you're misbehaving in
25:51some way. And that's because the devil is just around the corner and your soul
25:56is at risk of eternal damnation if you step out of line. Yep. And John Knox
26:00didn't approve of women, did he? Well, he didn't approve of women being in
26:05positions of authority. So if the new church did not like to have women in
26:11positions of authority, someone like Agnes, who was a wise woman, who had the
26:17trust of the community, do you think maybe they felt threatened by that?
26:21That's quite possible, yes. I wonder if Agnes was aware that she was being
26:28watched by the church as she went about her business as a midwife and a healer.
26:33It's starting to look like there's no place in this new Protestant order for
26:39women like her. She is a woman in a position of authority. She's got this
26:44power of healing. People in the community trust her, need her, look up to her. Do the
26:51church authorities feel a bit threatened by that? Agnes's fate now lay in the
26:57hands of these fervent Protestants. And these religious leaders were absorbing
27:04new ideas circulating in Europe about the nature of witchcraft and how to deal
27:10with it. They were laid out in a book written by two German Catholic
27:15theologians in the 15th century. This is a direct translation of a text that's
27:21more than 500 years old. It's called Malleus Maleficarum, the hammer of
27:29witches. And it's a sort of a manual of how to spot a witch and what sort of
27:38things they're going to get up to. One of the things that pleases me about the
27:42book is that it's a sort of a series of questions and answers, like a listicle
27:48that you might get in a magazine. How are witches transported from place to place?
27:52How do witches perform their spells? How is a formal pact with evil made? Central
27:59to this text was the idea that witches were in cahoots with a dangerous enemy,
28:04the devil. It's all part of a general turning up of the temperature on
28:11religion in the 16th century. You've got these new Protestants coming along and
28:15saying, no, this is the way to do religion. And you've got those Catholics who
28:19suddenly become a lot more defensive and they say, no, we feel under attack now,
28:22this is the way to do religion. So that's why people just start to think that it's
28:30a matter of life and death, this. The devil is really wandering around your
28:35church, tempting you, tempting your wife. And it's like the end of days in the
28:4016th century. Everybody gets utterly obsessed with the devil. Demonology books
28:45like this made it clear the devil was specifically recruiting women to do his
28:50evil bidding. Why is it that more witches are female than men? I'm quite
28:57interested in what they're going to say about that. Well, it's basically because
29:01of the wickedness of women, as spoken of in the Bible. In Ecclesiasticus 25, there
29:09is no wrath above the wrath of a woman. I had rather dwell with a lion and a
29:15dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman.
29:20All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is, in women, insatiable. And that's
29:29why the devil is able to recruit them more easily. They're so desperate to fill
29:34their wombs that they will consort even with devils. You know, if there aren't enough
29:38men to go around, devils will do. The witches meet together in conclave on a
29:45set day, and the devil appears to them in the assumed body of a man. And he says to
29:54them, look, if you have sex with me, ladies, I will give you long life. That is the
29:59deal. And this witch is showing her allegiance to the devil by kissing his
30:07backside. What has surprised me reading through this book, and I really wasn't
30:18aware of this, was just how much witchcraft and sex seem to be mixed up
30:24together. Fear about sexual matters and the lust of women seems to be absolutely
30:30fundamental. Now, this brings to life the devil having his meeting with all the
30:38witches who are in his power. So that's like our coven of witches meeting in the
30:43church in North Berwick. Here's the devil, sitting on his throne with his horns. And
30:48this witch here, she's got her fire and her cauldron. Look, she's putting in little
30:52cats, I think. Oh, and look, here's a witch taking off on her broomstick. I like the
30:58way that the things that witches use for their magic, cauldrons, broomsticks,
31:04cats even, are just things from around the house. They're ordinary
31:08domestic things, and they're things that women would use, not men.
31:18So poor Agnes. She's had the bad luck to be born at a really bad time. Over a
31:26hundred years now, this conspiracy theory, kicked off by theologians, has been growing
31:32in power. People now genuinely believe that witches are largely female, that they gather
31:39in groups, that they have this kinky sexual pact with the devil, and that their number
31:46is growing. More and more witches are being recruited. So what are the authorities going
31:51to do to deal with these wicked women? For centuries, accusations of witchcraft had largely
32:01been settled within the local community. But now, driven by Protestantism, that cast witches
32:10as the devil's agents, the authorities had to crack down. Well, this is the Scottish
32:19Witchcraft Act. So this act was drawn up by Scotland's Protestant reformers. John Knox
32:29may even have had a hand in it. It is statute and ordained that no manner of person or persons
32:37of whatever estate degree or condition is to use any manner of witchcraft. And if you
32:43do do that, they'll be under pain of death. It actually says under the pain of deed, but
32:50that means death. You will be killed. It has become a capital offence for the first time.
32:59So the act is really clear that the whole weight of the law is going to come down on
33:04anybody doing witchcraft. But it seems to me there's a huge problem here. It doesn't
33:11actually say what witchcraft is. So witchcraft is open to interpretation, and that means
33:20the law is open to interpretation, and that seems to me to be very dangerous. The Witchcraft
33:27Act put in place a legal framework for the prosecution of witches. Now, if enough evidence
33:34could be gathered, a suspected witch could be tried in the courts and sentenced to death.
33:49By autumn 1590, the church elders in Haddington had been investigating and building a case
33:55against Agnes for more than a year. I'm told that very few witch trial documents still exist,
34:04but remarkably, Agnes' have survived. I can't access the originals in the National Records
34:11of Scotland, but the History Centre in Haddington has a copy. Incredibly, they include detailed
34:21transcripts of the evidence against Agnes. It says here, here follows the articles of her
34:28ditté, whereof she was convicted by number 53. Now, a ditté, it's from the French. Ditté
34:40meaning said. These are the things that were said against her, and there were 53 charges.
34:44It's quite a loss, isn't it? Okay, here she's charged with using of witchcraft in healing
34:50of John Thompson in Durltoun, who remained... Oh, I see what she's done. She used witchcraft
35:01to heal John Thompson, but he remained crippled, that's crippled, notwithstanding thereof. I can
35:09see that if you'd booked Agnes to heal you, and then it failed, then he'd want his money back,
35:16you might be so cross that you reported her to the authorities. Let's have a look at this one
35:23item. For coming to Bessie Aikenhead and using her prayer and devilish charms for the recovering
35:33of her health to her. Here's someone who's pleased. Bessie Aikenhead has been cured.
35:42So when I look at the list of people who've been either cured or not cured by Agnes,
35:50it's a bit confusing because you can't see what the problem is. She's sort of going about her
35:55business as a healer, but perhaps the problem is that this old traditional way of doing things,
36:02of healing people, has now become suspicious because people are increasingly worried about
36:08witches. There's a lot of talk here about witchcraft and prayers to the devil. I mean,
36:16I cannot know whether all of these people who were Agnes's clients, whether they
36:22really said these things, or were these important people who were determined to catch a witch,
36:28were they taking the evidence and twisting it and putting on this whole witchy layer?
36:35There's much to question about this document, but it does offer a tantalising glimpse of Agnes
36:41herself. We're told that she's a widow and has children, and that she learned her folk healing
36:47skills from her father. So I love the way that hidden within this formal document written by
36:55men who had it in for Agnes, we're actually meeting the real person. And then here, now this
37:03is really extraordinary, because this is just what you don't normally get. You do not normally get
37:11the recorded words of somebody living in a tiny village in remote Scotland in the 1590s. That's
37:22not somebody that we normally hear from in history. But here we do, because recorded here
37:30are the words to Agnes's prayer to her patients for life or death. All kinds of ills that ever
37:39may be. In Christ's name, I conjure thee. I conjure thee.
37:48More and less with all the virtues of the mass. And right so the nail sore that nailed Jesus and
37:56no more. And right so the same blood that wreaked o'er the rueful rude.
38:03Forth of the flesh and forth of the bone and in the earth and in the stone. I conjure thee in God's name.
38:13These are supposed to be her very words. It's like she's speaking to us.
38:17It gives a wonderful, tingly feeling. This is why we do this, to bring people back from the dead.
38:28But one thing is clear. Even if some of Agnes's clients were grateful for her powers of healing,
38:34and even if she claimed that her prayer was to God,
38:38the authorities were intent on painting her as a witch in league with the devil.
38:42And there's something else in here that's really intriguing.
38:49People are summoning her from far and wide. And it's not just villagers who are after her services,
38:54it's the Toth's. Posh people are after her too.
38:59Perhaps her far-reaching reputation as a healer helps explain why, when the king was looking for
39:05a scapegoat for the storms that beset his ship, Agnes Sampson was a ready name on people's lips.
39:11In late autumn 1590, just weeks after the alleged witches gathering at North Berwick,
39:18Agnes was arrested, taken to Edinburgh, and imprisoned in a prison cell.
39:25And in early December, she was brought here to be interrogated.
39:32This is the palace of Holyrood House. This was the home of King James VI.
39:39This part of the palace here has been owned by the King of England,
39:44and it was the house of the King of England.
39:47This was the home of King James VI.
39:51This part of the palace here has been altered, but this part is the original palace that Agnes
39:59would have seen. She would have set eyes on these two rather sinister-looking turrets.
40:07So I really am walking in Agnes's footsteps at this moment.
40:17And...
40:27This is the actual chamber in which James VI received visitors. His bedchamber is just through
40:34there. And it was here in this room, to the best of our knowledge, that Agnes came face-to-face
40:42with the King.
40:47What an extraordinary encounter. A woman from a tiny rural village brought before the King.
40:57A Protestant monarch determined to prove he had the power to drive out the devil.
41:03So what on earth happened in this room?
41:08News from Scotland offers this account.
41:11Agnes Sampson was brought here to Holyrood House before the King's Magistry and sundry
41:20other of the nobility of Scotland. But it says here, she stood stiffly in the denial
41:26of all that was laid to her charge. So she stood up to them. This is a fearsome situation
41:32to be questioned by the King himself in his royal palace. But she wasn't giving way an inch.
41:41Despite this, at some point, Agnes cracked and confessed.
41:52It's chilling to realise that all the detail of what happened in North Berwick,
41:56as recounted in News from Scotland, actually comes from the confession Agnes made right here
42:04in Holyrood Palace. It was Agnes who said 200 witches gathered together and used a dead man
42:11and a christened cat to raise the storm that almost killed the King. This is her story.
42:19But why would she say all these things? Reading on, I think I can see why.
42:27Agnes Sampson had all her hair shaven off in each part of her body and her head
42:34thrown with a rope. But during this time, she would not confess
42:39anything until the devil's mark was found upon her privities.
42:45Now, to my mind, this is torture of a really horrible sexual nature.
42:57It's a sort of a sexual assault.
43:01And then when this happened, when they did this to her, she immediately confessed
43:09whatsoever was demanded of her. And, goodness me, I'd do exactly the same thing. Poor Agnes.
43:21It's hard to be sure whether these descriptions of torture
43:25are true. Was this the sort of treatment inflicted on women like Agnes?
43:31To find out, I'm travelling to Forfar, just north of Dundee.
43:37When a witch hunt happened here in the 1660s,
43:41more than 50 women were accused from this small town alone.
43:48It's Judith! Hello! I meet you in the flesh at last.
43:52I know. One local historian,
43:54has been doing groundbreaking research into the experiences of these so-called witches.
44:01She's uncovered shocking new evidence of their interrogation from unlikely historical documents,
44:08the town's financial records. Accounts of the town official sounds a bit dull.
44:17Yes, it does, if you, if you don't realise what's going on. And what's going on in Forfar at that
44:23time is a witch hunt that's been described as being like no other in Scotland. And when you
44:30follow the money, you find some really interesting things. OK, on the first page, the first section
44:38at your right, you'll find a list of all the accounts of the witch hunt that took place here.
44:45The first section at ye examiner of Gerzel Simpson. She was a suspected witch, but she was arrested
44:53and she was put in the tollbooth. It says an item to Andrew Taylor for closing of the high tollbooth
45:01ye time that Gerzel Simpson was there in and for taking down of them again. Oh, so when the
45:09suspected witch was in the prison, they closed up the windows. Yep. And then when she had been
45:15executed, they opened up the windows again. That's right. And that would be to keep her
45:20in the dark. Well, it's the devil and you don't want the devil cursing the people in the street
45:25when they walk by. Oh, look at this. For the making of two pairs of stocks for the witches.
45:31Oh, yes. So the stocks are really interesting because stocks sound like they are quite innocent.
45:37You know, we have images of people in stocks outside being hung up like this. Yeah. Throw eggs
45:42at them. That's not what's happening here. In Scotland at the time, stocks were used on the
45:47accused witches as a form of torture. It says here that candles are bought for those who did
45:54watch Gerzel Simpson, who's the suspected witch. What does that mean to watch her, do you think?
46:00Watching usually comes with waking. So watching and waking was a form of torture in itself. It's
46:06sleep deprivation. Later on, we'll see that there are other prisoners in. They're male prisoners
46:13and they're murderers and they're not being watched. There's no candles being paid for for them.
46:19So the suspected witch is treated worse than the murderers? Yes. Wow. Absolutely. These women,
46:26they're a danger because they endanger the whole of society. Yeah. They put the idea of the godly
46:32society at risk. If you go down to the 13th of September. Yes. John Kincaid and David Cowan
46:42come to forfeiture. So John Kincaid is the famous witch pricker. The witch pricker? Yeah. That's a
46:49very resonant phrase. What exactly does that mean? Well, they pay for two, trois prines for him.
46:56Here it is. This is the purchase of two prines for the fricking of Catherine Porter. Prines are
47:05pins. They're made of iron and they're usually about three inches long. Or some people would
47:11say the length. Three inches? Yeah. Oh, not tiny little dressmaking pins. Big things. Big pins.
47:16And why do they want to stick these pins into the suspected witch? They're trying to find the
47:22devil's mark. What's that? It was usually thought to be a blue mark. It could be a mole. It could
47:27be an extra nipple. It could be scars. Anything that they thought was unusual on a woman's body
47:33that doesn't respond to pain or doesn't bleed. That was evidence, pure and simple, that you had
47:39convened with the devil. So what they would do was they would shave the woman. They would shave
47:45all her hair and she would be naked. She's in front of a panel of men. She's having these pins
47:56stuck in all over her body. And they would prick people for hours. There's mention in one of the
48:03Privy Council documents of a woman dying from witch pricking. It's a horrible
48:12psychosexual form of torture. Absolutely. What really shocks me, Judith, is that the evidence
48:17is here. That they've recorded it for us to see. Indeed. When I read these treasures accounts,
48:23and I've read them many times, the hairs never cease to stand up in the back of my neck.
48:29And I think how could they have treated people like this? And then you have to remember what
48:34they had in their mind. And in their mind, they were absolutely convinced that they were not
48:40people. They were devils. Inhuman. They are the devil. How long have you been trolling through
48:46all of these records, Judith? 10 years. At least 10 years. And what motivates you to do this?
48:56Well, one, it's just so incredibly interesting. And two, there's the real sense of injustice.
49:04Judith's research shows how the authorities devised a system for rooting out witches.
49:11Torture was an acceptable means to elicit a confession. And the so-called devil's mark,
49:18which wasn't too hard to find, provided undeniable proof. Under this kind of duress,
49:26Remarkably, the National Records of Scotland holds an account of what was said during Agnes's
49:33actual interrogation. It also offers clues as to why Agnes's case triggered a craze for witch hunts
49:42across the country. Is this witch hunt evidence? Or is it just a myth?
49:55Word for word, then, was there someone in the room making notes? How was it put together?
50:00This has been written up afterwards. There was probably a scribe in the room at the time
50:05jotting down a few things. But this isn't a transcript of her actual words. This is
50:11a summary in the third person. You know, she confessed that, she denied that,
50:18um, and so on. And we see breaks in the document where perhaps she was tortured.
50:25It's hard to tell. We do know in general terms that she was tortured. And we can see this text
50:31as a kind of negotiation because Agnes probably didn't know anything about those storms at the
50:35time, but they're asking her about it. So she knows she can't just remain silent. She has to
50:40tell a story, otherwise she'll get tortured more. Do you think that the interrogators were asking
50:45what we might call leading questions to get a particular answer? Oh, undoubtedly, yes. You know,
50:49tell us about when you met the devil. And how does one worship the devil? And so one of the
50:57things that witches do is that they kiss the devil's arse. Does it say that in her actual
51:05confession? Yes. Before they departed, they all kissed his arse. That almost certainly comes from
51:12a leading question from somebody who has come across the European learned idea of how witches
51:18worship the devil. And Agnes has been made to say, if people torture you enough, you do get so
51:24confused that you lose confidence in your own memory. And you start thinking, um, the interrogators
51:30are right. And perhaps I'm a witch after all. That's awful. They're breaking her body, but they're
51:34also trying to break her mind at the same time. Yeah, I'm afraid so, yeah. Really, it seems to me that they're
51:38fitting her up. You certainly could say that. I mean, they're doing it unwittingly. They're
51:42terrifyingly sincere, these guys. You know, they think they're getting the truth. They are trying
51:47to save themselves and everybody from the terrifying power of the devil. And, you know, it certainly,
51:55by this time, has become a conspiracy. They think it isn't just one witch, you know, it's a group who
52:01has done this. And this is what the elite understand that witches will do. They will
52:08gather in groups. So they're asking Agnes, you know, who else was there? You know, whether these
52:13were names that she gave or names that were fed to her and then she repeated. You can't always tell.
52:21You ask for names of accomplices and you get a sort of snowball effect. And once you've got one
52:26witch, you can then go to another and another and another. And, you know, the snowball can go
52:31on getting larger until everyone's sick of it. How many people eventually get pulled into the
52:35whole thing? How many people ultimately is one of the very difficult questions to answer. Almost
52:42certainly dozens, probably hundreds. But, you know, many of the records have disappeared.
52:47It's very hard to put numbers on it for that reason. Julian, why is the North Berwick witch
52:52hunt in particular so important? There have been earlier trials with individual witches, but they
52:59never get into large numbers. They don't manage to interrogate them properly and it all fizzles out.
53:06This is the first big successful one where we see the witch hunters really working out how to do it.
53:13So this provides a sort of blueprint for how to have what you might call a successful witchcraft
53:18panic that actually leads to large numbers of executions. And versions of that then get
53:24repeated time and again over the next hundred years or so in Scotland.
53:33What's so horrifying is that clearly if you torture someone, they'll say anything to make it stop.
53:41It's this that made Agnes into a witch. And in a final tragic irony, offer up the names of 59
53:51other people too, who'd go on to face the same fate. But here's the problem. She's now
53:59officially confessed to causing storms and to conspiring to kill the king.
54:10Six weeks after her confession, Agnes was put on trial in Edinburgh.
54:17The building Agnes's trial took place in stood right here. It was in the shadow of the great
54:23cathedral. She would have been the only woman in a courtroom full of men. The trial took
54:30one day and the verdict was guilty.
54:39The following day, the 28th of January 1591, Agnes was brought here to Castle Hill.
54:49She was to be strangled and burnt at the stake,
54:53a sentence reserved only for the most dangerous of heretics.
54:58I can't begin to imagine how petrified she must have felt
55:03as she was being brought here, knowing what was going to happen.
55:08Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
55:13nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
55:20But his delight is in the Lord.
55:37His delight is in the law of the Lord, and his law doth he meditate day and night.
55:46In this moment, religious zeal, fear of the devil and an ambitious king had collided
55:53to create a system of persecution from which there was no escape.
56:01And Agnes Sampson paid the ultimate price.
56:07This event, it makes me angry. It seems like a terrible, tragic miscarriage of justice.
56:24This is a woman who tried to help people, but who ended up being punished for it.
56:30Agnes's case set the blueprint for a century of witch hunts.
56:37Soon after her death, the Scottish king became James I of England
56:42and extended the English witchcraft laws,
56:45leading to witch hunts south of the border too.
56:49But it was Scotland that would have one of the highest rates of witch killing anywhere.
56:55But it was Scotland that would have one of the highest rates of witch killing anywhere in Europe.
57:01In total, two and a half thousand people would be executed, the vast majority women.
57:07These were mothers, sisters, daughters.
57:13And imagine what it was like for other women in this society,
57:17the fear they must have felt that they could be next.
57:24The only national monument to the thousands killed
57:28is this small drinking fountain, known as the Witch's Well.
57:33But a campaign is now underway for a more significant memorial and an official pardon.
57:40It's hard to know what to do with these dark chapters from our past.
57:46Seems to me there's a double injustice for the women caught up in the witch hunts.
57:52They were wrongly convicted.
57:53But on top of that, their stories have been forgotten.
57:56They've been buried under a pile of stereotypes.
58:01Now is the time to restore the voices of women like Agnes Sampson.
58:08And to make sure they're heard.
58:13How did a catastrophic plague that wiped out around half the population change Britain?
58:20I am tempted to think that these 11 men thought,
58:22right, the plague is coming, we're jolly well not going to go to work,
58:26we're going to go to the pub because tomorrow we die.