James could gratify his superstitious fears and political animosity at the same time, while Euphemia Maclean—the fine, brave, handsome Euphemia—writhed in agony at the stake to which she was bound when burned alive in the flames: “brunt in assis quick to the deid,” says the Record—the severest sentence ever passed on a witch. This murder was done on the 25th July, 1591.

“The last of Februarie, 1592, Richard Grahame wes brant at y^e Cross of Edinburghe for vitchcrafte and sorcery,” says succinctly Robert Birrel, “burges of Edinburghe,” in his “Diarey containing divers Passages of Staite and uthers memorable Accidents, from y^e 1532 zeir of our Redemption, till y^e beginning of the zeir 1605.” “And in 1593, Katherine Muirhead was brunt for vitchcrafte, quha confest sundrie poynts yrof.” Richard Graham was the “Rychie Graham, ane necromancer,” consulted by Barbara Napier; the same who gave the Earl of Bothwell some drug to make the king’s majesty “lyke weill of him,” if he could but touch king’s majesty on the face therewith; it was he also who raised the devil for Sir Lewis Ballantyne, in his own yard in the Canongate, whereby Sir Lewis was so terrified that he took sickness and died. Even in the presence of the king himself, Rychie boasted that “he had a familiar spirit which showed him many things;” but which somehow forgot to show him the stake and the rope and the faggot, which yet were the bold necromancer’s end, little as the poor cozening wretch merited such an awful doom.

THE TWO ALISONS.

June, 1596, had nearly seen a nobler victim than those usually accorded. John Stuart, Master of Orkney, and brother of the Earl, “was dilatit of consulting with umquhile Margaret Balfour, ane wich, for the destructionne of Patrik Erll of Orkney, be poysoning.” In the dittay she is called “Alysoun Balfour, ane knawin notorious wich.” Alisoun, after being kept forty-eight hours in the “caschiclawis”[10]—her husband, an old man of eighty-one, her son, and her young daughter, all being in ward beside her, and tortured—was induced to confess. She could not see the old man with the Lang Irons of fifty stone weight laid upon him; her son in the boots, with fifty-seven strokes; and her little daughter, aged seven, with the thumbscrews upon her tender hands, and not seek to gain their remission by any confession that could be made. But when the torture was removed from them and her, she recanted in one of the most moving and pathetic speeches on record—availing her little then, poor soul! for she was burnt on the Castle Hill, December 16th, 1594, and her confession treasured up to be used as future evidence against John Stuart. Thomas Palpla, a servant, was also implicated; but as he had been kept eleven days and nights in the caschiclaws (or caspie-claws); twice in the day for fourteen hours “callit in the buitis;” stripped naked and scourged with “ropes in sic soirt that they left nather flesch nor hyde vpoun him;” and, as he recanted so soon as the torture was removed, his confession went for but little. So John, Master of Orkney, was let off, when perhaps he had been the only guilty one of the three.

In October[11] of the same year (1596), Alesoun Jollie, spous to Robert Rae, in Fala, was “dilatit of airt and pairt” in the death of Isobell Hepburn, of Fala: and the next month, November, Christian Stewart, in Nokwalter, was strangled and burnt for the slaughter of umquhile Patrick Ruthven, by taking ane black clout from Isobell Stewart, wherewith to work her fatal charm. It does not appear that she did anything more heinous than borrow a black cloth from Isobell, which might or might not have been left in Ruthven’s house; but suspicion was as good as evidence in those days, and black clouts were dangerous things to deal with when women had the reputation of witches. So poor Christian Stewart was strangled and burnt, and her soul released from its troubles by a rougher road, and a shorter, than what Nature would have taken if left to herself. “Strange that while all these dismal affairs were going on at Edinburgh, Shakspeare was beginning to write his plays, and Bacon to prepare his essays. Ramus had by this time shaken the Aristotelian philosophy, and Luther had broken the papal tyranny.”[12] Truly humanity walks by slow marches, and by painful stumbling through thorny places!

THE TROUBLES OF ABERDEEN.[13]

Aberdeen was not behind her elder sister. One man and twenty-three women were burned in one year alone for the crime of witchcraft and magic; and the Records of the Dean of Guild faithfully detail the expenses which the town was put to in the process. On the 23rd of February, 1597, Thomas Leyis cost them two pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence, for “peattis, tar barrelis, fir, and coallis, to burn the said Thomas, and to Jon Justice for his fie in executing him;” but Jonet Wischart (his mother), and Isobel Cocker, cost eleven pounds ten shillings for their joint cremation; with ten shillings added to the account for “trailling of Monteithe (another witch of the same gang) through the streits of the town in ane cart, quha hangit herself in prison, and eirding (burying) her.” The dittay against these several persons set forth various crimes. Janet Wischart, who was an old woman notorious for her evil eye, was convicted, amongst other things, of having “in the moneth of Aprile or thairby, in anno nyntie ane yeiris, being the first moneth in the raith (the first quarter) at the greiking” (breaking) of the day, cast her cantrips in Alexander Thomson’s way, so that one half of the day his body was “rossin” (burned or roasted) as if in an oven, with an extreme burning drought, and the other half melting away with a cold sweat. Upon Andrew Wobster—who had put a linen towel round her throat, half choking her, and to whom she said angrily, “Quhat wirreys thow me? thow salt lie: I sall give breid to my bairnis this towmound, and thou sall nocht byd ane moneth with thin, to gif tham breid”—she had laid such sore cantrips, that he died as she predicted: which was a cruel and foul murder in the eyes of the law, forbye the sin of witchcraft. But she had other victims as well. James Low, a stabler, refused to lend her his kiln and barn, so he took a “dwining” illness in consequence, “melting away like ane burning candle till he died.” His wife and only son died too, and his “haill geir, surmounting three thousand pounds, are altogether wrackit and away.” Beside this evidence there was his own testimony availing; for he had often said on his death-bed, that if he had lent Jonet what she had demanded, he would never have suffered loss. She had also once brought down a dozen fowls off a roost, dead at her feet; and had ruined a woman and her husband, by bidding them take nine grains or ears of wheat, and a bit of rowan tree, and put them in the four corners of the house—for all the mischance that