Original subtitles

[♪ dramatic music]

- The 16th century picture of what was happening

on Halloween night in the North Berwick Kirk.

You've got this huge meeting of people

coming in all different ways.

There are people being magically transported

through the air by the devil.

- This is very clearly demonic witchcraft.

- They're in the graveyard.

Doors fly open.

Blows again, suddenly boom, candles.

And there is the devil.

So the devil climbs into the pulpit

in the fashion of a Christian minister.

- And then the horror, the devil points out graves.

They go, they open the graves, they get the corpses,

they get out their knives, and they start cutting

off all the fingers, and all the toes, and

the noses of the corpses.

And the devil says, "Grind them into a powder

"and you're gonna go and do bad magic with it."

"Because this is what I command you as the devil,

"to go and do all the evil you can."

And that is a 16th century picture

of what's going on at a witches meeting

in North Berwick Kirk.

[narrator] In a matter of months, these suspected witches

will have to fight for their lives

in Scotland's first ever mass witch trial,

presided over by the king himself.

[whispering]

- The story first begins when we get a servant

called Geillis Duncan.

[birds chirping]

Geillis was questioned by her master,

a man called David Seaton.

David Seaton is a bailey of the borough of Tranent,

so this means he's sort of a Scottish local government

official, but he also runs the court.

So he's an important guy, he's part of the legal machinery

of this little patch of Scotland.

[Martha McGill] He became suspicious of his servant,

Geillis, because she had a tendency to sneak out at night.

[door creaking]

[Louise Yeoman] So he grabs poor Geillis, and he tortures her.

He sort of practically strangles her with a rope.

He keeps her awake.

So he thinks, I bet she is going to witches meetings,

and he thinks she's maybe been trying out

some of that magical healing.

Women like Geillis would potentially provide

healing services to their community, often using herbs,

perhaps with some kind of incantation spoken

at the time of application.

[grinding noises]

- Healers don't really have any training.

There are a few herbs that they use that are recognized

as having medicinal powers today, such as foxglove.

Most of, even the herbs, are probably

what we would call placebos.

[grinding noises]

[Louise Yeoman] Imagine she's getting threatened and

terrorized, and so Geillis Duncan starts saying whatever

she thinks will make David Seaton leave her alone.

[Martha McGill] What we see in so many witch trials

is that she starts to name names.

[♪ foreboding music]

One of the names that then comes up

is the name of Agnes Sampson.

[birds chirping]

Agnes Sampson seems to have been an older woman than Geillis,

probably fairly established in her community,

had seemingly worked for some time as a healer.

[Louise Yeoman] Now, Agnes is versatile.

Agnes heals animals as well as people.

[Martha McGill] Something you see with a lot of these healers

is that they would recite charms that were often

a strange mixture of different influences.

A bit of Latin, a bit of familiar prayers

that they had probably heard at church.

[Louise Yeoman] Agnes is your sort of all-round spiritual,

magical healing consultant.

She's got a big reputation.

Mostly what she's healing through

are these sort of Latin, Catholic, Christian charms.

[Martha McGill] The church doesn't like that elements of

Catholicism often get brought into the healing practices.

It's 30 years on from Scotland's Reformation,

which takes place in 1560.

In theory, the country is supposed to have converted

into this beacon of Protestantism,

this glowing, godly society.

In practice, of course, so many old traditions

and old practices do remain.

The women like Agnes or Geillis would employ

without necessarily knowing they were doing anything wrong.

[birds chirping]

But the church is suspicious of what they're doing

for that reason and because they're doing it as women.

[birds chirping]

Women were thought in general to be weaker,

perhaps to be more motivated by sex

and therefore to be more susceptible

to the temptations of the devil.

A woman compared to a man had less power

to make her own living.

They weren't actually even allowed

to give evidence in court.

They're not trusted to speak for themselves

or to have a clear enough mind, clear enough judgment

to be able to give you an accurate version of events.

Prejudices like this can lead people then to think

that women are much more susceptible

to the devil and his charms.

People accused of witchcraft were often said

to have cursed others.

[Julian Goodare] You fear a man's physical violence.

That's how people think about this in any modern era.

But if you know that a woman is angry with you,

are you going to fear that she will come round

and beat you up?

You fear is women's curses and you fear women's

harmful magic.

They do say things like, "You will regret this."

Or, "May the devil drag your soul through hell."

If a woman's angry and she says something like that,

and then something bad happens, you go,

"Oh, that must be because she was a witch."

[Louise Yeoman] When you get a stereotype in your head about

people and you then go out and make arrests,

you're much more likely to question the people

who fit your stereotype.

For witchcraft, the stereotype in Scotland

is it's much more likely to be a woman.

♪ ♪

There's an idea that women should be sticking

in their own lane.

They shouldn't be meddling with healing practices

that are best reserved for men who have actually been

through university.

Agnes is not necessarily thinking she's

doing anything wrong, certainly not anything evil,

but in the eyes of the ministers,

she's doing something that, at best, is ineffective.

At worst, is actually offering herself to the devil

through illicit practice.

[Louise Yeoman] Now, at this point, Agnes Sampson has been

imprisoned on the behest of the local church court.

And the church has basically put out a call saying,

"Do you know anything bad Agnes has done?

"Have you seen Agnes practising magic?

"Have you heard of Agnes practising magic?"

And David Seaton goes, "I've been torturing my servant girl."

And, yes, she says, "Agnes was hired to get at me."

And, of course, the church are very interested in that.

And then Agnes gets interrogated.

[♪ music slowly fades]

[thunder rumbling]

[Martha McGill] So, Scotland has had sporadic witch trials

before the 1590s, but it's at this point that something new happens.

[narrator] Geillis and Agnes are subjected to brutal

torture for days on end, pressured to answer

leading questions, eventually to stop the agony.

They confess to attending the Witches' Sabbathh

at the North Berwick Kirk.

But the interrogators also extract a new

treasonous confession.

Both women are forced to admit they used diabolical magic

to harm the King of Scotland, James VI.

[Louise Yeoman] So, Geillis and Agnes end up in prison in Edinburgh.

That's a terrifying thing if you're just an ordinary person.

And suddenly, you're on trial for your life...

..and the King himself is questioning you.

♪ ♪

[birds chirping]

[narrator] Why is the King of Scotland, James VI,

so fixated on two common faith healers,

when he should be focused on a much greater prize -

the throne of England?

♪ ♪

We've got Queen Elizabeth I on the throne of England.

She has no children, and everybody in Europe

is looking to see who will be the next

ruler of England.

[Martha McGill] James is one candidate.

He and Elizabeth are related. He's also a Protestant.

So, James is very concerned with this question

of the English succession, and are trying to put himself

in the best possible position to accede to the throne

after Elizabeth's death.

♪ ♪

[narrator] James VI was Mary, Queen of Scots' only child.

For him to accede to the English throne,

it is vital he finds a wife and an heir to

continue his royal line.

[Martha McGill] James and his courtiers start looking around

for a suitable wife for him.

They fix on one of the daughters of Frederick II of Denmark.

This is Anne of Denmark.

Anne's 14.

And they do then get betrothed.

James starts to make plans to bring her over to Scotland.

[waves crashing]

[Martha McGill] In September 1589, Anne sets off from Denmark,

but the voyage is set by problems.

Suddenly, this huge storm blows up.

[wind blowing] [thunder rumbles]

[Martha McGill] The ship starts to leak.

They have to pull over in Norway.

[Juilian Goodare] When you send a princess,

you don't just send one ship.

You know, there was a whole fleet of ships.

Keeping a fleet together is particularly difficult.

[winds intensifying]

16th-century sailing ships, they don't have any brakes,

they're a bit hard to steer.

As soon as trouble breaks, you can maybe keep one ship going,

but you cannot keep a whole fleet,

and so the admiral basically had to abort the voyage.

[Martha McGill] They get the ship fixed up, set off again,

but there is continual bad weather.

[winds blowing]

The waves beat them back...

..and they end up going back to Norway again.

[narrator] Anne's fleet makes six attempts to sail to Scotland.

Each time, they are forced to turn back.

They then write to the court in Scotland,

and Anne explains that the plan now is to remain in Norway

for the winter and come to Scotland in the spring.

This is difficult for James to hear,

and it occurs to him to do something decisive.

[Louise Yeoman] James says,

"Right, that's it. I'm going for it.

"I'm fitting out a ship and I am going to fetch her,

"and I'm going to leave basically a committee behind

"to govern Scotland while I go and I get Anne."

[Martha McGill] James also encounters bad weather along the way.

It's still stormy, it's still rough,

there are still seemingly all kinds of perils

associated with the journey.

There's a sense for James and those around him

that this whole project has been beset by all

kinds of difficulties in a way that is uncomfortable,

perhaps even suspicious.

[narrator] James makes it safely to Norway,

where he and Anne are married.

They travel on to Anne's homeland, Denmark,

where they spend the bitter winter,

waiting for the dangerous storms to subside.

[Julian Goodare] James spends six months or so in Denmark.

He meets this important Danish theologian

they may well have discussed witchcraft.

In Trier in Germany, we've already had

significant outbreaks of witch-hunting, and

stories about this would have made their

way to the Danish court.

♪ ♪

These accounts of what witches might get up to

were already in circulation.

There are theories that he went and filled his head

with all of this sort of stuff and then brought

it back to Scotland direct from Denmark.

So, James and Anne set off on the 26th of April,

and they manage the voyage this time,

arrive back in Scotland on the 1st of May.

♪ ♪

Questions start getting asked in Denmark about what happened

to this voyage and how it all went so wrong.

And you can imagine that for the people who are in charge

of proceedings, this is all a bit uncomfortable.

The Danish admiral blames the governor of Copenhagen.

They talk to the governor of Copenhagen, who then says,

"I think you ought to be looking a bit further down

the social scale here.

"There might have been these witches interfering

with the ships, "making all of these

things go wrong."

♪ ♪

So, there's a process of passing the buck until we get down

to the people who are least able to defend themselves.

[♪ music playing] [muted conversations]

[Louise Yeoman] Then you get news coming from Denmark that

there are witches who've been convicted, who've confessed,

to trying to sink James and Anne and trying

to stop the marriage.

♪ ♪

[Martha McGill] And you can imagine this is actually what

James wants to hear.

James is a very devout and godly man.

He would have believed that everything that happens

is ordained by God, and it fits James's desire

to see himself as pretty important.

If he can believe that Satan is out to attack him specifically,

it puts him in this really significant position.

[narrator] King James is convinced more dark forces are

conspiring against him.

His trusted allies, the Seatons, reveal they have uncovered

witches working their evil magic close to the king's

own home in Edinburgh.

[Louise Yeoman] The Seatons are the people James stayed with

when he was waiting for Anne to come across.

And they will have chatted about Anne,

about when is the ship coming and have there been storms.

So, it's really, you know, a very short hop to

the king is now involved.

[narrator] The Seatons share the chilling confessions

extracted from Geillis during cruel and unrelenting torture.

♪ ♪

[Martha McGill] James then decides it's time for him

to figure out for himself what's going on.

It's a sign of just how important it was to him

that he determines to interrogate the suspects

at his own home, at Holyrood House.

[Julian Goodare] Not all kings would have done that.

[Martha McGill] These are often poor, uneducated women

who are getting dragged into a place they must never have

imagined they'd set foot, surrounded by all of

these very educated men, the kinds of social superiors

whom they are very much not accustomed to defying.

It puts a new kind of pressure on the accused women.

[Louise Yeoman] People accused of witchcraft like Agnes

undoubtedly understand that they're

on trial for their lives.

♪ ♪

[Martha McGill] Agnes Sampson is kept in the Tollbooth from

November of 1590 until January of 1591.

[Julian Goodare] The Tollbooth is a large administrative building.

It's next to the church.

It's the usual place where the Privy Council meets.

It's a prison, it's a courthouse, it's where

actual trials take place.

As far as we can tell, many of the interrogations

also take place in that building.

♪ ♪

[Martha McGill] When it comes to questioning,

several men would come and interrogate the suspect.

[indistinct whispers]

Usually this involved asking quite a lot

of leading questions.

[muted conversation]

Typically your interrogators will be

there asking things like,

"Did you make a pact with the devil?"

"Did you have sex with him?"

"Did you meet other witches at a night-time gathering?"

♪ ♪

And pressure would be applied.

[distorted screaming]

[narrator] Throughout history, countless horrifying methods

have been used to elicit confessions of witchcraft.

The trials in Scotland are no different.

[Louise Yeoman] The major way this is done is by

torturing them through sleep deprivation.

[indistinct whispers]

[Nimisha Patel] Sleep deprivation over a very

short period of time,

within 48 hours, has the intended effects.

People can start to hallucinate.

You become extremely disorientated.

You can't think, you can't focus,

you can't concentrate, you can't process.

Things may be said to you that you start to just repeat.

So you start to even maybe believe what

you're actually saying.

So this is where questions can be leading,

but also plant in information.

It creates the perfect conditions for people

to say what the torturers want them to say.

There's also physical violence that goes on as well.

[muffled screaming]

[Martha McGill] Agnes has this rope drawn around her head and tightened.

[♪ music intensifies] [Geillis screams and cries]

[Julian Goodare] They seem to have used thumbscrews,

things that they tighten on the fingers or the thumb.

[continued screaming] [screws squeak]

We have at least two people who commit suicide in custody

over the course of the North Berwick Hunt.

We have someone else who dies of being tortured.

[Julian Goodare] And I'm sorry to say that, you know,

most of the authorities who are carrying out what

I would call torture today,

the way they do it is by calling it something else.

Just don't call it torture.

You can get away with whatever you like.

♪ ♪

I can see that they are putting considerable pressure

on these people to confess.

[indistinct whispering]

[Martha McGill] So your interrogators are hoping to extract a confession,

but they're also hoping to find visible evidence

of somebody's pact with the devil.

The way this could be done was by locating a witch's mark.

[Julian Goodare] One type of mark,

and this is the one that seems to be

particularly important in North Berwick,

is the type of mark that you detect with a pin.

[Louise Yeoman] This is a very traumatic thing because it

involves being stripped naked.

And this is usually done in public with

people standing round.

And what they do is they take a long pin,

a little dressmaker's pin, more like a big hat pin,

and they shove it into you, all over.

[distorted screaming]

They're looking for a place where they can put the pin in

and you won't feel it.

[ragged breathing and crying]

So in the case of Agnes, supposedly they eventually

find a mark on her genitals.

[Julian Goodare] A coercive and humiliating procedure.

You know, particularly if you're then told,

"And we found the mark, right, so we know you're guilty,

"are you going to confess now?"

This seems to be the point at which several people break down

and decide that they will confess.

It is generally easier to cooperate with

the interrogators.

The interrogators tell you what they want.

If you just give them it, you get an easier time

than if you argue or refuse.

This, unfortunately, is why we get false confessions.

♪ ♪

[birds chirping]

[Martha McGill] For Agnes, once they had what they needed from

her in the way of a confession, that's when things get

moved on to Holyrood House, when there's actually something

to put before the king.

So Agnes has been found by the interrogation process

to tell particular stories, and when she gets brought

out in front of James, she plays her part.

♪ ♪

She gives this account of how at Halloween

she went to this Sabbathh.

[Louise Yeoman] We've got accounts of many

witches' meetings where they're hauling up the devil,

doing magic with the devil.

♪ ♪

[Martha McGill] Typically, stories about the Sabbath

are not so likely to be coming from

the lower levels of society,

from the accused people themselves.

These are ideas that are getting introduced

during the interrogation process.

[Louise Yeoman] It's the interrogators, they've read all this stuff.

They're saying, "How are you going to kill the king?

"Why are you going to do it like this?

"Why are you going to do it like that?"

♪ ♪

[Julian Goodare] They have to tell a story because

they're being tortured, they can't remain silent.

The interrogators want credible detail.

♪ ♪

[Martha McGill] Agnes talks about how she suspended

a toad upside down and collected the venom that fell out of it,

and she used this to make a poison

that she wanted to use on the king.

She asked supposedly a man of his bedchamber

to bring her some of his linen that she could then

anoint with this poison.

So we're getting at this point this conspiracy

against James himself.

James is initially reluctant to believe these stories

these alleged witches are telling.

But then Agnes whispers into his ear

the words that he said to his new wife in their bedchamber

on their wedding night.

[muted conversation]

James is supposedly astounded by this...

..and suddenly realises that, in fact, it's all true.

♪ ♪

Now we have this great satanic conspiracy

that James sees as a real and genuine threat

to himself and to the whole nation.

[♪ conspiratorial music playing]

Agnes is found guilty on the 27th of January, 1591.

♪ ♪

And she's executed the next day.

♪ ♪

[narrator] We imagine histories' witches burnt alive at the stake.

But this horrifying act was surprisingly rare.

[fire crackling]

[Martha McGill] You would strangle people before burning

them as a somewhat more humane death sentence.

[crowd booing]

One reason to burn bodies is that it created this

impressive public spectacle.

It made a real statement about your power as government.

[♪ music playing] [crowd shouting]

Another reason to burn the body of a witch

is so that the devil can't use her corpse for any trouble

after she's gone.

So there was this fear about the corpse that was left behind

and how that could continue to inflict misery on communities.

[crowd noises]

[Julian Goodare] They probably have built the pyre in advance of the trial.

They're ready to go if and when the right

verdict is handed down.

So the pyre will be ready.

[crowd shouting]

Agnes will be strangled...

♪ ♪

..and then burnt.

[fire crackling]

Castle Hill, it's on the top of a hill, a very visible thing.

It will be seen for miles.

It lasts for hours.

It's a very dramatic spectacle.

People will have gathered, you know, in hundreds

or even thousands to watch this.

[♪ music ends]

[Julian Goodare] Various people are still in prison

and one of them is poor Geillis Duncan,

with whom it all started.

[chains rattling]

She is in prison for over a year.

[Louise Yeoman] Presumably because she was very useful

to her interrogators, saying whatever they wanted her to say.

[Martha McGill] She's going to be worn down.

She's going to be tired of the treatment she's undergoing.

When these men come to her, who are educated,

who have this superior social status,

and start insisting on what she needs to be telling them,

she's probably going to be looking for a way out.

She confesses what they want to hear.

Geillis is brought before James herself.

Again, tells this story that she's been fed

about her activities.

She says she was at this Sabbath, she raised these stones.

James was said to have been very interested

in these proceedings.

[narrator] Broken from months of brutal torture,

Geillis names more witches.

She begins to accuse members of Scotland's aristocracy,

names fed to her during interrogation.

[Louise Yeoman] One of the high-ranking women who got

accused was Barbara Napier.

[Julian Goodare] She is a member of the Edinburgh elite.

[muted conversation]

So a quite well-connected person.

[Martha McGill] Barbara Napier is accused of consulting with witches,

but also initially of engaging in witchcraft herself.

And initially, the jury acquits her.

They're not convinced.

They think she's an honest woman.

And the King goes mad about it.

He wants them put on trial for it.

[Martha McGill] An interesting feature of the Scottish legal

system in this period is that juries could

themselves be prosecuted for returning the wrong verdict.

In James's mind, this is what's going on here.

The jury has been presented with compelling evidence

and they've come out with the wrong answer.

He starts putting some pressure on them.

Barbara is then convicted.

[Louise Yeoman] Luckily, Barbara pleads pregnancy.

We know ultimately, she survived.

She wasn't barren. She got away.

[crow squawks]

[narrator] Although the vast majority of the accused witches are women,

a small number of men are also convicted.

[Martha McGill] Another figure who's accused is

this Haddington schoolmaster called John Fian.

John Fian had supposedly served as the devil's secretary

during the Sabbath, presumably as one of the

few literate people present.

John Fian is subjected to a wide range of

pretty gruesome tortures.

♪ ♪

Eventually, after holding out for a long time,

he does confess and he is executed.

[crowd shouting]

[fire crackling]

So another prominent figure who's accused

is Euphame MacCalzean, a relative of David Seaton, who

first questioned Geillis Duncan.

She, again, is an example of the higher tiers

of Scottish society getting drawn into witch-hunting.

And there was real effort put into saving her.

But they don't succeed.

I mean, you've got the King pushing for conviction.

And in the end, Euphame's executed.

She is sentenced to be burned alive.

[Julian Goodare]I think this is possibly the King himself,

having been so cross at not getting Barbara Napier executed.

You can almost imagine him banging the table.

"Right, I'm really going to make my point this time."

[Martha McGill] In total, about 60 or 70 people are drawn into these trials.

[narrator] For over a year, Geillis Duncan, the key witness,

has been trapped in prison as one of the

first witches accused.

She provided her torturers with a torrent of

names and information.

But her time is up.

She's finally summoned to meet her terrible fate.

[Martha McGill] The accused would not necessarily have

legal representation.

Typically would not even testify in court.

All that would get fotted out would be the confession

they had already supplied.

♪ ♪

So they don't really have much space to

stand up for themselves.

If they have already confessed under torture,

there's relatively little opportunity to

then change their mind.

[Louise Yeoman] She was taken to Edinburgh's Castle Hill

on a December afternoon to be strangled and burned.

[crowd shouting]

Geillis does try to backtrack.

[Louise Yeoman] At the stake, she recanted everything she said.

[crowd screaming]

She said it was all lies.

She admits that she has lied because of torture

about all the other women, but she doesn't

want to go to her death with that in her conscience.

But it's too late at that point.

A sentence has already passed in the mind of James,

in the mind of the people hearing her case.

[crowd shouting]

So Geillis is finally executed on the 4th of December, 1591.

[Julian Goodare] Just what goes through these people's minds

when they're tied to the stake.

It's hard to imagine.

[fire crackling]

[Martha McGill] For James, however, it's still unfinished business.

[narrator] King James is not satisfied that the likes of

Agnes and Geillis, mere common folk,

were behind the plot to kill him.

He feels he is worthy of a more significant foe.

He hears rumour that someone much closer to home

could be behind the plot to kill him.

One of the very people he put in charge

while he was collecting his bride.

His own cousin, Francis Stewart, the Earl of Bothwell.

[Louise Yeoman] Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell,

he is James's cousin.

He's sometimes described as a loose cannon.

I think that's a great way to describe him.

He has a lot of run-ins with James VI.

He promises he's going to be a good guy

and he's going to reform his ways while James is in Denmark.

When James comes back, well, James is not really sure

that Bothwell's been reformed.

James comes to believe, because somebody is getting

the accused witches to say it, that Bothwell is the mastermind

behind this alleged conspiracy.

♪ ♪

The version that the witches have been tortured

into telling James is that the Earl of Bothwell

decided he was scared of James, he thought James

might execute him, and therefore he decided to

get his revenge on him first and to murder James.

[narrator] It's discovered the rumours incriminating Bothwell

come from one man, a renowned magical healer, Richie Graham.

[Martha McGill] Now, Richie Graham was what we might call a service magician,

someone who travelled around offering his magical talents.

[Louise Yeoman] He'd been hanging about with people in very high places.

[narrator] As a provider of magical services to Scotland's gentry,

including Bothwell, Richie Graham is the perfect suspect.

He is summoned for questioning.

Graham, in an attempt to save his own skin,

then implicates Bothwell for witchcraft.

♪ ♪

[Louise Yeoman] And then he becomes really important as

the person who said,

"Yeah, Bothwell wanted to kill the king.

"Bothwell wrote to me to do it, and I said,

"Oh, no, you'll need Agnes Sampson

"and you'll need all these other women to do it."

So he's the person who's ditching all the

conspiracy together.

In a way that satisfies his interrogators

and makes them think, "We've had this really

serious, well-thought-out plot against the king."

And the chief villain was the Earl of Bothwell,

and here's Richie Graham, the right-hand

man, who set it all up.

♪ ♪

In April 1591, Bothwell is charged with witchcraft.

He is then held in Edinburgh Castle.

[Louise Yeoman] It's really astonishing that this goes as

high as the Earl of Bothwell being accused of witchcraft.

This has started with serving girls being interrogated,

and now we have an Earl being imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle.

♪ ♪

Bothwell knows this isn't a great position to be in,

so he very quickly escapes.

[Julian Goodare] He just climbs out of a window and makes a rope

out of knotted sheets.

[birds chirping]

And he stays on the run for most of the next two years.

[Louise Yeoman] Bothwell's finally tried, and he's acquitted.

His fellow nobles just do not want to find him guilty,

but James is still furious.

James doesn't trust him.

Bothwell eventually gets exiled.

He ends up dying in poverty in Naples.

[Martha McGill] Interest in witchcraft persists.

There are more trials over the course of the 1590s.

James is certainly not done inquiring into the subject.

And in 1597, he publishes a book entitled Demonology.

♪ ♪

This was James's attempt to thoroughly survey the topic

of how the devil worked, how he might interfere

with proper Christians, and to set out some

general principles around good Protestant behaviour

and keeping clear of the devil.

James actually resurrects certain ideas

that had mostly fallen by the wayside,

like the idea of a trial by water for witches.

[water splashes]

[Julian Goodare] One interesting point about the book Demonology is the title.

So Demonology, knowledge of demons.

James seems to have invented that word.

The title of James's book seems to be the first time

when we find the word demonology in English.

The publication of that book gives witchcraft

additional credibility.

[Martha McGill] In 1603, Elizabeth I dies without heirs.

♪ ♪

James's dreams come true.

He succeeds to the throne of England.

[narrator] Almost immediately, James makes updates to the

English Witchcraft Act.

[Martha McGill] The Witchcraft Act is the act under which

witches were prosecuted.

By the previous version, witchcraft in England

was a capital crime only if the alleged witch had

actually murdered somebody.

Under the new Witchcraft Act of 1604,

basically any witchcraft can be punished by death.

England typically hadn't been as severe as Scotland

when it came to the pursuit of witches.

The Act of 1604 casts a long shadow.

[Julian Goodare] Another thing happens in 1605,

two years after he's got the English throne.

A group of radical subversive Catholics try to blow him up

and blow up the entire Houses of Parliament.

This is the Gunpowder Plot, 5th November 1605.

And it really was quite a shocking thing.

James persuaded himself that he personally had played a role

in uncovering the Gunpowder Plot.

And it's not just that he was clever.

It's that he's protected by God, and so God would not

allow such a wicked deed.

That gives the king a huge amount of divine legitimation.

I know, let's have a celebration every year,

every 5th of November.

We will remind ourselves just how wicked that plot was

and just how goodly the king was.

[fire crackling]

♪ ♪

[Martha McGill] The North Berwick Trials are over,

but they have set this dangerous precedent.

There is now this established idea that it's possible

for people to band together in groups

and launch wild, demonic conspiracies,

attack their communities.

And these ideas feed through into other witch trials

in the next century.

[narrator] Scotland's first mass witch trials

saw at least 40 people accused, the vast majority women.

Through horrific torture and forced confession,

some of it overseen by the king himself,

over half of the accused were found guilty and put to death

for the impossible crime of witchcraft.

[screaming]

[Martha McGill] It takes a while for witch hunting to die down.

A lot of that is a legacy of what happened

in the early 1590s.

The stamp of approval that the king put on it all.

[narrator] It would be another century until the end of

witch hunts, trials and executions in Scotland.

Until then, they will spread like wildfire

across Europe and to the Americas.