The Calendar of ScottisJi Crime. the fifteen jurymen, while finding her guilty of consulting with witches and " nigromancers," acquitted her of the more serious counts in the clittay. To have convicted her on all of them would have implied belief in her presence in the kirk of North Berwick, when "y* Dewill start vp in yc pulpett, lyke ane mekill blak man, with ane blak baird stikand out lyk ane gettis baird [goat's beard]; and ane hie ribbit neise [hooked nose], falland doun scharp lyke the beik of ane halk [hawk]; with ane lang rumpill [tail]; cled in ane blak tatie [shaggy] goune, and ane ewill favorit scull bonnett on his heid, &c."
The trial took place on May 8; sentence was not pronounced, owing, probably, to the disagreement of the jury on the charges as a whole. On May ю came a letter from the king complaining that " na dome is pronunceit aganis hir as yit," and directing that she shall instantly be sentenced to be "bund to ane staik besyde the fyre and wirreit [strangled] thairat quhill [until] scho be deid," and afterwards burnt in the orthodox manner. A month later, on June 7, the twelve merciful jurors were arraigned, " his Maiestie being sittand in judgement," for wilful and manifest error in their verdict, "incurrand thairby the horribill cryme of periurie." It is satisfactory to record that they were acquitted. The guilt of witchcraft was not measured by the malignancy of the culprit's acts, which were sometimes extremely beneficent. Out of the fifty-three separate charges on which Agnes Sampson was tried and condemned to be burnt in the same year as Barbara Napier, nearly all were alleged cases of curing sick ness or alleviating pain " be hir dewillisch prayerisch and incantatiounis." Another case of the same sort in the same year was that of Geillis Duncan, servant maid to Bailie Seaton of Tranent. It is remarkable as showing the extraordinary license allowed to private persons in amateur witch-hunting. Geillis rashly undertook to help " all such as
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were troubled or grieved with anie kinde of sicknes or infirmitie," and succeeded so well that her master began to suspect her of illicit arts. " To the intent that hee might the better trie and finde out the truth of the same," he put her to the torture, first, of the " pilliwinkis," whereby the tips of her fingers were pinched and crushed, and then by the severer torment of twisting cord round her head till the temples nearly burst. By such means this unhappy girl not only was cured of all inclination to gratuitous deeds of mercy, but in her agony was in duced to implicate a number of other per sons in her supposed misdeeds. Among these was Dr. John Fean, school master of Tranent, whose case may be taken as typical of those in which James VI. took a personal and abominable part. In fact, in presiding at these fiendish proceedings and exercising his ingenuity in devising new forms of torment for the accused, the king dis charged with far more realism the conven tional part of Satan than any of his victims had succeeded in doing. Fean, having been put on his trial for twenty separate " poyntis of wichcraft," such as raising a storm for the destruction of the king on his voyage from Denmark, and other equally preposterous charges, was submitted to torture in order to extract a confession. First, his head was "thrawn " (twisted) with a rope, and when that failed he was put in the " boots," and, after receiving three strokes, on being asked if he would confess " his damnable actes and wicked life, his toong would not serve him to speake." The common-sense explanation of this would have been that the wretched crea ture was speechless — from the faintness caused by excessive pain, but the experts de clared that it was owing to a spell cast by Satan. This having been overcome, Fean declared himself ready to confess anything, whereupon he was taken out of the boots, brought before the king, to whom he made and subscribed a full confession. As was usual, however, in such cases, no
