We next see the presbytery sending a deputation to the Council of State in Edinburgh, to urge that a commission should be appointed for the trial of the witches. While this was in preparation, they sent to the parish to collect evidence against the poor women. It might have been supposed that, when, after a sermon in the church, no one came forward to say a word against them, some doubts might have entered the minds of the presbytery. Such, however, was not the case. They sent again and again, till at length charges were made against three of the suspected. Meanwhile, one whom Janet Couts herself ‘cleansed,’ was liberated. Six more, against whom no charge was made, were allowed to go home on giving security that they would reappear if called upon. Finally, two, named Janet M‘Birnie and Marion Laidlaw, were at this date tried by the commission on various points delated against them; as that, ‘on a time Janet followed William Brown, a slater, to crave somewhat, and fell in evil words, after which time, within twenty-four hours, he fell off ane house and brake his neck; that Janet was the cause of the discord between [the laird of] Newton and his wife, and that she and others was the death of William Geddes;’ that ‘Marion and Jean Blacklaw differed in words for Marion’s hay, and, after that, Jean her kye died;’ and that she, the said Marion, ‘had her husband by unlawful means, and a beard!’ After most strictly examining the witnesses on their oaths, the commission could find nought proven against the two prisoners, and they were therefore dismissed on giving caution to appear again if called upon.
It does not appear that this result in any degree modified the views of the reverend presbytery regarding witchcraft. On the very day when this case was reported to them, they received a communication from Mr Richard Inglis, the chaplain or preceptor whom they had established in the Marquis of Douglas’s family, setting forth the confession of ‘ane warlock called Archibald Watt, alias Sole the paitlet, pointing out the way of his making covenant with the devil, as also many meetings since his covenant keeped with the devil, and other witches, in divers places.’ And immediately they sent a gentleman to Edinburgh for ‘a commission for ane assize to sit upon the foresaid warlock.’
The end of the prosecution of the eleven women is highly instructive. Janet Couts, before her death, which probably was by burning, withdrew the charge she had made against them. It is on the same day when the presbytery orders one of their number to go and read a paper to this effect in the church of Douglas, that they make the above arrangement for the prosecution of the warlock; shewing that they had not been in the least staggered on the general question, by finding the gross mistake they had made in this instance.—R. P. L.
1650. Mar.
The church was now in the highest power—every vestige of episcopacy banished, popery treated as a crime, the doctrine of the headship of Christ in full paramountcy, and enabling the clergy to exercise an unlimited authority over the external religious practice and professions of the community. It was ruled that each head of a family should conduct worship and reading of the Scriptures daily in his house, catechise, reprove, and exhort amongst his children, servants, and dependents. On Sunday, after private devotions by the several members of the family, and a general service in the parlour, the master was to take care that all within his charge repaired to public worship. This being finished—in those days it lasted many hours—he was to exercise the family on what they had heard, and the remainder of the day was to be spent in ‘reading, meditation, and secret prayer.’ Diligence and ‘sincerity’ in these duties were strongly enjoined, and individuals were encouraged to confer with and prompt one another on religious subjects. But it was forbidden that families should meet together for religious exercises, as it had been found that such practices tended to schism.[135]
It may be remarked, that the ministrations of the parochial ministers were not then confined to two services on Sunday. In Edinburgh, after March 1650, there was ‘a lectorie’ every afternoon in the week at four o’clock, the ministers of the city taking the duty by turns. ‘Which did much good to the soul and body, the soul being edified and fed by the Word, and the body withhalden from unnecessar bebbing [drinking], whilk at that hour of the day was in use and custom.’—Nic.
1650.
The morals of the flock were superintended with something beyond pastoral care. Promiscuous dancing was strictly prohibited. For ‘the downbearing of sin,’ women were not allowed to act as waiters in taverns, ‘but allenarly men-servands and boys.’[136] An elder had a certain little district assigned to him, which he carefully inspected once a month. Any scandalous sin which he discovered, or even the existence of any stranger without a certificate of character, he had to report to the kirk-session. The being drunk, or the utterance of a profane word, inferred kirk-discipline. The inspecting elder was also to take cognizance of how everybody spent his time on Sunday. For acts of a licentious character, both sexes were alike punished in the manner most likely to mortify persons of a sensitive nature. Whatever their quality, they had to stand three Sundays in sackcloth before the congregation. A second fault brought the same punishment for six Sundays; a third kept the delinquent on the seat of shame for half a year. That all this was done in honour and sincerity, and not primarily from the love of power, is shewn by the impartial severity which the clergy exercised upon each other; regarding not only moral aberrations, but such faults as that of conversing with ‘malignants’ (persons inclined to be loyal to the king without regard to the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant), and any shortcoming in efficiency either as preachers or as disciplinarians.
‘None of the clergy in those days,’ says one of their successors in the next age, ‘durst be scandalous in their conversation, or negligent in their office.... In many places the spirit seemed to be poured out with the word.... There were no fewer than sixty aged people, men and women, who went to school, that even then they might be able to read the Scripture with their own eyes. I have lived many years in a parish where I never heard an oath, and you might have rid many miles before you heard any.... You could not have lodged in a family where the Lord was not worshipped by reading, singing, and public prayer. Nobody complained more of our church-government than our taverners, whose ordinary lamentation was, their trade was broke, people were become so sober.’[137]
It is to be feared that Mr Kirkton wrote under the influence of that palliative spirit with which we are apt to look back upon a past age or upon the days of our youth, for, undoubtedly, strong evidences exist that the period now under review was not free from great vices and criminalities of a very deep shade. The diarist John Nicoll mentions, under February 1650, that ‘Much falset and cheating was detected at this time by the Lords of Session; for the whilk there was daily hanging, scourging, nailing of lugs [ears] and binding of people to the Tron [the public weighing-machine in Edinburgh], and boring of tongues; so that it was ane fatal year for false notars and witnesses, as daily experience did witness.’