A commission was granted by the Privy Council to Sir John Maxwell of Pollock, —— Maxwell of Dalswinton, Hugh M‘Guffock of Rusco, Adam Newall of Barskeroch, and four other gentlemen, to try, and, if guilty, adjudge to death, Elspeth M‘Ewen and Mary Millar, now prisoners in the tolbooth of Kirkcudbright, ‘alleged guilty of the horrid crime of witchcraft, and [who] has committed several malefices.’

On the 26th of July, a committee of Privy Council reported that they had examined the proceedings of the commissioners in |1698.| the case of Elspeth M‘Ewen (the report signed by the Lord Advocate), who had been pronounced guilty upon her own confession and the evidence of witnesses, ‘of a compact and correspondence with the devil, and of charms and of accession to malefices.’ It was ordered that the sentence of death against Elspeth should be executed, under care of the steward of Kirkcudbright and his deputies, on the 24th of August.

In July, a number of noblemen and gentlemen of Renfrewshire sent a letter to the Privy Council, setting forth the case of a young woman named Margaret Laird, of the Earl of Glencairn’s land in the parish of Kilmacolm. Since the 15th of May, ‘she hath been under ane extraordinary and most lamentable trouble, falling into strange and horrible fits, judged by all who have seen her to be preternatural, arising from the devil and his instruments.’ In these fits, ‘she sees and distinctly converses with divers persons whom she constantly affirms to be her tormentors, and that both while the fits continue, and in the intervals wherein she is perfectly free of all trouble and composed.’ The persons named were of those formerly accused by ‘confessing witches.’ ‘In some of these fits there is such obstruction upon her external senses, that she neither sees nor feels bystanders, though in the meantime she sees and converses with any of her alleged tormentors when we cause any of them come before her; and at the sight or touch of any of them, yea, even upon her essaying to name them when not present, she’s thrown into the fits, and therein gives such an account of their circumstances (though otherwise unknown to her) as is very convincing.’ The writers had been so impressed by the various facts brought under their notice, as proving fascination or witchcraft, that they found themselves obliged to make a representation of the case ‘out of pity to the poor distressed damsel;’ and they were the more solicitous about the affair, that the country people were in a state of such excitement, and so incensed against the alleged witches, that ‘we fear something may fall out in their hands that the government would willingly prevent.’

The Council appointed a committee of inquiry, and ordered the sheriff of the county—the Earl of Eglintoun—to apprehend the suspected witches, ‘that it may appear whether, after their being seized and committed, the said Margaret shall complain of their tormenting her or not.’

In September, Mary Morison, spouse of Francis Duncan, skipper, Greenock, was under accusation of witchcraft, but allowed to be at liberty within the city of Edinburgh, ‘the said |1698.| Francis her husband first giving bond that the said Mary shall keep the said confinement, and that he shall produce her before the Lords of Justiciary at any time to which she shall be cited before the 15th of November next, under a penalty of ten thousand pounds Scots.’

Mrs Duncan was detained as a prisoner in Edinburgh till the 15th November, although no such proof could be found against her as the Advocate could raise an action upon, her husband kept all the time away from his employment, and her ‘numerous poor family’ starving in neglect at home. On a petition setting forth these circumstances, and re-asserting her entire innocence, she was set at liberty.

The Lord Advocate soon after reported to the Privy Council a letter he had received from the sheriff of Renfrewshire, stating that ‘the persons imprisoned in that country as witches are in a starving condition, and that those who informed against them are passing from them, and the sheriff says he will send them in prisoners to Edinburgh Tolbooth, unless they be quickly tried.’ His lordship was recommended to ask the sheriff to support the witches till November next, when they would probably be tried, and the charges would be disbursed by the treasury. A distinct allowance of a groat a day was ordered on the 12th of January 1699 for each of the Renfrewshire witches.[[223]]

While the works of Satan were thus coming into new prominence, the clergy were determined not to prove remiss in their duty. We find the General Assembly of this year remitting to their ‘commission,’ ‘to give advice to presbyteries and ministers, upon application, against witchcraft, sorcery, and charming.’ In the ensuing year, they deliberated on an address to the Privy Council, for punishing witches and charmers; and the same subject comes up in the two subsequent years, in one instance in connection with ‘masquerades, balls, and stage-plays.’[[224]]

May 10.

An ‘unkindly cold and winter-like spring’ was threatening again to frustrate the hopes of the husbandman, ‘and cut off man and beast by famine.’ Already the dearth was greatly increased, and in many places ‘great want both of food and seed’ was experienced, while the sheep and cattle were dying in great numbers. In consideration of these facts, and of the abounding |1698.| sins of profaneness, Sabbath-breaking, drunkenness, &c., ‘whereby the displeasure of God was manifestly provoked,’ a solemn humiliation and fast was ordered for the 17th of May within the synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, and the 25th day of the month for the rest of the kingdom.