by inch, using every legal power open to her,
but she was "convict" at last, and
condemned to be burnt alive; the severest
sentence ever pronounced against a witch.
There is good reason to believe that her
witchcraft was made merely the pretence,
while her political predilections, the friendship
for the Earl of Bothwell, and her Catholic
religion, were the real grounds of the king's
enmity to her, and the real causes of the
severity with which she was treated. Her
indictment contains the ordinary list of
crimes, diversified with the addition of
bewitching a certain Joseph Douglas, whose
love she craved, and found beyond her power
to retain. The young wife whom Douglas
married and the two children she bore him,
also came in for part of the alleged maleficent
enchantments. She did the "bairns to death,"
and struck the wife with sickness. She was
also accused of the heinous crime of casting
her childbirth pains, once on a dog, and once
on a cat; both of which beasts ran
distractedly out of the house—as well they
might—and were never seen again. And
once, too, she tried to cast them on her
husband: without effect as it would seem. She
was also accused of endeavouring to poison
her husband, and it was manifest that their
union was not a happy one—he being for the
most part away from her: and it was proved
that Agnes Sampson, the wise wife, had made
a clay picture of John Moscrop, her
father-in-law, who should by these enchantments
have dwindled and died. But failed to do as
he was witch-bidden. So that these crimes,
with others like to them, such as sending
visions, and devils, and sickness and death to
every one who stood in her way, or had ever
offended here, were quite sufficient legal causes
of death. And James could gratify both his
superstitious fears and his political animosity
at the same time, while Euphemia
Macalzean, the fine, brave, handsome, passionate
Euphemia, writhed in agony at the stake,
where she was bound "to be consumed
quick."

In sixteen hundred and eighteen, Margaret
Barclay, a young, high-spirited, and beautiful
woman, was accused, together with Isobel
Insh, by a wandering juggler called John
Stewart, of having applied to him to be
taught magic arts; and also of having, by
sorcery, shipwrecked the vessel and drowned
the crew of John Dein, her husbands's brother,
with whom and with his wife she had had a
quarrel a short time ago, ending in her
bringing against them a legal action for
slander. Margaret denied the charge: poor
Isobel, for her part, declared she had never
seen Stewart in her life before; though he
asserted he had found her modelling clay
figures and clay ships, in company with
Margaret, for the destruction of the men and
vessel aforesaid. A black dog, with fiery
eyes, and breathing fire from his nostrils,
formed part of the conclave: and one of the
principal witnesses, Isobel's own child of eight
years of age, added a black man as well.
Isobel, after denying all and sundry of the
counts against her, under torture admitted
their truth. In the night time she found
means to escape from her prison, which was
the belfry; in clambering over the roof of
the church she fell down, and died five days
afterwards. Margaret was then tortured: the
Juggler had strangled himself: and she was
the last remaining of this "coven." The
torture they used, said the noble Lord
Commissioners, "was safe and gentle." They put
her two bare legs in a pair of stocks, and laid
on them iron bars one by one; augmenting
the weight by degrees, till Margaret cried to
be released, promising to confess the truth as
they wished to hear it. But when released
she only denied the charges afresh; so they
had recourse to the iron bars again. When,
after a time, she shrieked aloud, saying:
"Tak off! talc off! and befoir God I will
show ye the whole form!" She then
confessed; and in her confession included Isobel
Crawford; who, when arrested—as she was,
on the instant—made no defence, but stupefied
and paralysed, admitted all they chose.
Margaret's trial proceeded; sullen and
despairing, she assented to all that she was
charged with; when Alexander Dein, her
husband, entered the court, accompanied by
a lawyer. And then the despair which had
crept over the young wife passed away, and
she demanded to be defended. "All that I
have confessed," she said, "was in an agony
of torture; and, before God, all I have spoken
is false and untrue! But," she added, pathetically,
turning to her husband, "ye have been
ower lang in coming!" In spite of her legal
defence, however, she was condemned; and
at the stake entreated that no harm should
befall Isobel Crawford, who was utterly and
entirely innocent. The young creature was
strangled and burnt: bearing herself bravely
to the last. Isobel was now tried: "after
the assistant minister of Irvine, Mr. David
Dickson, had made earnest prayers to God
for opening her obdurate and closed heart;
she was subjected to the torture of iron bars
laid upon her bare shins, her feet being in
stocks, as in the case of Margaret
Barclay." She endured this torture "admirably,''
without any kind of din or exclamation,
suffering above thirty stone of iron to be laid
on her legs, never shrinking thereat, in any
sort, but remaining, as it were, steady. But
in shifting the situation of the iron bars, and
removing them to another part of her shins,
her constancy gave way, as Margaret's had
done; and she, too, broke out into horrible
cries of "Tak off! tak off!" She then
confessed, and was sentenced; but on her execution
she denied all that she had admitted,
interrupted the minister in his prayer, and
refused to pardon the executioner. They
had made her mad.

We must pass over the scores of witches