ShortHand: Big Witch Special Part 2 - Hunting Witches in Britain

0:21Hello. And welcome to the second part of the first ever Two Part Show. Last week we told you how witch hunting mania spread across mainland Europe. But how did it get to the British Isles? What did they believe went down at those satanic gatherings? Why did women make up 90% of those persecuted for sorcery in England? And what is the legacy of witch hunting today? Here is the shorthand, part two. For generations in England and Scotland, the state-sanctioned killing of anyone suspected of demonic activity thrived. Thousands were tortured and executed, and everyone from the village preacher to the king of the realm was eventually involved in sniffing them out. But for a while, England resisted. village preacher to the king of the realm was eventually involved in sniffing them out.

1:13But for a while, England resisted. It all began north of the border, in North Berwick, Scotland. In the year 1590, word spread of a gathering in the old kirk of St Andrew. It was a witch's sabbath. On a rocky outcrop that jutted into the cold North Sea, a group of witches were said to have gathered. Apparently they drank flagons of wine, and they all sang with one voice. And the devil himself was in attendance. Soon they began to concoct dangerous spells. They took a cat, christened it, and tied to it dismembered parts of a dead man. He's not very busy, the devil, is he? No. He seems to be available for all of these. Sounds like a good party, though. He's like, I'll be there. But also, how are you tying dismembered parts of a dead man to a cat?

2:02I guess we don't know how big these parts are. I don't know, maybe they chopped the cat up too. But what they did do is they whispered a spell and then threw this cat-man concoction off the cliffs into the waves. And according to a pamphlet from the time, this is what it said, there did arise such a tempest in the sea as a greater have not been seen. And apparently all of this, cat killing, man chopping up, wine drinking, devil hanging out business, was all a plot to kill James VI, King of Scotland, who had been returning by boat from Denmark. James' ship was pummeled on all sides by a violent storm and water started gushing into the ship. But James miraculously survived. This story was told in a pamphlet called News from Scotland

2:55and it was distributed far and wide by, of course, King James himself. The story was accompanied by pictures of witches stirring a cauldron and a goat-legged devil preaching from a pulpit. James was deeply superstitious and considered himself an authority on witchcraft. He even wrote a book on the subject, Demonology, in 1587, which actually provided some of the background characterisations for the witches in Macbeth, which is a good fact. The Scottish Witchcraft Act had already been in place for decades, making the practice a capital offense. And that act provided a legal framework for the prosecution of witches. Suspected witches were tried in the courts and sentenced to death. King James had heard from Europe that the witches' numbers were fast growing

3:49and considered them to be a very real and serious threat to his kingdom's stability. And James wanted to be the figurehead of a strong and stable Brexit at the time of huge religious upheaval and social change. He'd been the King of Scotland since he was 13 months old, and at 24, he had his eye on the English throne. Elizabeth I of England was getting on a bit, and she had no children, and he was her cousin. So he thought he better positioned himself as a worthy successor, which is why he printed and distributed all of the pamphlets. That'll do it. So why had James been traveling back from Denmark? Well, he's Hamlet. He's Hamlet. And he had gone there to meet the 14-year-old Anne of Denmark, who he had chosen to be his queen.

4:41But he came back with a lot more than just his child bride. If you listened last week, then you'll know how manic the witchcraft had grown in Europe by the end of the 16th century. Hundreds were being executed. And while he was there, at Kronberg Castle near Copenhagen, two witches were arrested and put to death for conjuring the storms that James had met on his way there. And when the second storm that almost killed him on the way back happened, James returned even more fired up with righteous anger. It must be more witches. In November 1590, David Seaton, the deputy bailiff of Trent, grew suspicious of his young housemaid, Gillis Duncan. He said that she'd acquired healing powers and had been slipping out at night

5:33and was sure that witchcraft was the only explanation. So he, with a few others, tortured the young woman. They used thumbscrews to crush the flesh and bones on her fingers and tightened a rope around her face until her skull almost fractured. But still, Gillis Duncan would not confess. So, they searched her body for the devil's mark, which is a mark on the skin that's less sensitive than the rest of it. The idea is that it's where the devil had touched her when they sealed their bargain. And they found a spot on her neck. She confessed. She said that she'd gone to a town where a witch was present and danced with her, but in an evil way. And that was the first recorded instance of a Scottish witch confessing to being in league with the devil.

6:30Gillis was immediately taken to Tollbooth Prison in Edinburgh, where more confessions were drawn. Now she told everyone that she was part of a coven, who, with another coven from Copenhagen, had attempted to destroy the king's ship. Gillis Duncan gave over a hundred names, and every single one of them were hunted down and tortured. I cannot believe that somebody back then knew a hundred people. I don't know a hundred people. No, could you give a hundred names? No. Gillis was held alone in prison for a year before she was burned at the stake. One of the names that she gave was Agnes Sampson. Records show that she was a grace wife, which is essentially a midwife, and was also known as the wise wife of Keith.

7:13So Agnes seems to be some sort of folk healer, a wise woman who might use charms, amulets, potions to protect townsfolk, rid people of evil spirits, safely deliver babies, how dare she? And these weren't uncommon things to be doing. These figures were only concerned with smaller local problems. Folk beliefs, along with fairies and elves, coexisted for centuries with a religious belief in God. But under this new campaign for Christian values, folk powers took on a new sinister dimension. And now the king himself got involved. The people of Scotland were big into the divine rights of kings and believed that if witches weren't punished, God might punish the country with famine, plague, pestilence and losses in battle. The divine right of kings for maybe if

8:01you haven't heard that before, it is very british isles thing it means the king is appointed by god and therefore anything the king says is also god so the scottish church was in the hands of the radical protestant reformer john knox he believed in a new kind of religious puritanism and wanted to harshly crack down on things that he saw as frivolous and ungodly. Things like singing, dancing, drinking, fornication, all the fun stuff. So just weeks after the alleged gathering in North Berwick, Agnes was arrested and accused of being the coven's most senior witch. She was taken to Edinburgh and she found herself face to face with King James himself. Reports say that at first he was sceptical that Agnes was the witch she had confessed to be,

8:52but when she leaned over and whispered to him the words that Anne had said to him on their wedding night, he was convinced. He was now sure that there was an international satanic conspiracy out to kill him. Under even more torture, Agnes filled in more details of the gathering. She had her head shaven and her head crushed with the rope. She only confessed, though, when they found the devil's mark on her crotch. She was then subjected to more hours of sexual torture and later burned. 59 people were eventually killed in relation to the supposed gathering at Berwick and it was the first large-scale witch trial in the British Isles and served as a blueprint for the next two centuries of massacre. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, King James did

9:47become the King of England, and the scale of the witch trials south of the border suddenly exploded. Parliament passed a new witchcraft statute, which made witchcraft a capital offence which had already been in Scotland for some time. Eight years later, ten women were hanged in Pendle for witchcraft. Four years after that, another nine were killed in Leicester. Suddenly, witches were being found in every town, and every time they confessed, they would reveal more and more names of others, who they claimed to be members of their coven, or people that they had seen at the Witches' Sabbath. At these Sabbaths, women would gather in cemeteries in the dark hours between Friday and Saturday in a sort of reverse communion to mock the Christian faith,

10:32which is why tabernacles have locks on. And apparently these witches would spit on the Bible, curse the cross, and their demon paramours would turn up and join in. The devil would appear at every single one because he had nothing better to do. And sometimes he would appear as a big black bearded man, sometimes as a stinky little goat, and occasionally he would show up as a toad, depending on how he felt that day. According to the Malleus, quote, and the devil appears to them in the assumed body of a man and urges them to keep faith with him. That means sex, by the way. Promising them worldly prosperity and length of life. Yeah, it's like that great line from the witch film that came out a couple of years ago.

11:12It's like Black Phillip talks to the girl in it and he's like, would thou likes to live deliciously? That's what he's promising them. I'll give you a way better life if you just do evil stuff that's what people are accusing them of and uh apparently the witches would take it in turns to kiss the goat devil man oh if he was a toad they would kiss him on his toady mouth and if he was a goat they would kiss him right on the bumhole goats also have mouths like i don't i'm i'm not questioning it moving on and then after they'd kiss loads of bumholes they would dance around right on the bumhole. Goats also have mouths. Like, I don't... I'm not questioning it. Moving on. And then after they'd kissed loads of bumholes,

11:48they would dance around the devil for a while, and soon enough, it would all descend into a massive, mad orgy. Then, when everyone was done, they'd have a great feast. Either of turnips, which, for some reason, was mocking to God. I mean, this is just like a great representation of how fucking shit everything was back then that they were like, and then they all ate turnips, that prized delicious fruit. So yes, apparently eating turnips is a way to mock God. So, you know, ignore that hack I gave you of using turnips instead of green papayas, which are very expensive if you're making a papaya salad. And apparently they'd also just boil a human child and eat them, presumably with a side of turnips.

12:32I mean, I would argue that boiling a human child is more offensive than a turnip, but who the fuck am I? I mean, that's only on the big feast days, the big satanic feast days. The high night. Yes. In the Althas region of France, witches were a little more refined, however, and they ducked into a fricassee of bats. Typical France. Always, always one-upping. Now, many of this information was set out in the Malleus Maleficarum, and many more details were hashed out by religious leaders, including one very divisive debate. Can the devil jizz? Oh, holy Jesus. No, it's a big part of the conversation, because when he had sex with his followers, as we told you he did, The devil could appear as either a succubus which is

13:26a female demon or an incubus which is a male demon and it was thought that he was freezing cold to the touch. And to answer this question we don't really have an answer but basically there were some allegations made by some people that quote some items in the devil were lacking in his equipment doctors have said that he could still come though but some have said that he only emitted worm-like creatures my god this is also strange because well because for very obvious reasons but where are they getting this information from who is giving this presumably this is just crazy shit that people are saying when they haven't been allowed to sleep and they're being tortured to death very specific though which again makes you realize

14:09these people were so fucking bored that they were just making up the craziest stuff read a book they had books this is all just bible fan fiction also probably most people were illiterate i take that back well they've had the bible read to them and then they've been like but there's no dark creepy gory stuff which we absolutely love and want to hear more of so people are just writing this malifers malificarum is just dark bible fan fiction and then they've all run with it so others who were presumably tortured as witches also said that the devil would squeeze the spunk out of the balls of recently dead men to use that as well. But thankfully, Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, the two founders of demonological science, settled the whole debate once and for all.

14:58The devil would appear as a succubus to have sex with a male witch. Then once he had the man's seed, chained into an incubus, which is a male demon, and bang a female witch. Simple. Yeah, that's it. And no joke, these debates were actually raging in the cathedrals of Europe. It's not just a joke that we're making up. These people were actually arguing about this. And according to the Malleus, this is a quote, All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable. Bloody women. So why did the women catch it so badly? They already were having quite a difficult time in the Middle Ages. I think it was like 50% chance you'd die in childbirth. But on top of that, the witch craze was almost a woman-only massacre.

15:48Definitely in the UK. Yeah. I was listening to another podcast which was basically talking about how in other countries such as Normandy, which is now in France, obviously Estonia, which is now I know also the name of a ship, Burgundy, Russia and Iceland, the majority of people that were killed in the witch crazes there were all men. So it's interesting because I think there's something about that society that tells you who they were going after and why they were going after them. Was it because of the church sanctioned reason? Was it because of misogyny? Was it because of power grabs? It very much depends on the country. But in the UK, absolutely the majority of people killed were women. Men were accused of being witches and found guilty of witchcraft, but they

16:29were less likely to die because of it. So why were 90% of those put to death women? Well, lots of reasons. The 13th and 14th century brought massive social, economic, demographic and religious change to the British Isles, and the role of the woman was in real flux. Many families had moved to cities from rural areas, and society was moving from the exchanging of goods to a more cash-based economy. And the population was booming on top of that. Wages were low, jobs were scarce, and many men just couldn't afford to get married. Which meant families just couldn't afford to support unproductive members. So many women either had to get jobs spinning or weaving or were just sent off to a convent. And the number of unmarried women grew and grew. Up to 40%

17:21of the women under 44 were unmarried. That is staggering. And the stigma against spinsters and widows was pretty obvious. Then there was the Black Death. The bubonic plague swept through Europe and killed almost half of the entire population of the continent. Obviously, that's bad. But for workers, it was kind of a turn-up. Wages were now higher, job security was better, there was plenty of food, and lots of people inherited a bunch of money from their plagued relatives. Many people didn't want to squander their newfound prosperity. Plus, the Renaissance was making everybody a bit more individualistic. Families shrunk, casual sex grew, and new contraceptive methods were all the rage. All this sexual promiscuity came at the same time

18:12as large numbers of unmarried women were suddenly not under the authority of their fathers or husbands. This led to quite a bit of fear and resentment. And when the witch hunt kicked in, that expressed itself squarely on women. A lot of the symbols of witchcraft, like broomsticks, cooking pots, household animals, are symbols of domesticity and related to the traditional role of women. It was still a hyper-religious society, and the changes sweeping through Europe also represented a return to strict moral boundaries. And in England, that meant Puritanism. Which brings us to the infamous, no-nonsense, self-styled Witchfinder General himself, Matthew Hopkins. Hopkins was born in Wenham, Suffolk in 1620, when Puritanism was really kicking off.

19:10If you don't know about Puritans, they were a reform movement of English Protestants who, like John Knox earlier, thought that anything fun and cool was a sin. And they took themselves off to the New World because they didn't think England was boring enough, basically. Yeah, I mean, that whole mythos of the Puritans leaving the old world for the new world because they wanted to escape persecution is not true. They left so that they could persecute. Exactly. So take that, the Mayflower. Okay, moving on. King James died in 1625, and this is another particularly knotty period in British politics. Basically, there was a civil war between the new king, Charles I, and his parliament. And as war usually does, war hit England hard.

20:02Poverty and famine were widespread, local courts were suspended, and law and order totally broke down. Hopkins's father, uncle and brother were all Puritan preachers, so he was raised with a hell of a lot of fire and brimstone. And when his father died, Hopkins moved to Manningtree, Essex, and, very unlike a Puritan, bought a pub. When a landowner called Sir Harbottle Grimstone... That is not your name. That's not a real name. Sir Harbottle Grimstone? OK, fine. It sounds like a name that someone would give a very small dog. Harbottle Grimstone, the third. And he noticed that a mysterious illness was sweeping through his cattle and he suspected foul play classic a hard bottle grimstone and in 1645 he pointed the finger

20:56at an elderly one-legged widow who lived on his land he accused elizabeth cl Clark of being a witch. At the time, the Witchcraft Act was in place, but torture was still illegal. So witches would be monitored by watchers to see if they shot off on a broomstick or started suckling rats or something else that looked witchy. But Clark had annoyingly not done any of that. So Hopkins and fellow witch-hating Puritan John Cern managed to convince watchers to pass the case over to them. And they dragged this old one-legged widow, Elizabeth Clark, into Hopkins' pub, the Thorn Inn. And they say that in the time they were there, they saw Clark summon many familiars in various animal forms, including a demonic rabbit called Sugar. Why not? These people,

21:53imagine if they'd just written a young adult fantasy novel. Much better use of all of this imagination. But we can be pretty sure that all that really happened in that pub that day was the brutal torture of an old woman until she admitted to witchcraft and named a slew of other witches too. And the Witchfinder General took this confession and a new list of names to the Earl of Hardwick. This Earl was impressed and he gave Hopkins a warrant to go after more of these witches. And then Hopkins gave himself the name the Witchfinder General, as we have discussed at length. If you give yourself a nickname, it is not cool. Like L. Ron Hubbard calling himself Flash, it just makes you look lame. And soon, 23 women in the town of Manningtree

22:40had been arrested for witchcraft. They all confessed, 18 of them were hanged, and four more died in jail. Only one of the accused, Rebecca West, was set free. And she was let go because she confessed that she had been forced by her mother to lie with the devil, and that only her mother's death would save Rebecca from Satan's spell. So she throws her own mum under the fucking bus, so let her go. Word of the Essex trial spread like wildfire across England, and just months before, Puritans had been doing more sweeping through the country. They were burning churches and vandalising anything they deemed too extravagant. Many towns and villages were decimated. As always, fear and uncertainty turned to blame,

23:24and soon communities were inviting the Witchfinder General to rid them of their demons. And yes, he really did use the swimming test amongst his methods. And what that was, was suspects were thrown into a river and if they drowned, they were innocent, but dead. And if they floated, they were treated as witches and killed anyway. So you're not coming out of it alive. And the way things would go down with Hopkins is that he'd come into a village, he'd get these confessions, once they were in, he'd disappear. He'd usually skip town before the actual executions took place. And like this, Hopkins went to countless villages over the years and made over £1,000. That's at a time when the average wage was 6p a day.

24:07He was personally responsible over the years for sending over 300 English women to their deaths. Hopkins' crusade eventually came to an end with the death of John Lowes. In August 1645, the 80-year-old priest was forced to run on the spot without sleep until he collapsed from exhaustion. It was part of a witch panic that eventually saw 100 people in one town arrested. And that came to the attention of the government. Soon they retried all 100, and only 18 people were found guilty. Suddenly, Hopkins seemed more dangerous than the evil he claimed to be fighting. The war was dying down, and the fear did too, and the country now started to turn against the witchfinders. It's hard to say what finally brought an end to Europe's witch craze. For at

25:01least 200 years, all of Europe's brightest and most influential minds were part of a fight against witchcraft. Hundreds of thousands of women were killed in a meaningless holy war. But across Europe, as the social and religious conditions calmed, so did the witch frenzy. Protestant countries like England and Holland were first, and by the mid-18th century, witchcraft was back to being a local superstition. Meanwhile, over in Salem, Massachusetts, there was their own cute mini version of the witch craze that lasted just 14 months. But in some ways, the craze has never really stopped. Stories of clandestine evil powers gathering in groups to worship Satan, eat babies, and use their powers to disrupt the status quo have lasted throughout

25:50the centuries. So the episodes that you have just listened to have been about a conspiracy theory, about fundamentalists wreaking havoc on a changing society and making a return to pure religious morals. And when you think about it that way, it's not an old story at all, especially when 15% of Americans now believe that Satan-worshipping paedophiles run the government and the media. And all they need to start hunting these Satan-worshipping lizard paedophiles down is the right people in power yeah i mean i think that the witch craze has been used it's nothing new to use it as an allegory for other crazes that have come and will come and that we are living through um obviously you can make direct comparisons to the

26:39witch craze to things like mccarthyism and um yes if you want to be more literal, not even allegorical, you can look at the QAnon shit. And we have covered that in a two part if you go back and listen to it on Red Handed. Yeah. I mean, I think this is the thing is you can sort of scoff and look at these people and be like, oh my God, weren't they stupid? But like, we haven't evolved at all since this was happening. A few centuries ago. We haven't evolved at all. And I think there's a really interesting quote i can't remember who said it but i'm sure you'll be able to find it if you google it is the idea of the printing press really kicked off a lot of this stuff because it made things like the malius maleficarum easily accessible by people all over

27:19the world and obviously we're not saying that the printing press was a bad invention of course it's not it's great but the printing press directly, indirectly lead to thousands of people being killed. almost every few months. And how we are not adequately equipped or emotionally or psychologically mature enough to be able to not let that lead to more and more panic and craziness. And you wonder what somebody's going to invent that's going to kill us all. So there you go. Great. We hope you enjoyed this two-parter on the witch hunt of Europe. And well, specifically in this part, especially the UK. And we'll eat some turnips. See you next week part, especially the UK. And we'll... Eat some turnips.

28:05See you next week. Affront the Lord. Bye-bye. you