These trials had the most pernicious consequences all over Scotland.
The lairds and ministers in their districts, armed with due power from
the privy council, tried and condemned old women after the most summary
fashion. Those who still clung to the ancient faith of Rome were the
severest sufferers, as it was thought, after the disclosures of the
fierce enmity borne by the devil towards a Protestant King and his
Protestant wife, that all the Catholics were leagued with the powers of
evil to work woe on the realm of Scotland. Upon a very moderate
calculation, it is presumed that from the passing of the act of Queen
Mary till the accession of James to the throne of England, a period of
thirty-nine years, the average number of executions for witchcraft in
Scotland was two hundred annually, or upwards of seventeen thousand
altogether. For the first nine years the number was not one quarter so
great; but towards the years 1590 to 1593, the number must have been
more than four hundred. The case last cited was one of an extraordinary
character. The general aspect of the trials will be better seen from
that of Isabel Gowdie, which, as it would be both wearisome and
disgusting to go through them all, is cited as a fair specimen,
although it took place at a date somewhat later than the reign of
James. This woman, wearied of her life by the persecutions of her
neighbours, voluntarily gave herself up to justice, and made a
confession, embodying the whole witch-creed of the period. She was
undoubtedly a monomaniac of the most extraordinary kind. She said that
she deserved to be stretched upon an iron rack, and that her crimes
could never be atoned for, even if she were to be drawn asunder by wild
horses. She named a long list of her associates, including nearly fifty
women and a few warlocks. They dug up the graves of unchristened
infants, whose limbs were serviceable in their enchantments. When they
wanted to destroy the crops of an enemy, they yoked toads to his
plough, and on the following night Satan himself ploughed the land with
his team, and blasted it for the season. The witches had power to
assume almost any shape; but they generally chose either that of a cat
or a hare, oftenest the latter. Isabel said, that on one occasion, when
she was in this disguise, she was sore pressed by a pack of hounds, and
had a very narrow escape with her life. She reached her own door at
last, feeling the hot breath of the pursuing dogs at h