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Under the Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563, enacted effective 4 June 1563, [7] both the practice of witchcraft and consulting with witches were capital offences. [8] This Act remained on Scottish statute books until it was repealed as a result of a House of Lords amendment to the bill for the post-union Witchcraft Act 1735.
The North Berwick Witches meet the Devil in the local kirkyard, from a contemporary pamphlet, Newes from Scotland. In early modern Scotland, in between the early 16th century and the mid-18th century, judicial proceedings concerned with the crimes of witchcraft (Scottish Gaelic: buidseachd) took place as part of a series of witch trials in Early Modern Europe.
In Scotland the Witchcraft Act remained in law till 1736. Witchcraft was a capital crime and punished by strangulation and burning at the stake. Claire Mitchell QC provides evidence that Scotland executed five times as many people per capita as anywhere else in Europe. [8] An estimated 3837 people were accused, 2558 of whom were killed.
Long title: An Act to repeal the statute made in the first year of the reign of King James the First, intitutled, An Act against conjuration, witchcraft, and dealing with evil and wicked spirits, except so much thereof as repeals an Act of the fifth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Against conjurations, inchantments and witchcrafts, and to repeal, an Act passed in the parliament of ...
This is a list of acts of the Parliament of Scotland for the year 1563. It lists acts of Parliament of the old Parliament of Scotland, that was merged with the old Parliament of England to form the Parliament of Great Britain, by the Union with England Act 1707 (c. 7). For other years, see list of acts of the Parliament of Scotland.
They passed a new Witchcraft Act in 1649 and encouraged local presbyteries to seek out witches. The intense period of witch hunting began in 1649 and continued into 1650, being largely confined to the Lowlands, particularly Lothian and Fife, but spilled over into northern England, where Scottish witch prickers were active.
Woodcut image from Newes from Scotland (1591) depicting the devil with Agnes Sampson, one of the witches detailed in the survey [1]. The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft is an online database of witch trials in early modern Scotland, containing details of 3,837 accused gathered from contemporary court documents covering the period from 1563 until the repeal of the Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1736. [2]
The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597 was a series of nationwide witch trials that took place in the whole of Scotland from March to October 1597. At least 400 people were put on trial for witchcraft and various forms of diabolism during the witch hunt. The exact number of those executed is unknown, but is believed to be about 200.