Tea at Trianon: King James VI’s Witch Trials: Heresy They Say?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, October 26, 2026

King James VI’s Witch Trials: Heresy They Say?

woodcut-showing-the-scottish-king-james-vi-later-james-i-of-england-overseeing-the-torturing-of-witches-at-edinburgh-circa-1590-from-the-1591-edition-of-newes-from-scotland-torture-witchcraft

From Discover Britain:

“The Scottish state and church wanted Scotland to be a very Godly society and so were zealous in cracking down on ‘sin’ of all kinds,” says Yeoman, “and accused witches were one of many categories of ‘sinner’.” Following the creation of the Reformation Parliament in 1560, The Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 was passed, outlawing both the practice of witchcraft and the consulting of witches.
Into the mix, we have King James VI, who succeeded to the Scottish throne at just 13 months old, following the forced abdication of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Baptised Catholic, but raised by regents as a Protestant, he ruled Scotland from 1567 and, after the death of Elizabeth I and the Union of the Crowns in 1603, England and Ireland as well. Among the controversies of his reign, one of his most enduring legacies was his fascination with witchcraft.
While belief in the existence of magic was common, James is remembered for his active involvement in the persecution of witches, something that, as a monarch, Goodare says, was “unusual but not unique.” Yeoman adds that for James, “it seems to have been about facing down what he saw as ‘un-Godly’ threats to his throne and dynasty and showing that he was the Lord’s anointed doing God’s work.”
Although not the worst of Scotland’s witch hunts, the North Berwick Witch Trials of 1590-91 were personal for James and marked an escalation. In 1590, the fleet carrying his bride-to-be, Anne of Denmark, across the North Sea had to turn back owing to a dangerous storm. James then set out to collect her and on their return voyage, hit another storm. This, he believed, was the work of spell-casting witches and invigorated his desire to expunge un-Godly threats to his rule while feeding public anxieties. (Read more.)