James vi and the witches

James VI of Scotland

b.1566-d.1625 Reigned 1567-1625

Son of Mary, Queen of Scots and her second husband, Lord Darnley, James became king aged one after his mother was ousted. His reign was characterised by superstition. After the death of Elizabeth I of England, he became king of England in 1603.

The fearful abounding at this time in this country, of these detestable slaves of the Devil, the Witches or enchanters, hath moved me (beloved reader) to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine, not in any way (as I protest) to serve for a show of my learning and ingenuity, but only (moved of conscience) to press thereby, so far as I can, to resolve the doubting hearts of many; both that such assaults of Satan are most certainly practiced, and that the instruments thereof, merit most severely to be punished.”

So began the preface to a remarkable book published in Edinburgh in 1597. Daemonologie was remarkable for two reasons: it was a product of the most serious witch mania ever to erupt in Britain, and it was written by a reigning British monarch. What prompted the King of Scotland to venture, personally, into the campaign against black magic? There seem to be three causes that impelled him to take up his pen.

The first and most deep-seated was James’s belief in his own intellectual talent. He was a natural scholar, inquisitive, well-read and argumentative, and had a particular fascination for theology, believing that, as a king and savant, he had a responsibility to impart wisdom to his people. Secondly, he deemed himself to have been the object of a specific satanic attack in 1589, something that made a deep impression on him. Thirdly, he was always on the watch for treason and maintained that potential enemies of the crown were motivated by demonic forces.

James Stuart was King of Scotland from the age of one. His mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate in July 1567 and the boy, therefore, had no pattern of kingship on which to model himself. His upbringing was entrusted to a succession of regents from warring factions and he was subjected to a rigid educational regime by tutors of whom the chief was the gifted but irascible Presbyterian, George Buchanan. By his mid-teens, James had mastered Latin, Greek and French and was thoroughly grounded in the Bible and Calvinist doctrine. His undoubted academic ability was coupled with a profound sense of his divine right as ruler, so his opinions had the support (as he believed) not only of reason, but also of God.

Belief in and fear of witchcraft had roots in folk religion and both Catholic and Protestant theology. For centuries in Europe, it had been generally assumed that the exponents of magic were divided into two g