QC launches justice campaign for Scotland's “witches”
A campaign seeking justice for thousands of people in Scotland who were convicted of witchcraft in past centuries and executed, has been launched by a senior advocate to mark International Women’s Day.
Claire Mitchell QC wants a legal pardon to be given to those, predominantly women, who were condemned under the Witchcraft Act 1563, and a national monument in their memory. She is appealing to the public to support her “Witches of Scotland” campaign, and to help bring about an apology like that given to the victims of the trials in the 1690s in Salem, Massachusetts.
The Witchcraft Act remained in force until 1736, and an estimated 3,837 people – about 84% of them women – were accused of witchcraft, a capital crime. Around 2,600 people are thought to have been executed, by being strangled and then burned at the stake, so as to leave no body for burial. People were locked up awaiting trial and tortured, often in public, to confess.
Public feeling was heightened by King James VI of Scotland, who was obsessed with witchcraft and attended witch trials.
Ms Mitchell said: “Doing research in the Advocates Library on ‘Bloody Mackenzie’, a Lord Advocate during the Witchcraft Act, I read a quote from a poor woman who had been convicted of witchcraft. She was so confused that she asked, ‘Can you be a witch and not know it?’ I was very angry and decided to find out more about Scotland’s witches.
“I visited the Witches’ Well at the top of the Royal Mile. It marks the spot where some 300 ‘witches’ were burned at the stake. I felt a real anger that there was no apology for these people, no recognition of the terrible wrong done to them. I think, like Salem, it’s a good thing to send a message to the wider world that we apologise to those who were killed as witches.”
She added that the witch trials of Salem were world famous, but had involved only 200 people accused of witchcraft, 30 of whom were convicted and 19 (14 women and five men) hanged.
“Salem has ‘reversed the conviction’ of all those who were executed, and the Massachusetts House of Representatives has passed a resolution honouring those who died. A memorial park was created in Salem.
“The ‘Witches of Scotland’ campaign aims to bring what posthumous justice we can to those who were so cruelly and unfairly accused and tried as witches. We want three things: a pardon for those convicted of witchcraft, an apology for all those accused, and a national memorial.”
The public is being asked to support the campaign, and to sign up via a new website at www.witchesofscotland.com
- A free event about the campaign will be held in the Faculty’s Mackenzie Building from 6pm on Thursday, 2 April. Click here for details and tickets.