For several years there had been a remarkable lull in
the spiritual world, and, whether from the judicious mildness of the
government in ordering that no women should be condemned for witchcraft
except upon voluntary confession, or any other cause, witch cases had
wholly ceased. All at once, the devil’s work recommenced, and a series
of dismal tragedies ensued. It seems to have been primarily owing to a
vagrant girl named Janet Douglas, who appeared deaf and dumb, and who
may be reasonably set down as one of those singular young persons who,
acting under a morbid love of mischief, have at the same time marvellous
powers of deception.
Sir George Maxwell of Pollock had for some
weeks been very unwell, with a pain in his side and one in his shoulder.
The illness had first come upon him suddenly in the night, when at
Glasgow, in the form of a violent heat, attended with pain. At the time
noted in the margin, Janet Douglas came to the neighbouring village, and
began to frequent Pollock House. Attracting the attention of Sir
George’s sister and daughter, she endeavoured to apprise them by signs
that, at a certain cottage not far oft’, there was a picture of wax
turning at a fire; and she expressed in her imperfect way a wish that a
couple of men should go with her thither. Lady Maxwell, not being
inclined to superstition, would have denied the girl’s request; but the
two other gentlewomen consented. So Janet went away with two
men-servants, and straight conducted them to the cottage of an old woman
of evil fame, named Janet Mathie, whose son the laird had some time
before imprisoned for stealing his fruit. ‘She going in with the men,
the woman on some occasion stepping to the door, the dumb lass instantly
put her hand behind the chimney, and takes out a picture of wax wrapped
in a linen cloth, gives it to the men; away they all come with it, and
let the gentlewomen see it. They find two pins stuck in the right side
of it, and a pin on the shoulder downward, which they take out, and
keeps quiet; and that night the bird had good rest, and mended
afterward, though slowly, for he was sore brought down in his body: and
in two or three days they made him understand the matter. The woman is
apprehended, and laid up in prison in Paisley! On being searched,
several witch-marks—that is, spots insensible to pain—were found upon
her.
1677
On the 4th of January, Sir George’s illness recurred
with the same violence as before, and his face assumed the leaden hue of
death. Amidst the anxieties which this occasioned, the dumb girl sent to
inform the family that John Stewart, Mathie’s son, had made a new image
of clay, for the purpose of taking away Sir George’s life. Two gentlemen
went next day with the girl to Mathie’s cottage, and keeping her at a
distance, but acting under her directions, found such an image under the
bolster of a bed, with three pins sticking in it. The young man and his
sister Annaple were immediately apprehended. From that day, it was said
that Sir George began to recover his health.
Stewart at first
denied all concern in the images, but, on witch-marks being found on his
person, he was ‘confounded,’ and joined his sister in a confession,
which described witch-conventions in their mother’s house, along with ‘a
man dressed in black, with a blue band and white hand-cuffs, with
hoggars over his bare feet, which were cloven!’ Three women of the
neighbourhood, Bessie Weir, Margaret Jackson, and Marjory Craig, were
accordingly apprehended and examined, when the second gave a confession
to much the same effect, but the other two proved ‘obdurate.’
In
the subsequent judicial proceedings, Annaple Stewart gave a clear
statement regarding the making of the first wax image in October last in
the presence of the Black Man, her mother, and the other three women.
They bound it on a spit, and turned it round before the fire, saying:
‘Sir George Pollock! Sir George Pollock!’ The young man, who was not
then at home, had returned and been present at the making of the second
image in January. ‘After he had gone to bed, the Black Man came in, and
called him quietly by his name, upon which he arose from the bed and put
on his clothes. Margaret Jackson, Bessie Weir, and Marjory Craig did
enter in at the window in the gable. The first thing that the Black Man
required was that he should renounce his baptism and deliver up himself
wholly unto him, putting one of his hands on the crown of his head, and
the other to the sole of his foot . . . promising he should not want any
pleasure, and that he should get his heart sythe on all that should do
him wrong. (All having given their consent to the making of the clay
image, which was meant as a revenge for Sir George Maxwell taking away
his mother), they wrought the clay, and the Black Man did make the head
and face, and the two arms. The devil set three pins in the same, one in
each side, and one in the breast; and John did hold the candle all the
time the picture was making The picture was placed by Bessie Weir in his
bed-straw.’ On this occasion, they had all had nicknames given them by
the devil, who himself bore the name of Ejool.
It is noted that
when the girl, after confession in bed in Pollock House, was asked what
the devil’s name had been to her, ‘she, being about to tell, was
stopped, the bed being made to shake, and her clothes under her blown up
with a wind.’
When the two young people had been committed to
Paisley prison, Janet, their mother, desired to see her son, and the
request being granted, ‘they make a third and new picture of clay, which
the dumb lass again discovers.’ It was supposed that this was intended
for Sir George’s daughter-in-law, who had taken an active interest in
detecting the diabolic conspiracy, and who fell ill about this time.
In consideration of her nonage and penitency, Annaple Stewart was
not brought to trial, though retained in prison. On the 15th of
February, the rest of the party were tried and condemned, Janet Mathie,
Bessie Weir, and Marjory Craig continuing to deny their guilt to the
last. The obduracy of Mathie was considered the more horrible, as her
two children seriously exhorted her to confession, Annaple with tears
reminding her of her many meetings with the devil, but all in vain. The
four women and the boy actually suffered in Paisley (20th February).
Mathie was first hanged, and then burned, along with the wax and clay
effigies. When Weir, the last of the four, was turned off the gallows,
‘there appears a raven, and approaches the hangman within an ell of him,
and flies away again.’—Law.
it is perhaps the most singular fact
regarding this case, that the particulars of it are narrated with all
seriousness by Sir George’s son and successor, Sir John Maxwell, who was
subsequently Lord Justice-clerk—that is, supreme criminal judge in
Scotland. He intimates not the least doubt of any of the facts, neither
of any of the popular inferences from them. Other intelligent men in
that age were struck by the manner in which the doings of the witches
were detected, and Janet Douglas was for some time the subject of
general attention. In the same month which saw the witches done to death
on Paisley green, she detected a similar conspiracy against Mr Hugh
Smith, the minister of Eastwood, who ‘was much afflicted with pain and
sweating, to the changing of half-a-dozen shirts some days, and was
brought very low, but after the discovery, and the effigy gotten, and
the prins taken out, grew well again.’ It was given out regarding the
girl, that she understood any language in which she was addressed. When
she had somewhat recovered the use of her own tongue, which was about
two months after these events, she told that three years before, she had
had ‘an impression on her spirit’ to come to Pollock. ‘Being asked how
she had knowledge of detecting witches and other secrets, she declared
that she knew not from what spirit; only things were suggested to her;
but denied that she had any correspondence with Satan.’—Law.
According to Sir John Lauder, she stated that ‘she had all things
revealed to her in her sleep by vision.’ This learned gentleman adds:
‘What made her very suspect to be haunted only by a familiar, was her
dissolute idle life, having. . . . not so much as a show or semblance of
piety in it, but much lightness and vanity."
The Privy Council,
hearing much rumour of these things from the west, sent orders to search
for and apprehend Janet Douglas, and she was brought to Edinburgh in
May, and lodged in the Canongate Tolbooth. People flocked to see her,
and she began to exercise her art of witch-finding amongst them, but
with no particular effect. In June, nevertheless, five or six women of
the west, whom she had detected in killing Hamilton of Barns by a wax
image, were burned for their imaginary crime at Dumbarton. Next month we
find a reference to her in another case.
Dr Mark Jardine tells the story thus:
In
the summer of 1677, Janet Douglas, a fourteen-year-old ‘dumb
girle’ who had been involved in discovering witches, was
interviewed, probably in Glasgow Tolbooth, At that time, Douglas
was believed to have the second sight. However, the authorities
had begun to think that Douglas was ‘a snare for the country’
and that her ongoing discoveries were getting out of hand.
Glasgow
A few years later, an account of the
interview was sent to the mathematician, George Sinclair, from
‘a discreet understanding gentle-man who was one of my Scholars
at Glasgow several years agoe.’ Sinclair included it in Satan’s
Invisible World Discovered, which he published in 1685.
‘A Short Information anent Jennet Douglas.
Edinburgh,
Octob: 8th. 1684. For Mr. Sinclar.
Sir,
When I was at
Glasgow in the Summer, 1677. I was desirous to see the Dumb
Girle, whom you mention in your first Relation. At my first
incoming she declined to entertain discourse, but by friendly
expressions, and giving her some money, I gained her.
I
first inquired anent her Parentage? I do not remember (says she)
of my Parents, but only that I was called by the name of Jennet
Douglas by all People who knew me. I was keeped, when I was very
young by a poor woman that proved cruel to me, by beating, and
abusing me, whereupon I deserted the Womans house, and went a
begging.
I enquired next, how she became Dumb? She told
me, by reason of a sore swelling she tooke in her Throat and
tongue; but afterwards, by the Application of Album Grćcum, [a
medicine that is said to have been the whitish hardened turds of
dogs, wolves etc. from eating bones which when mized with honey
was used for sore throats or inflamations,] which I thought said
she was revealed to me, I recovered my speech [in April, 1677].
I asked her, how she came to the knowledge of Witches and
their practises? She answered, that she had it only by vision,
and knew all things as well this way, as if she had been
personally present with them, but had no revelation, or
information from the voice of any Spirit. Nor had she any
communication with the Devil, or any Spirit of that kind: only (sayes
she) the Devil was represented to me, when he was in company
with any of the Witches, in that same shape and habit he was
seen by them.
She told me, she was altogether ignorant of
the Principles of Christian Religion, but had some smattering
knowledge of the Lords Prayer, which she had heard the Witches
repeat (it seems by her vision) in presence of the Devil; and at
his desire (which they observed) they added to the word Art, the
letter W, which made it run, our father which wart in heaven,
and made the third Petition thus, as on earth, so it may in
heaven, by which means the Devil made the application of the
Prayer to himself.
I remember, that one day, their was a
woman in the town who had the curiosity, to give her a visit,
who asked her how she came to the knowledge of so many things?
But the young Wench shifted her, by asking the Womans name. She
told her name. Says the other, are there any other in Glasgow of
that name? No sayes the Woman. Then said the Girle, you are a
Witch; Says the other, then you are a Devil. The Girle answers,
the Devil doth not reveal Witches. But I know you to be one, and
I know your practises too. Hereupon the Woman run away in great
confusion, being indeed a Person suspected of Witchcraft, and
had been some time imprisoned upon that account.
Another
Woman, whose name was Campbel had the curiosity likewise to come
and see her, and began to ask some questions at her. The Wench
shifting to give her an answer, says I pray you tell me, where
were you yesternight, and what were you doing? And withall (says
she) let me see your arm. She refusing, the Land-Lord, laid hold
upon the Woman, with some others of the house, and forced her to
make bare her arm, where Jennet Douglas shewed them an invisible
mark, which she had gotten from the Devil. The poor Woman much
ashamed run home, and a little time after, she came out and told
her Neighbours, that what Jennet Douglas had said of her was
true, and earnestly entreated them that they would shew so much
to the Magistrates, that she might be apprehended, otherwise the
Devil (says she) will make me kill my self. But the Neighbours
judging her to be under a fit of distraction, carried her home
to her house. But early the next morning, the Woman was found
drowned in Clyde.
The Girle likewise told me at Glasgow,
being then under no restraint, that it was revealed her, she
would be carried before the Great Council at Edinburgh,
imprisoned there, and scourged thorow the town. All which came
to pass: for about a year after she was apprehended, and
imprisoned in the Tolbuith of the Canongate, and was brought
before the Council. But nothing being found against her, she was
dismist. But thereafter for several crimes committed within the
town of Edinburgh, she was taken again, and imprisoned,
scourged, and sent away to some forrainge Plantation, since
which time, I have not heard of her.
There are several
other remarkable passages of her which I cannot informe you of,
which others perhaps may do, therefore I shall abruptly break
off, and say no more, but that I am your affectionat Friend.’
(Sinclair, Satan’s Invisible World Discovered, 203-7.)
What appears ro be the same interview was recorded by the
Reverend John Fraser in his Treatise Containing a Description of
Deuteroscopia, Commonly Called the Second Sight (1707):
‘I know assuredly that Janet Dowglas, that was first a Dumbie,
yet spoke thereafter, who had given many Responses by Signs and
Words, and foretold many future events, being examined by Mr
Gray one of the Ministers of the City of Glasgow, denyed any
explicit or implicit Paction [with the Devil], and declared
freely that the answers of the questions proponed to her were
represented by a Vision in lively Images, representing persons
concerned and acting the thing, before her Eyes; This Master
Gray exchanged several Discourses in writ with Sir James Turner,
concerning her.’ (Fraser’s text is reproduced in Hunter, Occult
Laboratory, 196-7.)
As Hunter points out, ‘Master Gray’
was probably John Gray (d.1729), who after the interview in 1684
became the minister of the Collegiate church in the burgh in
1693 and the Wynd church in 1700. Gray was also probably the
‘discreet gentle-man’ who corresponded with Sinclair, as he had
studied at the University of Glasgow. (Scott, Fasti, III, 432,
451.) |
Two sons of Douglas of Barloch having been drowned in crossing a
river at one time, the father was induced by Janet Douglas to believe
that the calamity was an effect of witchcraft. Barloch consequently
caused John Gray, Janet M’Nair, Thomas and Mary Mitchell, to be
apprehended and carried to Stirling Tolbooth. There, ‘their bodies being
searched by the ordinar pricker, there were witch-marks found upon each
of them, and Janet M’Nair confessed that she got these marks from the
grip of a grim black man, and bed a great pain for a time thereafter.’
After keeping these four persons in jail on his own charges for fourteen
weeks, Barloch found the expense more than he was able to undergo,
‘being but a gentleman of a mean fortune;’ and on his petition, the
Council ordered (July 5, 1677) that the magistrates of Stirling should
in the meantime ‘entertein the prisoners.’ Against this ordinance, the
magistrates immediately reclaimed, ‘seeing it is a great burden to the
town, who have so many other contingencies to undergo;’ and the lords,
reconsidering the matter, commissioned the Lairds of Kier, Touch, and
Herbertshire, to examine the prisoners, and ‘try what they find anent
these persons’ guilt of the crime of witchcraft, and report.’
What was ultimately done with the four Stirling prisoners, we do not
learn. As to Janet Douglas, the Council began to feel that she was
something of an inconvenience in the country; so they determined to
banish her beyond seas. At first, no skipper could be found who was
willing to take her in his vessel; some were disposed to set sail
without a pass, to avoid being compelled to take such a dangerous
commodity on board. But Janet was ultimately banished for being a cheat
and an imposter and heard of no more.
And more:
A lengthy letter from the
Reverend George Hickes to diarist Samuel Pepys gives the best
history of young Janet. Hickes states that Janet was born in the
Scottish Highlands in the middle of the 17th century.
At
the age of 11, she journeyed to Glasgow (apparently alone) and
told a gathered crowd where evil objects called “images” were
located that were the causes of their misfortune. Hikes wrote:
“…As she was surrounded, she called out to one man, a
goldsmith…and told him that of so long a time he had not been
[successful] in his trade, though he was very diligent in it,
[was] because an image was made against him, which he might find
in such a corner of his shop; and when the man went home, there
he found it where she said it was and the image was such both as
to matter and form as she had described it…a little rude image
made of clay.”
After destroying it, the goldsmith enjoyed
success thereafter.
Because of the excitement of the
crowd, and for her own safety, Janet was kept in protective
custody in the Glasgow jail. When she traveled to Edinburgh in
1678, she was again placed in jail for the same reasons.
While in Edinburgh, Reverend Hickes interviewed Janet
about her powers and life. She would tell nothing of her
parentage or early life but merely repeated certain statements
about her “gift.” Her vocabulary seemed to indicate some
education, although Janet claimed to be an ordinary girl from
the Highlands. Janet Douglas said she did not know where her
paranormal powers came from. Hickes wrote Pepys that overall he
found Janet to be a “bold, undaunted spirit” and “a girl of very
great assurance.”
Historian Robert Wodrow recounts possibly a
final tale, maybe more folklore than fact, in his 18th century
book “Analecta”: “Archbishop Sharpe, presiding in the Privy
Council, was earnest to have Janet Douglas brought before that
board, accusing her of sorcery and witchcraft. When she was
brought, she vindicated herself, for she was endeavoring to
discover those secret hellish plots, and to countermine the
kingdom of darkness. The Archbishop insisted she might be sent
away to the King’s plantations in the West Indies. She only
dropt one word to the Bishop: ‘My Lord,’ says she, ‘who was with
you in your [room] Saturday night last, betwixt twelve and one
o’clock?’ upon which the Bishop changed his countenance, and
turned black and pale, and then no more was said. When the
council rose up, the Duke of Rothes called Janet into a room,
and inquired at her privately ‘who was that person that was with
the Bishop?’ She refused at first, but he promising upon his
word of honour to warrant her at all hands, and that she should
not be sent to America, she says: ‘My Lord, it was the…black
devil!'”
After Edinburgh, Janet vanished into the
shadows. Did she, as she had promised Hickes, journey to England
after her release in Edinburgh? Did she return home to the
Highlands? Regardless of her life after Edinburgh, in the
history of Scots who claim to have possessed Second Sight, Janet
is a notable Seer who was as mysterious as the powers she
appeared to have. |
Whether this is the same Janet Douglas, I do not know, bue
Janet is reported to have married a minister:
John Murdoch and Janet
Douglas both married persons, were tried in 1699, for one act of
adultery. The libel was restricted., and they were banished for life.
|
