Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Aaron Mankie listener discretion is advised. One week before
Speaker 1: his mother was beheaded, James the sixth, the King of Scotland,
Speaker 1: had a premonition. He hadn't seen his mother since he
Speaker 1: was an infant just over one year old. She lived
Speaker 1: for him only in letters, in portraits, and in the
Speaker 1: stories his tutors told him about her. She had been
Speaker 1: a foolish and prideful Catholic. Her rule in Scotland had
Speaker 1: been chaos fueled by impudence. If Mary, Queen of Scots
Speaker 1: hadn't personally overseen the murder of James's father, Lord Darnley,
Speaker 1: and she had certainly wilfully looked the other way, James's
Speaker 1: mother was right to have been forced to abdicate after
Speaker 1: marrying marrying the man implicated in Darnley's death less than
Speaker 1: three months later, in James's guiltiest moments, he acknowledged that
Speaker 1: his mother mary imprisonment in England by their cousin Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the First was a godsend. After all, he was King
Speaker 1: of Scotland now, with no real threats to his power.
Speaker 1: The expenses of his Catholic mother's confinement wasn't being paid
Speaker 1: by Scottish coffers, and by making good with Elizabeth, by
Speaker 1: showing his loyalty to her and to Protestantism, he was
Speaker 1: set to be next in line for the English throne.
Speaker 1: When the Virgin Queen finally died, they told him that
Speaker 1: his mother had been beautiful, ones he wished he remembered
Speaker 1: what she looked like. A week before, Queen Elizabeth the
Speaker 1: First would reluctantly violate the sanctity of the monarchy and
Speaker 1: deliver a death sentence to the former queen of a
Speaker 1: sovereign nation. James the sixth came down to breakfast and
Speaker 1: told his minister that his mother had visited him in
Speaker 1: a dream. It was just her head, he said, floating
Speaker 1: down the black hallway towards my sleeping form, unblinking, unbleeding.
Speaker 1: The king looked haunted. His eyes were dark circles, and
Speaker 1: his skin was sallow. His feelings towards his mother were
Speaker 1: strange and laced with guilt. When the sword finally came
Speaker 1: down on his mother's neck, he wouldn't do much, wouldn't
Speaker 1: ruffle feathers. He would keep Elizabeth on his good side
Speaker 1: so that he could inherit her crown. That night a
Speaker 1: week earlier, when he saw his mother's head floating towards him,
Speaker 1: he felt a profound shame. It's the occult, he said
Speaker 1: to his minister the next morning, dark magic, that's showing
Speaker 1: me the future. That shame, he felt that fear. It
Speaker 1: was just the devil trying to manipulate him. The devil
Speaker 1: was real, and James the sixth would need to be
Speaker 1: stronger than the devil. During his reign in Scotland and
Speaker 1: then later in England, James the sixth ignited a fervor
Speaker 1: of witch hunting that would lead to his many as
Speaker 1: four thousand women being burned at the stake. He was
Speaker 1: a man on a mission, obsessed with rooting out evil
Speaker 1: and all who cavorted with it. Nothing masks shame like
Speaker 1: moral righteousness, and James the sixth was nothing if not
Speaker 1: always sure that he was right. I'm Danis Schwartz and
Speaker 1: this is noble blood. Back when the future King James
Speaker 1: the sixth of Scotland was still an infant cooing in
Speaker 1: his cradle, his father, Lord Darnley, was murdered. Darnley, only
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, had seduced Mary Queen of Scott's
Speaker 1: with his son kissed good looks and lazy fair approach
Speaker 1: to life. But after marriage, what had been charmingly lays
Speaker 1: a fair revealed itself to just be lazy. Mary had
Speaker 1: saddled herself with a boorish, cheating, bullheaded boy, a child himself,
Speaker 1: and though she managed to bear a son by him,
Speaker 1: the relationship quickly soured beyond all repair. That was the
Speaker 1: state of the marriage between the Queen of Scotland and
Speaker 1: Lord Darnley. When two barrels of gunpowder exploded beneath the
Speaker 1: floor of Darnley's room, where he was staying in kirk
Speaker 1: Afield in Edinburgh. Mary was back at the Palace Holyrood,
Speaker 1: where she was celebrating the wedding of a favorite court musician.
Speaker 1: Darnley's body was found in an orchard in the corner
Speaker 1: of the property, apparently unaffected by the explosion. He had survived,
Speaker 1: it seemed, and made it out of the collapsing house,
Speaker 1: only to be strangled upon escape. Mary wasn't the only
Speaker 1: one who hated Darnley, who hated his impudence and sloth.
Speaker 1: A nobleman, the fourth Earl of Bothwell, was implicated in
Speaker 1: Darnley's murder, which made it all the more scandalous. When Mary,
Speaker 1: Queen of Scott's Mary him just weeks after her husband's death.
Speaker 1: Of course, she claimed she had been raped and kidnapped.
Speaker 1: But that's what she would say, wouldn't she She was murderous,
Speaker 1: adulteress and Catholic, and so the overwhelmingly Presbyterian nobles in
Speaker 1: the South of Scotland forced her to abdicate and go
Speaker 1: into hiding. Five days later, in a subdued ceremony devoid
Speaker 1: of any of the pomp that could be mistaken for
Speaker 1: Catholic showmanship, Mary and Darnley's infant son became James, the
Speaker 1: six King of Scotland. James would be raised right. His tutor,
Speaker 1: the humanist scholar George Buchanan, was more than sixty years
Speaker 1: older than his charge, and drilled into James the basics
Speaker 1: of Latin and theology. In between beatings. James learned Latin
Speaker 1: before he learned Scottish. Buchanan, a devoted Presbyterian convert, often
Speaker 1: railed against the former Queen Mayor. Your mother was a trader,
Speaker 1: Buchanan told the young James she was a poisoning witch.
Speaker 1: Buchanan had once been Mary's tutor, and while back then
Speaker 1: he had praised her quick wit and abilities, once he converted,
Speaker 1: he turned against her. It was Buchanan who identified Mary's
Speaker 1: handwriting in a casket of letters that supposedly proved her
Speaker 1: guilty of conspiring with Darnley's murderers. And so James grew
Speaker 1: up learning that his only comfort was to be found
Speaker 1: in the rigidity of academia. His only pleasures were a
Speaker 1: philosophical argument, well reasoned. The hectoring nobleman who crowded him
Speaker 1: like circling vultures to make sure that the young king
Speaker 1: would be raised properly. Couldn't take umbrage with that, with
Speaker 1: his score work, with his devotion to the Bible and
Speaker 1: his studies, and those noblemen made sure to do away
Speaker 1: with any other pleasures James might enjoy. When James was thirteen,
Speaker 1: his cousin and as Mace Stewart, swept into court from France. Stewart,
Speaker 1: who was quickly styled the Duke of Lennox, was thirty
Speaker 1: seven years old. Immediately he charmed the teenage king with confidence.
Speaker 1: His good looks and his let's say, certain joys devive.
Speaker 1: Other noblemen noticed the way that James would throw his
Speaker 1: arms around Lennox and kiss him every time he saw him,
Speaker 1: and they noticed the way pious James began to swear more,
Speaker 1: began to pay less attention in church and more attention
Speaker 1: to the strapping man who treated him like a peer
Speaker 1: and not a delicate kingling. Lennox had made a show
Speaker 1: of converting to Calvinism from Catholicism, but no one really
Speaker 1: believed that was anything but a performance. They knew how
Speaker 1: dangerous a Catholic influence could be on the young king,
Speaker 1: first because he could teach James about the divine right
Speaker 1: of monarchs the Scots believe of the king existed to
Speaker 1: serve the people, but also because they noticed the way
Speaker 1: James's gaze always lingered. Lennox was influencing James to carnal sin,
Speaker 1: and the group of noblemen were willing to hold James
Speaker 1: the Six hostage literally until Lennox was gone and there
Speaker 1: would be no more evil Catholic influences on their young king.
Speaker 1: After that whole affair, James found himself once again alone,
Speaker 1: told that piety was the only important thing to being
Speaker 1: a king, and any confusing feelings he had any shame,
Speaker 1: Any guilt could be tucked away and forgotten about and
Speaker 1: folded into a book. Nobleman watching over the young Scottish
Speaker 1: king used to talk with pride about how we never
Speaker 1: philandered with ladies, how well behaved James had been with
Speaker 1: regards to his virtue and the young women of court.
Speaker 1: After Lennox, they didn't say that as much. But eventually
Speaker 1: the time came for James to find a bride, and he,
Speaker 1: then twenty three, chose the blonde Princess Anne of Denmark,
Speaker 1: only fourteen years old but already celebrated for her blonde
Speaker 1: curls and her beauty. As soon as she learned she
Speaker 1: had been selected to be James's bride, she began learning
Speaker 1: French so the two would have a common language with
Speaker 1: which to communicate, though James hadn't ever shown an interest
Speaker 1: in women. Once his bride to be was set, their
Speaker 1: proxy marriage completed, James couldn't wait for her to arrive
Speaker 1: in Scotland for the two of them to get married
Speaker 1: in person. Unfortunately, he would have to. When Anne and
Speaker 1: her entourage began to sail from Denmark to Scotland, terrible
Speaker 1: storms interfered and forced her ships to turn back, not once,
Speaker 1: not twice, but three times. Finally, they tucked away for
Speaker 1: safety in a Norwegian fjord to wait at the storms.
Speaker 1: It would be months before James would have his bride
Speaker 1: delivered to him, and since no ships were getting through,
Speaker 1: not even once delivering messages, James had no way of
Speaker 1: knowing what was going on. He waited for his bride,
Speaker 1: hoping that the love letters he had thoughtfully written in
Speaker 1: French would make their way to her, but having no
Speaker 1: way to know for sure where is she, James would mutter,
Speaker 1: pacing the palace in Edinburgh. He had a wife, she
Speaker 1: just wasn't here. And then James was struck with a
Speaker 1: brilliant idea. He would be a conquering hero, a champion
Speaker 1: of romance. He would sail out himself and rescue his
Speaker 1: damsel in distress. He would come to her. His ministers
Speaker 1: were less convinced of the brilliance of the idea. A
Speaker 1: king leaving would leave the country vulnerable, and even Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: the first down in England, muttered that James is rashed
Speaker 1: to say vision could give the Catholics the Inn in
Speaker 1: Scotland they so desperately wanted. But James would not be deterred.
Speaker 1: He would be Chivalry incarnate, braving storms and more to
Speaker 1: meet his teenage bride. When he finally made it to
Speaker 1: Oslo after a long and treacherous journey, James, resplendent in
Speaker 1: the finest outfit he had brought with him on the trip,
Speaker 1: came over to Anne and attempted to plant a kiss
Speaker 1: on his new wife. Anne pulled away, shocked and embarrassed.
Speaker 1: It's custom in Scotland for husbands to greet their wives
Speaker 1: this way, James said, oh, Anne said, and let him
Speaker 1: kiss her. James enjoyed spending time with his new wife,
Speaker 1: but he also enjoyed the philosophers and mathematicians in Denmark.
Speaker 1: James and Anne wouldn't return to Scotland until the spring,
Speaker 1: and they spent the winter, first in Oslo and then
Speaker 1: in Copenhagen, where James showed off his world class Latin
Speaker 1: in conversations and lectures with some of the age's most
Speaker 1: pre eminent thinkers. When the pair did finally make it
Speaker 1: back to the British Isles, it was another bumpy, near
Speaker 1: disastrous journey. The waves didn't want them to make it
Speaker 1: back to Scotland, though they finally did in spite of
Speaker 1: the storms. Back in Denmark, the Danish government was furious
Speaker 1: that such weak, ill equipped ships were sent out for
Speaker 1: the royals. They summoned the finance minister to a special hearing.
Speaker 1: How could he have approved those ships? Why had he
Speaker 1: been so cheap in protecting the lives of monarchs? The
Speaker 1: finance minister felt the sweat creeping up the back of
Speaker 1: his neck. His palms went clammy. This would cost him
Speaker 1: his job, surely, But if they could prove that he
Speaker 1: was negligent with the monarch's lives, it would also cost
Speaker 1: him his life. It wasn't me, the finance minister said. Finally,
Speaker 1: the ships were perfect. The dangers were caused by witches,
Speaker 1: so it was witches. Let the trials begin. In a
Speaker 1: small town outside Edinburgh, a man named David Seaton started
Speaker 1: noticing some strange behavior from his maid, Gilly Duncan. Recently,
Speaker 1: she had been curing illnesses. Neighbors began appearing at their
Speaker 1: back door with rashes and boils and leaving a few
Speaker 1: coins lighter with a new tonic or ungent to apply,
Speaker 1: and Gilly was leaving at night, sneaking outside when she
Speaker 1: thought David was asleep and only returning when the morning
Speaker 1: light had begun to creep up the hill. She was
Speaker 1: a witch. There was no other explanation. Gilly denied it,
Speaker 1: but David demanded to know where she had been going
Speaker 1: at night, and she couldn't give him an answer. But
Speaker 1: she wasn't a witch, she said, at least that's what
Speaker 1: she said at first. After torture, when they crushed her
Speaker 1: fingers in the thumbs until her nails turned black and
Speaker 1: fell off, and until she could hear the creak of bone,
Speaker 1: then she agreed she was a witch. She had been
Speaker 1: one of the coven that had tried to send the
Speaker 1: storms to kill King James and his new wife, and
Speaker 1: she was willing to name names. Seventy people were prosecuted
Speaker 1: in the North Berwick trials, which began in fifteen ninety
Speaker 1: and continued on for another two years. James the Six
Speaker 1: oversaw many of the proceedings personally, After all, the devil
Speaker 1: was after him, a king, a devout man of God.
Speaker 1: Not all of the witches that Gali named were women.
Speaker 1: Among her cohorts was a man named John Fian, a
Speaker 1: school teacher who purportedly made a pact with the devil
Speaker 1: for mystical powers. He had been among the coven that
Speaker 1: brought the storms on the king's voyage, but John fians
Speaker 1: sorcery hadn't ended there. He had a crush on the
Speaker 1: sister of one of his students, and he asked his
Speaker 1: pupil to bring back a lock of her pubic hair
Speaker 1: to class so that he John could work some spell
Speaker 1: with it and entice the girl to him. The young
Speaker 1: student was understandably terrified. That night, he tried to cut
Speaker 1: off some of his sister's pubic hair in the bed
Speaker 1: that they shared, but he was interrupted by his mother.
Speaker 1: The mother, knowing something of witchcraft herself, told her son
Speaker 1: to bring back cow ware to his teacher the next day.
Speaker 1: The boy did, and wouldn't you know it, the day
Speaker 1: after that, there was a cow following John Pheen around,
Speaker 1: leaping up at him madly in love. John Phie and
Speaker 1: spell had worked. He was a witch, maybe even the
Speaker 1: leader of the coven, and that proved it. His confession
Speaker 1: also proved it, even if it had been given after
Speaker 1: his feet were crushed in steel boots and needles were
Speaker 1: pressed underneath his finger nails. One of the witches, Barbara Napier,
Speaker 1: had married into an advantageous family and managed to escape
Speaker 1: conviction and punishment at trial because she was pregnant. That
Speaker 1: didn't sit well with James the sixth. He wanted all
Speaker 1: witchcraft rooted out of Scotland. Family connections be damned. He
Speaker 1: demanded that the verdict be overturned and for Napier to
Speaker 1: be examined by physicians. If she wasn't actually pregnant, she
Speaker 1: was to be burnt and publicly disemboweled. The paper trail
Speaker 1: of Barbara Napier's story and there we don't know what
Speaker 1: happened to her. One of the witches, a woman named
Speaker 1: Agnes Sampson, the oldest of the women named, was brought
Speaker 1: to Holyrood Palace because James insisted on examining her personally.
Speaker 1: There was a reason that more of the witches were women,
Speaker 1: James would write later in his book Demonology as that
Speaker 1: fair sex is frailer than man is, so it is
Speaker 1: easier to be entrapped in the gross snares of the devil.
Speaker 1: James didn't hate women, He didn't. He just hated those
Speaker 1: weak enough to be seduced by the devil, and those
Speaker 1: just happened to be women. Agnes Sampson was shaved bald,
Speaker 1: so every inch of her could be examined for a
Speaker 1: witch's mark. All witches have a mole or scar somewhere
Speaker 1: small and hidden. Usually that's where the devil bites a witch,
Speaker 1: where he suckles her. Agnes Samson's witches mark, a small
Speaker 1: puckered mall, was eventually found along the line of her genitalia,
Speaker 1: and that's when the torture began. Eventually, Agnes confessed to
Speaker 1: treason against the king for taking a wax effigy of
Speaker 1: him and burning it with the intent of causing his death.
Speaker 1: And she confessed to digging up dead bodies, taking their limbs,
Speaker 1: wrapping them around cats, and then throwing the home mass
Speaker 1: of it the dead limbs, the cat still alive into
Speaker 1: the ocean that brew. That mixture had been what caused
Speaker 1: the storms that plagued James and Anne when they sailed
Speaker 1: from Denmark back to Scotland. How had the king survived
Speaker 1: all of these feverish magical attempts on his life? Agnes
Speaker 1: had an answer. Apparently the devil had come to her,
Speaker 1: and speaking French, as the devil obviously does, he told
Speaker 1: her that King James the sixth was a man of
Speaker 1: God and therefore so difficult to corrupt through the devil's
Speaker 1: evil powers. James was vindicated. He saw his righteousness in
Speaker 1: the eyes of every witch who confessed to trying to
Speaker 1: bring him down. James the sixth of Scotland would bring
Speaker 1: his commitment to rooting out, which is with him when
Speaker 1: he became in addition to a Scottish title, also James
Speaker 1: the First of England. Though England had some anti witch
Speaker 1: laws on the books, they were not nearly strict enough
Speaker 1: for James. Prison wasn't good enough, which is deserved death,
Speaker 1: and he shared his expertise with his people in his
Speaker 1: book Demonology, which quoted heavily from the Bible and taught
Speaker 1: would be witch hunters everything they would need to know
Speaker 1: in order to identify and take down a witch. James was,
Speaker 1: after all, a scholar. The fervor died down, though the
Speaker 1: English people seemed less willing to engage with the anti
Speaker 1: witch fervor than the Scots had been, and even James's
Speaker 1: blood lust waned in his old age. When he was
Speaker 1: an older man, no longer as slim or as quick
Speaker 1: as he once had been, he wrote a letter to
Speaker 1: his younger son Henry. Henry had written with pride about
Speaker 1: rooting out a counterfeit wench On being an expert witch
Speaker 1: hunter just like his father. James has responded, I pray God,
Speaker 1: he may be my heir in such discoveries. Most miracles
Speaker 1: nowadays proved but illusions, and he may see this by
Speaker 1: how wary judges should be entrusting accusations. After James took
Speaker 1: the throne of England, Shakespeare took it upon himself to
Speaker 1: write plays that would appeal specifically to the new monarch.
Speaker 1: He drew heavily from King James's Demonology, which included details
Speaker 1: about those now infamous North Berwick witch trials. The King
Speaker 1: loved witches, and so what better way to begin Macbeth,
Speaker 1: a play about a Scottish king, than with three witches,
Speaker 1: three chaotic evil characters of impending doom who discussed raising
Speaker 1: tempests and controlling the winds. Isn't that what witches due?
Speaker 1: They control winds and try to bring down Scottish kings
Speaker 1: Double double toil and trouble, and the North Berwick witch
Speaker 1: trials have inspired popular entertainment even more recently. In the
Speaker 1: Scottish that series Outlander, the protagonist Claire meets a woman
Speaker 1: with a talent for herbs. Outlander is set about two
Speaker 1: hundred years after James's reign in Scotland, but the author
Speaker 1: snuck in a small homage to the witch Finder King.
Speaker 1: The character that Claire meets is accused of being a
Speaker 1: witch and she goes to trial. The character's name Gillis Duncan.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey. The show is written and hosted by Dani
Speaker 1: Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and every Young. Noble Blood is on social media at
Speaker 1: Noble Blood Tales and you can learn more about the
Speaker 1: show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more
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