WEBVTT - The Witch-Hunter King 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:11.280 and Aaron Mankie listener discretion is advised. One week before 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:15.640 his mother was beheaded, James the sixth, the King of Scotland, 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.200 had a premonition. He hadn't seen his mother since he 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.800 was an infant just over one year old. She lived 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.959 for him only in letters, in portraits, and in the 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.480 stories his tutors told him about her. She had been 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:33.479 a foolish and prideful Catholic. Her rule in Scotland had 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.760 been chaos fueled by impudence. If Mary, Queen of Scots 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:41.960 hadn't personally overseen the murder of James's father, Lord Darnley, 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.600 and she had certainly wilfully looked the other way, James's 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.440 mother was right to have been forced to abdicate after 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:54.040 marrying marrying the man implicated in Darnley's death less than 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:59.000 three months later, in James's guiltiest moments, he acknowledged that 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.720 his mother mary imprisonment in England by their cousin Elizabeth 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:06.800 the First was a godsend. After all, he was King 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.479 of Scotland now, with no real threats to his power. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.120 The expenses of his Catholic mother's confinement wasn't being paid 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:18.560 by Scottish coffers, and by making good with Elizabeth, by 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:22.600 showing his loyalty to her and to Protestantism, he was 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.320 set to be next in line for the English throne. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:30.120 When the Virgin Queen finally died, they told him that 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.759 his mother had been beautiful, ones he wished he remembered 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.600 what she looked like. A week before, Queen Elizabeth the 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.840 First would reluctantly violate the sanctity of the monarchy and 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.520 deliver a death sentence to the former queen of a 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:49.080 sovereign nation. James the sixth came down to breakfast and 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.560 told his minister that his mother had visited him in 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.760 a dream. It was just her head, he said, floating 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:02.360 down the black hallway towards my sleeping form, unblinking, unbleeding. 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.960 The king looked haunted. His eyes were dark circles, and 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.799 his skin was sallow. His feelings towards his mother were 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:15.040 strange and laced with guilt. When the sword finally came 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.560 down on his mother's neck, he wouldn't do much, wouldn't 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.400 ruffle feathers. He would keep Elizabeth on his good side 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.160 so that he could inherit her crown. That night a 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.799 week earlier, when he saw his mother's head floating towards him, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.800 he felt a profound shame. It's the occult, he said 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.480 to his minister the next morning, dark magic, that's showing 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.560 me the future. That shame, he felt that fear. It 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.359 was just the devil trying to manipulate him. The devil 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.400 was real, and James the sixth would need to be 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.600 stronger than the devil. During his reign in Scotland and 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.600 then later in England, James the sixth ignited a fervor 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.520 of witch hunting that would lead to his many as 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.360 four thousand women being burned at the stake. He was 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.880 a man on a mission, obsessed with rooting out evil 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.240 and all who cavorted with it. Nothing masks shame like 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.840 moral righteousness, and James the sixth was nothing if not 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:23.320 always sure that he was right. I'm Danis Schwartz and 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:31.480 this is noble blood. Back when the future King James 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.520 the sixth of Scotland was still an infant cooing in 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:40.120 his cradle, his father, Lord Darnley, was murdered. Darnley, only 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.800 twenty one years old, had seduced Mary Queen of Scott's 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.040 with his son kissed good looks and lazy fair approach 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.360 to life. But after marriage, what had been charmingly lays 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:56.600 a fair revealed itself to just be lazy. Mary had 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:03.000 saddled herself with a boorish, cheating, bullheaded boy, a child himself, 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:05.760 and though she managed to bear a son by him, 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.720 the relationship quickly soured beyond all repair. That was the 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.320 state of the marriage between the Queen of Scotland and 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.800 Lord Darnley. When two barrels of gunpowder exploded beneath the 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.360 floor of Darnley's room, where he was staying in kirk 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:25.000 Afield in Edinburgh. Mary was back at the Palace Holyrood, 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.400 where she was celebrating the wedding of a favorite court musician. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.480 Darnley's body was found in an orchard in the corner 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:38.080 of the property, apparently unaffected by the explosion. He had survived, 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.760 it seemed, and made it out of the collapsing house, 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:46.159 only to be strangled upon escape. Mary wasn't the only 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.719 one who hated Darnley, who hated his impudence and sloth. 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:54.240 A nobleman, the fourth Earl of Bothwell, was implicated in 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:58.160 Darnley's murder, which made it all the more scandalous. When Mary, 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.479 Queen of Scott's Mary him just weeks after her husband's death. 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.360 Of course, she claimed she had been raped and kidnapped. 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.240 But that's what she would say, wouldn't she She was murderous, 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:15.960 adulteress and Catholic, and so the overwhelmingly Presbyterian nobles in 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.480 the South of Scotland forced her to abdicate and go 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.279 into hiding. Five days later, in a subdued ceremony devoid 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.479 of any of the pomp that could be mistaken for 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:31.839 Catholic showmanship, Mary and Darnley's infant son became James, the 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:38.520 six King of Scotland. James would be raised right. His tutor, 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.880 the humanist scholar George Buchanan, was more than sixty years 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.560 older than his charge, and drilled into James the basics 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:51.400 of Latin and theology. In between beatings. James learned Latin 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:58.039 before he learned Scottish. Buchanan, a devoted Presbyterian convert, often 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.239 railed against the former Queen Mayor. Your mother was a trader, 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:06.279 Buchanan told the young James she was a poisoning witch. 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:11.240 Buchanan had once been Mary's tutor, and while back then 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.840 he had praised her quick wit and abilities, once he converted, 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:19.239 he turned against her. It was Buchanan who identified Mary's 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.080 handwriting in a casket of letters that supposedly proved her 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:28.000 guilty of conspiring with Darnley's murderers. And so James grew 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.880 up learning that his only comfort was to be found 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:35.120 in the rigidity of academia. His only pleasures were a 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:40.560 philosophical argument, well reasoned. The hectoring nobleman who crowded him 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.440 like circling vultures to make sure that the young king 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.800 would be raised properly. Couldn't take umbrage with that, with 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.719 his score work, with his devotion to the Bible and 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.520 his studies, and those noblemen made sure to do away 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:59.160 with any other pleasures James might enjoy. When James was thirteen, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:05.080 his cousin and as Mace Stewart, swept into court from France. Stewart, 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.800 who was quickly styled the Duke of Lennox, was thirty 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:14.240 seven years old. Immediately he charmed the teenage king with confidence. 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.160 His good looks and his let's say, certain joys devive. 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.640 Other noblemen noticed the way that James would throw his 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.320 arms around Lennox and kiss him every time he saw him, 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.680 and they noticed the way pious James began to swear more, 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.920 began to pay less attention in church and more attention 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.840 to the strapping man who treated him like a peer 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:43.119 and not a delicate kingling. Lennox had made a show 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.440 of converting to Calvinism from Catholicism, but no one really 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:51.160 believed that was anything but a performance. They knew how 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.240 dangerous a Catholic influence could be on the young king, 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.840 first because he could teach James about the divine right 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.080 of monarchs the Scots believe of the king existed to 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:05.200 serve the people, but also because they noticed the way 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:11.760 James's gaze always lingered. Lennox was influencing James to carnal sin, 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.080 and the group of noblemen were willing to hold James 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.880 the Six hostage literally until Lennox was gone and there 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:24.040 would be no more evil Catholic influences on their young king. 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.160 After that whole affair, James found himself once again alone, 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.439 told that piety was the only important thing to being 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.840 a king, and any confusing feelings he had any shame, 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:41.280 Any guilt could be tucked away and forgotten about and 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:49.120 folded into a book. Nobleman watching over the young Scottish 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.680 king used to talk with pride about how we never 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.600 philandered with ladies, how well behaved James had been with 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.240 regards to his virtue and the young women of court. 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.119 After Lennox, they didn't say that as much. But eventually 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.240 the time came for James to find a bride, and he, 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:10.600 then twenty three, chose the blonde Princess Anne of Denmark, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.440 only fourteen years old but already celebrated for her blonde 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.520 curls and her beauty. As soon as she learned she 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.080 had been selected to be James's bride, she began learning 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.720 French so the two would have a common language with 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.880 which to communicate, though James hadn't ever shown an interest 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.240 in women. Once his bride to be was set, their 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:35.760 proxy marriage completed, James couldn't wait for her to arrive 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.360 in Scotland for the two of them to get married 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:43.720 in person. Unfortunately, he would have to. When Anne and 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.000 her entourage began to sail from Denmark to Scotland, terrible 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:52.600 storms interfered and forced her ships to turn back, not once, 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:57.680 not twice, but three times. Finally, they tucked away for 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.720 safety in a Norwegian fjord to wait at the storms. 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.480 It would be months before James would have his bride 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.760 delivered to him, and since no ships were getting through, 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.880 not even once delivering messages, James had no way of 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.240 knowing what was going on. He waited for his bride, 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.960 hoping that the love letters he had thoughtfully written in 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.720 French would make their way to her, but having no 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.880 way to know for sure where is she, James would mutter, 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.199 pacing the palace in Edinburgh. He had a wife, she 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.320 just wasn't here. And then James was struck with a 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:37.400 brilliant idea. He would be a conquering hero, a champion 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:41.960 of romance. He would sail out himself and rescue his 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:47.760 damsel in distress. He would come to her. His ministers 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:52.160 were less convinced of the brilliance of the idea. A 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:56.400 king leaving would leave the country vulnerable, and even Elizabeth, 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.760 the first down in England, muttered that James is rashed 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.000 to say vision could give the Catholics the Inn in 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.800 Scotland they so desperately wanted. But James would not be deterred. 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:12.000 He would be Chivalry incarnate, braving storms and more to 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.760 meet his teenage bride. When he finally made it to 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:20.600 Oslo after a long and treacherous journey, James, resplendent in 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.000 the finest outfit he had brought with him on the trip, 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.439 came over to Anne and attempted to plant a kiss 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.559 on his new wife. Anne pulled away, shocked and embarrassed. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.320 It's custom in Scotland for husbands to greet their wives 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.520 this way, James said, oh, Anne said, and let him 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.360 kiss her. James enjoyed spending time with his new wife, 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.160 but he also enjoyed the philosophers and mathematicians in Denmark. 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:49.920 James and Anne wouldn't return to Scotland until the spring, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.959 and they spent the winter, first in Oslo and then 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.800 in Copenhagen, where James showed off his world class Latin 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.720 in conversations and lectures with some of the age's most 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.520 pre eminent thinkers. When the pair did finally make it 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:08.320 back to the British Isles, it was another bumpy, near 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.400 disastrous journey. The waves didn't want them to make it 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.040 back to Scotland, though they finally did in spite of 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:20.959 the storms. Back in Denmark, the Danish government was furious 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.600 that such weak, ill equipped ships were sent out for 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:29.080 the royals. They summoned the finance minister to a special hearing. 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.720 How could he have approved those ships? Why had he 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.440 been so cheap in protecting the lives of monarchs? The 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.120 finance minister felt the sweat creeping up the back of 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:44.439 his neck. His palms went clammy. This would cost him 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.200 his job, surely, But if they could prove that he 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.400 was negligent with the monarch's lives, it would also cost 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.800 him his life. It wasn't me, the finance minister said. Finally, 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.320 the ships were perfect. The dangers were caused by witches, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:09.280 so it was witches. Let the trials begin. In a 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.760 small town outside Edinburgh, a man named David Seaton started 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:18.679 noticing some strange behavior from his maid, Gilly Duncan. Recently, 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.679 she had been curing illnesses. Neighbors began appearing at their 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:26.240 back door with rashes and boils and leaving a few 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.480 coins lighter with a new tonic or ungent to apply, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.800 and Gilly was leaving at night, sneaking outside when she 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.320 thought David was asleep and only returning when the morning 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.360 light had begun to creep up the hill. She was 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.840 a witch. There was no other explanation. Gilly denied it, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.560 but David demanded to know where she had been going 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.760 at night, and she couldn't give him an answer. But 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.280 she wasn't a witch, she said, at least that's what 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.800 she said at first. After torture, when they crushed her 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.000 fingers in the thumbs until her nails turned black and 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.280 fell off, and until she could hear the creak of bone, 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.439 then she agreed she was a witch. She had been 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:11.560 one of the coven that had tried to send the 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.320 storms to kill King James and his new wife, and 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:20.040 she was willing to name names. Seventy people were prosecuted 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:24.200 in the North Berwick trials, which began in fifteen ninety 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.920 and continued on for another two years. James the Six 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.920 oversaw many of the proceedings personally, After all, the devil 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:37.600 was after him, a king, a devout man of God. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.240 Not all of the witches that Gali named were women. 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:47.160 Among her cohorts was a man named John Fian, a 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.400 school teacher who purportedly made a pact with the devil 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.080 for mystical powers. He had been among the coven that 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.880 brought the storms on the king's voyage, but John fians 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:01.520 sorcery hadn't ended there. He had a crush on the 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.800 sister of one of his students, and he asked his 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.840 pupil to bring back a lock of her pubic hair 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:11.760 to class so that he John could work some spell 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.720 with it and entice the girl to him. The young 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:19.560 student was understandably terrified. That night, he tried to cut 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.000 off some of his sister's pubic hair in the bed 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.120 that they shared, but he was interrupted by his mother. 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:30.040 The mother, knowing something of witchcraft herself, told her son 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.640 to bring back cow ware to his teacher the next day. 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.080 The boy did, and wouldn't you know it, the day 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.560 after that, there was a cow following John Pheen around, 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.800 leaping up at him madly in love. John Phie and 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.320 spell had worked. He was a witch, maybe even the 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.479 leader of the coven, and that proved it. His confession 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.560 also proved it, even if it had been given after 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.000 his feet were crushed in steel boots and needles were 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:04.120 pressed underneath his finger nails. One of the witches, Barbara Napier, 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.920 had married into an advantageous family and managed to escape 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:12.560 conviction and punishment at trial because she was pregnant. That 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.400 didn't sit well with James the sixth. He wanted all 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:21.240 witchcraft rooted out of Scotland. Family connections be damned. He 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:24.520 demanded that the verdict be overturned and for Napier to 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:29.120 be examined by physicians. If she wasn't actually pregnant, she 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.600 was to be burnt and publicly disemboweled. The paper trail 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.160 of Barbara Napier's story and there we don't know what 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.880 happened to her. One of the witches, a woman named 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:45.360 Agnes Sampson, the oldest of the women named, was brought 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:50.760 to Holyrood Palace because James insisted on examining her personally. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.360 There was a reason that more of the witches were women, 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:59.000 James would write later in his book Demonology as that 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.520 fair sex is frailer than man is, so it is 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.040 easier to be entrapped in the gross snares of the devil. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.600 James didn't hate women, He didn't. He just hated those 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.879 weak enough to be seduced by the devil, and those 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:21.879 just happened to be women. Agnes Sampson was shaved bald, 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:24.359 so every inch of her could be examined for a 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:29.320 witch's mark. All witches have a mole or scar somewhere 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.720 small and hidden. Usually that's where the devil bites a witch, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:38.479 where he suckles her. Agnes Samson's witches mark, a small 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:42.960 puckered mall, was eventually found along the line of her genitalia, 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.359 and that's when the torture began. Eventually, Agnes confessed to 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.000 treason against the king for taking a wax effigy of 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.560 him and burning it with the intent of causing his death. 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:00.960 And she confessed to digging up dead bodies, taking their limbs, 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.520 wrapping them around cats, and then throwing the home mass 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:08.400 of it the dead limbs, the cat still alive into 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:13.200 the ocean that brew. That mixture had been what caused 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:17.120 the storms that plagued James and Anne when they sailed 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:21.400 from Denmark back to Scotland. How had the king survived 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.080 all of these feverish magical attempts on his life? Agnes 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.200 had an answer. Apparently the devil had come to her, 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.760 and speaking French, as the devil obviously does, he told 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:34.919 her that King James the sixth was a man of 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.400 God and therefore so difficult to corrupt through the devil's 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:43.560 evil powers. James was vindicated. He saw his righteousness in 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.040 the eyes of every witch who confessed to trying to 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:53.240 bring him down. James the sixth of Scotland would bring 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.360 his commitment to rooting out, which is with him when 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.600 he became in addition to a Scottish title, also James 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:04.360 the First of England. Though England had some anti witch 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.320 laws on the books, they were not nearly strict enough 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:12.600 for James. Prison wasn't good enough, which is deserved death, 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.760 and he shared his expertise with his people in his 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:21.560 book Demonology, which quoted heavily from the Bible and taught 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.000 would be witch hunters everything they would need to know 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:29.199 in order to identify and take down a witch. James was, 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:34.080 after all, a scholar. The fervor died down, though the 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.119 English people seemed less willing to engage with the anti 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.520 witch fervor than the Scots had been, and even James's 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.840 blood lust waned in his old age. When he was 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.960 an older man, no longer as slim or as quick 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.720 as he once had been, he wrote a letter to 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.639 his younger son Henry. Henry had written with pride about 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.200 rooting out a counterfeit wench On being an expert witch 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:02.080 hunter just like his father. James has responded, I pray God, 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.560 he may be my heir in such discoveries. Most miracles 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:11.640 nowadays proved but illusions, and he may see this by 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:29.760 how wary judges should be entrusting accusations. After James took 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.080 the throne of England, Shakespeare took it upon himself to 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.360 write plays that would appeal specifically to the new monarch. 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:41.240 He drew heavily from King James's Demonology, which included details 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.800 about those now infamous North Berwick witch trials. The King 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.160 loved witches, and so what better way to begin Macbeth, 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.240 a play about a Scottish king, than with three witches, 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:59.879 three chaotic evil characters of impending doom who discussed raising 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.320 tempests and controlling the winds. Isn't that what witches due? 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.880 They control winds and try to bring down Scottish kings 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.920 Double double toil and trouble, and the North Berwick witch 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:18.439 trials have inspired popular entertainment even more recently. In the 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:23.240 Scottish that series Outlander, the protagonist Claire meets a woman 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.840 with a talent for herbs. Outlander is set about two 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:30.800 hundred years after James's reign in Scotland, but the author 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.320 snuck in a small homage to the witch Finder King. 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.479 The character that Claire meets is accused of being a 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:43.800 witch and she goes to trial. The character's name Gillis Duncan. 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:51.879 Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.960 Aaron Mankey. The show is written and hosted by Dani 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:59.560 Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:03.040 and every Young. Noble Blood is on social media at 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:05.639 Noble Blood Tales and you can learn more about the 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:08.720 show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:12.040 podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.520 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:17.000 M