E10: Wrath - The Demonisation of Women’s Rage & Sexuality Part 2

This week, we dive deeper into the roots of Scotland’s brutal witch trials, beginning with the life and paranoia of King James VI. We explore how his personal fears and political ambitions led to the Witchcraft Act of 1563, setting the stage for centuries of persecution. We also examine the cruel invention of the Scold’s Bridle—also known as the branks—a tool of public shaming and forced silence used to control and humiliate outspoken women.

These instruments of misogyny weren’t just symbolic—they were real weapons in the war against women's wrath and autonomy.

🖤 Be sure to check out our blog for references, further reading, and sources that inspired this episode.

✨ Join us next time as we continue our exploration of the history of hysteria, diving into the Victorian era and beyond.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

exodus 22 18 thou shall not suffer a witch to live welcome back to part two of wrath the demonization of women's rage and sexuality where we're going to be taking a look at the scottish witch trials and around some of the kind of punishments and stuff that were around during that time period

SPEAKER_00: 0:43

Exciting stuff. Managed to get rid of that deflated feeling from last time. Had a wee break. Think that was well needed.

SPEAKER_01: 0:52

Yep. Just wait. Another cheery episode. But with a lot of stuff that I haven't heard before, which was always good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03

Excellent. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05

So, in... Preparation for this partly, but also because I've been following them for a while and their stuff's cool and it was a nice way to support them. I bought Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditosi's new book, How to Kill a Witch, a guide for the patriarchy. The book itself is covered by their Witches of Scotland tartan that they got registered earlier this year. Each part of the tartan represents a different thing surrounding the witch trials, including the aims of their organisation. So the black and grey represent the dark times and the ashes of those who were persecuted. Pink and red signify the legal tape that bound the fate of those accused and reminds us of the systems that still need challenging. The white check is formed of three threads, standing for the campaign's three aims. Pardon, apology, memorial. This was the group that kind of managed to get an

SPEAKER_00: 2:21

apology for the...

SPEAKER_01: 2:29

From Nicola Sturgeon. From Nicola Sturgeon, yeah, a few years ago. I believe it was like the first in the world where it had kind of been recognised as, you know, like something that the government was responsible for and therefore needed to kind of put out a formal apology, which is really, really cool.

SPEAKER_00: 2:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:48

So the book provides like a kind of rich tapestry of the kind of facts and figures of the day while taking some of the stories that we have and kind of fictionalising them and making them more... kind of personal to follow, like just kind of filling in the gaps.

SPEAKER_00: 3:03

Ah, it's quite an interesting sort of structure for a book, not one I've seen before, the way that there's that kind of blend of like sort of fictionalised stories and, you know, sort of factual accounts and things as well to kind of really form quite a deep understanding of how things were and the sort of feelings at the time.

SPEAKER_01: 3:25

Yeah. I think this is why this, like, it was quite a hard read for me, do you know, I had to stop quite a few times because I just, do you know, it didn't feel like reading a history book. No. No at all. It felt like reading a diary in a lot of senses and that you were getting, like, I don't know, the kind of start of the book laying out the kind of, the culture and the vibe and stuff and you kind of get into the headspace of what it was like to exist in the times and, like, why people were doing the things they were.

SPEAKER_00: 3:54

Aye, it seems like quite an immersive experience into that kind of world. More so than you would get just from a sort of factual text.

SPEAKER_01: 4:05

Yeah. Aye, definitely worth a read. So the scene was set for witchcraft to become illegal in Scotland when Henry VIII got bored of his wife.

SPEAKER_00: 4:14

Ah,

SPEAKER_01: 4:16

right. His want for freedom from the church's influence in both his country and his personal life led to Catholicism being made illegal in Scotland. Previous to this, witchcraft and sorcery were a part of everyday life within Scotland. They were performed most notably by the local priests as a way of making extra income. Magic and religion were pals at this point.

SPEAKER_00: 4:45

What kind of stuff would... would that have included?

SPEAKER_01: 4:49

So there was loads of different types of magicians. There was service magicians who traded in practical magic. Kind of like some of the stuff we were saying about finding something that was lost or stuff that took a bit of divine intervention. Or kind of luck, essentially, to help them on their way towards. There was charmers or chirmers who who sold charms that were enchanted for different purposes so like love tokens or stuff to help people on their journeys or a lot like there's still a lot of that within catholicism today in terms of like all the different saints and the kind of charms like the different saints attached to different like things like traveling or yeah yeah very much along the lines of that so this was like that but with like a kind of bit of magic thrown in

SPEAKER_00: 5:46

A

SPEAKER_01: 5:46

lot of the same practices that we came to see today. Then there was cunning folk who did more ritual or ceremonial magic that followed more recipes and stuff. So that would have been your concoctions and potions as well as summoning sprites to help you, I don't know, have a good harvest or

SPEAKER_00: 6:11

whatever. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:14

A bit like prayers, a bit like wishes, like it was just kind of going to your local service person for a helping hand with whatever kind of menial thing that you needed.

SPEAKER_00: 6:25

Ah yeah, I mean so far none of this is sounding particularly untoward, like it's all very, it does all feel, you know, pretty mundane. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 6:35

it was very mundane, it was just a part of everyday life really, like...

SPEAKER_00: 6:40

It just feels like it was a threat to the monopoly of prayer and the standards set out by the Protestant version of Christianity.

SPEAKER_01: 6:54

I feel like it probably went quite hand-in-hand with the Catholic... What's the name again? The one where you pay to cleanse the sins? Indulgencies. Indulgencies,

SPEAKER_00: 7:08

that's it. Indulgencies, that's the one.

SPEAKER_01: 7:11

There was a lot of superstition, there was a lot of tradition in the way that people, some of it still exists today. Do you know even like apple duking at Halloween, like originally it was for unmarried women to see compatibility of their engagement? Alright. So how many attempts it took to actually bite that apple? represented how compatible the potential marriage was. Oh,

SPEAKER_00: 7:46

interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 7:47

So there was just things like this that were just accepted, that were woven through everyday life, and there were different people within the community that you could go to for services attached to that. And it was never a full-time role, so it tended to be people doing things on the side, like as a kind of side hustle, essentially. Yeah. Including the priests. Because who better to go to? Magic was seen as divine. It was seen as part of religion. It wasn't a separate entity.

SPEAKER_00: 8:16

It certainly makes more sense than being this thing that's kind of in opposition to religion and the divine. That it's sort of they were kind of hand in hand.

SPEAKER_01: 8:28

It makes sense as well when you think about how when Christianity goes to new places it kind of tends to bring with it or incorporate into it aspects of the culture that already existed there and magic came from paganism. So a lot of the beliefs and faiths and things that people had within the pagan religion kind of

SPEAKER_00: 8:53

got

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

absorbed by Christianity and Catholicism so that these beliefs could still be upheld but then became under the church's control rather than being this other thing. People could still live their lives and have their daily habits and do the things that they always did, but just under the banner of Christianity.

SPEAKER_00: 9:18

Aye, that's the kind of standard playbook for the expansion of Christianity.

SPEAKER_01: 9:26

To the point even the priests were doing it. Aye, this is why we'll come to this a bit later on, but they were really specific about the types of witchcraft that were made illegal. Very much like a legal document in all the jargon. There was necromancy and all these different things were all included in that document because there were so many different services that came under the kind of magical umbrellas.

SPEAKER_00: 9:57

And were some of them sort of kept untouched, some of them were sort of sanctioned by the church that yeah, that's still fine.

SPEAKER_01: 10:07

This is speculation on my part but because the law was so clear that it wasn't just performing the things but also having knowledge of them, that probably having knowledge of any of the surrounding stuff could lead you to suspicion of having knowledge of. Like you didn't even need to actively be caught as such. They had to prove it. And they proved it by torturing you until you confessed. So, it probably wasn't worth the risk. Folklore and magic were ingrained and interwoven with religion at the time, and regular folks actively believed in magic and superstition. This change of religion also brought about a change in attitudes about magic, with many of the practices being banned and punished due to the hold Catholicism still had on the nation. So, this is where... this kind of intertwinedness of magic and Catholicism became magic's downfall with the kind of introduction of the Protestant religion and the need to kind of wipe out all traces of Catholicism within the people. Therefore, not only was Catholicism made illegal, but so was magic and the kind of practices surrounding it as a way to really stamp it

SPEAKER_00: 11:23

out. Because, again, what better way to frighten people out of opposing the sort of dominant flavour of religion than putting their life on the line. You know, you could be killed if you are practising Catholicism that just has that wee bit kind of witchy flair that we don't like. It'd be much safer to just come and be a Protestant. So

SPEAKER_01: 11:55

because of this in 1563... the Witchcraft Act was born, which states anyone using magic, having the knowledge of it, or buying magical services will be put to death. So even people just buying the services were at risk of death. Quite extreme. Quite an extreme shift. But that's how you change something really quickly.

SPEAKER_00: 12:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:17

Make it

SPEAKER_00: 12:17

legal. Aye, with such a severe punishment.

SPEAKER_01: 12:20

Yeah. So the Witchcraft Act... which came into place on the 4th of June 1563. The Queen and her Estates in this present Parliament having been informed that several types of heavy and abominable superstition are being used by the subjects of this realm, that being witchcraft, sorcery and necromancy, and credence is being given thereto, as was in bygone times, against the laws of God, for the avoiding and putting away of all this vain superstition in times to come. It is put into stature, and ordained by Her Majesty the Queen and her estates, that no manner of person or persons, of whatever estate, degree, or condition they may be of, take upon hand in any times hereinafter to use any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, or necromancy, not to give themselves further to have any craft or have knowledge of it, thereby abusing the people of the realm. Nor should anyone seek any help, response or consultation from any users or abusers of the aforesaid witchcraft, sorcery or necromancy under the pain of death as much as to be executed against the user and abuser as the seeker of the response or consultation. So, very wordy, very jargony, very legal sounding. But, it's basically as I said that it was... anybody who is doing witchcraft or sorcery or necromancy. So witchcraft was specifically spells to harm others.

SPEAKER_00: 13:58

Right,

SPEAKER_01: 13:59

right, okay. Sorcery was like what I kind of mentioned before, like if you were doing any kind of ritual magic, which kind of I think became a bit of an umbrella term for any of the kind of usual services that people used. or necromancy, which was specifically, like, convening with the dead, which was another service that I think was still not totally, like, agreeable to everybody, even. So

SPEAKER_00: 14:32

was that more sort of what we today would kind of think of as, like, what, like, psychic mediums and stuff do, rather than, like, the sort of, like... fantasy version of necromancy which is like raising the dead and like

SPEAKER_01: 14:51

I think the reason why the fantasy went out from my understanding because it became illegal they kind of looked upon it as disturbing the dead, you know like the dead are in heaven, like they're at peace, like if you're bringing them back to speak to them, you're bringing them back and that's where that kind of like

SPEAKER_00: 15:12

It's kind of taken that figurative way of speaking about it and made it literal.

SPEAKER_01: 15:19

I think the kind of rise of evangelists and stuff like that probably was taken literally. They probably seen it as you ripping them out of heaven and hell. Either of which wouldn't get looked upon kindly just to chat to them. Do you know what I mean? But I think what it probably would have been closer to would have been what spiritual spiritualist churches and stuff would be like today. Where people go and have the chance to speak to loved ones and stuff like that. I don't know, I feel terrible because as much as I feel like there's a ringy truth in all this stuff, the spiritual medium stuff gives me the fear. Especially when they're famous. It just feels like a con.

UNKNOWN: 16:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

Whereas when it's in a local church and it's just everyday folk, I don't know, it doesn't have that same grifter-y vibe to

SPEAKER_00: 16:12

it. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 16:13

yeah. Aye, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 16:15

I think there certainly does feel like a grifter-y vibe when it is big, famous people on the telly. Aye. Aye, there's something about that that just doesn't sit right with me.

SPEAKER_01: 16:32

So, the Queen of Scotland at this point kind of problematically remained Catholic. And, well, she still held onto her throne for a wee while. She was what were gunning for her. She was the toe in the line. She kind of managed to evade consequences long enough to have a kid. James VI. She was eventually captured after supposedly having her husband murdered And then Marion is murderer. There's a whole other story there with her that's not as simple as that, but...

SPEAKER_00: 17:12

The world of convoluted royal drama.

SPEAKER_01: 17:15

Yeah, yeah. Like, she ended up getting captured by her cousin and spending the rest of her life in prison before she was executed, so... But I'm pretty sure she managed to escape at one point, and there was a whole thing there, but... Anyway, we're... segue in.

SPEAKER_00: 17:32

I mean, it hasn't really got much less complicated than the modern day, do you know?

SPEAKER_01: 17:39

So, when she was executed, this left her young son, who I think was only like two or three at the time, an orphan. Because his dad had obviously been murdered, apparently by her. Not an easy start to life, did wee Jamesy boy have. No,

SPEAKER_00: 17:56

that sounds pretty rough, but I mean... still royal so like aye

SPEAKER_01: 18:04

he was really royal because not only was he the heir to the Scottish throne but because of all the royal inbreeding he was the great great great grandson of Henry VIII of England meaning that he was also in line a few times removed I think at this point there was other people that were older that would get in first but little He was definitely going to end up on the throne. It was on the horizon for him as well. Aye, so wee James grew up an orphan. And also a king, which is a weird... Like, they things feel like total ends of the economic spectrum to me.

SPEAKER_00: 18:46

So what age was he when he became king then?

SPEAKER_01: 18:49

So he was like... Is it regent? Or there was people that were kind of put in place to kind of cover for

SPEAKER_00: 18:57

him. Right, to sort of rule in his stead until he was old enough. Is that regent?

SPEAKER_01: 19:03

Is that the term for it? I kind of remember. Aye, so there was people that were kind of supervising the realm until he came of age. And then I think he was 13 or 14 when he became king. So still pretty fucking young. But he was three. He was three when his mum died.

SPEAKER_00: 19:21

Or was killed. So for that sort of like... 10-11 years there was people helping him

SPEAKER_01: 19:29

and obviously the reformation was in full swing by this point so quite a lot of the people that were surrounding him and also in charge of the country were really in with the protestant church including the six johns which is fucking hilarious I love how I don't know it's just a great name it's so uninventive but it just does what it says on the tin Aye. So one of the six Johns, John Knox, who kind of wrote the book on Protestantism in Scotland, was the kind of main figurehead, like a father figure to him as such, was even the one who coronated him when he became king. So he was kind of in his year, had his year, throughout his childhood.

SPEAKER_00: 20:17

Imagine a young boy with no parents, would they have been quite impressionable to these people round about them as I was growing up

SPEAKER_01: 20:30

You would think but from one of the rabbit holes that I went in that I'm not going into everyone today with that in this episode because my god that was a bit of me procrastinating but it was interesting I was reading about how one of his other kind of advisors was very much like of the opinion that the ruler was for the people and like he had been like no democracy as such but like about how a good ruler like the values and morals of a good ruler were that of like subordination to the people and making decisions like for the people but he was very much of the nah like God put me here like God's chosen me like I have like the divine right of the king So it seemed like it was a wee bit of a wee shit in terms of like, he did listen but he kind of still found his own way through it. He still very much had that attitude of like, I'm the king. I decide. Aye,

SPEAKER_00: 21:35

I mean, I feel like it would be hard to grow up with that much power and not kind of go a wee bit crazy with it.

SPEAKER_01: 21:45

Aye. Like, you can see some of their influence through some of the decisions that he made throughout his life. Like, he didn't just no listen, but he still very much, he still somehow seemed to have a lot of kind of inner confidence and, like...

SPEAKER_00: 21:57

Aye. I more mean that just, like, they would have been quite influential on his beliefs. Very much so. Very much so. And, you know, they would have been quite selective about what they presented to him.

SPEAKER_01: 22:13

Yeah. Especially since they were ruling in his stead. They were well aware that decisions that they made could be undone if the situation wasn't handled in a certain way.

SPEAKER_00: 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:26

Yeah, so John Knox also published another work called The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Which is a moothfay.

UNKNOWN: 22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:41

I'm guessing this guy was a big fan of women then.

SPEAKER_01: 22:44

Oh yeah. This was a work that was basically an attack of all the female monarchs at the time and females of prominent positions in the clergy elsewhere because they thought that women in power went against God's will. Women being in all ways inferior and perfect versions of men. Where have we heard that before? I

SPEAKER_00: 23:08

mean, it's kind of still a surviving... thing until or I until kind of fairly recently it was sort of quite a dominant

SPEAKER_01: 23:20

I mean it still is let's be honest like in a

SPEAKER_00: 23:25

lot of especially like in religion and stuff it's only been fairly recently that you know the catholic church and stuff has allowed women to be in the kind of higher positions in the church and stuff so

SPEAKER_01: 23:39

they were shutting to it then laughing so James being God's envoy on earth and he's divine right as king was absolutely terrified of the devil and was on the lookout for him at every turn because obviously him being God's chosen meant that the devil he was the devil's ultimate enemy I can see that line of thinking man was convinced that like he was enemy number one. So he spent his full life kind of waiting on proof of this. Because I can see that it wouldn't have just been proof of the devil, it would have been proof that he was God's chosen. Aye,

SPEAKER_00: 24:25

that would have been quite sort of validating for him that

SPEAKER_01: 24:30

aye,

SPEAKER_00: 24:32

this is definitely God's chosen you know, if he was to see proof of that it would be like Proof of God and proof of his right. He would be

SPEAKER_01: 24:44

untouchable. Yeah. So his fears proved true when he was set to marry the Danish princess but found her journey thwarted by bad weather at every turn. So this was the work of the devil. Naturally. Keeping this marriage from happening. Because it was political influence and all the ties attached. This was going to be... World-breaking.

SPEAKER_00: 25:13

Yep, they were going to be so influential that the devil had to make the weather bad to stop them getting married.

SPEAKER_01: 25:20

Denmark's own witchcraft hunt was in full swing at this time, so naturally the bad weather was blamed on witches. And the devil, but through his conduit, the witches.

SPEAKER_00: 25:32

Yep, so the devil was telling witches to make the weather bad.

SPEAKER_01: 25:37

Yep. sending their wee demons in barrels. Sailing the waves on civs. This was like a thing. Like a really common thing. They thought like witches pure like went in the water on civs. Like big massive people sized civs.

SPEAKER_00: 25:58

I mean I get that that's like a sort of like an unnatural Yeah I think that was the Civs full of holes should be letting the water in and shouldn't be able to to float but

SPEAKER_01: 26:11

it's just a funny image like it pure feels like pure pastafarianism and like colanders on their head like vibes I don't know can we leave the kitchen equipment out of it

SPEAKER_00: 26:28

I mean, it's another one of these solidifying the idea that it's women.

SPEAKER_01: 26:35

Things today with women. I've never... Flying on brooms. Fucking sailing on sieves. This is actually... Oh my god. This is awful. This is like buying your wife a hoover for her Christmas. I have never twigged on that before. That's wild. There's obviously the pagan-y association with the broom as well, which is why I've never made that...

SPEAKER_00: 27:04

It's taking having a few more examples out there that it's like...

SPEAKER_01: 27:09

Domestic duty fucking equipment. Is the guy equivalent to traffic cones and shit?

SPEAKER_00: 27:16

He'd be flying about in a shovel.

SPEAKER_01: 27:19

A big fucking hammer. So, they attempted this journey... from Denmark to Scotland a few times and they kind of went missing for a time. They had to send out messengers and try and work out where their ship had went and it turned out it had landed in Oslo, Norway. So at this point James was like, fuck this. I'm going to go. I'm going to go and meet them. I'm sick of waiting. This needs to happen. So he took his ships and he sailed to Norway, where he met up with the princess, Princess Anne. And they got married and they had their honeymoon in Oslo.

SPEAKER_00: 28:02

Destination wedding.

SPEAKER_01: 28:05

So the newlyweds stayed for a number of months and while they were there, witchcraft was the talk of the town. It was all anybody could speak about. The town was abuzz with it. There was witch trials currently being heard in Trier and a pamphlet from these trials... had made its way to James because it was being distributed throughout Norway at this time. So this was all he was fucking needing, really. It

SPEAKER_00: 28:34

was primed and ready for this.

SPEAKER_01: 28:36

Actual witch propaganda on a plate in front of him. He devoured that. He even took it back to Scotland with him. Which is why there's a record of it. He was obsessed with this thing. It was probably all dog-eared and that Like, from just, like, sitting in bed and reading it at night, just, like, shaking. Probably had, like, annotations and bits underlined. Either that or it was pristine. You know, one of the two kept in, like, one of the wee little cases. Aye, so they kind of waited the winter out and in the springtime of 1590 they headed back to Scotland and faced a bout of fierce weather. On the return journey. Which obviously was witches again.

SPEAKER_00: 29:26

Must have been. No other explanation.

SPEAKER_01: 29:28

It's not just that this is a bad crossing area. I don't get why that was never. Maybe we should go a different way. Or something. Maybe we should go during summer. When it's not as bad weather.

SPEAKER_00: 29:41

Take a wee road trip down to France. And cross that way.

SPEAKER_01: 29:48

Though they had a seemingly good marriage. Rumours that James's relationship with his male favourites ran rampant. So I did a wee bit of reading into this and I'm fully convinced that James was at least bi.

SPEAKER_00: 30:02

This is something that I've heard some bits and pieces about and I think seen some kind of jokes and comedy sketches and stuff to sort of... that kind of covered this situation.

SPEAKER_01: 30:18

Yeah. The reason why I think this is relevant is because for me, I don't know, he just seemed to hate women. This seemed to be a lot of what was going on with this.

SPEAKER_00: 30:29

Well, I mean, with John Knox as a childhood influence, I wouldn't be surprised.

SPEAKER_01: 30:35

Between that and probably growing up with everybody talking shit about his ma and her being a Catholic.

SPEAKER_00: 30:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 30:44

You can see how he must have been so conflicted as a wee kid about who to side with. Do you know what I mean? Because he probably wouldn't remember his mum. I can't really imagine being in that situation, but it couldn't have been easy. It makes sense why it's left room for some fucking hatred to grow somewhere and be directed at somebody. And I think in this case, it's just went to women in general. As much as he was rushing to get his wife, that was a political move.

SPEAKER_00: 31:18

Yeah, that's like something that is expected of a king. They were never ever marrying for love. It was always

SPEAKER_01: 31:31

beneficial to the nations. So, back in Denmark, the sea captain of the voyage, who had been getting a lot of flack for all this fucking about. They're like, mate, you had one job and you couldn't even do it. The king has had to come his cell. To come and pick the princess up. So he was getting a lot of shit. For everybody. And he was like nah mate it's not me. Of course it wasn't him. He kind of just put his fucking hands up and be like. Probably shouldn't have sailed. Probably should have like. Did something

SPEAKER_00: 32:03

different. I've failed in my duties as a captain.

SPEAKER_01: 32:06

Aye. So even though this full time he's been blaming the witches. He's seen an opportunity. To make some money out of this.

UNKNOWN: 32:14

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 32:15

So the Ministry of Finance, who was in charge of the kind of budgets for the Royal Navy and the fleet of ships, he pointed the finger at him. And he actually sued him. And he was like, mate, you never gave us enough money for these ships. They're all in disrepair. That's why this has happened. It's not me at all. And the Ministry of Finance has seen his opportunity to go... But I... No. No. It's not me, it's the witches. Of course. They're just the scapegoat for fucking everything. Including people, like, not wanting their jobs and reputations to be at stake. Yeah. It was an easy out. So, it just so happened that there was a witch trial going on in Copenhagen. So he travelled there and he spoke to the mayor. And he was like, see that woman, Anne Coldins, that you've got in at the moment? Yeah. Connie asked her if it was her that fucked with all the ships and caused this issue with getting the princess out of Scotland. And lo and behold, again under torture, she confessed. Nine people, nine women, were killed for this. Nineteen women.

SPEAKER_00: 33:27

Nineteen women, ah. They were the cause of the journey being...

SPEAKER_01: 33:36

Under questioning, a.k.a. torture, they all confessed... to no only having a plot to sink the ships, but also to all heading down to the beach together and putting demons in barrels and sending them out into the water. I don't know what they were going to do. This is a bit like... I don't know. How does... Do they make the bad weather a mushroom?

SPEAKER_00: 33:57

Must do. Must do. What?

SPEAKER_01: 34:00

So, they were all found guilty and executed.

SPEAKER_00: 34:04

And... Did that help?

UNKNOWN: 34:07

No.

SPEAKER_01: 34:09

I mean... No?

SPEAKER_00: 34:14

But bad weather still happened after that. It helped the captain in the

SPEAKER_01: 34:17

Ministry of Finance. I mean, it didn't help the captain because he didn't get his money. He was probably raging.

SPEAKER_00: 34:24

The lengths that they go to to shift the blame is... Or to avoid having the blame pinned on them. I

SPEAKER_01: 34:32

mean, it's still the same these days. Like, we've spoken about this before. You cannae pick up a paper... without seeing who the scapegoats are. And it shifts all the time. But there's always somebody to be blamed. Always. It just seems to be a part of what keeps society... I don't even want to say functioning, but it seems to be... There's just been this thing forever.

SPEAKER_00: 34:58

There's always got to be somebody to blame. But it wasn't me.

SPEAKER_01: 35:02

Aye. There's always got to be a baddie. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. When this news of these trials got back to James in Scotland, he was totally vindicated. This was his proof that he'd been looking for. That he was in fact God's chosen because why else would the devil be out to get him? And he became a man obsessed. I mean, I think he was already a wee bit obsessed by this point, but...

SPEAKER_00: 35:25

This was just exactly what this impressionable young man was needing was validation of these theories

SPEAKER_01: 35:33

that... He was only 23 at this point, so he was still young. So the threat of his death, even if God's will had opposed it, because obviously God saved them, that was... I never got... If God can just intervene and stop it happening, why does it matter?

SPEAKER_00: 35:51

What's the need for the fight? I

SPEAKER_01: 35:52

don't know if it's because they might win at some point, or if it's only James that's safe because... I

SPEAKER_00: 36:00

think it's that he's got to... got to prove to God that he's worthy of these interventions. He's seen it as a sign. He needs to prove to God that he's willing to do whatever it takes to do his work and to spread his word and fight for the side of good.

SPEAKER_01: 36:21

So luckily for James, David Seaton was on the case. So he was a local bailiff in North Berwick and he had became really suspicious of his servant, Galus Duncan. Any Outlander fans among you will see where this is going. I was like, oh my god, I was so excited when I seen the name because I'd never realised that that was where that character had came from. I was just like, oh, that's such a nice nod. It's made me like Outlander even more. But anyway, so she left home every night, every other night, and returned with the ability to heal the sick and infirm. To quote from the News of Scotland, 1591,"...made her master and others to be in great admiration and wondered thereat, by means whereof the said David Seton had his maid in some great suspicion, that she did not those things by natural and lawful ways." but rather supposed it to be done by some extraordinary and unlawful means. My take on this is like, they were like, oh, she's doing a really cool thing that should be admired. That's no natural. Yeah, she's a woman, so that's unnatural, so she must be a witch.

SPEAKER_00: 37:41

Women aren't to be admired.

SPEAKER_01: 37:43

Yeah, so when asked about these dealings, she refused to answer. She must be a witch. So David, along with a few of his pals, arrested Galus and tortured her with thumbscrews, or pillywinks, as they were called, and thrown, which is when they bind a rope really tightly around your head and then pull either end so it squashes your skull. What was it you had described it as earlier?

SPEAKER_00: 38:11

Like putting the rubber bands around a watermelon.

SPEAKER_01: 38:15

Yeah, literally like that. That sounds fucking horrible. What was this woman made of, by the way? Because she made it through all that and still... did not confess she held it out

SPEAKER_00: 38:27

it's quite impressive

SPEAKER_01: 38:28

yeah so at this point they became convinced that she must have the devil's mark upon her so this was a thing that was kind of like commonly known that when you went into service of the devil he is like a kind of like anti-baptism style like licked his mark upon you in like a private place or a really common one was like under the hair so a lot of people had their heads shaved while they were looking for this mark and that while it was on your body but hadn't been discovered you were unable to confess which is where this led to this like maybe they was innocent because they just hadn't found the mark yet and sometimes they couldn't find the mark but they just hadn't looked hard enough, and they were still guilty. There was no way out, basically. But they did find the mark on Galus Duncan. One of the things as well, it could have been a birthmark or a mole, or I think it was described as an insensitive patch, which is where a piece of skin, if they pricked it with a needle, wouldn't bleed, which is where the witch prickers came from. That was... There was ten roles in Scotland for that. There were ten people that were employed as witch-prickers during this time period. That's a lot of people. I think they were about the only ones that made any money out of this, which is wild.

SPEAKER_00: 40:03

What, just specifically the witch-prickers?

SPEAKER_01: 40:06

Yeah. Like, other than because the majority of the people were women, they didn't have any land or property or money. Mm-hmm. So, like, most of the time, like, a lot of these witch trials were at great cost based time and money to the people involved with very little...

SPEAKER_00: 40:30

Little to gain from it. Like, benefit from

SPEAKER_01: 40:32

it, other than God's... Aye, but not a lot of material gain. It shows they believed it. Do you know, like, this was the... Or some of them did.

SPEAKER_00: 40:44

Aye, because, like, if there was some kind of, like, profit driven motive you could understand why people who didn't necessarily believe in it but were kind of driven by that greed might get on board but if they didn't have a lot to gain from it from a sort of profit standpoint you're kind of left to think that yeah they probably probably did believe and what they were doing. They probably believed that it was right.

SPEAKER_01: 41:16

I would argue probably more so like the people conducting the trial than the people accusing people. Oh yeah, yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 41:24

yeah. Because people who were making accusations probably stood to gain more.

SPEAKER_01: 41:29

Yeah, even if it was just for like a I delight them point of view. So upon searching Gailis Duncan, they found a mark on her throat. And it's written in the News of Scotland at this point she confessed. Which is a really common thing through a lot of the literature of the day attached to this, is that once the mark was found, they confessed. But to me translates to they tortured them until eventually they confessed.

SPEAKER_00: 41:56

Aye, because it's kind of well known that you can get people to say whatever you want. They will tell you what you want to hear if you're going to be torturing them.

SPEAKER_01: 42:06

because anything to get the pain to stop especially if you're like crushing people's bones and stuff like one of the times in the book that I actually had to stop reading was because a woman had their children tortured in front of

SPEAKER_00: 42:25

her I feel like most people at that point would say whatever the fuck they wanted

SPEAKER_01: 42:32

and drag other people under the bus in the same breath which happened fairly regularly. It's quite funny, even in the Salem Witch Trials, they only stopped because they accused the mayor's wife, or somebody important's wife, and at that point, all further inquiry was cut. They were aware that... It didn't suit at that point. Aye. So at this discovery, she confessed, and... named several other notorious witches in the area, and all the ones that were involved in the plot to bring down the ship of James and Anne on their return journey. This system was repeated, so the people that she named were brought in, tortured until they confessed, and named others, which led to there being around 70 folks, both men and women, but predominantly women. were apprehended.

SPEAKER_00: 43:34

Aye, because they'd been pushing for more names. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 43:38

constantly.

SPEAKER_00: 43:39

Probably the only way to get them to stop or back off is to give some names.

SPEAKER_01: 43:46

You'd probably end up naming everybody that you fucking know. Do you know what I mean? So, one of the people that Galus named was her employer, Eupheme McElzean. She was a woman from an influential family. She was strong and outspoken. Her husband actually took her name when they got married because this was quite commonplace during the time period. The person from the more influential family or the more rich family was the name that they shared to keep the line going. She wore the trousers essentially in both name and also from the descriptions there and stuff. In fact, one of the things she was accused of was being controlling and domineering of her husband. And this was part of the evidence against her for being a witch. Along with she was accused of murdering her godfather and charming a judge to look kindly on her daughter. I don't know what her daughter was in trouble for. As well as helping to relieve a woman of pain during childbirth, which was quite a common thing throughout the witch trials as this being something that people, that proved witchcraft.

SPEAKER_00: 45:04

Because it's unnatural and evil.

SPEAKER_01: 45:07

It's unnatural, evil, and also goes directly against God's punishment for the original sin, which is the pain of childbirth. So they've seen any kind of remedies or like, a leavement of this is going against, directly going against God's will. And although this was a really commonplace thing throughout europe to be like one of the reasons people were charged for there was very few cases of that in scotland that wasn't really something that people took a lot of umbrage to but did in this case um for whatever reason it just wasn't one of the commonplace ones

SPEAKER_00: 45:47

well that's that's kind of nice that it wasn't as commonplace that's the small silver lining

SPEAKER_01: 45:54

So she was apprehended for the crimes of these as well as being involved in the plot to murder James. And she confessed through torture.

SPEAKER_00: 46:04

So was this the kind of being involved in the plot to murder James, was this quite a kind of long running through line through... the Scottish witch trials, or was this just at the beginning? The first few kind of...

SPEAKER_01: 46:26

I think it was just at the beginning. Just at the beginning. Because it wasn't all that long before he fucked off down to England. Right. I don't know exactly what age, but he just kind of started it off. And I think once these witch trials were over... I'm not saying it never happened again. I'm not too sure, to be totally honest. There was probably other, but none as big as this.

SPEAKER_00: 46:50

He just kind of lit the fire and walked away.

SPEAKER_01: 46:52

Yeah. Quite literally. So she was the first person to be executed for witchcraft in Scotland, of which she was burned alive, as was the most painful death befitting the crime. Yeah. Hers was probably one of the more profitable deaths in that she had, because her family was wealthy and because her husband had taken her name, she did actually have estates and money and stuff belonging to her. All of which were gifted to the king's allies and favourites. She could not be silenced, so they burned her alive.

SPEAKER_00: 47:31

How barbaric.

SPEAKER_01: 47:36

There's only actually one witch's grave. in the Fuley Scotland because it wasn't acceptable for them to be buried because they thought they could come back. Which is why they had to be burned. No many of them were burned alive. That wasn't as common here. That was only saved for the most grievous crimes. Most of them were strangled and then their bodies were burned. But there was only that one that actually got buried.

UNKNOWN: 48:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:07

Do you

SPEAKER_01: 48:07

know

SPEAKER_00: 48:07

where that grave is? It's on a beach. Ah, yeah. Because there was something ringing a bell there, but it was somewhere that wasn't accessible during high tide or something like that. Yeah, because it's like... If they did come back, they couldn't get people because they'd be trapped by the water.

SPEAKER_01: 48:29

Yeah. There's a whole other story with that as well. But... aye this has been interesting enough that I want to do like some more like more in-depth episodes like on the witch trials in Scotland I thought it was just quite quite a good kind of introduction into like where like how it started and the kind of transition between like what we spoke about in the last episode and kind of hysteria like into the witch trials into how they kind of began in Scotland alongside some of the kind of methods and stuff that came into place as part of the kind of culture I guess at the time.

SPEAKER_00: 49:11

I

SPEAKER_01: 49:12

find it mad that even all the things that led up to this being possible with Henry VIII and that was again all about women being blamed for problems that were nothing to do with them. Because Henry VIII had syphilis which is why he was not able... It's not that he was not able to have kids, but it was like...

SPEAKER_00: 49:37

Far more difficult than

SPEAKER_01: 49:38

normal. Ah, it was like his fertility had been affected by this disease, which is why Nanny's wife were producing an heir.

SPEAKER_00: 49:46

It couldn't possibly have been his fault.

SPEAKER_01: 49:50

So this brings us nicely on to our next section, which is around the scold's bridle, or the branks, as it was known in Scotland. So what is a scold? Historically, they're kind of defined as a woman who had a vicious tongue or was causing nuisance by loud invective, which meant she kind of quarreled with her neighbours and kind of argued with authorities. I would most definitely get fucking labelled a scold back in the day. Problem with authority? They take any kind of shit?

SPEAKER_00: 50:28

Scold. Yeah, that definitely would be.

SPEAKER_01: 50:35

So there was actually a male equivalent of this, which doesn't really get spoken about too much, which was the Barator, which was a bit more about kind of being violent towards others. So it was like someone who like went out and kind of brawled with other people and was never quiet and still quite argumentative and stuff, but like Aye. It was a bit made about the more violent end of the

SPEAKER_00: 51:04

spectrum. Aye. A brute. Aye. Like

SPEAKER_01: 51:07

someone who... Yeah. A brute's a good word. But, funnily enough, this term and the punishment for it started to go out of fashion by the early 17th century. Around about the same time that the bridal started to come into fashion. Which... Feels linked to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:33

I mean, if they're going to bring in a punishment for it, they're not going to want to punish the men.

SPEAKER_01: 51:39

That's a pure look back in the day, Asbo. But it sounded like it started as an Asbo and then kind of morphed into just a way like dealing with your wife if she was getting too annoying.

SPEAKER_00: 51:56

Yeah, that's... so

SPEAKER_01: 52:01

the actual origins of the bridal are not clear but it's thought to have originated sometime in the middle ages in Europe and was originally used as part of the penal system so it started as a kind of thing that was used by the local authorities rather than just anybody It's first heard of in Britain as a punishment for witches, which is where the link comes in. It became popularised within Scotland specifically during James's reign. He loved it. He thought it was the greatest thing ever. He wanted it to be in every town in Scotland and it did go that way. So a scolds bridle was essentially like a head cage that was in two parts with a hinge so it kind of closed over your head and it had... There was loads of different versions of it, but the kind of... The base point in it was that it had a plate of metal at the mouth that went into your mouth and held your tongue down to stop you being able to speak.

SPEAKER_00: 53:09

And this sounds like something straight out of a dungeon.

SPEAKER_01: 53:14

Yeah. It basically had a gag in it and was lockable and could be locked onto your head. The prime use of it as well... Everybody sees it and it always kind of gets made out as this, like, oh, they had it on so they couldn't speak again. But it was actually used to humiliate people. A lot of them had bells on the top. And people, it wasn't like you got that on and then you went home. No, you had to sit in the town square. Like the stocks, like, do you know, the things that we're kind of familiar with. And in much the same fashion, people would hurl insults and fruit at you. And, like, it was just another form of these kind of public humiliation. ways of controlling people's behaviour and trying to mould them to fit into society better. But the difference being, once it got taken off, they got exiled from the community a lot of the time. It was quite commonplace for

SPEAKER_00: 54:11

them to have like... So it was like a double-barrelled, you're going to be humiliated and then you've got to leave. And then

SPEAKER_01: 54:16

turfed out. Not always, but they went hand-in-hand quite often, especially during the witch trials. Yeah. And One of the other, again, there's loads and loads of different versions of them. One of the more horrible, barbaric ones came out of Scotland called the four-far bridle, which actually had a spike on either end of the plate. So one that went into the tongue and one that went up through the roof of the mouth. I feel like, I don't know, you can look at these things and go, oh, what the fuck? But it's mad to think about actually wearing them like actually being forced into them like that being like clamped down their mouth and then locked shut and then being forced to sit in their hometown while everybody that they've ever known like pure Game of Thrones style like shouts shame at them and like aye it's fucking horrible

SPEAKER_00: 55:14

people just are a bit horrible

SPEAKER_01: 55:17

yeah aye aye it's really grim to think about like I think it's even grimmer to think about, like, all this stuff still happens today, but just in a much more, like...

SPEAKER_00: 55:32

Kind of sanitised and...

SPEAKER_01: 55:34

Sanitised, like, kind of insidious way, where it's in our language now, do you know? Like, the feeling's still there, the motivation's still there, the outcome's still there. Like, women still... grow up today being taught to be meek and mild and no make waves and no call it authority. Aye,

SPEAKER_00: 55:55

women need to be small and quiet.

SPEAKER_01: 55:58

Because otherwise people are going to put big spikes through their face and throw eggs at them. Because they don't need to do that now. The

SPEAKER_00: 56:10

influence is there. Kind of refined their ability to humiliate and terrorise women.

SPEAKER_01: 56:19

Aye, like, women are still humiliated and terrorised, it's just that it happens in different ways now. It's been modernised. But the effect's the same. Yeah. So, the scolds bridle's actually where the term hodge your tongue comes from.

SPEAKER_00: 56:35

Oh, that's gross.

SPEAKER_01: 56:36

Yeah. Don't know if I'm going to be saying that one again. It's got a lot more... A lot more punch to it now.

SPEAKER_00: 56:47

Aye, but a loaded term.

SPEAKER_01: 56:51

So, once the bridal was put on, they would get led through the streets by the beadle or chained to the market cross. So, not only was it, like, fucking terrifying and obviously pretty sore, like, there's been there's been evidence suggesting people's teeth would get knocked out by it and shit like that. Obviously, it wasn't built the same for everybody. And because they were getting fucking objects and stuff hurled at them and they had a big immovable metal thing on their head and in their mouth next to their teeth. Aye,

SPEAKER_00: 57:31

they weren't custom built for each person. It was like one for the town and Yeah. Can I imagine it got cleaned all that much either?

SPEAKER_01: 57:48

I don't think anything really did then, to be fair. Aye, so the main kind of purpose in it was to humiliate the wearer. It was less about the kind of pain aspect. Obviously, that was true. That was a bonus, yeah. But the main purpose in it was... to humiliate them and bystanders were encouraged to kind of jeer and like hurl insults throw objects spit at and even urinate on the wearer just like the most degrading humiliating everybody could be so by the end of the 1500s every sizeable town in Scotland had a branks and sometimes they were displayed attached to the meerkat cross to act as a deterrent so they had it kind of hanging up in the square As a way to kind of warn people what could happen if they stepped out of line. No people, sorry, women. What could happen to women if they didn't obey their husbands, be subservient to their husbands and keep in line.

SPEAKER_00: 58:50

Just a kind of visual reminder.

SPEAKER_01: 58:54

This kind of comes back to like, why did they have to try so hard? If this was the natural order and the way that God planned and the way that God had made all the people... Why was it this fucking difficult

SPEAKER_00: 59:09

to upkeep? You wouldn't have to fight that hard if it was the natural way of things. Oh, sorry, I

SPEAKER_01: 59:15

forgot. It's the devil. It's the devil using their eyes and their tongue and everything else to fucking cause, I don't know, ungodliness. Sin.

SPEAKER_00: 59:30

Hearing all this stuff makes you take a really dim view of human nature.

SPEAKER_01: 59:38

Humans are fucking horrible. Like, I feel like people like to think that we're better now, but it's just changed.

SPEAKER_00: 59:48

It's no different. It looks like socially acceptable.

SPEAKER_01: 59:51

Look at any Facebook post comments, mate. Do you know, like, people have that bit in them.

SPEAKER_00: 59:57

Aye, the beef or blood.

SPEAKER_01: 59:59

Yes. Everybody's got that. Like, just some people are more in control of it, I guess, than others. So one of the earliest records of the pranks being used in Scotland was from 1567, so before the witch trials. But they were really seldom used at this point. They did exist, but they never ended up in every town in Scotland until after James came in. Bessie Telfer slandered Bailey Thomas Hunter in Edinburgh, saying that he was using false measures at his market stall. She was sentenced to be branket and fixed to the cross for an hour.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:42

But he was using false measures.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:44

He probably fucking was. This is like, how dare you call me out, witch. Branket you. Hodge your tongue. Oh, that's... So husbands could request local bailies to have the branks applied to nagging wives. Incredibly, the crime of being a scold, a woman deemed to be annoying or vexatious, was not dropped from the statute books in Britain until 1967. Wow. Yeah. My hope is that it's just one of these forgotten laws that's just like, still existed but like no, it's just because nobody's thought about

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:33

it. That's quite a horrible thing to have still existed until that recently. It kind of, it goes quite a long way to sort of explaining that sort of like the culture and the way people talk about their wives and them being like nagging wives and you know the whole kind of the general feeling that a lot of people detest their spouse and do anything to spend as much time apart from them as possible

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:14

it's because it's what's expected and it's expected because of all this shit like this year being thousands of years in the making you know it was actually really gross like reading reading up about this like a lot of the kind of resources and stuff that I'd used was from like some museums and stuff like that that have the branks or have the skulls bridled and they were talking about how pretty much there's one guy on every tour that's like oh do you sell them in the gift shop and like I don't know man it just like I can see it I can see being on that tour and hearing that fucking horrible and gross and so normalised. I bet nobody would blink an eye at that. Even me. If I heard that and it was some random guy, I'd just be like, oh, here we go. Do you know what

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:11

I mean? Quite a low point, I feel, that survived on the books until 1967. I

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:20

wonder, right? I don't know if this is really gross. I did see... like a couple of people when like writing about the branks and writing about the scolds private and kind of talking about the kind that there was like a bit of sexual element to it for the people that were like actually doing the punishment and like that's partly like why it became as popular as it did

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:46

i mean i could totally see this in a sort of kink setting being like

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:52

doing a scene of this with everybody consenting obviously with one that's fucking made and safe and not going to do you permanent damage but like it makes you wonder if that was part of what was going on with all of this it was just this total domination of women and freedom to be able to do that in new way like in a public way like and it just cottoned on do you know what i

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:28

mean this this one's really like this topic generally is really wearing me down yeah like this this has been hard this has been been pretty grim

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:43

yeah

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:47

it erodes your faith in people. None of the general points that we've talked about have been new for me. But I think just the continuous barbaric dehumanising nature of the whole thing and just how persistent it's been is it's kind of difficult to like to deal with like it's I don't know you've got that kind of oh people are generally good but like I don't know there's a few kind of horrible people out there and things like that but like It seems like actually the majority of people are really, really horrible and ready to submit people to torture and whatever for entertainment or personal gain or... I mean,

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:00

look at reality TV. I know it's no torture, but it's still putting people through extreme stress and fucking emotional distress. In order for entertainment. Right, sorry. I'm going down a negative path. Let's... Let's look at this through a slightly different scope. Right? Let's look at this through the scope of the everyday people during Nazi Germany. Do you know? There will be... It's easy to go, oh, everybody was bad. Everybody was on board with this. But people by nature conform.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:40

It's built into them, like, people, especially under times where there's, like, fascism going on, which, like, this is fascism. It's just old-school fascism. Like, people would have been terrified of being labelled as witches themselves, so then they're going to conform. They're going to join in. They're going to stick in with the crowds. They're going to no-make waves if you didn't.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:03

And that is how a lot, like, do you know, it could have been every single person in that crowd was against it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:09

They've

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:09

all got to play the part of supporting what's going on to not draw suspicion. There

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:14

would have been massive amounts of that going on, let's be honest. Not everybody was pious. A lot of people would have been, but there would have been people that were, I don't even want to use the word pious, I don't know how to brainwash comes to mind. There still would have been people that seen what was going on as wrong. There was still people that spoke out against the church. It's just a lot of them ended up getting burnt as witches so that's quite a good deterrent to stop that happening again which is probably why it went on for as long don't lose all faith in humanity it's shitty shitty is too small a word it's fucking atrocious what has went on but not everybody was in on it

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:05

Aye. I think it's quite easy to sort of lose sight of that when you're in the middle of all this.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:11

Totally. Like, I get it. I get it. But people are just people at the end of the day, and when you know, it's not just that the people in power are like have loads of power. They're just murdering people. And they're murdering people in the most horrible, painful ways possible on the regular. It's... No, why would you speak up in that instance? But if you did, then you're going to die. Ah,

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:43

you need to be sort of prepared for... If you speak out against this, you are likely to die.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:49

And the likelihood is you speaking out is not going to change it. And on that bombshell. So, this has been part two of our coverage. You can... Wrath, the demonisation of women's sexuality and rage. There will be a part three because we've got the second half of Hysteria up till the modern day to kind of cover. Hope you guys come back for that next week.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:16

Bye. See you next week.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:18

Bye.