King James & Witchcraft

King James's visit to Denmark, a country familiar with witch-hunts, may have encouraged an interest in the study of witchcraft,[35] which he considered a branch of theology......After his return to Scotland, he attended the North Berwick witch trials, the first major persecution of witches in Scotland under the Witchcraft Act 1563. Several people, most notably Agnes Sampson, were convicted of using witchcraft to send storms against James's ship. James became obsessed with the threat posed by witches and, inspired by his personal involvement, in 1597 wrote the Daemonologie, a tract which opposed the practice of witchcraft and which provided background material for Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth. James personally supervised the torture of women accused of being witches.

King James saw himself as an expert on witchcraft, which was still an issue in Stuart England in so far as many did not share the same views as James....The idea of black and witch witches can be traced back to Roman times. However in the sixteenth century a new Christian theory developed based on Christian theology, canon law and philosophical ideas. This theory was that a witch had made a deliberate pact with the devil – almost a form of a personal arrangement – but that a witch did not act alone. Therefore if one witch existed in a locality, there had to be more. This led to a shift in the persecution of witches. Whereas a village may have punished an individual in the past, now the Christian witch theory demanded that more be found within one locality. This resulted in many arrests for witchcraft as the difference between white and black witchcraft effectively ended. The authorities of the time believed that even healing had to be as a result of pact with the devil – so white witches were also persecuted. The arrest of one ‘witch’ almost certainly led to more arrests as torture was allowed to be used on suspects to find out the names of other witches within a locality.....The wholesale persecution of witches started in Scotland in 1590 when James VI was king – the future James I of England. Witchcraft had been a criminal offence in Scotland prior to 1590 but action against suspected witches was limited. However after 1590 and in the last thirteen years of the reign of James, Scotland fully accepted the Christian witch theory so that when one witch was found, others were hunted out. Prior to 1590, it seems that witchcraft was seen as a minor issue by those in power. In 1583, the General Assembly complained that witchcraft carried no punishment despite being outlawed in 1563. This changed in 1590.......The year saw the start of a series of trials for treason. Three hundred witches were accused of gathering to plot the murder of James. It is known that James had a morbid fear of violent death. Therefore these trials were of especial interest to him and he suddenly developed a very keen interest in demonology and witchcraft..... Witches were accused of attempting to drown James by calling up a storm while he was at sea with his new wife..... In 1591 he showed a particular interest in the trial of Mary Napier – arrested for consulting a witch and linked to treasonable activity. She claimed to be pregnant at the time of her arrest. Despite the 1563 law outlawing witchcraft, no one had ever been arrested in Scotland for consulting a witch. Yet James wrote to the court ordering them to find out if she was pregnant or not and that if she was not, she should be burned. That Napier was a friend of Bothwell’s also indicates that James was willing to use witchcraft for political ends. The court acquitted Napier – much to the anger of James.....In 1597, James felt sufficiently knowledgeable about witchcraft that he wrote “Daemononlogie”. This was an eighty page book that expounded his views on the topic and it was meant to add to the intellectual debate that was going on within Europe about witchcraft. The book has three sections on magic, sorcery and witchcraft and one on spirits and ghosts. Having produced this book, James decided to end the standing commission that had been established to hunt out witches. However, the persecution did not end. By the time he left for England in 1603, witches were still being arrested and of those arrested, half were executed. Between 1603 and 1625, there were about twenty witchcraft trials a year in Scotland – nearly 450 in total. Half of the accused were found guilty and executed."....http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/stuart-england/james-i-and-witchcraft/