Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.

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Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to not just the Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise.

Relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

Nearly everyone has heard the Salem Witch Trials, in which around 150 people were accused

of witchcraft. But with the exception of the North Berwick trials of the 1590s,

it is far less well known that in Scotland, between 1563 and 1736,

nearly 4,000 individuals were accused as witches.

Accusing, convicting and executing someone for witchcraft depended on a number of things,

including, number one, a prevailing belief in the reality of magic. Number two, a belief that

people could be witches and that they had power to do serious harm. Number three, a willingness

to accuse your neighbours of witchcraft, which means resting on a

narrow precipice in which you both feared them and did not fear them so much that you thought

it could rebound on you.

Number four, a commitment to eradicating witchcraft from the highest ranks of society, those with the power to create legislation.

Number five, a process for gathering evidence, which meant people who are willing to act as interrogators.

Number six, a judicial process that would then take that evidence seriously.

And number seven, a common conviction that those found guilty of

witchcraft should be executed. In fact, it's rather amazing that anyone was convicted of

...