Chapter XXVIII: Witchcraft
“Mr. Turner represented the deplorable case of Christine Shaw, daughter to the Laird of Bargarren, in the paroch of Erskine, who, since the beginning of September last, hath been under a sore and unnatural-like distemper, frequently seized with strange fits, sometimes blind, sometimes deaf and dumb, the several parts of her body violently extended, and other times violently contracted, and ordinarily much tormented in various parts of her body, which is attended with ane unaccountable palpitation in those parts that are pained, and that these several weeks by past she hath disgorged a considerable quantity of hair, folded up straw, unclean hay, wild foule feathers, with divers kinds of bones of fowls and others, together with a number of coal cinders, burning hot candle grease, gravel stones, etc., all which she puts forth during the forementioned fits, and in the intervals of them is in perfect health, wherein she gives ane account of several persons, both men and women, that appears to her in her fits, tormenting her, all which began upon the back of one Katherine Campbell, her cursing of her. And though her father had called physicians of the best note to her during trouble, yet their application of medicine to her hath proven ineffectual., either to better or worse, and that they are ready to declare that they look upon the distemper as toto genere preter-natural, all which is attested by the ministers who had visited her in her trouble, upon all which Mr. Turner desired that the Presbytery would do what they judged convenient in such a juncture.”
The Presbytery were stimulated by this fresh outbreak to greater exertions. They appointed “the exercise of fasting and prayer to be continued as it is already set up by Mr. Turner in that family every Tuesday.” They appointed two of their number to go to Erskine and draw up a narrative of all the circumstances of the case, and they despatched two others to Edinburgh to lay the whole affair before the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council. A commission, consisting of Lord Blantyre and others, was, by the authority of that body, ordered to take precognitions of these diabolical manifestations. The Presbytery volunteered to give them all assistance, and they appointed another day of public humiliation and fasting. Certainly the Devil was not to be allowed to have things all his own way.
The result of the joint labours of the Presbytery and Commissions was the procuring of three confessants—Elizabeth Anderson, James and Thomas Lindsay—and the incarceration of a number of suspected persons. Mr. Blackwell then made another journey to Edinburgh to procure their trial, and to represent to those in power “the lamentable condition of this part of the country, upon the account of the great number that are delated by some that have confessed, and of the many murders and other malifices that, in all probability, are perpetrated by them, and to entreat their compassion in granting a Commission for putting these persons to a trial, and for bringing the same to an effectual and speedy issue.” The three confessants were well taken care of until the coming of the judges. They were “kept by turns in the houses of the ministers of the Presbytery, that they may have opportunity to instruct and deal with their consciences.”
The judges came down to Renfrewshire in due time, armed with full power to try, acquit, or condemn those brought before them charged with the sin of witchcraft. The Presbytery appointed certain of their number to “wait upon their Lordships,” and issued the following manifesto to all within their bounds:—
“The Presbytery, considering the great rage of Satan in this corner of the land, and particularly in the continued trouble of Bargarren's daughter, which is a great evidence of the Lord's displeasure, being provoked by the sins of the land (exprest as the causes of our former public fasts) so to let Satan loose amongst us. Therefore the Presbytery judge it very necessary to set apart a day of solemn humiliation and fasting, that we may humble ourselves under God's hand, and wrestle with God in prayer, that he may restrain Satan's rage, and relieve that poor afflicted damsel and that family from their present distress, and that the Lord would break in upon the hearts of these poor obdured that are indicted for witchcraft, that they may freely confess to the glory of God and the rescuing of their own souls out of the hands of Satan, and that the Lord would conduct and clear their way that are to be upon their trial, in order to the giving of Satan's kingdom an effectual stroke. Therefore the Presbytery appoints Thursday come eight days to be religiously and solemnly observed upon the accounts foresaid in all the congregations within their bounds, and the same to be intimate the Sabbath preceding.”