Pittenweem witches

Accusations made by a teenage boy, Patrick Morton, against a local woman, Beatrix Layng, led to the death in prison of Thomas Brown, and, in January 1705, the murder of Janet Cornfoot by a lynch mob in the village.

[5] The Sadducismus debellatus pamphlets, written by Lord Cullen,[6][a] giving details about the demonic possession of Christian Shaw, the 11-year-old girl at the centre of the Paisley witches trials, were in circulation at the time.

[4] Cowper continued to advise Morton about what happened in Paisley and encouraged him to name Layng as the person who had called upon the Devil to inflict his ailments.

[5] In May 1704[10] Morton named Layng as a witch and, with further prompting from Cowper, accused four local women of being her accomplices: Isobel Adam; Janet Cornfoot; Nicholas Lawson; and Lillie Wallace.

[5] Like Layng, Cornfoot had a reputation for casting spells and threatened anyone she was quarrelling with; Lawson, a farmer's wife, had previously been approached by other locals seeking advice about witchcraft.

[18] The beatings were vicious and later described by one letter writer as "The ministers have used a great deal of barbarous severities to extort confessions from those poor unhappy creatures.

[19] Layng, who was charged with maleficium, confessed she had made spells with buckets of water and burning coals as well as stabbing needles into a wax model of her intended victim.

[28] In November, Layng, Lawson, Horsefoot and Wallace were released after paying a fine of £8 each;[25] but the last of the accused,[d] Cornfoot, was kept in solitary confinement in the tolbooth by Cowper.

[32] After escaping, Cornfoot made her way to the home village of Leuchars,[33][page needed] eight miles from Pittenweem, where she was either discovered by the minister, George Gordon,[25] or had approached him for help.

[37] A mob of at least ten people forcibly removed her from the house, tied her up, beat her, then hauled her down to the harbour by her ankles, possibly with the intention of dunking her.

[36][37] A rope was run from the top of the masthead on a ship back to the shore and she was dangled from it while the crowd threw stones at her as she swung backwards and forwards.

[46] "A Lover of Truth" responded with another essay, A Just Reproof to the False Reports and Unjust Calumnies in the Forgoing Letters, asserting officials had not transgressed and challenging the claims made.

[49] The Privy Council ordered Sir James Stewart to act on the committee's report it received on 15 February and start legal proceedings against five people plus anyone else who had been involved in Cornfoot's lynching; they were to be tried in Edinburgh.

[50] Four locals had been identified by the committee as witnessing Cornfoot being killed and being involved in her mistreatment although the three main perpetrators, who had by then left the area, were an Orcadian, a man from Burntisland and a Sea captain's son.

[49] Four males suspected of being present at the murder were held in custody but were released by Cowper in defiance of the Privy Council's instruction for them to be taken to Edinburgh for trial.

In May that year she described how she had been tortured during her incarceration and, fearing the villagers might subject her to violence similar to that enacted against Cornfoot, asked the Privy Council to afford her some protection.

[50] The Privy Council also ordered that further investigations into the incidents surrounding Cornfoot's murder should be made, appointing a committee of three noblemen to undertake the task.

[50] The committee failed to attend a scheduled meeting on 9 May and, despite being reminded five months later that a report was required, no records exist to show any further investigations were made.

[52] After the Privy Council was abolished by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1708[53] a structure of circuit courts was established in the same year with the hearing of witchcraft cases becoming part of its remit.

[54] So when Cowper and the minister from the nearby parish of Anstruther East, William Wadroper, brought charges of witchcraft against Layng and Lawson again in October 1708, it was heard by the circuit court in Perth a few weeks later.