Agnes Sampson
Arrest
(This aforesaid Agnes Sampson which was the elder Witch, was taken and brought to Holyrood Palace before the Kings Majesty and sundry other of the nobility of Scotland, where she was straightly examined, but all the persuasions which the Kings majesty used to her with ye rest of his counsel, might not provoke or induce her to confess any thing, but stood stiffly in the denial of all that was laid to her charge: whereupon they caused her to be confined away to prison, there to receive such torture as hath been lately provided for witches in that country: and for as much as by due examination of witchcraft and witches in Scotland, it hath lately been found that the Devil doth generally mark them with a privie mark, by reason the Witches have confessed themselves, that the Devil doth lick them with his tongue in some private part of their body, before he doth receive them to be his servants, which mark commonly is given them under the hair in some part of their body, whereby it may not easily be found out or seen, although they be searched: and generally so long as the mark is not seen to those which search them, so long the parties that hath the mark will never confess anything. Therefore by special commandment this Agnes Sampson had all her hair shaven off, in each part of her body, and her head thrawen with a rope according to the custom of that Country, being a pain most grievous, which she continued almost an hour, during which time she would not confess any thing until the Devils mark was found upon her privates, then she immediately confessed whatsoever was demanded of her, and justifying those persons aforesaid to be notorious witches.) According to the Newes from Scotland, Agnes Sampson confessed to causing the storm that drowned Jane Kennedy by sinking a dead cat, to which her companions had attached parts of dead man, into the sea near Leith. The same charm raised the storm that had threatened the king on his return from Denmark. The English ambassador Robert Bowes wrote in December 1590 that Sampson had confessed and mentioned attempts to obtain the king's shirt or other personal linen in order to work charms. On 27 January she confessed that the Devil had offered to help her and her children because she was a poor widow. The Devil appeared to her as a black man, a dog, or a hay rick. She had attended a witch's convent at North Berwick with her son-in-law. They collected bones and powdered them for charms against the pains of childbirth. She said that Bowes was "a little black and fat man with black hair", who had given the accused gold in a cellar while James VI was in Denmark to make a charm with a toad to hurt the king and make him infertile. Bowes noted that this personal description was inaccurate. Sampson said she had made a wax image of her father-in-law for a woman who complained about his behaviour. According to the pamphlet Newes from Scotland printed in London in 1591:
Agnes Sampson-7