Scotland in the early modern period other towns above 10,000 by the end of the period were Glasgow with 32,000, Aberdeen with around 16,000 and Dundee with 12,000. In late medieval Scotland there is evidence of occasional prosecutions of individuals for causing harm through witchcraft, but these may have been declining in the first half of the sixteenth century. In the aftermath of the initial Reformation settlement, Parliament passed the Witchcraft Act 1563, similar to that passed in England one year earlier, which made witchcraft a capital crime. Despite the fact that Scotland probably had about one quarter of the population of England, it would have
Religion in Scotland branches). During much of the 20th century and beyond, significant numbers of Catholics emigrated to Scotland from Italy, Lithuania, and Poland. However, the church has been affected by the general decline in churchgoing. Between 1994 and 2002 Roman Catholic attendance in Scotland declined 19%, to just over 200,000. By 2008, the Bishops' Conference of Scotland estimated that 184,283 attended mass regularly in that year: 3.6% of Scotland's population. According to the 2011 census, Catholics comprise 15.9% of the overall population. In 2011, Catholics outnumbered adherents of the Church of Scotland in just four of the council areas, including North Lanarkshire,