The Paisley Witch Trials

Next year marks the 325th anniversary of a chain of events that ended in the deaths of seven innocent people in the Scottish town of Paisley.

The Paisley Witch Trials took place in the summer of 1697 after an 11-year-old girl accused a total of 35 people of witchcraft.

Christian Shaw was the daughter of local landowner John Shaw, the Laird of Bargarran. When she saw one of her family’s servants, Catherine Campbell, steal a glass of milk, she reported the theft to her mother. This resulted in Campbell cursing the young girl, telling her she wished the Devil would haul her through Hell.

Four days later, Christian came into contact with the elderly Agnes Naismith, a woman local people believed was a witch. She thought nothing of it until the next day when she suffered a series of violent fits, similar to those experienced by children in Salem witch trials in America four years before.

Christian continued to be extremely ill with the fits and eight weeks after her first one, her worried family took her to see a Glasgow doctor called Matthew Brisbane. He could find no cause for her illness.

Christian returned home, but within eight days was having seizures again and this time was pulling all sorts of things out of her mouth including balls of hair, coal, chicken feathers and cinders which she claimed came from her tormentors. She was immediately taken back to see Dr Brisbane who still couldn’t find the cause of her ailments.

During the fits, Christian was heard to plead with Catherine Campbell (who was not there at the time) to return to their former friendship.

While the doctor could not find a cause for her suffering, the local Minister had an idea. He believed Christian was possessed and tormented by witches. The Church set up a weekly fast and prayers at Christian’s home to see her through her trials. As this was going on, her father demanded the local authorities arrest those responsible.

At first, Christian named only Catherine Campbell and Agnes Naismith, but as time went on, she also named more people. In fact, 35 people were accused of witchcraft and of possessing Christian: 20 women, ten men and five people whose identities and genders are not known.

The Church in Paisley asked the Scottish Privy Council, the King’s advisers in Scotland, to investigate the case. They set up a commission to decide whether or not there was a case to answer.

In fact, there were two commissions: the first one looked into the accusations against the 35 people. Twenty-eight were deemed innocent and a second commission then went on to further interrogate the seven remaining defendants: Margaret Lang, John Lindsay, James Lindsay, John Reid, Catherine Campbell, Margaret Fulton, and Agnes Naismith.

Local minister, James Hutchison also gave evidence claiming seven marks on young Christian’s body were witch marks. This was even though doctors said they were natural.

It didn’t take the commissioners long to determine that the defendants were guilty. They had been threatened by the prosecutor that if they found them innocent then they would be “accessory to all the blasphemies, apostacies, murders, tortures, and seductions, etc., whereof those enemies of heaven and earth shall hereafter be guilty when they get out”.

So, the seven were found guilty of the tormenting of a number of people, including Christian Shaw, and were sentenced to hang.

On June 10, 1697, all of the accused, except James Reid who had hanged himself and Agnes Naismith who died in prison, were hanged and then burned at Gallow Green in Paisley. Brothers, John Lindsay (aged 11) and James Lindsay (aged 14) held hands as they were hanged together.

It was the last mass executions for witchcraft in western Europe.

The accused were buried at the crossroads of Maxwellton Street and George Street, a horseshoe was put over their graves to prevent them from rising again and tormenting the living. In 2008, the town unveiled a memorial at the site to commemorate their lives and replace the horseshoe.

Agnes, Catherine and the others weren’t the only ones to lose their lives in this way. Others accused of witchcraft and executed at the Gallow Green in Paisley included:

• May 1622 - Mary Lamond, Katrine Scot, Janet Hynman, Margret Leitch, Margret Rankine, Jean King, and Margaret Duff

• Feb 1667 – Janet Mathie, Bessie Weir, Margaret Jackson, John Stewart, Marjory Craig, and Annabel Stewart

So, what happened to Christian Shaw? Well, she went on to have a successful life. She married Reverend John Millar of Kilmaurs, Ayrshire in 1719. Widowed two years later, she went on to become a respected and successful businesswoman manufacturing high quality thread. The last record of Christian we have references her marriage to a wealthy Edinburgh businessman called William Livingstone, in 1737.