Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
hurried on the decision, led at once to the frightful condemnation.
When first indicted, Jane had some hope of mercy, and that her
perfect innocence might avail her; for sorcery was then a new crime,
and there were many who totally denied its existence; but the moment
she entered the court, and looked on the faces of her judges, and saw
that there were eight Hamiltons in the jury-box, she felt that her
doom was written, and gave herself up for lost--as the majority of
votes form the opinion of a Scottish jury.
The proceedings of the Supreme High Court of Justiciary in 1537, the
year of its birth, were, in detail, widely different from what they
are to-day; and such was its informality, that there was not one
witness for the defence, the counsel for which based his arguments
solely on the blameless life, the innocence, and conscious rectitude
of the accused.
"I am innocent!" Jane would sometimes repeat to herself; "and they
dare not punish me--God will not permit them!"
The clerk of the court now stood up to read the indictment, which was
written on a strip of parchment:--
"Jane Seton, most falsely designated lady and of Ashkirk, thou art
delated by the king's advocate for procuring the death of umquhile
the queen's grace (whom the blessed Lord assoilzie!) by sorcery and
incantations procured from hell; thou art accused of having a
familiar spirit; of having renounced thy baptism, and having upon
thee the mark by which Satan distinguishes all who have sold
themselves unto his service."
"Of these crimes against the laws of God and of man, of nature and
our holy Christian church, Jane Seton, art thou guilty, or art thou
not guilty?" asked the abbot Mylne, sadly and solemnly.
Thrice the question had to be repeated before she was roused from her
apathy to reply.
"Guiltless, father abbot--guiltless of such crimes--even as the
blessed Mother of all compassion herself was guiltless," she replied,
gently but energetically; "and this day I call upon her to hear the
truth of my assertion; and the unhappy never seek her aid in vain."
A murmur floated above the crowd of spectators; and Jane's head sank
on her breast.
Like a sharp poniard, her voice sank into the heart of Redhall. He
now arose, and with a paper in his hand--a paper which he nervously
folded and unfolded--prepared to speak. He looked like an animated
corpse; his long flowing gown of black Parisian cloth, the sable hue
of his beard and moustache, contrasted forcibly with his livid
complexion. His eyes were hollow, and a ghastly agony was impressed
on every lineament of his face; but attributing these appearances to
his long and recent illness, the whole court, from the lord president
down to Sanders Screw, the torturer, pitied his sufferings, and
admired his worth and unflinching energy as an officer of state.
He dared not turn towards the prisoner, but spoke with averted eyes,
which the court attributed to his gallantry and extreme delicacy of
feeling. He endeavoured to condense the whole hatred of his heart
against her; but love would come again, and they wrestled fiercely
for the mastery. His heart swelled within his breast, and his brain
became wild. He had two existences, and two hearts--one which loved,
and one which hated--one that longed to possess, and another that
longed to destroy her.
Then it would seem that he loved her as of old, and was prompted to
avow his passion and his guilt, and, asserting her innocence, poniard
himself before the court; but again his mad and murderous longing for
revenge would come back upon his heart like a devouring fever, and
thus he loved and thus abhorred in the same moment. Strange, wild,
and inconsistent, his was the love of the devil united to the frenzy
of a destroyer; he felt that it was so, and there were times when he
doubted his own sanity.
The die was cast now, and a thousand eyes were bent upon him, and a
thousand ears were listening. He made a tremendous effort to master
his fierce emotions and open the prosecution; and being aware that
there were many among the judges who doubted, and even denied the
existence of witchcraft, he bent all his dangerous eloquence to prove
the first position.
"My lords," said he, with a voice that, from being soft and
flute-like, had now become hoarse and hollow, though it sounded like
a serpent's hiss to Jane. "My lords, there may be among us those who
decline to admit that witchcraft existeth in the world; albeit,
divines cannot doubt it, for have not the words of God admitted that
such things may be? In the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, we are
told that diviners, enchanters, consulters with familiar spirits,
witches, necromancers, 'are an abomination unto the Lord;' and
further, the twentieth chapter of Leviticus saith, 'the soul that
turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, _I
will even set my face against that soul_, and will cut him off from
among the people;' while the Mosaic law emphatically ordained that no
witch shall be suffered to live. We need not, most reverend and
learned lords, look so far back for proofs that sorcerers and
charmers existed, and do exist: it must be apparent to every
reasonable being that what hath once been may be again, for nothing
is impossible either to God or the devil; and the ancient chronicles
of Scotland, and of every other kingdom, teem with proofs of sorcery.
The heathens of the olden time visited witches with the most dreadful
punishments; the Persians dashed out their brains with stones; while
we know that the Assyrians, Chaldeans, the Indian Gymnosophists, and
the Druids of Caledonia, were addicted to the deepest sorcery. By
the laws of Charlemagne, a witch who ate human flesh escaped for two
hundred sous, which shows (as in the present case) that sorcery was
not confined to the lower class of society.
"The emperor Manuel Comnenus punished sorcerers with the utmost
rigour; and the blessed St. Patrick procured fire from heaven to
destroy nine of them. St. Colme saw a wizard milk a bull, as we are
informed by St. Adamnan, for the saints are constantly watching
Satan, the prince of hell and promoter of mischief; and if so, how
much more ought we, who are _their_ servants, to watch sorcerers and
witches, who are the slaves of the devil!
"The witch of Endor feared to practise her sorceries before the king,
because he had put to death all who had familiar spirits; and so
great was the indignation of God against the sin of sorcery, that he
cut off the ten tribes of Israel because they were wedded unto its
abominations. John de Fordun records, that in the days of that good
knight and gallant king, William the Lion, a wizard who perverted the
vision of the people, was defeated by a holy man reading even a
passage from the blessed Gospels.
"Among the Romans, Publius Marcius and Pituanus were executed for
this crime; as also were Publicia and Lucinia, with threescore and
ten other citizens, as Valerius Maximus informs us in the third
chapter of the sixth book. Hence, to deny the existence of witches,
is to deny the veracity of all history, ecclesiastical as well as
secular; and thus sorcery, being the greatest of all human crimes, as
it includes heresy, blasphemy, and treason against God, involves the
most severe of all human punishments--death by fire--for fire is the
emblem of purification.
"Picus of Mirandola, who lived in the last century, asserts in his
writings, that 'magic is not founded on truth, since it depends upon
powers that are enemies to truth;' and further, 'that there is no one
power in heaven or earth but may be put in motion by the words of a
magician;' and he proves that words are effectual in incantations,
because God made use of words in arranging the universe."
"My lord advocate, to the point," said the president, dryly; "in many
parts of his writings, Francisco Picus was a rank blasphemer."
"The prisoner at the bar is accused of procuring by sorcery, and the
aid of magic images, the death of umquhile the queen's lamented
grace, whom Heaven assoilzie! I accuse her of this, and boldly."
"To the proof," said the abbot of Cambuskenneth, as Redhall paused,
and faltered.
"No difficult task, my lords," he resumed. "I need not expatiate on
the hereditary hatred borne to the king, the queen and court, by the
houses of Ashkirk and of Angus. Consanguinity is ever a strong proof
of sorcery. The countess dowager of Ashkirk hath long sustained an
evil reputation as a dabbler in magic. If the mother be a sorceress,
we hold it in law, that the daughter must infallibly be so too. It
is the inheritance of hell, and descends, as the children of married
saints inherit a share of heaven. Arrian records that prophecy was
hereditary, like disease, and why not sorcery?"
A murmur of assent replied.
"Hence, reared by her mother, the prisoner brought her damnable and
abstruse studies to greater perfection; the pupil surpassed her
teacher; and it was in her boudoir that this image, which is coated
over with wax and stuck full of pins, was yesterday discovered by an
officer of this high court--an officer whose veracity and worth none
will dare to gainsay."
Here Master Birrel smoothed his shock pate; pulled up his ruff, which
was stiffened with whalebone, and looked complacently around him.
"The good queen's gradual illness and wasting away from the hour of
her landing, was the slow but matured work of sorcery; and such the
most learned physicians and apothegars have declared it to be. My
lords and gentlemen, here are written copies of the proofs," he
added, as his clerks and scribes distributed to the bench and jury a
number of written papers; but the said clerks or scribes might have
saved themselves the trouble, as few of the learned lords, and not
one of the intelligent jury, could either read or write. Neither had
yet become fashionable or necessary accomplishments. "There you will
find," continued the lord advocate, "that the queen's grace was first
bewitched at the ball in Holyrood, where the Lady Seton induced
others to dance a measure diabolique, which is well known to be in
use among the witches of France; and as they danced, so the queen's
illness increased with wondrous rapidity. That night her majesty
kindly gave the prisoner her hand to kiss; then lo, again, the power
of hell! the kiss burned into her heart, and she sank into a deadly
faint. In both kiss and dance, my lords, we will prove there was
sorcery, as the abbot of Kinloss assured me at the time. We all know
how much Satan hath achieved by the agency of dancing, on looking
back to the fits and visions of the Convulsionists, who in 1373
appeared at Aix-la-Chapelle. There is a certain mountain of the Harz
chain in Almainie, where, on the 1st of May, every year, all the
witches and wizards of the earth rendezvous to dance on _Valpurgis
night_, as they name it. Now, _La Volta_, the hell-dance, was the
ancient measure of the orgia, the feasts of Bacchus, a god of the
pagans--a demon who loved wine. It came from Italy to Spain; from
Spain to France; from France to Scotland.
"To the second proof. The prisoner with others visited the booth of
Master Mossman, jeweller to the king's majesty; and there, placing on
her head the queen's new crown (a notable piece of Douglas
presumption), said certain words, to the effect that _she would never
live to wear it, for her days were numbered_, and these ominous words
we have here six witnesses to prove. Oh, my lords, did they not
clearly and prophetically indicate a foreknowledge of the queen's
death, obtained by the assistance of that familiar spirit who resided
with her in the quality of page? Lastly, this image, half roasted
and perforated by ninety-nine pins, and marked with a crown and the