The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

J
Jahi
See DRUJ.
James VI and I (1566–1625) King of both Scotland
(as James VI) and England (as James I) and a persecutor
of witches, whom he believed to be the servants of the
DEVIL. His book, Daemonologie, broke no new ground in
witch hunting but became a handbook for English demonologists.
James was born in Scotland in 1566 to the violent
world of Mary, Queen of Scots and her second husband
and first cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who was
a vicious and dissipated man. At the time of his conception,
Mary was having an affair with her Italian secretary,
David Rizzio. Once, Henry attacked Rizzio in Mary’s
presence in an apparent attempt to cause her to miscarry.
Failing that, he and a group of his noblemen murdered
Rizzio by hacking him with swords and knives and then
heaving him off a balcony.
Mary continued to have affairs and plotted her revenge
against Henry. In 1567, she tried to have him killed
in a gunpowder explosion. The explosion did not do the
job, for Henry was found later in the garden, dead of
strangulation.
No one was ever charged with the crime, but his death
was rumored to been the result of a plot of the earl of
Bothwell, who abducted Mary, raped and impregnated
her (she miscarried twins), and then married her. The incident
caused an uprising among Scots. Mary abdicated
the throne in favor of one-year-old James, who ruled under
regents until 1583, when he began his personal rule
as James VI.
Mary later plotted to take the English throne from
Elizabeth I, her father’s cousin. Elizabeth had her arrested
on charges of treason, imprisoned, and then beheaded.
This atmosphere of swirling murder, treason, plotting,
and bloodshed was bound to have an impact on James.
He took to wearing padded clothing at all times to protect
himself against stabbing.
When James took the Scottish throne in 1583, the
Scottish clergy, pressured by rising public fears of witchcraft,
demanded tougher enforcement of Scotland’s witchcraft
law, which had been enacted in 1563. James, who
believed that witches were evil and posed a threat to Godfearing
people, tolerated increasing witch hunts and even
participated in some of the trials himself.
James believed that witches tried to kill him on at
least three occasions. In the North Berwick witch trials
of 1590–92, confessions were made of an alleged plot by
witches to murder him and his bride. In 1589, James had
agreed to marry by proxy Anne of Denmark, a 15-year-old
princess whom he had never met. That same year, she set
sail for Scotland from Norway, but her ship was buffeted
twice by terrible storms and nearly destroyed. It made
port at Oslo, where the passengers where stranded for
months. James sailed out to meet the ship. As storms continued,
he and Anne were forced to remain in Scandinavia
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