The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

124 Jeanne des Anges
until spring 1590. On their return to Scotland, they were
buffeted by yet more storms but managed to make land
safely.
The North Berwick witches confessed to raising these
storms. James, however, called them “extreme lyars,” until
one of the accused convinced him of their supernormal
powers by repeating to him the private conversation
he had had with Anne on their wedding night.
After the North Berwick trials, over which James supervised
brutal tortures of the leader John Fian, James
made a study of witchcraft in Europe and read the works
of the leading demonologists. He was distressed by the
arguments that Devil-worshipping witches and their SAB-
BATs were all delusions. He was particularly incensed at
the views expressed by REGINALD SCOT in The Discoverie
of Witchcraft (1854) and by JOHANN WEYER in De Praestigiis
Daemonum (1563).
Thus, James wrote his own response, Daemonologie,
published in 1597. Daemonologie added no new information
about beliefs about witches and increased the public
hysteria over witches in Scotland. James affirmed that
witches, who received their powers from the Devil, could
raise storms, could cause illness and death by burning
of waxen images, and were followers of “Diana and her
wandering court.” He stated that the Devil appeared in
the likeness of a dog, cat, ape, or other “such-like beast”
and was always inventing new techniques for deceiving
others. He defended swimming as a test for witches, in
which the accused were bound and thrown into deep
water (the innocent sank and usually drowned, and the
guilty floated, whereupon they were executed).
James believed in sexual acts with demons but did
not believe in impregnation by an INCUBUS. That, he
said, was a fabulous tale. He acknowledged that demons
could make a woman appear falsely pregnant. The sexual
aspects of the nightmare were a “natural sickness,”
he said, caused by a thick phlegm upon the heart that
made people imagine that a spirit was pressing down
upon them.
He believed in demonic POSSESSION but doubted the
power of the church to cure it permanently. He noted the
simplicity of JESUS’ instructions for EXORCISM: prayer, fasting,
and expelling the demons in his name.
James supported the widely held belief that more
women than men were witches because women were inherently
weak and predisposed to evil. He accepted the
execution of a witch as the therapeutic cure for the victim.
He even advocated the death penalty for clients of
“cunning men.” He defined a witch as “a consulter with
familiar spirits.”
By 1597, the witch hysteria in Scotland had reached
alarming proportions, and there was evidence that overzealous
witch hunters were indicting people on fraudulent
evidence. To his credit, James revoked all indictments,
and for the remaining years of his rule on the throne of
Scotland, executions for witchcraft decreased.
Upon the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, James took the
English throne as James I. Daemonologie was reissued in
London the same year. James also ordered that copies of
Scot’s Discoverie be burned.
In 1604, a new Witchcraft Act was passed by Parliament
under pressure from the gentry. The new law stiffened
penalties for witchcraft. Under Elizabethan law
passed in 1563, WITCHCRAFT, enchantment, CHARMs, or
SORCERY that caused bodily injury to people or damage to
their goods and chattels was punishable by a year in jail
with quarterly exposures in the pillory for the first offense
and death for the second offense. A sentence of life
in jail with quarterly pillory exposures was given for the
divining of treasure and the causing of “unlawful” love
and intentional hurt. Bewitching a person to death was a
capital offense.
The 1604 law punished crimes of witchcraft with
death on the first offense instead of a year in jail or life in
jail. In addition, the conjuring or evoking of DEMONs for
any purpose whatsoever was made a capital offense.
Passage of the law did not evoke a wave of witch
hunts. The first trials of major importance did not occur
in England until 1612, trials at Lancaster that saw 10
persons hanged and one pilloried. During James’ entire
reign of 22 years, fewer than 40 persons were executed
for the crime of witchcraft. James pardoned some accused
witches because of the weak evidence against them and
exposed a number of cases of fraudulent accusations of
witches, including the “possession” of a boy in Leicester
that sent nine victims to the gallows in 1616. James did
not uncover the fraud until after the executions. Though
he was sorely displeased with the judge and sergeant, he
did not punish them.
The Witchcraft Act of 1604 remained in force until
1736, when it was repealed and replaced by a new law
under George II. The 1604 law was used to prosecute the
trials of the accused witches in Salem, Massachusetts, in
1692.
In his later years, James’ health declined as a result of
arthritis, gout, and other diseases. He had a stroke, which
severely weakened him, and soon afterward died, on
March 27, 1625, while suffering from severe dysentery.
FURTHER READING:
King James I of England. Demonology. Edited by G. B. Harrison.
San Diego: Book Tree, 2002.
Kittredge, George Lyman. Witchcraft in Old and New England.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Yorkshire,
England: E. P. Publishing, 1973; 1886 ed.
Jeanne des Anges (1602–1665) Mother superior of
the Ursuline convent in Poitiers, France, who became
possessed with major DEMONs in the famous LOUDUN
POSSESSIONS case. A mean and vindictive woman, Jeanne
des Anges (Joan of the Angels) became the principal
DEMONIAC in fraudulent possessions that led to the exe-