Scotland’s crusade against sorcery officially began with the issuance of the Witchcraft Act in 1563, giving way to almost two centuries during which the public routinely sought to identify and ...

Scotland is preparing to posthumously pardon thousands of people who were charged and executed for witchcraft between the 16th and 18th centuries. Between the 16th and 18th century 3,873 people ...

Trials in Scotland involving alleged witches go back centuries, with an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people executed and tortured over witchcraft claims in the late 16th to 17th centuries, according ...

The persecution began in the 1500s and lasted almost two centuries. Nearly 4,000 people were accused of witchcraft, a vast majority of them women. They were arrested, brutally tortured and coerced … ...

Scotland was the epicentre of witch-hunting in the British Isles. Wales and Ireland saw a negligible number of executions, whereas Scotland executed at least 15 times as many witches as England ...

Witch hunting in Scotland in the 16th century was not carried out by mobs with pitchforks, but by royal commissions at the orders of the king. As a result, ...