Paisley, Scotland

In Paisley, Scotland, in 1697, three men and four women were sentenced to death for trying to commit murder by witchcraft.

In 1696, Christian Shaw, the 11-year-old daughter of John Shaw, the Laird of Bargarran, alleged that she had been bewitched by one of the female servants in the household. At that time, accusations of witchcraft were taken very seriously and could be punishable by death. According to the handwritten accounts, possibly by her father, she suffered fits during which she was rendered blind and mute and vomited up pins, hair balls, feathers, bones, straw, and other objects. Some witnesses testified that they had seen her carried through the house by an invisible force.

Christian first accused one of the laird's maids, Katherine Campbell, and an elderly widow named Agnes Nasmith of bewitching her. She pointed the finger at others, too, and those interrogated named others, so more than 30 people were accused in all. Six of them were hanged and burned for witchcraft, and one committed suicide before the sentence was carried out.

An alternative account suggests that the girl had taken a disliking to the servant, Katherine Campbell, after being reprimanded by her and intentionally feigned bewitchment in order to bring about her punishment, not realising how dangerous it could be. Once she had started the ruse, there was no going back.

This was the first time a Scottish witch trial had been triggered by alleged demonic possession. Christian Shaw, who came to be known as the 'Bargarran Imposter', went on to found the Renfrewshire thread industry, introducing the spinning of fine linen thread to Scotland and the development of her own "Bagarran Thread". She later married Rev. John Miller, the minister of Kilmaurs, on September 8, 1718. After his death in 1721, she returned to the business she had started. Shaw married for a second time to William Gillespie, a glove manufacturer, in Edinburgh in 1737; she died later that year and is buried in Grey Friars Kirk, Edinburgh.

Who knows if she felt any guilt about what she had done?

Sources:

Witch hunt: The Great Scottish Witchcraft Trials of 1697, Isabel Adam

Paisley: A History, Sylvia Clark

The Decline and End of Scottish Witch-hunting, Brian P. Levack

https://libcat.csglasgow.org/web/arena/bargarran-witches