page_title: Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50 / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Dunbar victory medal showing Cromwell's bust and the Army's battle cry on the day, "The Lord Of Hosts". An official medallist, Mr. Symonds, was depatched to Edinburgh from London to create the Lord General's likeness. Parliament had the medal struck for the combatants, in gold for officers and silver for men. It is believed to be the first medal to be granted to all the ranks of an army and was worn by a cord or chain around the neck.
context_page_description: The great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50 was a series of witch trials in Scotland. It is one of five major hunts identified in early modern Scotland and it probably saw the most executions in a single year.
  The trials occurred in a period of economic, political and religious unrest. Political and religious turmoil was caused by defeat for the Scottish army in the Second English Civil War and the rise to power of the radical Kirk party, who attempted to create a "godly society", rooting out witches and other offenders. They passed a new Witchcraft Act in 1649 and encouraged local presbyteries to seek out witches. The intense period of witch hunting began in 1649 and continued into 1650, being largely confined to the Lowlands, particularly Lothian and Fife, but spilled over into northern England, where Scottish witch prickers were active. The period of rule by the Kirk party ended when Cromwell led an army across the border in July 1650. Some 612 records of accusations of witchcraft are known for Scotland in the years 1649 and 1650 and over 300 witches were executed in the trials.
context_section_description: The 1640s were among the coolest decades in the Little Ice Age and the period 1649–53 was one of poor harvests and general scarcity in Scotland. The last outbreak of the bubonic plague in Scotland was in 1644–49. In 1648 the Scottish Covenanter regime had been defeated by the forces of the New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Preston in the Second English Civil War. In early 1649 King Charles I was executed by the English parliament and, when the Scots immediately declared his son king as Charles II, a renewed war between Scotland and the fledgeling English republic looked unavoidable. These circumstances led to the fall of the moderate Engagers, who were willing to engage and compromise with Royalism, and the rise of the Kirk party, the more radical wing of the Presbyterian movement. Its power was consolidated by the passage of the Act of Classes in January 1649, which excluded Engagers from office. The Kirk party was unwilling to compromise on Covenanter principles and aimed to purge Scotland to create a "godly society".
  Through the 1640s the General Assembly and the Commission of the Kirk lobbied for the enforcement and extension of the Witchcraft Act 1563, which had been the basis of previous witch trials. The Covenanter regime passed a series of acts to enforce godliness in 1649, which made capital offences of blasphemy, the worship of false gods and for beaters and cursers of their parents. They also passed a new witchcraft act that ratified the existing act and extended it to deal with consulters of "Devils and familiar spirits", who would now be punished with death. In 1649 the commission of the General Assembly co-ordinated presbyteries in their pursuit of "fugitive witches", reminding them of the importance of hunting witches and encouraged them when obtaining commissions of justiciary to recommend the names of commissioners. By May 1650 Parliament had a committee in place to deal with depositions and other legal papers connected to accusations and commissions. Individual members of parliament and other leading Covenanters took a proactive role in witch hunts. In July 1650 Cromwell led an army of 16,000 over the border at Berwick and moved towards Edinburgh, taking control of the Lowlands and eventually winning the decisive victory at Dunbar in September that brought the rule of the Kirk party to an end.
caption: The Dunbar Medal, showing Oliver Cromwell, whose victories at Preston and Dunbar bracketed the hunt
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