Allison Balfour

The islanders of Orkney had a long tradition of belief in forms of witchcraft, sorcery and supernatural creatures.[5] Magical powers were accepted as part of life and were not questioned.[6] Witch hunts in Scotland began in about 1550;[6] the parliament of Mary, Queen of Scots passed the Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1563,[7] making witchcraft convictions subject to capital punishment.[8] Although the Orkney archipelago was officially under Norwegian law until 1611,[9] it had been held by Scotland from 1468[10] under the rule of Scottish earls.[11] Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney, known as Black Patie, had control of the islands in 1594 at the time of the first witch trials.[12] The Stewart family had a lot of ill-feeling towards each other: Patie had an acrimonious relationship with his father[12] and showed a particular animosity towards his younger brothers, especially John Stewart, Earl of Carrick, whom Patie was convinced intended to have him murdered.[13] He had found Thomas Paplay, John's servant, with poison.[4] Paplay was tortured for eleven days until he confessed,[14] naming Allison Balfour among the conspirators.[15] He retracted his confession just before his execution.[16]

Only sparse information is available on witch trials in Orkney before 1612,[9] but details of Balfour's conviction have been described by Julian Goodare[17] as "one of Scotland's most frequently-cited witchcraft cases."[2] Balfour lived in an area of Stenness known as Ireland,[3][lower-alpha 2] with her aged spouse Taillifeir and her children.[18] A natural healer of some repute,[18] she had been asked for advice on how best to cast a spell on Black Patie by his brothers and their friends, who were plotting to kill him.[19] The first of several alleged consultations took place in October 1593,[18] the outcomes of which are unknown but Black Patie suffered no apparent ill-effects.[19] Nevertheless, Balfour was arrested and transported to Kirkwall to be tried in December 1594.[19][20]

The case was unusual as it was instigated purely on the authority of Patie, whereas most Scottish witch trials required a commission of justiciary.[2] Most witch trials were held in St Magnus Cathedral,[21] where prisoners may also have been incarcerated, but Balfour was held in Kirkwall Castle.[3] The Orcadian historian Ernest Marwick speculates that torture may have taken place in the cathedral.[19] Balfour was interrogated for two days by Henry Colville of Orphir, a minister and close friend of Patie.[22]

Henry Colville attempted to gain sufficient evidence from Balfour to enable Patie to take action against his brother, John Stewart.[19] She was subjected to brutal torture for a period of forty-eight hours with Colville assuming the roles of "interrogator and spiritual comforter".[23] Her legs were enclosed in a contraption called caschielawes, a device made of iron that could be heated by a furnace[3] until the victim's flesh started to burn.[24] When she lost consciousness, as she did several times, the device was removed until she could be roused and the torture resumed.[3] As Balfour continued to protest her innocence, Colville turned his attention to her husband, her son, and her seven-year-old daughter.[24] Taillifeir, her husband, was tortured in front of her by the use of lang irons although it is unclear exactly what type of device this was.[24] Marwick describes them as being fetters[3] but historian Sigurd Towrie[25] characterises them as a method of pressing by placing 700 pounds (320 kg) of stones on the victims body.[1] When Balfour still would not confess she was forced to watch her son having his legs put into an iron boot.[26] The device, which stretched from his knee to his ankle, was struck fifty-seven times with a large hammer.[3] The boots inflict severe crushing and mutilation to the flesh and bones.[3]

Balfour reached her breaking-point when Colville tortured her daughter.[26] He placed the young girl's hands in thumbscrews, also called pinniewinkles,[26] pulverising the child's fingers.[1] Colville assured Balfour that she would not be executed if she confessed.[19] She relented and finally Colville secured enough of an admission of guilt for the court to be able to sentence her.[19]

Despite Colville's pledge, Balfour was found guilty of conspiring to murder by the use of witchcraft and was sentenced to be strangled and burned.[19][27] On 16 December 1594[lower-alpha 3] Balfour was taken to Gallow Ha'[lower-alpha 4] in Kirkwall to be executed.[31] Before the strangulation she was required to make a declaration in front of the gathered crowd and five ministers, including Colville, for the notary public; instead she proclaimed her innocence and detailed the tortures carried out against her and her family.[19] Immediately prior to Balfour's sentence being enacted, attempts were made to have her implicate the Laird of Stenhouse, Patrick Bellenden, in the conspiracy by questioning her about a piece of wax he had given her.[33] It had been retrieved from her purse when she was arrested and her inquisitors considered it was to make an effigy.[33] She denied their claims, stating it was to produce a treatment for Lady Bellenden's colic.[33]

The long-standing acrimony between Patie and his brothers continued unabated;[13] on 24 June 1596 John Stewart, Earl of Carrick was accused at the justiciary court in Edinburgh of scheming with Balfour to poison his brother, Patie.[33][34] John Stewart defended himself by asserting that the confession should be ignored, as it was retracted and had only been obtained under torture.[34] He was found not guilty.[31]

Colville had continued to support Patie, and during 1595 was appointed Patie's depute.[33] Three weeks after John Stewart's acquittal, Colville was attending to business on Patie's behalf at Nesting in Shetland.[19] Stewart, together with a group of his friends who for a variety of reasons also despised Colville, sailed from Montrose to Shetland, replenishing supplies en route at Orkney.[35] They landed in Shetland at Tingwall and made their way overland to where Colville was staying.[35][36] It is uncertain which member of the group "maist schamefullie, crewallie and unmercifullie slew him"[35] in July 1596, but on 14 October that year Stewart was tried for the murder and once again acquitted.[36] William Stewart and Gilbert Pacock,[lower-alpha 5] one of John Stewart's employees, had in the interim been beheaded for the crime.[35][36][lower-alpha 6]

• Isobel Gowdie
• Elspeth Reoch
• Witchcraft in Orkney