King James and Witchcraft

Para1King James I wrote and published his anit-witchcraft volume Daemonologie in 1597, prior to being crowned King of England in 1603. In response to the King’s interests, after his accession, English authors and playwrights addressed witchcraft in their dramatic works. Major examples of this trend occur in William Shakespeare’s 1606 Macbeth, Thomas Middleton’s 1612 The Witch, and William Rowely, Thomas Dekker, and John Ford’s 1621 The Witch of Edmonton. Public theater showed audiences many issues regarding the social and religious implications of witchcraft.
Para2Some scholars believe King James I’s interest in the subject of witches arose more from political reasons than religious ones. As King of Scotland and after his marriage to Anne of Denmark in 1589, he saw a witch trial and burning in Uppsala, Norway. On the way back from Norway, he encountered a terrible storm at sea. Following this event, a maid named Geillis Duncane was accused of witchcraft by her master, which then evolved into several other people being accused and sent to trial under James’ government, possibly James himself presiding at some point. These accused individuals included a man named Dr. Fian, whom James accused of attempting to kill him with witchcraft (Notestein).
Para3The Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 passed by Queen Mary gave James the precedent he needed. In 1591, Newes from Scotland Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of Dr. Fian, a Notable Sorcerer was published. This pamphlet was published anonymously; some scholars attribute it to James I (Calhoun), but other sources attribute it to James Carmichael, Minister of Haddington, who was likely involved in the trial (Fake Newes). King James I’s most well-known work, the Daemonologie, was published in Scotland in 1597 and in England in 1603.
Para4In 1604, after he had assumed the English throne, James I modified the Witchcraft Act that Elizabeth had passed so that anyone caught practicing witchcraft would be under pain of death. This was especially relevant considering James’s conflict with Dr. John Dee, an astrologer and alchemist who had been widely known as Elizabeth’s court magician.
Para5Shakespeare’s Macbeth, first performed in April of 1611, takes much of its knowledge of witches directly from James’s Daemonologie, a pamphlet on the identification and condemnation of witches that drew on negative stereotypes. The overlap between these two texts shows how the monarch’s interests shaped the popular culture of the day.

Key Print Soures

Bodin, Jean et al. The Definition of a Witch. On the Demon-mania of Witches. Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1995. 45–55.
Calhoun, Howell V. James I and the Witch Scenes in Macbeth. The Shakespeare Association Bulletin vol. 17, no. 4, 1942, pp. 184–189.
Carroll, William C. William Shakespeare, Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999.
Goodare, Julian. The Scottish Witchcraft Act. Church History vol. 74, no. 1, 2005, pp. 39–67.
James I, King of England. Daemonologie. Curwen Press, 1924 1597.
Macbeth, Banquo and the Three Witches, the Historie of Scotlande. 1577. Woodcut, B/w Photo. Bridgeman Images: The Bridgeman Art Library. London: Bridgeman, 2014.
Newton, John, and Jo Bath. Witchcraft and the Act of 1604. Brill, 2008.
Notestein, Wallace. A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718. Thomas E. Crowley Company, 1968.
Scot, Reginald. Discoverie of Witchcraft. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1971.

Key Online Sources

Fake Newes: The King, the Devil and Propaganda During the North Berwick Witch Trials. The Universal Short Title Catalogue. https://www.ustc.ac.uk/news/fake_newes_the_king_the_devil_and_propaganda_during_the_north_berwick_witch_trials. Accessed 1 Jun. 2024.
Kramer, Heinrich, and James Sprenger. Malleus Maleficarum, transcribed by Lovelace Wicasta and Christie Jury. The Malleus Maleficarum of Heirich Kramer and James Sprenger. 2000. http://malleusmaleficarum.org/.

Prosopography

Faith Tarpley

Faith Tarpley was a student at Washington College.

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Kathryn M. Moncrief

Kathryn M. Moncrief is Paris Fletcher Distinguished Professor of Humanities and Head of Humanities and Arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, MA. She was previously Professor and Chair of English at Washington College, in Chestertown, MD where she taught courses in Shakespeare, Milton, and early modern literature and culture and received the Washington College Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Teaching. She serves as co-editor of the Shakespeare Life and Times section of the Internet Shakespeare Editions and has published widely on Shakespeare and performance. She is co-editor of Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage and Classroom in Early Modern Drama (with Kathryn McPherson and Sarah Enloe); Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction and Performance; and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (both with Kathryn McPherson). She is the author of articles published in book collections and journals, including Literary Cultures and the Child, Shaping Shakespeare for Performance, Metaliterary in Practice, Gender and Early Modern Constructions of Childhood, and Renaissance Quarterly.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Liza Conover

Liza Conover was a student at Washington College.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Tim Regan

Tim Regan was a student at Washington College.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title King James and Witchcraft
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Faith Tarpley, Liza Conover, and Tim Regan, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
Encoding description Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status published, peer-reviewed
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globalink Research Internship
Utah Valley University
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