King James and Witchcraft James and Witchcraft Author Faith Tarpley Author Liza Conover Author Tim Regan Supervising Editor Kathryn M. Moncrief Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Faith Tarpley, Liza Conover, and Tim Regan, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

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King 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.

Some 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).

The 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.

In 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.

Shakespeare’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 <quote>Newes</quote>: 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/.