INTRODUCTION

Elizabeth Bathgate lived in the small coastal town of Eyemouth in Berwickshire. Her husband, Alexander Pae, was a maltman, and the couple seem to have been comfortably off, lending money and employing more than one servant. She was caught up in a local witchcraft panic in 1633, but achieved a narrow escape in her 1634 trial with the aid of a supportive husband and effective lawyers. Her case reveals much about community interactions and about sophisticated legal argument.

The Eyemouth panic began in the summer of 1633, and gathered momentum in the autumn with accusations against Agnes Allanshaw, Agnes Wilson, Alison Wilson, Elspeth Wilson and Katherine Wilson. The privy council granted a commission of justiciary for their trial on 26 November 1633, with the commissioners including John Ramsay of Edington, sheriff depute of Berwickshire. Elizabeth Bathgate's own trial record tells us that the confessions of Agnes Wilson and Alison Wilson named Isobel Sinclair, and Bathgate herself, as fellow-witches. On 9 December, the two Wilsons were made to ‘confront’ Sinclair and Bathgate, and the Wilsons declared that Sinclair and Bathgate had been with them at the sinking of George Huldie's ship by witchcraft. A commission of justiciary for the trial of Isobel Sinclair would be granted on 14 January 1634. But Elizabeth Bathgate proved to be harder to deal with.

The prosecutors imprisoned Bathgate in the tolbooth of Duns, the head burgh of Berwickshire. The leaders of her prosecution were Sir Patrick Home of Ayton and John Home, minister of Eyemouth, who were part of the team that had driven forward the prosecutions so far. Quite possibly the Homes hoped to torture her with sleep deprivation; there was mention at her trial of testimony that had been gathered during the previous ‘watching’ of Agnes Wilson. However, Bathgate's husband, Alexander Pae, acted promptly.