Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 55 DR. DANNY BUCK - MATTHEW HOPKINS THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL

00:00:00.160 Hi, I'm Clare Mitchell, QC. Welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:05.220 I'm a lawyer who specialises in miscarriage of justice cases,

00:00:08.740 and we're bringing you this podcast because we want to tell you 0.61

00:00:11.560 about the women who were accused, prosecuted, convicted,

00:00:15.800 and ultimately executed as witches in Scotland.

00:00:18.800 I'm Zoe Vendetotsi, and I'm a writer who's always had an interest in the witches,

00:00:23.040 and I feel that this dark mark against Scotland needs a reckoning.

00:00:26.720 The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.

00:00:29.580 Firstly, a pardon for all those convicted of witchcraft.

00:00:33.120 Secondly, an apology for all those who were accused as witches.

00:00:37.420 And finally, a national monument in recognition of all those who were affected by this terrible miscarriage of justice.

00:00:44.420 Over the forthcoming weeks, we'll be talking to a whole host of experts about the history and the modern day connections to the witches of Scotland.

00:00:52.520 Hello and welcome to episode 55.

00:00:57.980 55.

00:00:59.580 five five five five one alive all the fives man alive all the fives what do we win for that this

00:01:07.440 week we want an opportunity to go on to the next one good because actually jokes aside claire joke

00:01:14.360 if you can be serious just for one minute claire mitchell qc we've actually got some fantastic

00:01:19.620 guests also lined up to interview in the next couple of weeks that are very exciting i mean

00:01:23.660 all our guests are obviously really exciting but i actually can't i can't believe how many people

00:01:28.780 we've still got on our list to interview after 55 episodes I know I know and thank you to all of

00:01:34.660 those very patient people that we contact and say oh can we interview you and they say yes and we go

00:01:40.560 cool we'll get back to you your name is on a list of people and that's everybody yeah no it's really

00:01:48.440 really amazing and I think one thing that's really nice that somebody said this week was that because

00:01:54.520 we have like a real range of different historians and experts academics so on there gives quite

00:02:00.300 different viewpoints on different things and like i think one thing that's quite interesting obviously

00:02:05.640 in light of recent events is some historian stance is different to other historian stance on whether

00:02:11.340 there should be apologies given after the fact and i think that's a really interesting and rich area

00:02:16.240 to discuss you know especially clear as i don't know if you know this but an apology was actually

00:02:23.280 issued what on international women's day i know we've already we've done a little standalone

00:02:29.160 podcast for that that we recorded on the day as sort of a bit of as you called it claire gonzo

00:02:33.260 journalism yeah so we've we've done that so i presume that all all our listeners already know

00:02:38.980 about that i think that's really interesting though to keep discussing it and i'm thinking

00:02:42.920 about it in terms of where we are now in 2022 and you know i think that's really fascinating

00:02:48.560 so I love having that range of voices. I really like the idea of historians talking about

00:02:53.360 what history is whether or not we should as they see interfering with history but I just look at

00:02:59.180 it from a completely different perspective as a non-academic a non-historian I look at it as

00:03:05.720 somebody who looks at miscarriage of justice and no time limit on justice we can go back at any

00:03:11.480 point in time and say that was wrong and identify that and I don't think that's changing history

00:03:15.900 i think that's changing our present yeah because there's one thing that i know that we're both

00:03:20.820 really passionate about which is the idea that it's not just a single sex issue and that of

00:03:25.420 course 15 of those accused were men you know we do we do know that but with 85 being women it is a

00:03:31.720 gendered issue it is for me personally and i think that because we still live in very misogynistic

00:03:37.260 times it is still pertinent because to me it explains a certain part of the structure of

00:03:43.400 patriarchy that's in place for hundreds of years which of course had already been in place for

00:03:47.220 hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before that but we're not out of the woods on that one

00:03:51.340 so to me to address that it shines a light on modern misogyny modern sexism and if people can't

00:03:57.320 get that then those men just maybe need to think a bit more about it and I think that's why so many

00:04:02.500 women just immediately when they think about what we're talking about click with them I'm not saying

00:04:06.540 that all women are necessarily behind it but certainly the vast majority of our supporters

00:04:11.260 of women and we've got lots of really great male supporters too but the negative voices are almost

00:04:16.960 always men and they're almost always men saying something along the lines of let it go hen just

00:04:23.360 that was hundreds of years ago or making jokes saying them oh am i going to get money for my

00:04:28.160 family or the reparations just to make this really clear we're not looking for reparations we just

00:04:33.540 want it to be talked about and we just want people to recognize that it's a serious thing

00:04:38.140 but I tell you see with the misogyny Claire with things that have been written over the last few

00:04:42.640 weeks it's amazing the the sexism in comments of people that are negative there's still

00:04:48.400 comment after comment after comment about particularly the first minister particularly 0.96

00:04:54.100 about Nicola Sturgeon she's a witch she's a witch is she doing this for herself is it you know she 1.00

00:04:59.140 can protect herself when you come it's just pathetic like get it boys it's also lazy it's 1.00

00:05:04.940 like what how long did it take you to think that and write that down that's you know yes new gags 0.98

00:05:10.240 guys why do you think sharing that with the world is adding any value to anything do you think your

00:05:16.720 mom's proud of you i don't think she is i don't think she's ashamed of you ladies and gentlemen 0.57

00:05:22.880 just just zoe's shaking her head in a forlorn fashion when she's sad like a sad sad i i i

00:05:30.900 anyway so what else have we got in the news apart from that big marvelous thing apart from the fact

00:05:37.220 that on international wednesday nicola sturgeon gave an apology and we've already linked that in

00:05:43.340 the last episode we'll not go over that again we were also in the news this week zoe and some

00:05:49.860 very exciting news for us yeah i'm still sort of like i'm still shaking my head in disbelief

00:05:56.200 this one claire not for you like i think i can understand why you have had this nomination because

00:06:01.920 you're the great and the good in the legal world but claire and i have been named as finalists

00:06:07.940 in the scottish women of the year awards which is super exciting and i don't think we'll win

00:06:15.320 you should see the list of the other people that are finalists they're really fantastic i don't

00:06:19.300 think we'll win but i don't care if we don't win because i'm just gonna for the rest of my life go

00:06:23.500 well i as you know i was a finalist in the scottish women of the year awards i'm not gonna

00:06:29.340 let that go no absolutely i've been so delighted with it all week it's so long running it's been

00:06:34.440 going on since 1963 there are some really amazing women that have been involved in the process when

00:06:40.420 you look through you go on the website you can look through and see all the the different people

00:06:44.400 that have been involved and then yeah it's just hugely flattering when i opened the email first

00:06:49.460 of all I mean I know we both got emails about you've not opened email I was like nah this is

00:06:53.220 going to be some spam email that if I open up it's going to be sent to everyone else on my list as

00:06:57.660 well I just didn't believe it but it's quite shocking so so that will be announced on the

00:07:04.020 31st of March so I don't think there's any voting from the public or anything like that I think that

00:07:08.780 we've been nominated we don't know who by and then I think a panel then decides who the winner is

00:07:14.340 Yeah, I think for the Young Scots Women of the Year, there's voting.

00:07:17.760 That is a vote, isn't it? 1.00

00:07:19.120 Not for the old ones.

00:07:21.200 I think it's definitely worth having a look.

00:07:23.000 If you Google it, Scottish Women of the Year 2021,

00:07:25.620 there's a bit in it where you can vote for the Young Scots Women of the Year.

00:07:29.700 And the young women that are up for that one are doing really amazing things.

00:07:33.500 So it's definitely worth getting involved in that.

00:07:35.260 I've cast my vote for that one.

00:07:37.100 So I'm pleased.

00:07:38.260 I'll look forward to meeting them on the night when we go along

00:07:41.620 and meet the other finalists.

00:07:43.000 but what else is there in the news Claire? Well I mean talk about a news week we've had

00:07:48.720 so on the 16th of this very month just a few days ago Danny Garavelli and Caitlin Smith

00:07:56.480 had a BBC Radio 4 documentary called The Witch's Pardon and what happened was that they followed

00:08:05.200 us about during parts of the campaign they were with us on International Women's Day they went

00:08:10.720 to speak to other people about their interest in the witch trials about the modern day issues of

00:08:16.100 misogyny and really um really got it you know what if you if you have the opportunity go on BBC

00:08:23.580 Sounds and listen to it it comes up just under the witch's pardon if you put in the word witches

00:08:28.820 it'll come up and it's definitely worth a listen because it's half an hour it really gets it it

00:08:35.240 talks to so many people they speak to who's zoe they speak to sylvia federici emeritus professor

00:08:42.800 they speak to doug spears which is fantastic they speak to professor goodair nathalie dawn msp 0.99

00:08:53.480 yeah it was great the bit where she's going around they're trying to show her where the

00:08:58.040 memorial is in paisley it's really really funny when some woman flags them down and points them

00:09:03.140 direction of it so yeah a really really brilliant listen and they got so much of the story into

00:09:09.560 that time that I think if anyone's asking what's the witchcraft stuff that you're into about and

00:09:15.980 you know why are you interested in getting a pardon and apology it's just a brilliant half

00:09:20.280 an hour that says it all really yeah no it's definitely definitely worth having a look at

00:09:24.980 And Zoe, not only did we hit the media in the UK, we also had some US media this week.

00:09:33.440 Yes, really, really nice, actually.

00:09:35.640 We spoke to a journalist from CBS for their morning news show, I think it is.

00:09:40.380 So that was really great.

00:09:41.440 And the journalist we spoke to there, she was very interested because, you know, like I'm sure lots of Americans,

00:09:46.600 she knew a little bit about Salem, but didn't really know anything about what happened in Scotland previously.

00:09:51.140 So it was really nice to talk to her and hopefully we'll get some new people listening.

00:09:54.980 Or people that are already in will be able to listen to us talking on their morning news show.

00:10:00.580 Yeah, I was just really excited.

00:10:02.640 It was like when the Wall Street Journal had something about us on it.

00:10:06.080 It's those big names of those American corporations that you hear about.

00:10:10.340 I never think that anyone would ever ask you.

00:10:12.680 But yeah, so if we get any links to that, we'll share them with you.

00:10:16.880 I'm not sure whether or not we can, but we'll definitely try for that.

00:10:20.440 So Zoe, I think that's probably enough news for this week.

00:10:23.520 yes so this week we've been contacted by one of our listeners who actually we had the pleasure

00:10:30.420 of meeting on international women's day on the top of calton hill she came along to see laurie

00:10:35.580 graham's amazing art piece there that sort of spectacle and it was lovely to meet her in the

00:10:41.120 flesh but elisa had written to us and i think we'll probably have her on a show in the future

00:10:46.120 but she's been doing some research and i thought that that would be nice to to look at who she's

00:10:51.600 researched into for the people that we're going to remember for today so she's been looking into

00:10:56.280 the witch trials in Peebles and I think I'd maybe met up on Twitter and then in real life with Mary

00:11:02.940 Craig to discuss what she knew about Peebles and about what she'd written about in her book and

00:11:07.940 people of course that are listening will know that Mary Craig is a past guest and is fascinating and

00:11:12.500 has written extensively about this area and is a real font of knowledge for it so the two of them

00:11:17.680 working together and elisa has gone on and researched one particular case in peoples so

00:11:23.540 there's a big list apparently that were accused of witchcraft in the tweedale area but the main

00:11:28.620 case that stands out for her was in peoples in 1629 where a remarkably long list of 27 people

00:11:35.360 were about to trial at the same time so mary has done lots of research into it but it's very

00:11:40.940 difficult elisa says to pinpoint the first moment or reason that the 27 were accused but in may 1629

00:11:47.340 There were lots of rumours flying around about the individuals in the group, which included things like three of the women accused had tended to the sick the previous year, but none of them themselves had fallen ill.

00:11:57.220 A neighbour of one of the accused had an argument with them, and the next day their horse had gone lame.

00:12:01.320 So your real kind of classic accusations.

00:12:04.640 The presbytery and Peebles called in local folk to ask questions, and within days, the 27 names were given to the Baileys and sheriffs of Peebles, Dalkeith and Glasgow.

00:12:14.020 and they were told to search for apprehend arrest and interrogate said accused persons several of

00:12:20.760 the accused had made a run for it but they were eventually all apprehended and brought to peoples

00:12:24.520 for interrogation one of the accused isabel haddock who was recorded as being a young girl

00:12:29.960 was the first to confess and that's in inverted commas under the pressure she told the baileys

00:12:35.640 that she had visited a local place called tor hill where she'd met with the devil and others

00:12:39.660 that come with her she agreed to name the others and I like the use of the word agreed there because

00:12:44.140 you know as we'll know it was probably under extreme duress absolutely not agreement at all

00:12:49.120 and upon this confession all of the other 26 people broke down and confessed to and the trial

00:12:55.760 was set for the 11th of July the 27 people had no representation in court and they didn't put up a

00:13:01.600 fight by the end of the trial 24 had been found guilty and three were not proven five days later

00:13:07.580 the 24 were walked barefoot and bareheaded to a place called the calf no in peoples where they

00:13:13.260 were worried and then burned in tar barrels oh so sad despite receiving a verdict of not proven

00:13:19.740 the remaining three people were retained in custody and at the next presbytery session they

00:13:24.300 discussed how to proceed with them it was felt that if the other 24 had been guilty then how

00:13:28.800 could these three not be the three people were kept in custody all summer and autumn and were

00:13:33.400 finally retried on december 22nd 1629 where they all received surprisingly a guilty verdict they

00:13:40.780 were then taken to calf no strangled and burned as well on christmas eve it said that the minister

00:13:46.000 archibald said had led his flock directly from the execution site to the kirk for the midnight

00:13:51.200 christmas service i mean you can't get any more brutal than that i just don't understand that at

00:13:55.960 all so people's is a small town today and in 1629 it would have been barely even a large village

00:14:02.140 the idea of 27 people from the local area being put to death during the second half of the year

00:14:07.100 is unthinkable and it would have affected everyone in the area there's no doubt

00:14:10.800 so Elisa has asked that we read out the names and the story of these people

00:14:15.060 so that they are highlighted and she says quite rightly there are many others but this is such

00:14:20.560 a tragic case that she felt it needed to be told to the world so here are the names okay

00:14:24.720 Agnes Chalmers, Susanna Elphinstone, Margaret Yerkin, William Thompson, William Matheson, Thomas Stoddart, Agnes Robeson, Catherine Brune, Marie Jonestown, which is maybe Johnston, Janet Henderson, Agnes Thompson, Catherine Wode, Marion Crozier, Isabel Haddock, Gilbert Hogg, Jean Watson, Margaret Dixon, Margaret Johnston, Janet Aitchison,

00:14:54.720 Bessie Ear, Catherine Alexander, Helen Beattie, Margaret Gowanlock, Marion Boyd, Catherine

00:15:02.360 Mearshell, Patrick Linton and John the Joke Graham. So Elise's hope is that eventually a memorial will

00:15:09.540 be erected in Peebles to recognise the lives lost in the town and she also hopes they can create a

00:15:15.060 space in the local museum to have a permanent record of the witch trials. She says that she's

00:15:19.440 obviously in support of the national state memorial and the apology she wrote this before

00:15:24.660 we received the apology and most importantly a pardon so she's she's very much a supporter so

00:15:30.060 elisa thank you so much for getting in touch and hopefully we'll get you on at some point you can

00:15:34.440 talk to us about that as well yeah thank you that's so kind and we remember those women and men

00:15:40.180 killed as witches who were in fact just ordinary folk

00:15:49.440 so today's guest is danny buck who we met again on twitter who's a really interesting person to

00:15:58.040 follow he's a norwich-based researcher who's just completed his thesis presbyterianism urban

00:16:04.300 politics and division the 1645 great yarmouth witch hunt in context at the uea which is the

00:16:11.200 university of east anglia supervised by none other than professor malcolm gaskill and professor

00:16:16.660 Polly Ha. He has worked to understand the political and religious divisions that lay

00:16:20.700 behind witch hunting in 17th century Great Yarmouth, exploring

00:16:24.620 the nature of urban politics, religious divisions and Puritanism.

00:16:28.280 This has led to articles on his diverse topics as

00:16:31.640 Herring Piracy and Astrology, interesting, including a chapter in

00:16:36.100 Routledge's Folklore, Magic and Witchcraft Cultural Exchanges in the 12th

00:16:40.260 to 18th century. You can find him on Twitter at DannyBuckyUEA.

00:16:46.660 hi danny and welcome to the podcast we're delighted to have you on so hello hello thank

00:17:00.560 you for inviting me now of course we've got in touch with you because we interact with you on

00:17:05.020 twitter and it's one of the sort of the nice corners of twitter it's historical twitter i

00:17:10.160 think there's a lot of really good well-behaved polite intelligent curious people that are

00:17:15.660 interacting under under the history banner on twitter so that's of course where we met you in

00:17:20.700 speech marks in quotations not actual meeting but it's nice to kind of meet you in this area and

00:17:26.500 we've brought you on today we've invited you on today because you obviously have an interest in

00:17:31.600 our subject area so i think maybe the first thing would be really useful if you tell the listeners

00:17:36.120 who you are and what you do so i'm danny i spent the last decade of my life looking at the witch

00:17:43.360 chanting Great Yarmouth possibly longer than I needed to but it's been a really exciting process

00:17:48.880 previous to that I did an undergraduate with Perry Gorsi at Oxford he's a lovely chap and he'd written

00:17:55.560 this fantastic book about Great Yarmouth during the restoration and beyond and he comes to me

00:18:01.920 when I'm thinking about doing a dissertation he says there's something weird going on in Great

00:18:05.760 Yarmouth during the 1640s why don't you take a look so I did I thought that's really interesting

00:18:10.620 There's this really interesting religious problem. 0.52

00:18:12.800 You know, people starting to fall apart. 0.94

00:18:15.080 And, you know, I've finished that off and I think I've tried the real world.

00:18:17.700 I don't like it. I should continue back at academia.

00:18:20.460 I end up at the UEA under the fantastic Malcolm Gaskell.

00:18:23.440 Have you chatted with him yet?

00:18:24.600 Malcolm is slated to appear hopefully very soon.

00:18:28.040 He's a super busy guy, but I am so excited about speaking to him.

00:18:32.520 He's a fantastic supervisor.

00:18:33.860 He's a real loss to the profession that he's decided he, you know, wants to get on with other things.

00:18:37.940 but obviously his great work was on Matthew Hopkins witch hunt and he says all this political

00:18:42.760 weirdness you're looking at Danny doesn't it centre at the same point as Matthew Hopkins

00:18:47.200 a rise in Great Yarmouth and I go that is very weird and he encourages me down this line of

00:18:53.420 thought and I ended up in this weird hybrid of taking a more political look at witch hunting

00:18:59.260 ever since and it's been a really really interesting journey. I am so glad we have

00:19:05.300 touched upon other witches in England but but we've never got as far down as where you are

00:19:12.040 so can you tell us what was happening at that time of the witchcraft accusations you're going to tell

00:19:20.340 us about what was the the political things that were happening at the time? East Anglia is really

00:19:26.220 interesting because again like a lot of the areas affected by the witch hunt in Scotland it's a place

00:19:32.620 where there's a collapse of the central government quite often so because there's a civil war on

00:19:38.060 judges can't arrive in east anglia the army's in control under the eastern association trials

00:19:44.720 aren't being run by central court judges by circuit sizes they're being run by local people

00:19:50.800 who obviously are then being driven by their fears of witchcraft it's also a point of real

00:19:57.700 tension but there's not been a collapse in total government you know the town I'm looking at Great

00:20:03.560 Yarmouth is like many others they're very centrally run boroughs they've been given the right to pick

00:20:07.980 their own governors their own judges their own little communities but they've lost the sense

00:20:13.880 of people telling them what to do and they're kind of confused and lost the civil war itself

00:20:18.720 which is affecting all free kingdoms of Britain is having a tremendous effect on East Anglia

00:20:24.580 not as bad as say the places like in the midlands or in the north where there's armies tramping

00:20:30.960 upwards and downwards instead there's problems with starvation with people moving out the

00:20:36.940 countryside the fear of invasion it's a really tense time and it's not surprising then that

00:20:43.860 people see this in apocalyptic religious terms in east anglia particularly it's been a heartland

00:20:49.980 of Puritanism so again the kind of Calvinists who feel inspired by what's going on in Scotland

00:20:55.240 but maybe don't always entirely agree with it but also by people who go further than that in

00:21:01.420 particular the town I'm looking at Great Yarmouth has an issue of Congregationalists so these are

00:21:07.360 people who don't believe in this one central kirk or church or elders and presbyters they want every

00:21:13.100 little separate congregation and more than that we have people like Quakers I hope I get to talk

00:21:18.220 more about them because they're very fun but they are accused of the worst heresy since time began

00:21:23.880 and there's this real fear of communities falling apart divided amongst themselves

00:21:28.820 and sometimes one of the things I wonder and one of the things I've argued in my thesis

00:21:34.360 is that the witch as well as being literally a woman who you don't trust in your community

00:21:40.440 usually the witch is also standing for the heretics or the rebels or the people dividing

00:21:47.060 your community that in many ways the witch is the ultimate heretic instead of just a slightly

00:21:52.260 different religious view they're literally joining team satan so all this is going on and it's it 0.92

00:21:57.520 feeds into this air of chaos and disorder which creates such a fertile soil for witchcraft

00:22:04.080 accusations yeah that's exactly what i was going to say that is the fertile soil that we see up in

00:22:09.540 scotland as well the reformation poverty hardship people trying to outdo one another for godliness

00:22:17.700 um before you go on and talk about matthew hopkins why the quakers what's so interesting about them

00:22:24.160 well there's a very odd man who turns up in great young a man called john bogus

00:22:28.700 originally he's part of a regiment of cavalry led by charles fleetwood i think it's charles

00:22:35.120 there's several different fleet was in the civil war and you need to be very careful you know i

00:22:39.740 expect i'll get plenty of emails about which fleet would it really is but he was in pause

00:22:43.460 a cavalry officer and he was a man whose religious views were unorthodox and he brings with him a

00:22:50.120 group of people uh i think the word is a doctor called lawrence clark but this john bogus who's

00:22:54.780 you know starts off as this doctor's mate he is able to get into great yarmouth and become

00:23:00.440 to remember the community there but he starts making a fuss of himself you know he starts doing

00:23:05.480 saying things like the bibles but paper and when they're having dinner and after they're saying

00:23:10.720 grace who are you saying grace to it's just this real nuisance and it escalates so you've got the 0.54

00:23:17.480 the local good puritan vicar is sitting there having dinner and then bogus and his mates burst

00:23:24.160 in and demand a theological debate how tedious they were worst at dinner parties exactly you're 1.00

00:23:32.960 just having a nice time and then suddenly these quakers come in and were quakers in those days

00:23:39.360 what i think the quakers are now so quakers were anti-war and there's no ministers such as there

00:23:45.420 and the quakers all sit around in circle and then they just think and reflect it's quite hard to

00:23:51.140 tell in that partly this is just a name used for a group of people it doesn't become condensed into

00:23:55.460 the modern quakers the the pacifists we know today at this time and you know like a lot of

00:24:01.340 these religious terms like puritan and others it's meant as an insult but bog is certainly

00:24:06.400 he seems to be someone who thinks a lot and forms grouping but he you know obviously he spent time

00:24:12.000 in the army he's not quite a pacifist yeah well i was wondering that or had that completely put

00:24:17.340 him off or I'm not sure obviously he quit the regiment to become a nuisance in Great Yarmouth

00:24:22.540 because they they went off to fight and he remains there but unfortunately I most of what we know

00:24:28.900 about him is from this angry letter from the vicar of Great Yarmouth saying about what an awful time

00:24:34.440 he's had of him couldn't be any more British sort of dare I say English that we're we know about it

00:24:41.420 from angry lists i mean the amount of sources that i rely on is just angry vicars well it's two of

00:24:47.860 them which is quite a lot considering when well no three of them if i have a vicar's son again one

00:24:53.460 of my other favorite records from early on startly list which related is from the previous vicar a

00:24:59.700 man called matthew brooks he's a calvinist but he's a conformist one he's very happy with charles

00:25:05.280 the first very pretty church but the local puritans hate him and so he sends this five

00:25:10.900 page petition to parliament about all the mean things that happened to him some of it's really

00:25:15.900 touching like this poor fellow um he goes to parliament to defend himself from the local

00:25:21.600 puritans and so when he's away he leaves his poor pregnant wife with their eight children at home 0.83

00:25:28.300 oh it's eight children eight children she's looking after the house in the middle of the

00:25:33.980 in February there's a local group get together they build a bonfire in the street and they start

00:25:40.460 burning it up burning it up and three of them are supposedly in fancy dress as the three most

00:25:44.840 important people of the kingdom I think one of them's got to be the archbishop of Canterbury

00:25:47.980 got to be lord not sure about the other two and they go to one of the bailiffs which is

00:25:51.940 great yarmouth's equivalent of a mayor and he provides them with lots of booze they seem very 0.78

00:25:56.940 jolly and angry and they decide to go and knock on this door so you imagine this poor woman alone

00:26:03.160 with her eight children heavily pregnant and he goes we demand entry for the archbishop of

00:26:08.220 canterbury presuming this guy dressed up and it's the things we go puritans there's such a mixed bag

00:26:14.440 they're people yeah i thought puritans didn't drink my i would just like to add the caveat

00:26:19.740 my understanding of puritans is almost entirely down to horrible histories

00:26:23.840 that's even more than i've got i don't even have horrible histories my understanding is

00:26:30.320 They had very functional names and there was absolutely no drinking, from my understanding. 0.92

00:26:36.400 So to hear them getting dressed up and being silly and frivolous and drunk is quite raucous, boggling. 0.58

00:26:43.700 Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question with that, because the Puritans, the people, as again with the witch function, which we get back to that. 0.81

00:26:51.740 These are the people who lead it, the people who are involved in bringing in, inviting in Matthew Hopkins, 0.50

00:26:57.060 the people who pay for the trials who pay for the witnesses who pay for the women who search for the

00:27:03.760 bodies of the witches are this godly elite but they're also sponsoring people to get angry and

00:27:09.940 drunk and attack the local vicar you know there's this fascinating dichotomy you know some of the

00:27:15.860 time they're paying money to pay for the new schools new workhouse is to help the poor

00:27:20.140 and then others they just are they trying to drum up a fear of the devil what do you think the

00:27:26.240 purpose of what they were doing was there's this desire for purity constantly the desire to so

00:27:31.860 partly this vicar Matthew Brooks has replaced the previous vicar a man called John Brinsley

00:27:36.020 the one who was complaining about the Quaker who's been there since about 1625 on and off

00:27:42.020 and they want to bring him back they want to finally get rid of this interloper who's been

00:27:47.040 told to you know he's got to he's put back all the stained glass he's moved the pulpit around

00:27:52.320 He's very confrontational.

00:27:53.800 He's very, you know, promoting this higher church, 1.00

00:27:56.780 this Lordian, pretty church, which the Puritans don't like.

00:28:00.240 And is this the father of eight? 0.63

00:28:01.320 Is the father of eight the interloper?

00:28:03.260 The father of eight's the interloper, Matthew Brooks.

00:28:05.480 Yeah, trying to keep all this in my head has been fun.

00:28:07.560 It's a lot of characters.

00:28:09.080 So he didn't fit in with the norm then at that time.

00:28:11.960 Yeah, the religious norm in the town is these wealthy merchants

00:28:16.960 made their money selling hoses or beeswax

00:28:21.760 or travelling backwards and forwards to the North Sea.

00:28:24.940 They're the people who run the place who are very heavily Puritan.

00:28:27.580 They love having, they pay for Brinsley, they support him

00:28:31.080 and they, you know, there are rumours of women, wives

00:28:35.120 bullying this vicar that just had enough of this interloper.

00:28:39.240 And then how does that then seg into the witch hunts and witch trials?

00:28:43.400 So, again, we've got this fascinating religious dichotomy that John Brinsley, the Puritan vicar who comes back, he's become deeply entwined with the witch hunt.

00:28:53.600 We have two very good accounts of the witch hunts in Great Yarmouth, one of whom is a satirical royalist poem, which is the one I talk about in the talk you may have seen online.

00:29:04.000 the second very good account of the witch hunter great yarmouth is by sir matthew hale who you've

00:29:09.660 probably heard of as one of the leading legal experts and hate of witches when he was at

00:29:15.040 university he met the son of the assistant to john brinsley in great yarmouth who supposedly told him

00:29:21.740 all about the witch hunt and mentioned that the woman accused a woman by the name of elizabeth

00:29:27.420 Bradwell she had been calling for charity at the church met John Brinsley and it was John Brinsley

00:29:35.180 as Puritan minister who actually got the confession from her that she'd been practicing witchcraft

00:29:39.940 and you think you know what's kind of going on there so again you've got this this dichotomy

00:29:44.660 between they're providing charity they're looking after the poorest in their community

00:29:48.000 but they're also the people who are getting confessions out of them. I think that's one of

00:29:52.980 the saddest accusations of witchcraft is when people come asking for alms and not only don't

00:29:59.440 get them, but then are blamed for bad things that happen. We don't know why then he chose this woman

00:30:05.900 to blame for witchcraft. Well, this woman, she had a bit of a history with one of the local

00:30:10.760 leading merchants, a man called Henry Moulton. So Henry Moulton, again, he's a wealthy clothing

00:30:16.900 merchant he's you know living a pretty good life but he's getting on a bit he's got a young son

00:30:23.560 and he's left the young son at home he's again seen as to be a very godly man the account I was

00:30:29.580 talking about from Matthew Hale stresses that Henry Moulton was always going to church he was

00:30:34.500 doing his prayers regularly and Elizabeth Bradwell comes to his house she's not even asking for

00:30:40.300 charity she's asking for work but she doesn't get any she then says well can I have some charity

00:30:45.580 nothing so she leaves angry and again in what's quite a common story you've mentioned lots of

00:30:51.580 times I'm sure she goes back home she feels angry and then a man in black comes to her in the middle 0.80

00:30:58.940 of the night and offers her money he offers her revenge but only if she signs his little black

00:31:04.360 book in blood so again she makes her mark and then he promises her revenge so first of all

00:31:11.340 she wants revenge on henry moulton his man of business the man she dealt with or a maid

00:31:16.460 and all of those are too godly they can't be hurt according to matthew hale's account

00:31:21.260 so the devil suggests why not henry moulton's young son so he gives her this little wax poppet

00:31:28.080 she sticks a pin in according to the account she buries in the churchyard and this poor child

00:31:33.780 you know is ill for a year and a half so you can imagine how henry moulton's going to be concerned

00:31:39.640 is wasting away this child finally puts the connection together and again it's understandable

00:31:45.020 you know in a time of hardship when charity is going to be difficult to manage their increased

00:31:49.780 taxation trades really bad because there's some bad piracy in the north sea he makes that connection

00:31:55.580 and then she supposedly makes this confession to the local vicar so no no hopkins involved

00:32:02.040 so no hopkins involved up to this stage so let me get this right the writing in the book and the

00:32:08.140 blood and the man coming to her in black that was information which they got from her as a

00:32:14.940 confession yes do we know she says somewhat cynically do we know whether or not she was

00:32:20.020 tortured or denied sleep which is obviously another form of torture do we just not know

00:32:26.320 about that according to Matthew Hale's account no sleep torture is mentioned that's not to say

00:32:32.940 it didn't happen just to say the person recalling the story to to hail it's quite disjointed it's

00:32:41.080 relatively short but we do know she was in prison for a couple of months because again we get the

00:32:45.760 initial accusation i believe in april and then the actual comes to court in september i wonder

00:32:51.200 at what point in her imprisonment she gave the account i wonder how quickly she gave it

00:32:56.700 hmm so at what point does Matthew Hopkins come into Great Yarmouth's story well I've got the

00:33:04.600 fantastic quote it's the corporation so the people who run Great Yarmouth in August 1645

00:33:10.860 invite the witch finder Hopkins to make search for such wicked persons if any be here right so

00:33:18.380 again it comes from above that the people of the corporation the people who are supposed to be

00:33:22.860 running this town for the benefit of the entire community but they're again an unelected merchant

00:33:30.220 oligarchy that's self-selected over the last 20-30 years decides that the problem's got so bad with

00:33:36.480 all these accusations they need to bring in Matthew Hopkins. Was Matthew Hopkins by this stage already 0.57

00:33:42.240 the famous witch finder or was he early in his career what stage was he at? This is I think about

00:33:49.920 six or seven months in after what started in Essex. So he's been involved in the early trials

00:33:56.020 there. He's already been traveling across the country. This is getting almost quite late in

00:34:01.040 his career. It's when things are starting to unravel a bit. There are 11 people accused of

00:34:06.040 witchcraft in total. Six of them are convicted and five are hanged. Compare that to, say, the

00:34:11.760 earlier trials where you get quite high conviction rates from Matthew Hopkins. There's been a little

00:34:17.700 bit more cynicism about him and his methodology oh that's very interesting so he comes to town

00:34:26.220 yes what does he do does he interview all the people how does he go about his task

00:34:32.760 now we've got limited evidence of what he's up to so compared to other towns where it's mentioned

00:34:38.980 that he's searching bodies he's providing evidence we know he was in the court we know he's invited

00:34:47.020 to the town however the searchers the women who are hired to search the bodies for the marks that

00:34:54.040 would show that they've made a pact with the devil are drawn from great yarmouth community

00:34:58.180 are their midwives i think he's mentioned that they're they're paid too much because there's a

00:35:03.840 a note from the corporation of great yarmouth saying that we spent a lot of money on this we

00:35:09.200 need to make sure if we do this in future we're only going to pay six of them um interesting that

00:35:14.560 when when that sort of the common myth is that those accused were women who were midwives it's

00:35:20.740 quite interesting to think that in this case it was midwives that were actually sort of rooting

00:35:26.800 out who the witches the accused were that's quite curious to me actually yes well they're being

00:35:32.720 pretty well paid they're obviously treated as experts yeah they paid 12 pence a day for their

00:35:37.380 services and in future only four women to be employed so elizabeth har wade and three other

00:35:42.800 midwives of her choice so these are obviously very respectful women who are trusted to pursue

00:35:49.680 the witch hunt and is there any sort of a note of how many women they deemed were not witches

00:35:56.460 yes so we first of all we've got the first round of witch hunting where we've got two men but the

00:36:02.580 other nine are women so therefore of those six were seen to be witches but one of them was let

00:36:10.260 ago i think they said that they were possibly too old to be hanged interesting then we have a second

00:36:14.740 round of accusations that happened at the time of the witch hunt itself there's a further six women

00:36:20.320 accused but none of them are found guilty which again is very interesting that you've had people

00:36:27.060 inspired by fear but the second round of witch hunts we have no evidence there that the people

00:36:32.760 involved are wealthy people like henry moulton seem a lot poorer and the women themselves there's

00:36:38.220 two of them who seem to be illegitimate so they're very low down but they still seem to be connected

00:36:43.220 to other people well lots of the people accused in the first round they don't seem to note there's

00:36:48.340 any men around them they were spinsters or widows and that's actually according more with the idea

00:36:56.620 of the people that were accused of witchcraft in scotland that they were all older that they were

00:37:01.480 all single and of course some of them were but in fact the demographic doesn't bear out that it was

00:37:06.860 the majority of them so that's interesting in this case it actually was more the stereotype

00:37:11.740 the idea of people find as witches and did they execute women in the same way in england as they

00:37:18.620 did in scotland in england they are hanging witches i believe some of them were burnt in

00:37:23.760 scotland but again it can vary from place to place again in great yarmouth they were all hanged

00:37:29.640 as convicted apart from the one who was let go but obviously you know i think as marian gibson

00:37:33.900 talked about there was example of a woman in ips which she was burnt because she was murdering her

00:37:39.600 husband yeah that was what was that petite yeah yeah yeah and then did they destroy the accused

00:37:48.400 but all the guilties bodies as well i believe they were buried outside the churchyard but i've

00:37:56.400 not actually seen that much evidence of where they were buried that's something i ought to

00:37:59.500 check up on so thank you we know that in scotland generally they destroyed the bodies they burned

00:38:06.060 the bodies afterwards and they were generally not burned in scotland they were um we've been told

00:38:10.860 garroted or hanged and then they burned the bodies and we've heard recently from one historian i

00:38:16.560 forget quite who that they were garroted on basically a pyre and then once they'd been

00:38:23.080 garroted it was then set on fire that might have been marian that told us that possibly marian

00:38:27.620 gibson i'm not sure but there is obviously a myth that all the witches are burnt at the stake but

00:38:32.680 we know that that's not the case generally can i ask going back to hopkins because it's such a big

00:38:39.240 name what was it that made him famous in his role and was he called the witch finder general

00:38:47.640 i mean he certainly called himself the witch finder general the big thing about hopkins

00:38:53.720 why he's so fantastic as a character he's a self-propagandist as that's it right okay so

00:39:01.360 partly he's pulling on a heritage you know in his tank lots of people sent out for the army to make

00:39:08.460 sure they had money to make sure they had food to support the army but they also sent out a man

00:39:13.440 called William Dowsey his job was to break things for being too catholic too papist too pretty so

00:39:20.880 he'd go around the churches and he'd just smash things. We know so much about it because he kept

00:39:25.560 a diary of everything he destroyed. It's a fantastic resource. But as Malcolm, who I'm sure

00:39:32.880 will talk more about this, has pointed out, the route that Hopkins takes to start off with, him

00:39:39.460 and his associates John Stern, follows the route that Dowsing took. He is, while Dowsing was employed

00:39:46.940 by the eastern association for the local military authorities to do this hopkins is kind of aping

00:39:51.680 this he follows the same kind of route and while he doesn't have an official job from the eastern

00:39:58.000 association for the military authorities to go and witch hunt he acts like he does which i think

00:40:03.980 is quite important he gives himself authority so he just he just turns up identifies himself as the

00:40:12.440 witch finder general and then without any authority from anyone inserts himself into these historical

00:40:19.960 trials the first trial he's a part of so he's in Essex again Gaskell Malcolm will probably

00:40:28.380 be annoyed at me for massacring the story he tells it so much better but what he does

00:40:34.160 is he was part of this trial where he's feels like he's threatened by the local witches back

00:40:39.420 in his community in huntingdonshire i think at one point he talks about being threatened by this huge

00:40:44.520 black dog on the road he knows he's on to something he's on to this giant witchcraft conspiracy

00:40:50.900 and so therefore he gains a reputation the court at the trials for providing evidence for knowing

00:40:58.680 all these methodologies he's obviously read his james the first slash sixth on the demonology

00:41:04.280 so brings up things like swimming and pricking all this stuff he's well equipped with the knowledge

00:41:11.100 so therefore he gains a reputation from that so he's then invited by the next community

00:41:15.780 to come in so as his reputation builds he's invited and one of the things i find interesting

00:41:23.380 about this process is one of the people i look at in great yarmouth is an mp a man called miles

00:41:29.600 Corbett. Miles Corbett, his other job, his day job, is called the recorder, which basically means like

00:41:36.700 a judge slash legal expert for the town. He's also the legal expert for Aldborough, which is again

00:41:42.680 slightly further down the coast in Suffolk, and he's the recorder for Kingsling. Each of those

00:41:48.920 are towns. Matthew Hopkins is invited to come and visit. He does a little hunt there, less successful

00:41:55.180 as he goes along the coast but you've got this sense that you know uh miles corbett sees himself

00:42:00.180 as a godly man later involved as a regicide he sees in hopkins someone who's doing good work for

00:42:08.520 the godly cause and maybe he's the one who's inviting him to each community ah so as his

00:42:16.680 legitimacy grows by inserting himself into the first trial then getting a name for himself then

00:42:21.680 going to the next place of course it would be a hand of god that would be guiding him

00:42:26.320 to these things if he's a godly man and he's searching out these people as witches do we

00:42:32.040 have any idea how many people hopkins accused of witchcraft or how many trials he was in

00:42:38.300 i don't think he accuses that many people so i think he's linked to one trial these early trials

00:42:45.580 in Essex what what he does instead is he provides this role of expert witness like almost the

00:42:52.940 pathologist he's someone who has the knowledge he knows the connections he knows what he's looking

00:42:56.900 for and he makes it convincing so he's linked to swimming he's linked to now is swimming the idea

00:43:04.520 that witches would sink yes that he couldn't swim what's that no they're rejected by the water

00:43:10.280 they float upwards yes they're repelled by the water yeah and that's something to do with their

00:43:15.480 baptism because they've announced their baptism so water will repel them so they can't swim

00:43:20.480 yes okay and i think the worst example of that is in framlingham where an 80 year old vicar a man

00:43:27.840 called john lowes if i remember correctly he is brought into the castle moat at framlingham

00:43:33.980 and you know he's obviously a frail doddery vicar who's just again a little bit too conformist for

00:43:41.440 the local puritans and he's forced to be swum he raises up and then he's hung so hopkins but also 0.57

00:43:51.500 we have to remember it's not just hopkins he's got his assistant stern who so hopkins i think

00:43:55.780 travels mostly along the east coast stern goes slightly further inland and then goes on further

00:44:01.140 to Ely and

00:44:03.240 into the Fens

00:44:03.980 and these times that you've looked at in Great Yarmouth

00:44:07.560 are they the height of the

00:44:09.260 witch hunts in that area

00:44:11.060 I think this is getting basically towards

00:44:13.280 the point where it's starting to

00:44:15.060 die off

00:44:15.960 that people are becoming more cynical

00:44:19.000 about Hopkins, again he is

00:44:20.920 quite expensive, his services

00:44:22.720 you have to pay for him to come to your town

00:44:25.040 he has to stay somewhat nice because he's a gentleman

00:44:27.160 he's of decent status

00:44:28.600 but also you're having to pay for the assistance

00:44:31.000 and it's a time when the war is going well for parliament but it's starting to not look great

00:44:38.560 for Puritans that the new army the new model army that's being created has been dominated by the

00:44:43.860 religiously radical and by people who these towns of Puritans don't like it's almost like this 0.88

00:44:48.500 moment where the witch hunt to me seems really possible because there's a lot of Puritans who

00:44:56.060 believe in this idea of Presbyterianism, like the Scottish church, one united church. So heretics 0.99

00:45:02.240 like the Congregationalists who want to have separate little churches, Quakers, Baptists,

00:45:09.440 Anabaptists, all these new communities that are sprouting out of the ground and being supported

00:45:13.060 by the New Model Army. It's victory justifying their cause as opposed to the Presbyterian 0.66

00:45:19.700 Calvinist cause. So they're feeling like they're falling apart, but they haven't quite broken. You

00:45:25.320 see places like colchester where the witch hunts kind of disjointed partly because you've already

00:45:29.940 got the religious radicals having more influence in great yarmouth the religious radicals gain more

00:45:37.220 of a voice between the first hunt and the second hunt which i think is one of the reasons why

00:45:41.040 the second hunt in the spring of 1646 is unsuccessful all these people why they want

00:45:47.840 to hunt is to bring unity and peace to a community that feels divided and hopkins offers that he

00:45:55.020 offers the service of restoring unity but obviously it's not working that well you got rid of the

00:46:00.980 witches but still feels like the world's falling apart yeah that's so interesting that you're like 0.70

00:46:08.120 okay we've got rid of the witches and damn all our problems still seem to be here that's that's 0.98

00:46:14.260 an oddity given the fact that it was the witches that were causing all these problems the common 0.93

00:46:18.700 theme can i ask you just as a sort of a finalish type of a question if that's okay are you familiar

00:46:25.400 with the new tv program that's coming out the witch finder i know it's been threatening to

00:46:30.060 come out for a while i'm interested to see what they do with it yeah because it's it's in east

00:46:36.680 anglia it's 1647 and i'm curious because it's got an amazing cast brilliant writers and the premise

00:46:45.520 of it looks like it'll probably be really really good actually but part of me is a bit like oh it's

00:46:50.480 a bit icky you know to to make comedy out of such a such a horrendous time i'm really hoping i think

00:46:57.180 claire you'd maybe said this to me that the accused witch will sort of give the witch finder

00:47:01.680 the runaround and we'll get the best of him and hopefully that is what it is but what do you think

00:47:06.140 about that well first of all can they actually do an east anglian accent or is it just gonna be

00:47:10.940 mummerset so what does an east anglian accent sound like well it differs i i mean i was brought

00:47:16.380 up on norfolk and sadly dying dialect right pretty thick i mean you may i don't know if you've ever

00:47:23.240 heard of the singing postman no no well again sorry this part of the podcast is just for norfolk

00:47:28.520 people suggestion is even the mississippi accent is kind of like it's a slowed down version of

00:47:34.280 what norfolk sounds like it's like you ain't got light boy oh um but it's people sometimes

00:47:40.360 compared to mummerset somerset but it's a very distinctive uh thing but it is on the way i think

00:47:47.040 sadly it's it's is it daisy may cooper that's the actress that's the accused woman now i don't know

00:47:52.980 where she's from to me as a scot she's just got this really peculiar accent i'm not really sure 0.99

00:47:59.960 where she's actually from and i don't know how much she hams it up on the comedy show that she

00:48:05.620 does like the i can't remember what the name of the program is yeah and i don't know where exactly

00:48:10.760 that's set it looks like it's supposed to be more west country so that's going to annoy me if it's

00:48:15.460 going to go west country it's like when anything anything's done in scotland they've always got

00:48:20.000 um glasswegian accents even if they're from somewhere completely different so that's quite

00:48:24.340 irritating to us obviously in the same way so that might quite curious i am hoping it's a wee

00:48:30.300 bit like blackadder where it's set during the trenches in the second world war not a laughing

00:48:36.980 matter but the fact of the matter is it's just a background device for comedy to take place

00:48:43.620 yeah rather than being the point of it i mean i wasn't too delighted over two things that i've

00:48:50.440 seen so far one they're actually starting the thing on international women's day you've got

00:48:56.340 364 other days of the year you can choose why would you bring out a comedy about women getting

00:49:02.640 killed as witches on international women's day and the other thing is that one of the stills for it

00:49:07.860 is daisy me cooper who i do think is hilarious and the witch finder and they're both standing

00:49:13.920 and there's a noose behind them that's kind of like that's comedy i think it's a bit problematic

00:49:22.240 from the point of view of i don't think you'd get a comedy that was set during the time of

00:49:27.940 enslaving people in the deep south particularly or you know like say maybe during the holocaust

00:49:33.840 and second world war i just don't i don't know it sits a little bit and comes with me i mean i'm 0.99

00:49:38.260 prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt and if they deal with it like black hadder did i think

00:49:42.160 that's a really good comparison that it's clever and it's a device to kind of maybe show up the

00:49:47.980 ridiculousness of the situation so i'm not i'm not condemning it because i think they're really 0.99

00:49:52.760 great cast and great writers so i've got every hope that it's not going to be a mrs brown's boys

00:49:57.940 does witches type of a situation so shut her but we'll we'll see we'll see and danny maybe you can

00:50:07.040 keep us right on twitter about whether the accent is correct or not at the time there is a monument

00:50:12.680 in Great Yarmouth to two women who were convicted of witchcraft at Salem.

00:50:18.300 There's a monument to two of the people who were accused of witchcraft at Salem.

00:50:22.360 How did that come about? What's the connection?

00:50:24.980 Well, the early people who travelled to New England were drawn quite easily

00:50:29.980 from the East Anglian coast because it's the most successful part of that area

00:50:33.860 to travel to the New World.

00:50:36.760 And I think during the Civil War, actually, the Bright family left Great Yarmouth

00:50:41.300 to travel to Salem. So they then got caught up in the Salem witch hunt. So they've been left this

00:50:47.600 quite nice brass plaque in the back of St Nicholas's church. That's bizarre when we're saying,

00:50:54.580 oh, in memoriam to those poor people of Salem that were accused of witchcraft. And obviously

00:50:59.760 that was wrong. And presumably there's nothing to the people who were accused and executed

00:51:04.980 here. It highlights the complete bonkersness of what happened to the witch trials in Britain.

00:51:10.880 it's like we just kind of went let's just pretend that didn't happen and then because Salem's had

00:51:15.340 some stuff happen over there we'll just focus on them pretend we didn't do such terrible things

00:51:19.220 it's like oh phew Salem's really taking the heat off us guys American Americans you know it's really

00:51:25.480 odd thank you so much for coming on today we really appreciated it and it's really interesting

00:51:30.460 to see the contrast of what happened in Great Yarmouth with what happens in different stories

00:51:34.420 that we've covered in Scotland and across Scotland as a whole so we really appreciate you coming on

00:51:39.240 and now that you have just found out in the last week or so that you are a fully fledged

00:51:43.640 PhD doctor congratulations on that it's wonderful after so much work and I think whoever you end up

00:51:50.740 teaching whichever establishment you end up going and working at will be very lucky to get somebody

00:51:55.420 so enthusiastic as yourself absolutely we've really enjoyed speaking to you today please do

00:52:01.180 keep in touch with us on twitter so we can watch where your academic career takes you next and no

00:52:06.600 You'll have a book out soon, so we'll keep up to date with that.

00:52:09.940 No pressure.

00:52:12.360 And we look forward to, first of all, your accent review,

00:52:16.620 and also let's see in contact and see what we think of the TV show as a whole.

00:52:21.180 Thanks so much for joining us today, Dan.

00:52:22.840 Thank you very much for the Chats and Talk.

00:52:24.280 so claire that was another amazing session with the witches of scotland podcast

00:52:37.080 um we roll again next time two weeks time we can't tell you who our guest is just now because

00:52:43.500 i think we don't really know what order we're going to release the next one in do we no but

00:52:47.100 we've got a few in the can you in the can that sounds so professional love that yeah yeah yeah

00:52:52.100 so it's been great I'm feeling like things are really gathering a real head of steam now aren't

00:52:57.820 they absolutely I'm not sure whether or not we're going to have time or you're going to have time

00:53:02.500 to have the raccoons fully trained by the time this is debated in parliament I'm under the cosh

00:53:08.380 I'm trying to train my child that's in fifth year to get her A into G and get her hires done at the

00:53:14.560 moment so that's actually harder and I'm not even joking that's harder than I think to train all

00:53:20.220 the raccoons i'm having a i'm having a small nervous breakdown presumably the raccoons are

00:53:26.100 easier you know to like you know one of those clicker things and we we bits of well i'll tell

00:53:30.880 you this the raccoons don't give me any cheek they will just work for snacks and it doesn't

00:53:37.320 work for her so my mind is melting on the daily at the moment but if i've survived

00:53:42.820 we'll carry on

00:53:45.400 we've got lots to do

00:53:49.120 and in a fortnight's time

00:53:50.640 we will have already been to the

00:53:53.020 Scottish Women of the Year award

00:53:54.600 I think, will we, almost?

00:53:55.960 Yes, yes, yes, we will have

00:53:57.660 so that's something to go over

00:54:00.100 to the next couple of weeks

00:54:01.720 well from one finalist

00:54:04.300 of the Scottish Women of the Year to another

00:54:06.200 Claire Mitchell QC

00:54:07.340 I bid you adieu

00:54:09.040 and adieu, adieu and adieu to all of you

00:54:12.260 who listen. See you in a fortnight. Bye.

00:54:14.500 Oh, bye. 0.51

00:54:19.880 If you'd like to learn more about the Witches of Scotland, 0.97

00:54:22.720 please subscribe wherever you get your

00:54:24.280 podcasts. Sign up for

00:54:26.260 our mailing list at

00:54:27.580 www.witchesofscotland.com

00:54:31.060 to keep updated with

00:54:32.220 the campaign. On that

00:54:34.080 site, you'll be able to find how to link with us

00:54:36.320 on Twitter, Facebook

00:54:37.980 and Instagram.

00:54:42.260 Amen.

Witches of Scotland - March 22, 2022

EPISODE 55 DR. DANNY BUCK - MATTHEW HOPKINS THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL

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