As evening descended on Holyrood Palace, 9th Match 1566, a band of assassins burst into the chambers of the heavily pregnant Mary Queen of Scots and, before her eyes, brutally murdered David Rizzio, her secretary. His blood still stains the floor where he was slain, and his ghost is said to haunt the 16th Century [...]
Between 1563 and 1763 Scotland was a country in flux and the resulting paranoia fueled the Scottish Witch Trials. Belief in witchcraft was common during the Middle Ages, but the leaders of the Catholic church were largely skeptical, seeing it as folklore rather than something sinister. Lawyers were only interested in cases were harm [...]
The events which led to the North Berwick Witch Trials began, not in Scotland, but at the other side of the North Sea. The frenzy began with a hysterical Danish Admiral, during a great sea tempest he blamed on witchcraft. The accusations leveled at those on trial ‘uncovered’ a plot against King James VI of [...]