Lucy Worsley Investigates

In the fall of 1590, just weeks after the alleged witches gathering at North Berwick, Agnes was arrested and imprisoned, in Scotland's capital city, Edinburgh. And in early December, she was brought here to be interrogated. This is the Palace of Holyroodhouse. This was the home of King James VI This part of the palace here has been altered. But this part is the original palace that Agnes would have seen. She would have set eyes on these two rather sinister looking turrets. So, I really am walking in Agnes's footsteps at this moment. This is the actual chamber in which James VI received visitors. His bed chamber is just through there. And it was here in this room, to the best of our knowledge, that Agnes came face to face with the king. What an extraordinary encounter, a woman from a tiny rural village brought before the king, a Protestant monarch determined to prove he had the power to drive out the devil. So, what on earth happened in this room? News from Scotland offers this account. Agnes Sampson was brought here to Holyroodhouse before the king's magistery and sundry other of the nobility of Scotland, but it says here, she stood stiffly in the denial of all that was laid to her chart. So, she stood up to them. This is a fearsome situation to be questioned by the king himself in his royal palace, but she wasn't giving way an inch. Despite this, at some point Agnes cracked and confessed. It's chilling to realise that all the detail of what happened in North Berwick, as recounted in News from Scotland, actually comes from the confession Agnes made right here in Holyrood Palace. It was Agnes who said 200 witches gathered together and used a dead man and a christened cat to raise the storm that almost killed the king. This is her story, but why would she say all these things? Reading on, I think I can see why. Agnes Sampson has all her hair shaven off in each part of her body and her head thrawen with a rope. But during this time, she would not confess anything until the devil's mark was found upon her priuities. Now, to my mind, this is, this is torture of a really horrible sexual nature. It's a sort of a sexual assault. And then when this, when this happened, when they did this to her, she immediately confessed whatsoever was demanded of her. And, goodness me, I'd do exactly the same thing. Poor Agnes.