King James VI/I and Witches in Scotland and England

The Tea at Trianon blog features a post about James VI of Scotland (and I of England) and his fear of witches and witchcraft. Tracy Borman writes about how he acted upon that obsession in law and literature:

There was thus a fertile ground for James's witch hunting beliefs to take hold. In 1597, he published Daemonologie, a treatise on witchcraft that became so influential that it was republished several times and distributed across Europe. It inspired a witch hunting fervour of dangerous proportions, giving sanction to all manner of horrific persecutions. Those most at risk were women: as many as 95% of those convicted for witchcraft were female. Most were unmarried, poor and misfits in their community. Many had a 'familiar', such as a cat, dog or rat, which would supposedly help to carry out their evil spells.

The witch hunts also became a convenient way of getting rid of troublesome neighbours. The old saying that there was 'no smoke without fire' certainly held true here: an accusation was all that was needed to bring someone to trial, and a staggeringly high proportion of those who were hauled before the courts were found guilty.

Tracy Borman, Joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, and a respected author of biographies and historical works, including Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant and Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen, also written a book about witches and witchcraft in Scotland and England with an alliterative and sibilant subtitle: Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction (what about Superstition?) A survey of the reviews in the London press suggests that Borman succeeds in informing readers of the appalling injustice of witchcraft trials in both Scotland and England under James VI/I but not in convincing them of the significance of the particular case she examines to prove the guilt of James' favorite, the Duke of Buckingham in the death of the sons of Francis Manners, the 6th Earl of Rutland.