1/ NEW VIDEO ‘North Berwick Witch Trials’ James VI had a curious obsession with witches, in 1597 he wrote a tract on demonology in which he used witches as a scapegoat for all of society's ills-it's like how the Tories blame poor people and immigrants

2/ in 1590 James’s ship was battered by storms, he blamed witches & 100 folk from NorthBerwick were accused they included a school master, a midwife, the daughter of judge-it was North Berwick so they were pretty middle class the main ingredient in their caldrons was avocado

3/ horrific torture methods were used including sleep deprivation, ‘scalds bridles’ (pictured), breast rippers, thumb screws, anything from Christian Grey’s ‘Red Room’ & after being kept awake for days they’d make delirious confessions about driving to ‘check if they were blind’

4/ the bald, tormented ghost of Agnes Samson, one of the accused witches, is said to haunt the halls of Holyrood Palace to this day - although it should be noted most sighting of Agnes do tend to coincide with when Prince Philip is staying at the Palace

5/ The witches well on Edinburgh castle esplanade marks where accused witches were strangled & burned, they put a well to mark where people were burned, it was put there in 1912 the same year the titanic sunk which presumably they would have commemorated by building a lifeboat

6/ we murdered the most witches per head of population in Europe, over 4000 mostly women, there’s been no formal apology or no national memorial, and with Scotland exploring unsavoury ties to slavery we should also acknowledge the deaths of thousands of innocent witches as well