In 1707, things began to improve after Joseph I, the Holy Roman emperor, forbade torture except under extreme circumstances. In 1714, King Frederick William I of Prussia said that none of his subjects could be executed for witchcraft without his signature on the order. In 1721, he forbade the hearing of witchcraft cases in court. More progress was made in 1728 when a Berlin girl who claimed she had made a pact with the Devil was declared insane and put into a mental hospital.
According to most accounts, the last witchcraft execution in Europe occurred in 1793 in Poland when two women accused of Devil worship were burned at the stake. There had been only a few European cases in the years just before that.
English witches were usually not burned unless they had committed heresy or treason. They were usually hung. Accused witches in England were tortured, but the English methods seem to have been a little milder than the European ones.
In Scotland, accused witches wre treated more severely than in England. They were tortured more brutually and they were usually burned instead of hung. The death toll was much higher. Another difference was that in Scotland, as in most of Europe, witchcraft was considred more of a crime against God and religion than a crime against the State or other people, as it was in England.
The main law under which people in Scotland were burned for witchcraft was passed in 1563 by Queen Mary's parliament. It stated that anyone who used "any manner of withcrafts, sorcery, or necromancy" would be subject to the death penalty, as would anyone who consulted a witch or claimed to understand how to perform witchcraft.
It was said that James I was deeply involved in the witchcraft prosecutions. However, others say he was very fair and that, by exposing as frauds some people who pretended to be bewitched, he even helped free some falsely accused witches. No one can be certain today exactly how much James I actually had to do with the witch trials in Scotland, but one thing that is known is that in 1599 he wrote a book called the Demonologie which was almost as influential in England and Scotland as the Malleus was in Europe. In this book he described as fact many of the powers folklore attributed to witches. King James approved of the swimming ordeal as a test for witchcraft, and as a result, the ordeal was often used in both England and Scotland. Scottish torture rivaled that of the Inquisition.
By the 1640s, witch-hunting in England had led to a new profession--that of pricker. The most notorious English pricker was Matthew Hopkins, a Puritan who was the official "witch finder general" between 1645 and 1647, and who sent about 200 people to their deaths. It was largely because of him that the idea of familiars and the sabbat (meetings) caught hold in England. It was also largely because of his techniques that the practices of pricking and swimming witches became widespread.
The second big wave of witch trials in Scotland occurred between 1640 and 1650. So many people were condemned it was necessary to hold mass executions. During the third wave, between 1660 and 1663, the number of accused witches was so great that the govennment appointed fourteen special commissions to try them
In Scotland, as in England, the belief in folklore witches was slow in dying, but toward the end of the 17th century a few people began doubting that the trials were justified. This was mostly due to Sir George Makenzie, lord advocate, who did not think the trials were run properly and proved it. The last witch that was killed in Scotland was between 1722 and 1727.
In England, Sir John Holt, who was made lord chief justice in 1689, did not believe in witchcraft and demanded proof in every case. Holt's court gave a verdict of not guilty in every witchcraft case it tried. In 1701, Holt even punished someone who had made an accusation of witchcraft. In doing that, he showed clearly how tricks could be used to frame a person on a witchcraft charge.
The last witch condemned to death in England was tried in 1712, two years after Holt died. The judge who tried the case did not believe in witchcraft had dismissed all charges against the woman but the one of speaking to the Devil while in cat form. He let this charge stand to show how silly it all was. However, the jury firmly believed in witchcraft and found the woman guilty. Since the penalty for witchcraft was still death, the judge had no choice but to sentence the woman to be hung. However, he quicky got a pardon for her and she lived out her life in another town.
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