Description from The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, Rosemary Ellen Guiley
Court transcripts from Robert Pitcairn's 'Criminal Trials in Scotland'
From Marc Carlson: BTW, I've been trying to track down Barbara Napier. She was Acquitted and Released, but the King dragged her back and convicted her AND convicted the jury that acquitted her of some sort of malfeasance. *Then* she pled pregnancy, and they locked her up for a few months. She is never heard from again, so an arguement could be made that she was or was not actually executed. She was the wife of Archibald Douglas, who is described as an Edinburgh "Burger", but I'm wondering if that is not the Archibald Douglas of the family Douglas (who married a LOT of Napiers over the years) who was Top soldier/Captain of the Guard of Edinburgh Castle during the Regency of the Earl of Norton (when James was a child). The Earl was overthrown in the early 70s and executed in the 80s, and I wonder if this was not some hold-over from those days, if only indirectly. Anyway, it's just supposition. BTW, if you can find a copy, there's a book by a Melissa Scott and someone else, called "Armor of Light" that is a historical fantasy novel about The Wizard Earl of Bothwell, and several other "Elizabethan" characters. It discusses the North Berwick witches, and while it leaves open the possibibility that some of the accused were innocent, it's pretty straight forward that Bothwell was guilty.