Janet Boyman (died 1572), also known as Jonet Boyman or Janet Bowman, was a Scottish woman accused of

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have u ...

; she was tried and executed in 1572 although the case against her was started in 1570. Her

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an ...

has been described by modern-day scholars, such as Lizanne Henderson, as the earliest and most comprehensive record of witchcraft and

fairy A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spiri ...

belief in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

Accusations of witchcraft

Janet Boyman lived in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, and was said to have been from Ayrshire. She was married to William Steill. In

early modern Scotland Scotland in the early modern period refers, for the purposes of this article, to Scotland between the death of James IV in 1513 and the end of the Jacobite risings in the mid-eighteenth century. It roughly corresponds to the early modern peri ...

married

women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

did not change their surnames. She was alleged to have predicted the death of

Regent Moray James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray (c. 1531 – 23 January 1570) was a member of the House of Stewart as the illegitimate son of King James V of Scotland. A supporter of his half-sister Mary, Queen of Scots, he was the regent of Scotland for his ...

who was assassinated in January 1570, and her accusation was the first to be made in connection with a political conspiracy. She told her interrogators that she made contact with the supernatural world at a well on the south side of

Arthur's Seat Arthur's Seat ( gd, Suidhe Artair, ) is an ancient volcano which is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtu ...

a hill close to Edinburgh. There she conjured spirits who would help her heal others. Sometimes she worked cures by washing the patients's shirt at the well at St Leonards. She was condemned as:

ane wyss woman that culd mend diverss seikness and bairnis that are tane away with fairyie men and wemen
a wise woman that could heal diverse illnesses and children taken away by fairy men and women.

Jonet Boyman was executed on 29 December 1572.

Personal life

There is little information available concerning Boyman's personal life; however the trial record shows her as living in

Cowgate The Cowgate (Scots language, Scots: The Cougait) is a street in Edinburgh, Scotland, located about southeast of Edinburgh Castle, within the city's World Heritage Site. The street is part of the lower level of Edinburgh's Old Town, Edinburgh, ...

, a street in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. No indication is given of her age but she was married to William Steill.

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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boyman, Janet 1572 deaths People executed for witchcraft Criminals from Edinburgh 16th-century Scottish women 16th-century executions by Scotland Witch trials in Scotland