Satan's Invisible World Discovered /

Chapter 3: IV.—A Proclamation over the Market Cross of Edinburgh, at twelve o’clock at night.

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History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)Mythology, Legends & Folklore

About This Book

A collection of contemporary relations and attestations recounts alleged encounters with devils, spirits, witches, and apparitions drawn from court records, witness testimony, and popular report. Presented as individual narratives, the pieces describe supposed bewitchments, spectral visitations, miraculous cures, confessions, and prosecutions, alongside folk prayers and charms used to combat maleficence. Several extended episodes detail how communities investigated suspicious events and identified alleged practitioners, while other entries record isolated uncanny happenings and their social consequences. The compilation conveys the period’s explanatory framework for misfortune through reported incidents rather than systematic analysis.

IV.—A Proclamation over the Market Cross of Edinburgh, at twelve o’clock at night.

After that king James IV. had mustered his army in the Burrow-muir, being at that time a large spacious field, and most pleasant and delightful, by reason of many stately oaks which overshadowed the place; about midnight, in the month of July, there was a proclamation heard at the market-cross of the town, summoning a great many burgesses, gentlemen, barons, and noblemen, to appear before the tribunal of one Plotcock.

The provost of the town, standing in his own fore-stair, or gallery, having heard his own name cited, cried out, “That he declined that judicatory, and appealed to the mercy of God.” This was the army which the king led into England, and were defeat at Flodden, on the fatal day, Tuesday the 9th of September 1513, where the King, with near about five thousand of the noblest and worthiest families of the kingdom, did fall.