The Paisley witches' executions

On 10 June 1697 people convicted of witchcraft after the Bargarran trial of 1696 were executed at Paisley's Gallow Green in Scotland.

The Paisley Heritage Trust dates the case to 1696, when Christian Shaw, aged eleven, fell seriously ill. Her father was the Laird of Bargarran, by Bishopton. She had fits and vomited strange objects, and she blamed a number of local people for bewitching her.

The convicted were executed at Paisley's Gallow Green on 10 June 1697. Wikipedia says seven were hanged and then burned, and calls it western Europe's final mass execution for witchcraft. The Glasgow Bell counts six, and says they were garrotted and their bodies burnt. Wikipedia writes of two brothers, John and James Lindsay, who clasped hands while they were hanged together. It records that Katherine Campbell was carried struggling and screaming to the gallows, and that she invoked God's wrath and the Devil's on her accusers before she was executed.

Another convicted man died before the date. The Glasgow Bell names him as John Reid, discovered dead in his cell a few weeks earlier, very possibly by suicide. Wikipedia says his cell was locked and the window boarded, so how his death came about is unclear. The Glasgow Bell adds that the remains were interred beneath an iron horseshoe set in a Paisley crossroads.