Louise Yeoman (born 1968) is a historian and broadcaster specialising in the Scottish witch hunts and 17th century Scottish religious beliefs.^[1][2]

Career

Yeoman completed a PhD at the University of St Andrews on the subject of the Covenanters. She worked for a year at the National Archives of Scotland and for a short time at Glasgow University Library.^[3] In 1992 she became curator of early modern manuscripts and cataloguer of the Wodrow Collection at the National Library of Scotland.^[4] In 1996 she was curator of the Library's Jacobite exhibition A Nation Divided. In 1996-97 she was seconded to BBC Scotland as writer and presenter of the BBC TV series Stirring Times.^[3]

From 2001 to 2003 Yeoman was co-director of the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft alongside Julian Goodare.^[5]

In 2014, interest in Lilias Adie's story encouraged Yeoman and Douglas Speirs, an archaeologist at Fife Council, to look for her burial site. Using 19th-century historical documents, they found a seaweed-covered slab of stone exactly where the documents described: in a group of rocks near the Torryburn railway bridge lay "the great stone doorstep that lies over the rifled grave of Lilly Eadie", and a rock with "the remains of an iron ring".^[6]

Yeoman is now a producer and presenter at BBC Radio Scotland, where she works on programmes including Time Travels^[7] and the Witch Hunt podcast series with Susan Morrison.^[8] She has spoken out about the courage of accused Scottish witches such as Adie.^[9]

Yeoman has spoken out in support of Scotland acknowledging the women killed as accused witches: “Do I think there should be a national statement that we think the witch hunt was wrong and we are sorry? Yes. Do I think there should be a national memorial? Yes, and local memorials.”^[10]

Publications

• Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, 1563-1736. J Goodare, L Yeoman, L Martin, J Miller. (University of Edinburgh. School of History, Classics and Archaeology, 2010).^[11]
• Reportage Scotland: Scottish History in the Voices of Those Who Were There (Luath Press, 2005).^[12]
• "Hunting the rich witch in Scotland: high status witchcraft suspects and their persecutors, 1590–1650", in J. Goodare, ed., The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), ISBN 0-7190-6024-9.
• Witchcraft in early modern Scotland: James VI's 'Demonology' and the North Berwick witches, Scottish Historical Review 81 (212), 267-269 (2002).
• Normand and Roberts (eds.), Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland, Scottish Historical Review 81 (2), 267-269 (2002).
• Satan's conspiracy, magic and witchcraft in 16th century Scotland, HISTORY 87 (288), 606-606 (2002).
• Archie's Invisible Worlds Discovered-spirituality, madness and Johnston of Wariston's family, RECORDS-SCOTTISH CHURCH HISTORY SOCIETY 27, 156-186 (1997).
• The Devil as Doctor: witchcraft, Wodrow and the wider World, Scottish Archives 1, 93-105 (1995).
• Heart-work: emotion, empowerment and authority in covenanting times (University of St Andrews, 1991).