Witchcraft executions.

Witchcraft executions.

England and Wales.

Writing in 2018, some 400 years later, it is hard to take some of the accusations made against, usually defenceless, poor, elderly women, seriously.  I do not therefore propose to offer any judgement about the validity or fairness of the trials or as to why certain areas of the country, particularly Essex and East Anglia had so many more of them than other areas.  People in the 16th and 17th centuries did believe in witchcraft and this belief certainly continued into the 19th century.  Many thought that Mary Bateman, the “Yorkshire Witch” would be able to save herself from the gallows at York in 1809.  The people of Leeds had not wished to report her criminal activities to the authorities in case she put a spell on them.  I photographed Mary’s skeleton in 2007, which was on display at the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds. 

Witchcraft was certainly a convenient scapegoat for unexplained illness and sudden deaths amongst people and livestock at the time.  Doctors of the day did not have the knowledge to ascertain the causes of death as they would now.  

It is estimated that less than 500 people were executed in England for witchcraft between 1566 and 1684 and that just six were put to death between 1066 and 1560.  Of these six, only one is confirmed as having been burned at the stake, this being Margery Jordemaine on the 27th of October 1441.  Margaret was known as the "The Witch of Eye" and was convicted of treason for using sorcery to attempt to cause the death of Henry VI.  She was executed at London’s Smithfield.  Three weeks later Roger Bolingbroke was executed for the same offence, by hanging, drawing and quartering at Tyburn, these being the normal punishments for treason.

Henry VIII introduced a Witchcraft Act in 1542 which defined witchcraft as felony rather than a religious offence.  It was to be tried by the normal assize courts and was punishable, like all other normal felonies of the time, with a maximum penalty of death by hanging.  Burning at the stake was not permitted by this Act, although it was under Scottish law and was widely used on the continent.  

The Act stated: "It shall be felony to practise, or cause to be practised conjuration, witchcraft, enchantment or sorcery, to get money; or to consume any person in his body, members or goods; or to provoke any person to unlawful love; or for the despight of Christ, or lucre of money, to pull down any Cross; or to declare where goods stolen be."

Henry’s statute was abolished just five years later by his son Edward VI and it is unclear whether anybody was actually executed in that period.  Elizabeth I passed a new Witchcraft Act in 1563 which came into force on June the 1st of that year.  This Act specified a year’s imprisonment plus pillorying on four occasions during the year for a first offence with death by hanging for a second offence unless the person was accused of murder by witchcraft, in which case the death sentence was mandatory.

Probably the first person to suffer under this Act was 64 year old Agnes Waterhouse from the village of Hatfield Peverel, near Chelmsford in Essex, who confessed to murder by witchcraft.  Agnes was tried at Chelmsford Assizes on the 26th of July 1566, along with her eighteen year old daughter Joan and one Elizabeth Francis.  Agnes confessed to the murder of her husband by bewitching, Joan was acquitted and Elizabeth convicted, being sentenced to one year in prison with pillorying.  She was duly released but arrested and charged with witchcraft again in 1579. As it was her second conviction she was hanged. 

There were 22 witchcraft trials at Chelmsford in 1579. One of the accused was Elizabeth Francis (see above) who confessed to being a witch and witching Alice Poole.  Ellen Smith (or Smyth) from Malden was convicted of bewitching a four year old child to death and was also hanged.  The third woman to die was Alice Nokes of Lambourne who had been convicted of bewitching to death Elizabeth Barsett (or Barfoot).  Richard and Joan Prestmary from Great Dunmow were convicted and condemned but it seems that their sentences were not carried out.

The trial of the St. Osyth witches was held at Chelmsford in 1582.  St. Osyth is a village near Brightlingsea, Essex and fourteen women from the village were charged with witchcraft, of whom ten were charged with the capital felony of bewitching to death.  

Of these fourteen, two were not indicted, two were remanded to prison to face other charges, four were acquitted, four were convicted, sentenced to death but later reprieved.  Just two of the defendants were to hang, they were Ursula Kempe and Elizabeth Bennet.  They were duly executed at Chelmsford and their bodies returned to St. Osyth for burial.  In 1921 two female skeletons were discovered there who had had metal nails driven into their elbow and knee joints.  This was believed at the time to be a way of preventing witches rising from the grave.  Whether these were the skeletons of Ursula Kempe and Elizabeth Bennet is open to question.

In the year 1589 thirty one women and six men were tried for witchcraft at Chelmsford assizes.

A triple hanging took place at Primrose Hill, Rainsford Lane, Chelmsford when Joan Coney, Joan Upney (also given as Uptney) and Joan Prentice were executed a mere two hours after sentence. Joan Coney from Stisted was convicted of one murder by witching plus three instances where her victim became seriously ill.  Joan Upney from Dagenham was convicted of the murders through bewitching of Joan Harwood and Alice Foster.

Joan Prentice from Sible Hedingham confessed to consorting the devil, in the form of a ferret, which she had commanded to nip Sara Glascock who later died.

A woodcut picture exists showing the three women hanging side by side from a simple gallows surrounded by cats or ferrets.  It is unclear whether they were turned off ladders or the back of a cart.

An amazing 290 or so witchcraft trials took place in Essex between 1560 and 1675.  Some resulted in executions, some of the accused died in gaol whilst others received prison sentences or were acquitted.

In 1603 James VI of Scotland became James I of England on the death of Elizabeth I, thus uniting the kingdoms of England and Scotland.  King James was very interested witchcraft and had taken part in witch trials in Scotland.  His statute of 1604 strengthened the law in England and made hanging mandatory for those convicted of witchcraft where the victim was only injured rather than killed.  Strangely he did not introduce burning at the stake as was the Scottish practice.

The largest recorded mass execution for witchcraft in English history took place on the 21st of August 1650, the 14 women and a man accused of being a wizard, were publicly hanged on gallows erected on Newcastle’s Town Moor.

The "Witch-Finder General".

Matthew Hopkins was the self appointed "Witch-Finder General" who lived at Manningtree in Essex and in the two year period from 1645 to 1647 set out to eradicate witchcraft in East Anglia with great zeal.  He was assisted in this by John Stearne (or Sterne) and Mary Phillips.  Estimates vary as to the number of witches that Hopkins and Stearne discovered, from between 200 and 300.  He was certainly the most active witch finder in England.  It is thought that he was born around 1820 and was the son of a church minister.  He was educated and had some grasp of the law.

Hopkins started out in his home town of Manningtree, accusing an elderly spinster called Elizabeth Clarke of witchcraft.  

Thirty people, including those from Manningtree were arraigned for witchcraft at the 1645 Essex Assizes at Chelmsford.  Fourteen were to hang at Chelmsford on Friday the 25th of July. They were a Mrs. Wayt, Jane Brigs, Jane Browne, Rachel Flower, Mary Greene, Mary Foster, Frances Jones, Mary Rhodes, Anne West, Mother Forman, Mother Clarke, Mother Miller, Mother Benefield and Mother Goodwin. The other five women were to be returned to Manningtree for execution and the hanging is thought to have taken place on the South Street Green there on the 29th of July 1645.  In fact only four were to hang because Margaret Moone collapsed on the way to the gallows and is reputed to have cried out that the “Devil had often told her she should never be hanged” with her dying breath. 

Hopkins brought another group of witches to trial at the Suffolk Assizes at Bury St. Edmunds the following month resulting in the executions of sixteen women and two men.  His campaign continued into Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire.

Obtaining confessions by torture was illegal in England at this time so Hopkins and Stearne had to resort to other methods that were at least semi-legal and did not involve blood-shed.  One was watching.  The accused was striped naked, examined for “witch marks”, such as a third nipple, usually by Mary Phillips and then dressed in a loose shift and made to sit on a stool in the middle of the room watched round the clock to see if their familiars or imps would come and suckle blood from them.  When the victim dozed off their watchers would immediately rouse them and walk them around the room till they were fully awake again.  This watching could go on for several days and the victims became absolutely exhausted from sleep deprivation and would often confess.  Another method used was swimming.  The accused was trussed up with the left thumb tied to the right big toe and right thumb to the left big toe and then lowered into water.  If the person floated they were guilty because the Devil had saved them, whereas if they sank they were innocent.  The small problem of their drowning didn’t seem to bother Hopkins because he knew that the person would go straight to Heaven.  Another method used in interrogation was pricking of the body to try and find any area of skin that did not cause the person to cry out.  This area was where the familiars sucked their blood from, according to Hopkins.

Hopkins earned 20 shillings (£1) per witch, so he had a very lucrative business for the time. Hopkins published a pamphlet titled the “The Discovery of Witches” in 1647, shortly before his death.  He is thought to have died of tuberculosis in 1647.

Although the persecution of witches was most widespread in East Anglia it occurred in other parts of the country as well.  One of the most famous cases being that of the Pendle Witches in Lancashire.  A group of thirteen people living in and around the Forest of Pendle were accused of the murder by witching of ten people.  Twelve were tried at the Lancashire Assizes at Lancaster Castle between the 17th and 19th of August 1612. Of these, ten were to be hanged on Lancaster Moor on the 20th of August. They were: Elizabeth Device, her son James and daughter Alison (also Alizon), Anne Whittle, (aka Chattox), Anne Redferne, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock, her son John Bulcock and Isobel Robey. Elizabeth Southerns who was also known as Old Demdike and was considered originally to be the ring leader of the group, died in prison. A thirteenth member of the group, Jennet Preston was tried and hanged at York and Margaret Pearson was convicted and given a one year prison sentence. Much of the evidence against them was given by nine year old Jennet Device who was later to be tried and imprisoned for witchcraft.  The Clerk of the Court, Thomas Potts recorded the proceedings and later published a book on the case, titled “The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster.”

Witch-mania also spread to other parts of the country. In Kent Joan Cariden, Jane Holt and Joan Williford were hanged at Faversham on the 29th of September 1645. 

A further seven women were to hang for witchcraft at Penenden Heath near Maidstone in Kent on the 30th of July 1652.  They were Mildred Wright, Anne Wilson, Mary Reade, Anne Ashby, Anne Martyn, Mary Browne and Elizabeth Hynes. 

The number of trials and executions was beginning to decline after the Restoration of the Monarchy.  

It is probable but it cannot be confirmed that Alice Molland was the last person to hang for witchcraft in England, at Heavitree near Exeter in 1684. The last confirmed executions were those of the “Bideford Witches” also at Heavitree on the 25th of August 1682.  They were three old women called Temperance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards and Mary Trembles. They had been convicted of bringing illness upon their neighbours.

However people were still charged with the offence.  Jane Wenham of Walkern in Herefordshire became the last person to be convicted of witchcraft in England in 1712. She was condemned to death but reprieved.  Jane Clerk together with her son and daughter were charged with witchcraft at Leicester in 1717 but the case against them was thrown out by the judge.

In 1736 there was a new Witchcraft Act that read as follows:

"An Act to repeal the Statute made in the First Year of the Reign of King James the First, intituled, An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft, and dealing with evil and wicked Spirits, except so much thereof as repeals an Act of the Fifth Year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Against Conjurations, Inchantments, and Witchcrafts, and to repeal an Act passed in the Parliament of Scotland in the Ninth Parliament of Queen Mary, intituled, Anentis Witchcrafts, and for punishing such Persons as pretend to exercise or use any kind of Witchcraft, Sorcery, Inchantment, or Conjuration.”

This Act, which came into force on the 24th of June 1736, was aimed at those who pretended to be able to procure spirits, in other words, charlatans such as some fortune tellers and mediums.  The punishment, upon conviction was one year in prison plus quarterly exposure in the pillory for one hour on each occasion.