Historical Test Cases
Ursula Kemp - St Osyth, Essex 1582
Ursula Kemp was a 'cunning woman', namely someone equipped to offer cures and often reverse the effect of other's witchcraft.
However, the uneven results of cures she offered and one occasion when someone refused her payment, resulted in accusations of witchcraft. Members of her own family were made to testify against her and the presiding Justice claimed to have received her confession in private. She was hanged in St Osyth, Essex in 1582.
Agnes Sampson - East Lothian, Scotland 1591
Agnes Sampson was considered as a healer and acted as midwife to the community of Nether Keith. Following the near shipwreck of King James VI of Scotland's ship on his return from marriage in Oslo - the capital of the joint kingdom of Denmark-Oslo, where witchcraft was a strongly-held belief - many Scottish women were accused of witchcraft, among them Agnes Sampson. Although she initially resisted torture, including before James the VI at his residence Holyrood House, Agnes finally confessed and was burned at the stake - a method execution not used in England.
Image from a pamphlet on the trial of Agnes Sampson
John Lowes - Bury St Edmunds, 1645
John Lowes was an eighty year-old clergyman of Brandeston in Suffolk, who had the misfortune of being regarded as too attached to the Catholic religion in a strongly Reformed area. Similar tensions had been a main cause of the Civil War, which was at its height in 1645. In more peaceable times, John Lowes had successfully defended himself against an accusation of witchcraft by filing a suit of legal slander against his accuser Jonas Cooke.
Matthew Hopkins
But the Civil War had allowed the notorious zealot Matthew Hopkins to appoint himself Witchfinder General and circumvent normal legal processes. When the octogenarian vicar John Lowes came to his attention, Hopkins extracted confessions from by making him walk for days and nights until he was unable to resist confessing. Hopkins had him sentenced to death and in a final gesture, John Lowes conducted his own funeral service using the Book of Common Prayer before he was hanged.
Anne Whittle and Elizabeth Southerns - Pendle, Lancashire 1612
Confessions being extracted at Pendle
Anne Whittle and Elizabeth Southerns were well-known local healers who were believed to be able to reverse the effects of magic. Such cures were not the reserve of the poor and superstitious - there is evidence that the Earl of Derby had sought such remedies in 1594.
Elizabeth Southern's granddaughter Alison was initially accused by the peddler John Law of having refused him payment for some pins - although it was also possible he refused to open his pack for such a small item - and an argument ensued. When he later fell ill, he accused Alison of witchcraft. In the ensuing investigations, Alison's family turned the accusations on the family of Anne Whittle, who were also believed to exercise supernatural powers for good and ill. Following ensuing claim and counter claim, a total number of 10 people were executed, including members of both families. Elizabeth Southerns died while awaiting trial.
Joan Peterson - Wapping, London 1652
Londoner Joan Peterson was described as a 'physick' so had clearly acquired some reputation for the quality of the cures she offered, and neither was she very old. Like some others, the accusation leveled against her was the result of a disagreement over payment. Her former patient was then seen walking with his tongue out and 'slabbering' - giving rise to accusations of a curse. Her maidservant gossiped that Joan had been in conversation with a squirrel one night; while Joan's own son repeated the accusation that Joan had received instruction for her cures from a squirrel. Joan Peterson was then the subject of a considerable campaign of slander in pamphlet form. She was cleared of being implicated in the death of a noblewoman, Lady Powell, and yet convicted on a subsequent charge. She was hanged at Tyburn on the site of present-day Marble Arch in 1652.
Mary Trembles and Susanna Edwards - Bideford, Devon 1682
Mary Trembles and Susanna Edwards were out begging for food during the food-shortage of that year, when local woman Grace Jones blamed Mary Trembles for an illness. It is possible that this was linked to her having denied Mary Trembles food. They were both arrested and placed in the town gaol, where members of the population were able to go and look at them. One visitor suggested the shaking of Susanna Edwards' hands indicated she was 'tormenting someone' at the time. Two local men, John Jones and William Edwards, came forward with accusations based on what they had overheard. Under this pressure Mary Trembles claimed she had been initiated into witchcraft by Susanna Edwards - who in turn accused Temperance Lloyd, who was already in prison. All three were executed at Rougemont Castle in Exeter in 1682.
For further information on Pardon the British Witches, please contact:
Benjamin Webb / Toby Guise
Phone 07930 408 224 / 07814 223 530
Email:
benjamin@deliberate-pr.com;
toby@deliberate-pr.com
