England's Witchcraft Trials

ENGLAND’S WITCHCRAFT TRIALS

For Jolyon and Oliver

ENGLAND’S WITCHCRAFT TRIALS

Willow Winsham

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen and Sword Books Ltd

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Barnsley

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Copyright © Willow Winsham, 2018

ISBN 978 1 47387 094 9

eISBN 978 1 47387 096 3

Mobi ISBN 978 1 47387 095 6

The right of Willow Winsham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Chapter 1 Kill or Cure: St Osyth – 1582

Chapter 2 Possession and Posturing: The Witches of Warboys 1589–1593

Chapter 3 Families at War: The Pendle Witches – 1612

Chapter 4 The Witch-Finders: Bury St Edmunds – 1645

Chapter 5 Final Victims: The Bideford Witches – 1682

Afterword

Select Bibliography

Notes

Acknowledgements

As with the first, there were times when it seemed unlikely this book was ever going to happen at all, largely due to the fact that it was written during the pregnancy and early months of life of our third and very much nonsleeping child!

Just as with children, thankfully I did not have to go it alone, and a book isn’t brought into being and nurtured in isolation. There are, as always, many people whom I need to thank for their support and input in making this the best book it can be and keeping me sane in the process.

Firstly, a huge and heartfelt thanks to my long-suffering husband, not least for helping create the time and space to carry out the work this book has needed. Thanks and love also to our children, Elizabeth, Alfred, and now Jolyon, for making our family all that it is and bringing so much meaning and happiness to my world. One day I hope you’ll read these books and be proud of your history-obsessed mother.

I also need to thank:

Debbie Corlett, both for her many years of friendship and for the tireless and painstaking proofreading and suggestions which have helped make this book the best that it can be. Long may we continue to share interests and conversations regarding the correct or otherwise use of grammar.

An Victoir, simply for being herself and being there; I would not be able to believe in myself the way I do today without her having first shown me the way.

Two special thankyous go out to Amanda Capern, for planting the seeds of interest in ‘women’s’ history many, many years ago. I might have eschewed witches in favour of eighteenth-century female reformers at the time, but without the thorough grounding in the value of research, along with the encouragement and fanning of the flames of passion for ‘getting it right’, my books would not have been possible. Heartfelt thanks also to Dave Berger for many hours of support and at many times just listening; without him this and my previous book would literally not have come into being, as he gifted me the desk at which both have been written.

Further thanks go out to John Worland for his kind help and patience in answering my questions regarding the case of Ursula Kempe and for sharing his superb research. Malcolm Gaskill for likewise aiding in my digging on the Matthew Hopkins chapter and general help and encouragement. I am also in debt to Philip Almond for his permission to use his personal images and for discussion on details of the Warboys case.

This list wouldn’t be complete without a massive shout-out to the #FolkloreThursday crowd. So many wonderfully kind, enthusiastic and fascinating individuals come together each week to share a passion for all things folklore, and it has truly been a privilege to get to know so many of them over the last two years. Thank you. And an extra special mention to Dee Dee Chainey, co-founder, friend, and sharer of many, many moments of hilarity, fun and misbehaving technology. I raise a badger in her honour.

Last but not least, I also extend thanks to the several archives and records offices that have aided in my research for this book, amongst them, Essex Record Office, Huntingdonshire Archives, Norfolk Record Office, Gary Knaggs of North Devon Record Office, John Monks of Exeter Civic Society, and various other individuals and organisations accessed throughout the course of my research. It has been a true pleasure, and I heartily hope I have done the original source material the justice it deserves.

Willow Winsham, August 2017.

List of Illustrations

Title page of A True and Just Record. (© Wellcome Library, London.)

1921 image of the St Osyth skeleton – ‘Ursula’.

Examination of ‘Ursula’. (© John Worland.)

Detail of nail fragment in ‘Ursula’ skeleton. (© John Worland.)

The Manor House at Warboys. (© Philip Almond.)

The Manor House at Warboys, side view. (© Philip Almond.)

Church of St Mary Magdelene, Warboys. (© Philip Almond.)

Interior of Huntingdon gaol. (© Philip Almond.)

Outside Hutingdon gaol. (© Philip Almond.)

Location of the Huntingdon gallows today. (© Philip Almond.)

Read Hall. (© Jennie Lee Cobban)

Lancaster Castle. (© Jennie Lee Cobban.)

Trough of Bowland. (© Jennie Lee Cobban.)

Ruins of a barn at Bull Hole Farm. (© Jennie Lee Cobban.)

Witches gathering for a meal with Devils. (© Wellcome Library, London.) Rumoured Grave of Alice Nutter. (© Jennie Lee Cobban.)

Matthew Hopkins. (© Wellcome Library, London.)

Eighteenth-century image of Matthew Hopkins. (© Wellcome Library, London.)

Matthew Hopkins with several familiars. (© Wellcome Library, London.) Witch Swimming. (© Wellcome Library, London.)

Title Page of An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft. (© Wellcome Library, London.)

Burial Record for Matthew Hopkins D/P 343/1/1 (With permission of Essex Record Office.)

John Andrew’s Trust Account Book entries for 1679 NDRO B1003/1/1 (With kind permission of North Devon Record Office and John Andrew Trust.)

John Andrew’s Trust Account Book entries for 1680 and 1681 NDRO B1003/1/1 (With kind permission of North Devon Record Office and John Andrew Trust.)

Bideford Quarter Sessions Records, 1682 NDRO 1064Q-SQ-1 (With kind permission of North Devon Record Office.)

Close up of Bideford Quarter Sessions Records, 1682 (With kind permission of North Devon Record Office.)

Close up of Bideford Quarter Sessions Records, 1682 (With kind permission of North Devon Record Office.)

Witch Cottage, Bideford. (With kind permission of Bideford Library.)

Plaque Commemorating the Bideford Witches. ‘Exeter Civic Society (www.exetercivicsociety.org.uk)’

Bideford Mural depicting Bideford Witches. ‘Exeter Civic Society (www.exetercivicsociety.org.uk)’

Introduction

When I revealed to people that I was working on a second book, the first question was always ‘What’s this one on?’ There was often surprise when I gave the answer ‘More witches’. There have been many, many thousands of words already written about England’s witch trials. There is always a danger therefore when trying to add something new to a well-worn subject, and the first consideration when setting out on such a project is whether anything can indeed be added to the historical conversation.

The answer is, I believe, a firm yes. It is an inexhaustible topic with limitless scope and interest, and there is a reason that the stories of those accused of witchcraft have kept the attention of readers for centuries.

This book looks at several of England’s larger witchcraft trials, delving into the worlds of Ursula Kempe, The Witches of Warboys, The Pendle Witches,

Matthew Hopkins, and the purported last witches executed in England, the three known to history as the Bideford Witches. These names are well known, their cases some of the most famous of the witch trials period. There is always something new to learn, some previously undiscovered nuance or fact, and although the ground is well trodden, there will at times be new paths taken and explored which bring a full and deep picture of the individuals involved and the cases as a whole.

Between the period of 1563 and 1736, England saw the rise and fall of belief in, and persecution of, those suspected of witchcraft. Less than 500 executions took place for the crime during that period, and yet they are a large part of England’s history, and the belief in witches remains deeply entrenched even today, though with more positive connotations. The fear of witches led to deeds and actions that today seem inexplicable, but the fear was very, very real. Not only did witchcraft provide an explanation for the unexplainable, it ran deeper than that; often the facts of the past were rewritten or re-remembered and interpreted to fit a new situation, when social, political or religious tensions rose to boiling point and bubbled over. Perhaps in no other area of history are the very real fears, beliefs and values of ordinary people so clearly highlighted, the trial accounts and testimonies providing a fascinating and insightful reflection of society as a whole.

We will never know just how many individuals were accused of witchcraft or just how many were persecuted for the crime over the centuries. Here you will read of some of their stories, and in understanding their times and beliefs, learn just a little of what it might have been like to be persecuted for a witch.

Chapter 1

Kill or Cure: St Osyth – 1582

This I speak… upon a late view of trial, taken against certain Witches in the county of Essex; the orderly process in whose examinations, together with other accidents, I diligently observing and considering their treacheries to be notable.

A True and Just Record, 1582

In the history of the English witch trials, Essex won for itself a certain prestige from the outset: the first execution for witchcraft in the country took place in Chelmsford in 1566, only three years after the new Witchcraft Act was passed.¹ It would prove to be a bad omen indeed, as the county bore the brunt of more than its fair share of witchcraft-related trials and bloodshed in the decades to follow, with many accused men and women ending their lives at the gallows.

In 1582 the village of St Osyth was to experience first-hand a wash of witchcraft accusations that would develop into one of the county’s most infamous and well-recorded witch trials. As was so often the case, it started with a simple feud between two women: Grace Thurlow and Ursula Kempe, both long-term residents of St Osyth. Trouble had been brewing for some time, but finally came to a head when, on 19 February 1582, Grace spoke out against her one-time friend to Brian Darcy, a justice of the peace for Essex. Whether Grace had any inkling of where matters would end cannot be known, but that day she set in motion a chain of events that was to have disastrous consequences for the community in which the two women lived and worked.

Grace carefully related how, when her son Davy had been unwell the previous year, Ursula visited the Thurlow household to see how the boy was faring. The visit had passed amicably enough, with Ursula taking it upon herself to carry out a perhaps well-known folk-ritual in an attempt to help the sick child. Taking Davy’s hand she had remarked, ‘A good child how thou art loden,’ before getting to her feet and leaving the house, only to return again a moment later to repeat her words to the child.² Grace had looked on as Ursula carried out this ritual three times in total, and it was clear that the worried mother had found comfort in the perceived meaning behind her friend’s actions, asking Ursula to return to see them again that night. Ursula assented, assuring Grace that her son would now be on the mend, and her words proved true: the sick child passed the night in greater comfort than he had done since falling ill, much to the satisfaction of all concerned.

Grace was pregnant at the time and, due to the apparent good state of their friendship and her known experience in helping women in childbirth, Ursula had apparently – and erroneously – assumed that she would be asked to attend Grace when her time came. She was to be rudely disabused of this notion three months later as it transpired that Grace had arranged for another woman to assist her. Greatly angered, the snubbed Ursula had let Grace know her feelings on the matter in no uncertain terms, making it clear that she would not tolerate such a slight. This was the first sign that things were not as friendly between the two women as might have been assumed: as Grace remarked pointedly on a fit of lameness that had troubled her, issuing a barely veiled threat that, if she continued to suffer, she would go before a magistrate and name Ursula as the cause. Ursula, after all, had a ‘naughty’ name, and it might just be that Grace’s lameness came from a not-so-natural cause.

Despite the potential seriousness of such an implication, Ursula had not seemed much bothered by Grace’s threats, or the connection of her name with witchcraft. By her own admission in fact, she was capable of un-witching those who had been bewitched, but was not able to carry out bewitching herself. Ursula had then offered to show Grace how to un-witch herself and cure her own lameness: all Grace had to do was send away the unwanted birth attendant and she, Ursula, would help her.

Grace did not reveal to Darcy whether she had taken Ursula up on her offer, but the child, a girl, was delivered without incident. The two women clashed again shortly after the birth, this time over who would nurse the child. Perhaps on account of their recent disagreement, Grace did not hand over the task to Ursula, choosing instead to nurse her own child, even as she continued with her work as a maid. All seemed well – until tragedy struck: the baby, barely 3 months old, fell from her cradle and died of a broken neck. Far from expressing sympathy at this awful turn of events, Ursula had made it clear that the tragedy could have been avoided if only Grace had given her the child to nurse as she had asked.

Unsurprisingly, the two women remained at odds with each other, and the grieving mother found herself suffering again with the lameness that had previously bothered her. During this time, unbidden and unannounced, Ursula had come to the Thurlow house and told Grace she would cure her if her old friend would give her 12 pence.³ Suffering greatly, Grace agreed, and for five weeks after Ursula’s visit she felt great relief, from her physical suffering at least. When Ursula came to collect payment, Grace admitted that she had no money, and due to her poverty could not pay her. Ursula offered to take cheese in payment, but Grace had none of that either. This proved to be the last straw where their precarious friendship was concerned; after a heated exchange an angry Ursula left in high dudgeon.

Upon her departure, Grace fell lame once more, and continued to suffer from that day on. Matters were even worse than before, for the moment she began to show even a sign of improvement, the condition of Davy, her surviving child, grew worse; if he felt better, then Grace herself grew so lame she could not get out of bed.

All of this Grace Thurlow told the justice on that day in mid-February. The implication was clear: Ursula Kempe and her witchcraft were to blame for her suffering and the ills that had befallen herself and her children.

Grace was not the only one to speak out against Ursula. That same day, Agnes Letherdale did likewise, unburdening herself before the keenly listening justice. Agnes told Brian Darcy that Ursula had sent her son to ask her, Agnes, for some scouring sand.⁴ In exchange, Ursula offered ‘the dyeing of a pair of womens hose’, but Agnes, ‘knowing her to be a naughty beast sent her none’.⁵ Agnes was happy to give the sand to others, and when her daughter was making a delivery elsewhere, Ursula happened to see the transaction take place. Again angered by such a slight, Ursula apparently muttered something inaudible – what her words were goes unrecorded, but shortly afterwards one of Agnes’s children was struck with a strange and terrible illness, ‘with a great swelling in the bottom of the belly, and other privy parts’.⁶

Agnes told Darcy that just over a week before her interview with him, she had approached Ursula, informing her that she had been to see a cunning man or woman to discover who or what was behind her child’s suffering.⁷ The answer was unequivocal: Ursula Kempe had bewitched the child. As with Grace Thurlow’s account, Agnes related how Ursula had been unimpressed with this revelation, stating that not only had she done no such thing, but that she didn’t believe Agnes had been to visit anyone in the first place. Agnes continued to believe in Ursula’s culpability, and the child itself had provided further evidence to support what the cunning person had told her: on the way to visit Mother Ratcliffe, a woman known for her abilities to help those who were bewitched, the child had pointed towards the windows of Ursula’s house, crying ‘wo wo’, plaintively as if making its own accusation.⁸ This was no coincidence; the ill child had repeated the same gesture on the way home again. Despite being certain who was to blame, this knowledge had not done her child any good as its suffering had grown worse than ever, and even Mother Ratcliffe had not been confident that there was much to be done: the child continued to be in a bad state indeed at the very time Agnes was speaking with the justice.⁹

The day after Grace Thurlow and Agnes Letherdale spoke to Brian Darcy, Ursula herself was brought in to be questioned. In the account of what transpired the reader is left to imagine how Ursula felt at being summoned, and one wonders whether she was at first as assured and unworried as she was reported to have been when the two women accused her of witchcraft to her face. First Ursula told Darcy that about ten or eleven years earlier she had herself suffered a bout of lameness. In order to find a cure, she had visited the wife of a man named Cock, in Weeley, a village five miles north of St Osyth.¹⁰ The woman had told Ursula that she had been bewitched, and when Ursula in turn begged to be taught how to cure herself, Cock’s wife had obliged. She had told Ursula that the best method was to mix some hog’s dung and charvell together, then, holding this in her left hand and a knife in the other, she should prick the medicine three times before throwing it into the fire.¹¹ After doing so, she should then make three pricks under a table, before sticking the knife there. Finally, she was to take three sage leaves and the same amount of ‘herb John’ and put them in ale.¹² This was to be drunk first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and if the directions were followed properly, Ursula would find herself well.

The cure was duly carried out and Ursula had found her condition much improved. Not wanting to keep this new-found knowledge to herself, Ursula decided to use it to help others. The wives of Page and Gray, women also suffering from lameness, had sent for her and, after declaring them bewitched, Ursula had given them both the same cure that she had taken. Much to the satisfaction of all, both women had soon become well again.

It seems that Ursula had been