The Bloody History of Witch Trials in England and Scotland (Spooky Month 2022) (#136)

Back in October 2020, Charlotte took us through the Salem Witch Trials, one of the most infamous moments of witch hunting throughout US History. But it’s not just America that has its fair share of bad reactions towards witchcraft and wizardry… our own fair isles can count quite a few bloody moments too. 

Originally, witchcraft simply referred to a collection of actions and beliefs associated with healing. It was woven into pagan ideas and many practitioners would have been skilled in the use of different plants and other ingredients as remedies for particular ailments. The services of these people, who were also known as ‘cunning folk’, were enlisted to help protect livestock too. They would speak blessings over the animals.

However, from the 7th century onwards, attitudes towards the practice began to change. During the mediaeval period, fears over so-called ‘black magic’ began to emerge. This referred to the power of witchcraft to bring harm to others. An association was also drawn between witchcraft and the devil.

In 1486, the German clergyman and witch finder Heinrich Kramer wrote a book called Maleus Mallificarum in which he derided witchcraft. The tome, which was commonly referred to as Hammer of the Witches in English, soon outsold every publication in Europe apart from the Bible. In the book, Kramer wrote: “Magicians, who are commonly called witches are thus termed on account of the magnitude of their evil deeds. These are they who by the permission of God disturb the elements, who drive to distraction the minds of men, such as have lost their trust in God, and by the terrible power of their evil spells, without any actual draught or poison, kill human beings.”

One of the central themes of the book was that women were weaker in their Christian faith and were therefore more likely to be seduced by the devil. Older women were particularly vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft because of the roles they served. For example, they would often look after infants and cook for families. If people sickened and died, these helpers tended to be the first to be accused.

However, it’s important to note that men were also the victims of witch hunts. Around a fifth to a quarter of all those executed as witches were male.

Now, witch hunting was never a unified national policy. Instead, it was a patchy phenomenon, with witch crazes breaking out in particular communities at certain times. For example, scholars link a change in climate to the rising unpopularity of witches - from the early 14th century until the mid-19th century, temperatures in Europe dropped and as a result, crop failures became more common. This caused living standards to fall and it increased competition for resources among neighbours. So, seeking answers to these problems and looking to take control over their circumstances, some communities turned on witches.

But even though witchcraft had been deemed heresy and was denounced as such by Pope Innocent VIII back in 1484, there were no laws banning witchcraft in Britain until Henry VIII took to the throne; In 1542, under his rule, Parliament deemed witchcraft a capital offence and passed the Witchcraft Act which defined witchcraft as a crime punishable by death. It was repealed five years later but restored by a new Act in 1562.

A further law was passed in 1604 during the reign of James I; James I had been greatly interested in witchcraft even before he took the throne (in 1603), writing a book, Daemonologie, instructing his readers to condemn and prosecute both supporters and practitioners of witchcraft. The scepticism of the king became reflected in the feelings of unrest about witchcraft among the common people, and so both the 1562 and 1604 Acts transferred the trial of witches from the Church to the ordinary courts.

Because of this, formal accusations against witches – who were usually poor, elderly women – reached a peak in the late 16th century, particularly in south-east England. Any who were unfortunate enough to be ‘crone-like’, snaggle-toothed, sunken cheeked and having a hairy lip were assumed to possess the ‘Evil Eye’. Anyone with blemishes such as moles or warts were also targeted, as the marks were said to be teats used to suckle the devil’s imps. Meanwhile, witches were believed to convene with the devil through small real or imagined animals, so if they also had a cat this was taken as proof, as witches always had a ‘familiar’, the cat being the most common. 

Many unfortunate women were condemned on this sort of evidence and hanged after undergoing appalling torture. The ‘pilnie-winks’ (thumb screws) and iron ‘caspie-claws’ (a form of leg irons heated over a brazier) usually got a confession from the supposed witch.

Witch fever gripped East Anglia in particular for 14 months between 1645 – 1646. The people of these eastern counties were solidly Puritan and rabid anti-Catholics and easily swayed by bigoted preachers whose mission was to seek out the slightest whiff of heresy. A man called Matthew Hopkins, an unsuccessful lawyer, came to ‘help’! He became known as the ‘Witchfinder General’ and had 68 people put to death in Bury St. Edmunds alone, and 19 hanged at Chelmsford in a single day. After Chelmsford he set off for Norfolk and Suffolk. Aldeburgh paid him £6 for clearing the town of witches, Kings Lynn £15 and a grateful Stowmarket £23. Just to put this into context, this was at a time when the daily wage was 2.5p.

Much of Matthew Hopkins theories of deduction were based on Devils Marks. A wart or mole or even a flea-bite he took to be a Devil's Mark and he used his ‘jabbing needle’ to see if these marks were insensitive to pain. His ‘needle’ was a 3-inch-long spike which retracted into the spring-loaded handle so the unfortunate woman never felt any pain.

There were other tests for witches. Mary Sutton of Bedford was put to the swimming test. With her thumbs tied to opposite big toes she was flung into the river. If she floated she was guilty, if she sank, innocent. Poor Mary floated!

A heart carved on a wall in the marketplace at Kings Lynn is supposed to mark the spot where the heart of Margaret Read, a condemned witch who was being burnt at the stake, leapt from the flames and struck the wall.

A last reminder of Hopkins’ reign of terror was discovered in St. Osyth, Essex, in 1921. Two female skeletons were found in a garden, pinned into unmarked graves and with iron rivets driven through their joints. This was to make sure a witch could not return from the grave.

Among the most well-known are the trials of the Pendle witches in 1612. It is important to understand the background to the events of these particular trials. Six of the eleven “witches” on trial came from two rival families, the Demdike family and the Chattox family, both headed by old, poverty-stricken widows, Elizabeth Southerns (aka “Old Demdike”) and Anne Whittle (“Mother Chattox”). Old Demdike had been known as a witch for fifty years; it was an accepted part of village life in the 16th century that there were village healers who practised magic and dealt in herbs and medicines.

The story began with an altercation between one of the accused, Alizon Device, and a pedlar, John Law. Alizon, either travelling or begging on the road to Trawden Forest, passed John Law and asked him for some pins (it is not known whether her intention was to pay for them or whether she was begging). He refused and Alizon cursed him. It was a short while after this that John Law suffered a stroke, for which he blamed Alizon and her powers. When this incident was brought before Justice Nowell, Alizon confessed that she had told the Devil to lame John Law. It was upon further questioning that Alizon accused her grandmother, Old Demdike, and also members of the Chattox family, of witchcraft. The accusations on the Chattox family seem to have been an act of revenge. The families had been feuding for years, perhaps since one of the Chattox family broke into Malkin Tower (the home of the Demdikes) and stole goods to the value of £1 (approximately the equivalent of £100 now). Furthermore, John Device (father of Alizon) blamed the illness that led to his death on Old Chattox, who had threatened to harm his family if they did not pay annually for their protection.

The deaths of four other villagers that had occurred years before the trial were raised and the blame laid on witchcraft performed by Chattox. James Demdike confessed that Alizon had also cursed a local child some time before and Elizabeth, although more reserved in making accusations, confessed her mother had a mark on her body, supposedly where the Devil had sucked her blood, which left her mad. On further questioning both Old Demdike and Chattox confessed to selling their souls. Also Anne (Chattox’s daughter) was allegedly seen to create clay figures. After hearing this evidence, the judge detained Alizon, Anne, Old Demdike and Old Chattox and waited for trial.

The story would have ended there had it not been for a meeting held at Malkin Tower by James Device (Alizon’s brother), for which he stole a neighbour’s sheep. Those sympathetic to the family attended but word reached the judge who felt compelled to investigate. As a result, a further eight people were summoned for questioning and then trial.

The 12 accused were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft. The trials were held between 17th and 19th August 1612, wherein a nine-year-old called Jennet Device was a key supplier of evidence! Normally, someone so young would not have been able to supply key evidence, but it was allowed under the system from King James as all normal rules of evidence could be suspended for witch trials. Old Demdike never reached trial; the dark, dank dungeon in which they were imprisoned was too much for her to survive. All bar one was tried at Lancaster, with the last person being tried at York. Of the 11 who appeared in court, ten were found guilty and were sentenced to death by hanging. Only one was found not guilty.

Speaking of children… In 1705, as a result of some wild stories told by a 16-year-old boy, three people died and others were cruelly tortured.

Patrick Morton, the son of a local blacksmith, made allegations and accusations of witchcraft against some of his neighbours in the scenic fishing village of Pittenweem in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland.

One of the accused was Beatrice Laing, the wife of a former town treasurer, who Patrick accused of sending evil thoughts to torture him.

No one thought to question his story, and Beatrice was incarcerated, alone, in a pitch-dark dungeon. After five long months, and several trips to the torture chamber, she was freed, but died soon afterwards, alone and friendless, in St Andrews.

Another man accused by the boy was Thomas Brown – he starved to death in a dungeon.

The third person accused of witchcraft was Janet Cornfoot. She managed to flee from her torturers only to return home and be re-captured. She was caught by a mob in Pittenweem on 30 January 1705 and beaten and dragged by her heels to the seafront.

There she was swung from a rope tied between a ship and the shore, stoned, beaten severely, and finally crushed to death under a door piled high with rocks. To make absolutely certain that she was dead, a man drove his horse and cart over her body several times. Refused a Christian burial, her body was thrown into a communal grave at the spot known as “Witches Corner”.

Though all the others accused by the boy Patrick were eventually freed, and he was later exposed as a liar, the mob went unpunished and were never brought to justice. Unbelievably, neither was Patrick Morton, who was responsible for all these terrible events.

Perhaps the most brutal witch hunt in English history was led by Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne. In 1645, the duo visited the home of 80-year-old Elizabeth Clarke, who they accused of witchcraft. She was deprived of sleep for three days and nights while four women and two men kept watch over her looking for signs of the devil. She eventually confessed to having “carnal relations” with the devil. Elizabeth then implicated other local women in witchcraft crimes and, between 1645 and 1646, more than 100 women were hanged.

The last documented execution for witchcraft in England took place in 1682, but the practice continued in Scotland for longer. In 1697, seven people were sentenced to death in Paisley. The three men and four women were found guilty of committing murder by witchcraft. Six were hanged and burned, while one committed suicide before the sentence was carried out. The trial had been based on the testimony of an 11-year-old girl.

Another interesting case has come to represent the end of the witch trial era. In March 1712, Jane Wenham from the village of Walkern in Hertfordshire stood trial for “conversing familiarly with the Devil in the shape of a cat”. A jury found her guilty and she was sentenced to hang. However, she was pardoned by Queen Anne.

The Enlightenment, which travelled through Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries and emphasised the importance of reason, spelled the end of the period of witch trials. In total, 513 witches were put on trial between 1560 and 1700, though only 112 were executed, and the last trials were held in Leicester in 1717. 

But although many of the laws and Acts against witchcraft were repealed in 1736, ill-sentiment to those deemed to use black magic did not entirely disappear. In the absence of legal options, communities occasionally took matters into their own hands and attacked suspected witches – aka, witch hunting itself still went on. 

In 1863, an alleged male witch was drowned in a pond in Headingham, Essex and in 1945 the body of an elderly farm labourer was found near the village of Meon Hill in Warwickshire. His throat had been cut and his corpse was pinned to the earth with a pitchfork. The murder remains unsolved, however the man was reputed, locally, to be a wizard. In 1808, an angry mob in Cambridgeshire assaulted a young woman named Ann Izzard, who was accused of being a witch. They beat her in the face and stomach with a club and scratched her arms to draw blood.

Overall, in just over three centuries some 500 people are believed to have been executed for witchcraft in England, and with that number reaching nearly 1000 people in Scotland. Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, is believed to be behind 300 of these executions.

But the story of witch hunting doesn’t end there, not by a long shot! To round today's episode out, I’m going to finish on the story of the last person in Britain to be tried and sentenced under the 1735 Witchcraft Act… and it’s in the 20th century.

Born in Callander in 1897, the daughter of a cabinet-maker, Helen Duncan was a spiritualist, medium and show woman who travelled throughout Britain, holding regular séances during which she would produce the form of dead people by emitting a cloud-like substance – ectoplasm – from her mouth. These spirits were said to appear, talking and actually touching their relatives

It was during the years of the Second World War that Duncan’s activities attracted the attention of the Establishment.

In 1941, she spoke with a deceased sailor from HMS Barham and revealed that the ship had been sunk in the Mediterranean, although the War Office did not officially release this fact until several months later. The wartime government had been trying to hush up the loss of 861 British seamen when the German U-boat U331 torpedoed the ship.

On the night of 19th January 1944, one of Helen’s séances was raided by police, in her then hometown of Portsmouth where the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet was based. Officers attempted to stop the ectoplasm issuing from Helen’s mouth, but failed. After some order had been restored, Helen was formally arrested.

It has been alleged that the real reason for the raid was due to the official paranoia surrounding the forthcoming D-Day Normandy landings and the fear that she may reveal the date, location and other details.

In one of the most sensational episodes in wartime Britain, Duncan was eventually brought to trial at the Old Bailey in London and became the last person to be prosecuted under the Witchcraft Act of 1735, which had not been used for more than a century. After a seven-day trial, she was sentenced to nine months in London’s Holloway Prison. She was even denied the right to appeal to the House of Lords.

As a result of the case, the Witchcraft Acts were finally repealed in 1951. A formal Act of Parliament three years later officially recognised spiritualism as a religion.

Helen Duncan was released from prison on 22 September 1944. However, the harassment she faced appears to have continued right up to her death. In November 1956 the police raided a private séance in Nottingham in an attempt to prove fraud. Once again the investigators failed in their objectives. Five weeks later, the woman who will always be remembered as the last witch, died.

All in all, it’s safe to say that witchcraft has had a bloody and turbulent history in the UK. But despite its periods of persecution and prejudice, it has survived to the present day and many people still practise the tradition now.