Witchcraft

Agnes Sampson was one of the accused in a series of notorious witch trials that took place in Scotland in the late sixteenth century – one of the biggest witch scares in this country.

Accusations included that the witches had raised a great storm which had threatened the life of the king, James VI (later also James I of England), leading James himself to question Sampson.

The English ambassador took a keen interest in the events, and in this letter reports back about Sampson’s final confession (probably made after torture). She was found guilty at the Assize court and executed by burning.

Accusations of witchcraft often stemmed from the grey area between using perceived supernatural powers for good, or for harm.

Jane (or Joan) Guppie was a healer or wise woman in Dorset who was accused by a neighbour, Judith Gibbs, of bewitching her and making her ill. The initial court case was launched by Jane herself, complaining that Judith and her friends had attacked her. Judith and her confederates responded that they had merely been attempting to ‘prick’ Jane – to draw a few drops of her blood to cure Judith of her illness.

This certificate was drawn up by other members of the community, testifying that Jane was not a witch, and that ‘she hath done good to many people as well in curing of diverse people of wounds and such like things’. One can clearly see the signatures and seals used by Jane’s neighbours to record their support.

In this document the Bishop of Chester records for the Privy Council (the group of advisors closest to the king) his examinations of three women: Margaret Johnson, Mary Spencer and Frances Dickonson. All three had been found guilty of witchcraft at the Lancaster Assizes.

The Privy Council did not routinely get involved in witchcraft trials, but the judge in the trial had been uneasy – perhaps because the women’s chief accuser was an 11-year old boy. He referred the case to the Privy Council, who had asked the Bishop to investigate.

Johnson (an elderly woman, whom the bishop considered confused and unreliable) admitted to being a witch, while Spencer and Dickonson denied the charges vigorously. Later, under questioning from the chief justice of Middlesex, the boy at the heart of the case would admit that he made the whole thing up.

The majority of people accused of witchcraft in the early modern period were women. However, men could be accused too.

In this petition to the Privy Council (a group of advisors at the heart of government), Henry Alcocke pleads for the release of Thomas Harvey, a mercer (dealer in fabrics) from Rutland in the English Midlands. According to the petition, Harvey was arrested by soldiers on the orders of the Privy Council, taken to Devon and tried at the Exeter Assizes ‘upon suspicion of witchcraft and wicked practices with the devil’.

Although Harvey was acquitted, he had remained in prison on the orders of one of the Exeter justices. The existence of the petition amongst the State Papers shows that it reached the Privy Council. It does not, however, record the fate of Thomas Harvey.

Most accusations of witchcraft stemmed from within local communities, often resulting from disagreements between neighbours. While in many cases more members of the community would then come forward with accusations, it also happened that neighbours would speak out in defence of the accused.

In this deposition made as part of a court case, around 50 members of the townspeople of Denby vigorously defend Susannah Hinchcliffe and her daughter, Anne Shillitoe, against the accusations of a local girl, Mary Moore. Not only do they vouch for the good characters of Hinchcliffe and Shilitoe, they also hint that the complaint from Moore may be ‘malicious’.