THE CHELMSFORD WITCHES - 1645 - (ENGLAND)
At Chelmsford, Essex in 1566, the first notable witch trial in England
occurred. The charges against three defendants, Elizabeth Francis,
Agnes
Waterhouse and her daughter Joan were typical of most English trials
as
the highly imaginative stories of young children were accepted as
evidence. Agnes Waterhouse was hanged on July 29, 1566 (possibly the
first
woman hanged for witchcraft in England). Elizabeth Frances was imprisoned
for a year, and then in 1579, she was charged with witchcraft again
and
hanged and Joan Waterhouse was found not guilty. Another notable trial
in
Chelmsford occurred in 1589, which involved one man and nine women
four
were hanged and three were found not guilty. Three of the witches were
executed within two hours of sentencing: Joan Coney, Joan Upney and
Joan
Prentice. A mass trial at Chelmsford took place in 1645, in which
thirty-two women were accused and nineteen were hanged.
GRACE TRIPP
Convicted of Murder on Evidence of the actual Perpetrator
of the Crime, and executed at the Age of Nineteen at
Tyburn, 27th of March, 1710
GRACE TRIPP was a native of Barton, in Lincolnshire;
and after living as a servant at a gentleman's house in
the country she came to London, was some time in a reput-
able family, and then procured a place in the house of Lord
Torrington.
During her stay in this last service she became connected
with a man named Peters, who persuaded her to be con-
cerned in robbing her master's house, promising to marry
her as soon as the fact should be perpetrated. Hereupon
it was concerted between them that she should let Peters
into the house in the night, and that they should join in
stealing and carrying off the plate.
Peters was accordingly admitted at the appointed time,
when all of the family, except the housekeeper, were out of
town ; but this housekeeper, hearing a noise, came into the
room just as they had packed up the plate; on which Peters
seized her and cut her throat, while Tripp held the candle.
This being done, they searched the pockets of the deceased,
in which they found about thirty guineas; with which, and
the plate, they hastily decamped, leaving the street door open.
The offenders were taken in a few days, when Peters
having been admitted as evidence for the Crown, Grace
Tripp was convicted, at the age of nineteen years, and
publicly hanged at Tyburn, on 27th March, 1710.
FAVERSHAM WITCHES (ENGLAND)
Jane Holt, Joan Williford and Joan Cardien were executed at Faversham,
Kent on September 29, 1645. As with most trials, the women confessed
to the
usual wicked deeds of forsaking God, entering into a pact with the
devil,
etc...etc...Of course they were forced to confess publicly.
FLOWER, MARGARET AND PHILIPPA (ENGLAND)
The Flower sisters were hanged for witchcraft at Lincoln in March, 1618.
They were accused of hexing the family of the Earl of Rutland, whereby
the
Earl's son died.
MADAM CHURCHILL
Hanged at Tyburn on I 7th of December, 1708
DEBORAH CHURCHILL, alias Miller, was born
within six miles of the city of Norwich, in the county
of Norfolk, of worthy honest parents, who gave her a very
good education, and brought her up in her younger years
in the ways of religion and good manners; but she had
wickedly thrown off all those good things which were
endeavoured to be fixed in her, and abandoned herself to
all manner of filthiness and uncleanness, which afterwards
proved her shame and ruin. She was first married to one
John Churchill, an ensign in Major General Faringdon's
regiment, by whose name she commonly went, but seldom
by her second husband's, who, two or three years before
her misfortunes, was married to her in the Fleet Prison,
upon agreement first made between them both that they
should not live together, nor have anything to do with each
other. Which agreement was strictly performed; and so
she continued freely to keep company with one Hunt, a
Lifeguardsman, as she had begun to do in her former
husband's time.
She had lived with the aforesaid Bully Hunt for seven
years together in a lascivious and adulterous manner,
which broke her first husband's heart, by whom she had
two children surviving at the time of her unfortunate death.
She had lived also in incontinency about three months with
one Thomas Smith, a cooper, who was hanged at Tyburn,
on Friday, the 16th day of December, 1709, for breaking
open and robbing the house of the Right Honourable the
Earl of Westmorland.
She was committed to New Prison for picking a gentle
man's pocket of a purse wherein was a hundred and four
guineas. Whilst she was there she seemed to be really a
pious woman; but her religion was of five or six colours,
for this day she would pray that God would turn the heart
of her adversary, and to morrow curse the time that ever
she saw him.
She at last got out of this mansion of sorrow also, but
soon forgetting her afflictions she pursued her wickedness
continually, till she had been sent no less than twenty times
to Clerkenwell Bridewell, where, receiving the correction
of the house every time, by being whipped, and kept to
beating hemp from morning till night for the small allow
ance of so much bread and water, which just kept life
and soul together, she commonly came out like a skeleton,
and walked as if her limbs had been tied together with
packthread. Yet let what punishment would light on this
common strumpet, she was no changeling, for as soon as she
was out of jail she ran into still greater evils, by deluding,
if possible, all mankind.
After Madam Churchill had reigned a long time in her
wickedness, as she was coming one night along Drury Lane,
in company with Richard Hunt, William Lewis and John
Boy, they took occasion to fall out with one Martin Were,
and she aggravating the quarrel by bidding them sacrifice
the man, they killed him between King's Head Court and
Vinegar Yard. The three men who committed this murder
made their escape, but she, being apprehended as an
accessary therein, was sent to Newgate, and shortly after
condemned for it, on the 26th of February, 1708.
After sentence of death was passed on her, her execu-
tion was respited, by virtue of a reprieve given her upon
account of her being thought to be with child; which she
pretended to be, in hopes it might be a means to save her
life, or at least put off her death for a time. But when she
had lain under condemnation almost ten months, and was
found not to be with child, she was called to her former
judgment. Then, being conveyed in a coach to Tyburn, on
Friday, the 17th of December, 1708, she was there hanged,
in the thirty first year of her age.
GRIERSON, ISOBEL (SCOTLAND)
Indicted for witchcraft on March 10, 1607, Isobel was accused of causing
illness, tormenting people, turning ale sour and using charms. She
was
strangled and burned on Castlehill, Edinburgh and her goods were forfeit
to the king.
ANNE HARRIS
Although only Twenty when she was executed at Tyburn, on
13th of July, 1708, she was a notorious Shoplifter,
and her two Husbands had already suffered
the Death Penalty
ANNE HARRIS, alias Sarah Davies, alias Thorn, alias
Gothorn, was born of honest but poor parents, in the
parish of St Giles without Cripplegate; but being debauched
by one James Wadsworth, she soon abandoned all manner
of goodness. This Wadsworth was otherwise called " Jemmy
the Mouth " among his companions. He was hanged for
felony and burglary at Tyburn, in the twenty-fourth year
of his age, on Friday, the 24th of September, 1702. She
next lived with one William Pulman, otherwise called
Norwich Will, from the place of his birth, who also made
his exit at Hyde Park Corner, on Friday, the 9th of March,
1704-1705, aged twenty-six years, for robbing one Mr
Joseph Edwards on the highway of a pair of leather bags, a
shirt, two neckcloths, two pocket-books, twenty-five guineas,
a half broad-piece of gold, and four pounds in silver.
Now Nan, being twice left a hempen widow in less than
three years, had learned in that time to be as vicious as
the very worst of her sex, and was so absolutely enslaved to
all manner of wickedness through custom and opportunity
that good admonitions could work no good effects upon her.
Her inclination was entirely averse to honesty. Bidding
adieu to everything that looked like virtue, she drove a great
trade among goldsmiths, to whose shops she often went to
buy gold rings, but she only cheapened till she had the oppor-
tunity of stealing one or two; which she did by means of a
little ale held in a spoon over the fire till it congealed thick
like a syrup, for by rubbing some of this on the palm of
her hand, any light thing would stick to it, without the
least suspicion at all. She was as well known among the
mercers, lacemen and linendrapers on Ludgate Hill, Cheap-
side or Fleet Street as that notorious shoplifter, Isabel
Thomas, who was condemned for the same crimes.
But at last she was apprehended for her pranks, and being
so often burned in the face that there was no more room left
for the hangman to stigmatise her, the Court thought fit to
condemn her for privately stealing a piece of printed calico
out of the shop of one Mr John Andrews; and she was
publicly hanged, in the twentieth year of her age, at Tyburn, on
Friday, 13th of July, 1708.
LANCASHIRE WITCHES (ENGLAND)
A notorius mass witch trial in England, which involved twenty alleged
witches. The evidence of confessing witches was readily accepted and
in
all, ten of the accused were hanged, one died in jail, two were sentenced
to jail for a year and the rest were acquitted. Young Alison Device,
who
was only eleven-years old, was amongst those that were hanged along
with
her mother and brother
LUXEUIL WITCH TRIAL (FRANCE)
The trial of twenty-seven-year old Madame Desle la Mansenee is important
in documenting the continued involvement of the Inquisition in witch
trials. In 1529, the Inquisitor-General visited the village of Anjux
to
collect hearsay gossip from the villages. Complaints focused on one
woman,
Desle la Mansenee and in March, 1529, the inquisitor began interrogating
the woman. At first she didn't confess, so she was subjected to torture.
By April 8, she was naming her accomplices at the sabbats and on December
18, 1529, she was hanged and her body was burned.
ST. OSYTH WITCHES (ENGLAND)
In 1582, several individuals were accused of witchcraft, in which the
testimony of children ranging in age from six to nine was eagerly
received. Two women were hanged , Elizabeth Bennet, for killing a man
and
his wife and Ursula Kempe was indicted for three deaths and consequently
hanged.
MOLL HAWKINS
A "Question Lay" Thief, whose End was at Tyburn,
on 22nd of December, 1703
MOLL HAWKINS was condemned on the 3rd of
March, 1703, for privately stealing goods out of
the shop of Mrs Hobday, in Paternoster Row. She hav-
ing been reprieved for nine months, upon account of her
being then alleged quick with child -- though she was
not -- she was now called down to her former judgment.
When she came to the place of execution at Tyburn, on
Wednesday, the 22nd of December, 1703, she said she was
about twenty-six years of age, born in the parish of St Giles-
in-the-Fields ; that she served three years' apprenticeship
to a button-maker in Maiden Lane, by Covent Garden, and
followed that employment for some years after, but withal
gave way at the same time to those ill practices which were
now the cause of her death.
SCHWAGEL, ANNA MARIA (GERMANY)
Anna Maria's execution for witchcraft on April 11, 1755, was the last
official execution for witchcraft in Germany. A coachman promised marriage
to Anna Maria if she would become a Lutheran. She journeyed to Memmingen
with the coachman to formerly renounce her Catholic faith. The coachman
seduced and abandoned her and she was delirious at the loss of her
faith
and virginity. She wandered about the countryside dazed and crazed
until
she was picked up and put in a bedlam. Here, the matron, Anna Maria
Kuhstaller beat Anna Maria until she confessed to having intercourse
with
the devil. The matron denounced her to the magistrates and Anna Maria
was
thrown in jail. Two weeks later, her trial began and apparently no
torture
was needed as she was half-crazed by this time. She confessed to all
sorts
of deeds and she was executed.
MARY JONES
Who became a Shoplifter for Love of her Husband.
Executed at Tyburn 18th of December, 1691
MARY JONES was born in Chancery Lane, where
her parents lived in a great deal of credit. She
was brought up to the making of hoods and scarves at the
New Exchange in the Strand. She married an apprentice,
whom she loved extremely, and whose extravagances were
thought to be the first occasion of her taking to a dishonest
course of life; for as he was not in a capacity to get any
money himself, she was willing to do anything in order to
furnish him with whatever he wanted, being fond of having
him always appear like a gentleman. The first species of
thieving she took to was picking pockets.
One day, meeting near Rosamond's Pond, in St James's
Park, with one Mr Price, a milliner, keeping shop in the
same Exchange in which she was bred, Moll pretended to
ask him some questions about Mrs Zouch, a servant of his,
who had murdered her bastard child; whereupon he pulled
out a tin trumpet, which he usually carried in his pocket to
hold to his ear, being so very deaf that he could not hear
otherwise. Whilst he was earnestly hearkening to what
Moll said to him through this vehicle, she picked a purse
out of his breeches in which were fifteen guineas and a
broad-piece. Mr Price never missed it till he came home,
and then where to find her he could not tell.
Shortly after this she was apprehended for picking the
pocket of one Mr Jacob Delafay, a Jew, who was chocolate-
maker to King James II. and King William III., and lived
over against York Buildings in the Strand. For this fact she
was committed to Newgate and burned in the hand; which
punishment making her out of conceit with the trade of
diving or filing, she turned shoplifter, in which she was
very successful for three or four years; at the end of which,
privately stealing half-a-dozen pairs of silk stockings from
one Mr Wansel, a hosier in Exeter 'Change, she was detected
actually committing the theft by one Smith, a victualler, at
the Rose and Crown ale-house, over against the little Savoy
Gate in the Strand, who was buying a pair of stockings there
at the same time. This Smith, being a constable, seized her,
and carrying her before Justice Brydal, he committed her to
Newgate, after which she was burned in the hand again.
Still following the art and mystery of shoplifting, she
was apprehended for privately stealing a piece of satin out
of a mercer's shop on Ludgate Hill, whither she went in a
very splendid equipage and personated the late Duchess
of Norfolk, to avoid suspicion of her dishonesty; but her
graceless Grace being sent to Newgate, and condemned for
her life at the Old Bailey, she was hanged at Tyburn in the
twenty-fifth year of her age, on Friday, the 18th day of
December, in the year 1691.
MARY (MOLL) RABY
Who robbed many Houses, and was hanged at Tyburn
on 3rd of November, 1703
THIS offender had almost as many names as the
fabulous hydra had heads. She was born in the parish
of St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and took betimes to ill courses,
in which she continued till her death. Madam Ogle was
not more dexterous at bilking hackney coaches than Moll
Raby at bilking her lodging, in which species of fraud her
talent originally lay, and at which she had more success
than at anything else she undertook.
One of her adventures was at a house in Great Russell
Street, by Bloomsbury Square, where, passing for a great
heiress, who was obliged to leave the country by reason of
the importunate troublesomeness of a great many suitors,
she was entertained with all the civility imaginable. This
seemingly honest creature, who was a saint without but a
devil within, continued there about a fortnight to increase
her character, making a very good appearance as to her
habit, for she had a tallyman in every quarter of the town.
One day, when all the family were absent except the maid,
she desired her to call a porter, and gave him a sham bill,
drawn on a banker in Lombard Street, for one hundred
and fifty pounds, which she desired might be all in gold;
but fearing such a quantity of money might be a temptation
to make the porter dishonest, she privately requested the
maid to go along with him, and she, in the meantime,
would take care of the house. The poor maid, thinking no
harm, went with the porter to Lombard Street, where they
were stopped for a couple of cheats ; but they alleging their
innocence, and proving from whence they came, a messenger
was sent home with them, who found it to be a trick put
upon the servant to rob the house; for before she came
back, Moll Raby had gone off with above eighty pounds
in money, one hundred and sixty pounds worth of plate,
and several other things of a considerable value.
For offences of this nature she was thrice burned in the
hand, after which she married one Humphry Jackson, a
butcher, who was taught by her to leave off his trade and
go upon the pad in the daytime, while she went upon the
" buttock and twang " by night; which is picking up a cull
or spark, whom, pretending she would not expose her face
in a public-house, she takes into some dark alley, where she
picks his fob or pocket of his watch or money, and giving a
sort of " Ahem ! " as a signal she has succeeded in her design,
the fellow with whom she keeps company, blundering up in
the dark, knocks down the gallant and carries of the prize.
But after the death of this husband Moll turned arrant
thief, and in the first exploit she then went upon she was
like to come scurvily off. The adventure was this. Going
upon the night sneak (as the phrase of these people is), she
found a door half open in Downing Street, at Westminster,
where, stealing softly upstairs into a great bedchamber, she
hid herself under the bed. She had not been there above
an hour before a couple of footmen brought candles into
the room, whilst the maid , with great diligence, was laying
the cloth for supper. The table being furnished with two
or three dishes of meat, five or six persons sat down, besides
the children that were in the house; which so affrighted
Moll that she verily thought that if their voices and the
noise of the children had not hindered them they might
have heard her very joints smite one against another and
the teeth chatter in her head. At length supper was ended,
and not long after they all withdrew themselves ; when
Moll, coming from under the bed, wrapped the sheets up
in a quilt, and sneaking downstairs made off the ground
as fast as she could.
Mary or Moll Raby, alias Rogers, alias Jackson, alias
Brown, was at last condemned for a burglary committed
in the house of Lady Cavendish, in Soho Square, the
3rd of March, 1703, upon the information of two villains
---namely, Arthur Chambers and Joseph Hatfield---who
made themselves evidences against her. At the place of
execution at Tyburn, on Wednesday, the 3rd of November,
1703, she said she was thirty years of age, that she was
well brought up at first, and knew good things, but did
not practise them, having given herself up to all manner of
wickedness and vice.
The Salem Witch Trials
What careful observers learned rather quickly was, despite +he Biblical
injunction against allowing a witch to live and despite the English
law of
1603 (practitioners of witchcraft were to be executed even upon first
offense),those who confessed were seldom even brought to trial. However,
once brought to trial--that is, once having been accused and NOT having
confessed-- conviction and execution by the Special court set up in
Salem
was a certainty.
June 2
Bridget Bishop convicted, (hanged June 10)
June 29
Sarah Good
Sarah Wildes
Elizabeth How
Susanna Martin
Rebecca Nurse
all convicted, (hanged July 19)
Aug. 5
Martha Carrier
convicted, (hanged Aug. 19)
early Sept.
6 tried, 6 executed (one escaped, one reprieved)
Sept. 7
nine tried, nine condemned: 5 confess, all reprieved, 4 go on to
the gallows.
Sept. 22
Martha Corey
Mary Easty (sister of Rebecca Nurse)
Alice Parkerr
Ann Pudeator
Margaret Scott
Mary Parker
all hanged.