A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718Notestein, Wallace
History
A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718
Notestein, Wallace
Witchcraft -- England -- History
This brings us to the third sort of cases, those that were the outcome
of quarrels or grudges. It has already been observed that the Lancashire
affair could very well be reckoned under this heading. It is no
exaggeration to say that a goodly percentage of all other witch trials
in the reign of James could be classified in the same way. Most notable
among them was the famous trial of the Belvoir witches at Lincoln in
1618-1619. The trial has received wide notice because it concerned a
leading family--perhaps the wealthiest in England--the great Catholic
family of Manners, of which the Earl of Rutland was head. The effort to
account for the mysterious illness of his young heir and for that which
had a few years earlier carried off the boy's elder brother led to a
charge of witchcraft against three humble women of the neighborhood. The
Rutland affair shows how easily a suspicion of witchcraft might involve
the fortunes of the lowly with those of the great. Joan Flower and her
two daughters had been employed as charwomen in Belvoir Castle, the home
of the Rutlands. One of the daughters, indeed, had been put in charge of
"the poultrey abroad and the washhouse within dores." But this daughter
seems not to have given satisfaction to the countess in her work, some
other causes of disagreement arose which involved Mother Flower, and
both Mother Flower and her daughter were sent away from the castle. This
was the beginning of the trouble. Mother Flower "cursed them all that
were the cause of this discontentment." Naturally little heed was paid
to her grumblings. Such things were common enough and it did not even
occur to any one, when the eldest son of the earl sickened and died,
that the event was in any way connected with the malice of the Flowers.
It was not until about five years later, when the younger son Francis
fell sick of an illness to prove fatal, that suspicion seems to have
lighted upon the three women.[18] The circumstances that led to their
discharge were then recalled and along with them a mass of idle gossip
and scandal against the women. It was remembered that Mother Joan was
"a monstrous malicious woman, full of oathes, curses, and imprecations
irreligious." Some of her neighbors "dared to affirme that she dealt
with familiar spirits, and terrified them all with curses and threatning
of revenge." At length, in February of 1618/19, on the return of the
earl from attending His Majesty "both at Newmarket before Christmas and
at Christmas at Whitehall," the women were fetched before justices of
the peace, who bound them over to the assizes at Lincoln. Mother Flower
died on the way to Lincoln, but the two daughters were tried there
before Sir Edward Bromley, who had been judge at the Lancashire trials,
and before Sir Henry Hobart. The women made a detailed confession of
weird crimes. There were tales of gloves belonging to the two young sons
of the earl, gloves that had been found in uncanny places and had been
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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