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
We have in another connection indicated the approximate number of
executions of which we have record in James's reign. That number, we
saw, was certainly over forty and probably approached fifty. It
represented, however, not quite half the total number of cases of
accusation recorded. In consequence the other verdicts and sentences
have significance. Especially is this true of the acquittals. They
amounted to thirty, perhaps to forty. When we add the trials of which we
do not know the outcome, we can guess that the number was close to the
sum total of executions. Legally only one other outcome of a trial was
possible, a year's imprisonment with quarterly appearances in the
pillory. There were three or four instances of this penalty as well as
one case where bond of good behavior was perhaps substituted for
imprisonment.[37] Five pardons were issued,[38] three of them by the
authorities at London, two of them by local powers apparently under
compulsion.[39]
We come now to consider the personnel, sex, occupations, and positions
in life of the accused. On certain of these matters it is possible to
give statistical conclusions, but such conclusions must be accepted with
great caution. By a count as careful as the insufficient evidence
permits it would seem that about six times as many women were indicted
as men. This was to be expected. It is perhaps less in accord with
tradition that twice as many married women as spinsters seem to have
figured in the witch trials of the Jacobean era. The proportion of
widows to unmarried women was about the same, so that the proportion of
unmarried women among the whole number accused would seem to have been
small. These results must be accepted guardedly, yet more complete
statistics would probably show that the proportion of married women was
even greater.[40]
The position in life of these people was not unlike that of the same
class in the earlier period. In the account of the Lancashire trials we
shall see that the two families whose quarrels started the trouble were
the lowest of low hill-country people, beggars and charmers, lax in
their morals and cunning in their dealings. The Flower women, mother and
daughter, had been charged with evil living; it was said that Agnes
Brown and her daughter of Northampton had very doubtful reputations;
Mother Sutton of Bedford was alleged to have three illegitimate
children. The rest of the witches of the time were not, however, quite
so low in the scale. They were household servants, poor tenants, "hog
hearders," wives of yeomen, broomsellers, and what not.
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