Witch Trials

(Presently Work in Progress)

The Chester witch hangings of the mid 1650's are often recalled in guidebooks, but there is a much deeper history to them than is commonly thought. It involves the execution of Charles I and possibly the whole question of how the country should be governed.



The Medieval conception of "witchcraft" can be taken as falling into two broad camps. In a largely agricultural world with very little in the way of science the supernatural was often used as an explanation for events and to account for what passed for medicine, but often more after the fashion of potions. Some people were considered capable of manipulating the supernatural for good or ill, usually on a small-scale with various explanations being given such as spirits and familiars being involved. Others might have a knowledge of herbal medicine, which could often be effective and at least could have a "placebo effect". This first group might also be considered as including "fortune tellers", ranging from soothsayers to astrologers. On the other hand some considered that the only source of "diabolical" power was the Devil and that his ultimate purpose was to bring about the fall of the current church or government and lead to the supremacy of the Antichrist and in consequence the end of the world, thus the second camp would include those who actively conspired towards downfall of the state through "supernatural" means.

This article looks at the development of approaches to witchcraft and sorcery as connected with Chester and the little known "handbook on witches" published in 1617, Somwhat surprisingly this was dedicated to the mayor and corporation of the city. It was perhaps a topical work, as in the same year as publication Elizabeth Wainewright of Hawarden, widow, and Richard Fazakarley, of Broadlane were both accused, "of going to charmers to be blessed" (a seemingly innocent practice). Charmers are believed by some to be distinct from witches and/or "cunning-folk" and tended to deal with curative medicine. Often they would apply hebal remedies while reciting a prayer or charm. The interesting thing about the Wainewright/Fazakarley case is that the accused were only the receivers of the blessing.

While accusations of witchcraft are often portrayed as often being the first step down a path with no good destination, it did not alawys go against tha supposed witch, as an unproven or frivilous accusation could lead to return suit for slander. A case at Flint, lodged in 1617, was brought by William Banyon and his wife Katherine. The case (for forty pounds) was against William Starkie and his wife Anne. Anne, at Hawarden earlier that year, had allegedly said to Katherine "Thaw art a witch" (in English - as the writ notes). The outcome was that the verdict was for the plaintiff and assessed at damages of 20s but in the 1618 bill of costs, the total of the plaintiffs' costs was for the sum of three pounds and 14s 6d. The ability to bring a counter-claim for libel may go some way to explain why accusations of witchcraft were so rare in Wales.

The twist in the story of the "Chester Witches" may be the involvement of John Bradshaw who was the presiding judge at their trials, but was also the judge who had brought about the execution of Charles I.

Incidentally "wich" as an element of Cheshire placenames has nothing to do with "Witchcraft", but is from Old English wīc (“abode, dwelling-place”), an early borrowing from Latin vīcus (“village”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyḱ- (“village, household”). Latin cognate to Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐌹𐌷𐍃 (weihs), Old High German weihs (“village, settlement”), from Proto-Germanic *wīhsą (“village, settlement”) of the same Proto-Indo-European root. Cognate to Dutch wijk (“neighbourhood”), and may replace it in borrowings. A related form with similar origin is Icelandic "vík".

Witches in the Chester Mystery Plays
Tales of witchcraft in Cheshire range from folk-lore to the those which sadly led to actual executions. However there was nothing on the scale of the witch trials elsewhere in England, particularly in puritanical East Anglia (due to Hopkin's, the "Witchfinder General") and Lancashire (which was however then a part of the diocese of the Bishop of Chester). The treatment of magic in the Mystery Plays illustrated the context in which it was viewed at the time of the peak of the local "witch craze".



In the Chester Mystery Plays (last performed in 1575) magic is always diabolical (as opposed to miracles), but there are no actual witches. There is an ancient Roman sibyl in "The Nativity" and some vague references to "pagan prophets", but the nearest approach to a female witch is the Ale Wife in the "Harrowing of Hell" (Cooks, Tapsters, Ostlers and Innkeepers). She was a rather comic character who was apparently a hit with the crowds during the Midsummer Watch Parade, even though she rode alongside the equally comic character of the Devil (until she was banned from the procession). Ale was of course terribly important in a world where safe drinking water was difficult to come by and ale was both the most affordable and clean beverage available. At mealtimes in the Middle Ages, persons of all ages drank small beer, particularly while eating a meal at the table. The precise amount of ale that was ingested daily is not known, but it appears to have been up to a gallon a day per person.

Table beer was around this time typically less than 1% alcohol by volume and was made from the re-boiled mash left-over from brewing a stronger beer - so it would not lead to intoxication. Brewing it would need a largish cauldon, which possibly helped the association with witchcraft implied in the play. The beer produced was just alcoholic enough to kill any bugs at a time when water was not at all safe, and to stop it going off in transit. Beer is well known to contain a large number of nutritive components, including vitamins (particularly B vitamins) and minerals (particularly selenium and silicon). It also has a high potassium/sodium ratio (usually in the ratio of 4:1). It would have been an important part of the diet. Although the profession was later taken over by men, the original brewing profession even back in ancient Mesopotamia was principally performed by women. Female brewsters became the scapegoat for the brewing community as a whole for the vices that the Medieval world feared from the production of alcohol. In 1540, the city of Chester ordered that no women between the ages of 14 and 40 would be permitted to sell ale, in the hopes of limiting the trade to only women above or below an age of sexual desirability.

It is worth noting that some appear to have taken the association between the Ale-wife and witches perhaps a step too far, claiming that Ale-wives are the prototypes for all witches. This is almost certainly untrue and the point being made here is that the Ale-wife in the Chester Mystery Plays is the nearest thing to a witch in those plays.

While the entertaining figure of the Ale-wife is at one end of the spectrum of spectacles involving witches and based on actual life, execution by hanging or burning is at the other. Exodus 22:18 is one of the most widely used passages to justify the need for witch-hunts by demonological "scholars" of the early modern period. The conventional "King James" translation is "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live", but the original Latin is "Maleficos non patieris vivere", which can have several translations. The original Hebrew word "kasaph" can be translated as "seer, diviner or poisoner", and can therefore be interpreted as "fortune tellers" as well as brewers of bad ale and those who might misuse a knowledge of herbalism. There was quite some discussion in the context of witch trials as to what the much relied upon statement from Exodus was actually supposed to mean in its original context.

The history of this particular law is peculiar. West Saxon king Alfred (c. 848-899) incorporated a translation of (as he puts it) "the best part of chapters 20 to 22 of Exodus" into the prologue of his Domboc (his laws). Alfred’s source was the Vulgate, Jerome’s fourth-century, Latin translation of the Bible. Jerome translated the book of Exodus straight from the Hebrew and he used the ambiguous word "maleficus" to denote the "poisoners" and/or "magicians" that are condemned in the Talmud. Alfred was probably helped in his translation by Plegmund, and the word "maleficus" appears to have been translated with a specific intent:


 * "Þa fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon [anfon] gealdorcræftigan [galdorcræft] scinlæcan wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban" (those familiar with charmers, sorcerors and witches, shall not be let live)

First of all, Alfred in his late ninth-century book of secular law does not punish "malefici" themselves. He imposes the death penalty on women who consort with (and probably consult) malefici (which he defines as to include "charmers" by some translations). Secondly, Alfred seems to focus on the meaning "magician", using three different Old English nouns to explain the word maleficus and the kinds of magicians that women should not associate with: gealdorcræftiga (enchanter, charmer), scinnlæca, (deluder, deceiver, illusionist, necromancer, sorcerer) and wicca (wizard, witch, sorcerer, soothsayer). None of these words has anything in particular to do with poisoning.

Ælfric of Eynsham however, in his early eleventh-century Hexateuch translation uses the word "geunlybba", which can denote both ‘magic’ and ‘poisoning’ being from lybb meaning "medicine, drug, poison or charm":


 * "Ne læt þu lybban þa þe geunlybban [unlybban] wircon"

As can be understood, the early laws concerning witchcraft appear to have considered its negative impact as being at a very local level. Poisoning was not uncommon in the succession of the Anglo-Saxon kings, but this is not often associated with magic. There are a few exceptions, one being the probably folk-tale death of Werbode, Werburgh's sometime suitor who "was poisoned by an evil spirit, and died raving mad". In times before the advent of modern scientific understanding there would have been little difference in the perception between actual toxins and more symbolic threats to life. "Spirits" were simply a metaphor for how the natural world functioned. The idea of magic being an existensial threat to the state does not appear commonplace in early times.

Another group involved with the Mistery Plays in Chester whose work involved cauldrons were the dyers, and may explain why they got the other "witchcraft" play. The Dyers play of "Antichrist" is unique in the tradition of English Mystery cycles and the one which religious campaigners against the plays found most troubling, radically papist, anti-protestant, and perhaps even treasonous. Christopher Goodman (1520–1603), the most vociferous opponent of the plays, claimed that this play was used to assemble and organize religious conservatives and to reassert their faith ("giveth great comfort to the rebellious papist"). The Antichrist promises miracles (raising the dead, trees growing upside down, his own resurrection) - all of which appear to have been performed on stage by the clever use of props. However the symbolism used in this play draws far more on the demonic rather than the malefic form of magic and here demonic magic is portrayed as a serious threat to the state.

Finally, the Tanners in the Chester Mystery Plays, possibly had the most "demonic" role: "The Fall of Lucifer" which was the first play in the cycle. Possibly the hellish working conditions in their tanneries was one reason they had this play allocated to them.

From the above, it is apparent that what might be referred to as a witch varied within wide limits.

Popes and Witches
Between 900 and 1400, christian authorities were unwilling to so much as admit that witches existed, let alone try someone for the crime of simply being one. This was not for lack of demand. Pope Gregory VII wrote to Harald III of Denmark in 1080 forbidding witches to be put to death upon presumption of their having caused storms, failure of crops or pestilence. Over the next few cernturies there was a gradual shift from the view that "witchcraft" was acceptable provided it did no harm to it being a capital offence.

The first recorded case of heretics being burnt in Western Europe in the Middle Ages occurred in 1022 at Orléans. Burning heretics had become customary practice in the latter half of the twelfth century in continental Europe, and death by burning became statutory punishment from the early 13th century.

In 1233, a papal bull by Gregory IX established the Medieval Inquisition in Toulouse, France, to be led by the Dominicans. It was intended to prosecute Christian groups considered heretical, such as the Cathars and the Waldensians. These groups (while still professing to be christian) were seen as a serious threat to the authority of the Church and orthodoxy but there was little if any association with magic. One reason for Gregory IX's creation of the Inquisition was to bring order and legality to the process of dealing with heresy, since there had been tendencies by mobs of townspeople to burn alleged heretics without much of a trial.

The Inquisition soon began to drift away from papal control and extend the scope of their remit. In 1258 Pope Alexander IV had to issue a bull - "Quod super nonnullis" - to prevent prosecutions for witchcraft. "Divination or sorcery" was not to be investigated by Inquisitors of the Church, who were tasked with investigating the then quite distinct crime of heresy. Crimes involving magic should be left to local authorities unless they had "knowledge of manifest heresy to be involved", wherein "manifest heresy" now included not only doctrinal differences but also "praying at the altars of idols, to offer sacrifices, to consult demons, [or] to elicit responses from them". At this period in Church history, the use of magic was not seen as inherently heretical, but rather rooted in superstition or erroneous beliefs - Inquisitors had far more important things to do than deal with hedge-witches.

In 1320 the papal stance (under John XXII) was officially changed with the bull "Super illius specula" and the position reversed entirely. Until this time the instruction had been to investigate accusations of magic only if heresy (in addition) was suspected. The new instruction was to consider all cases of "magic" as inherently heretical. Just why things changed is not entirely clear, but John XXII exhibited a marked concern over matters of sorcery, divination, and demonic invocation. He feared magical assaults and assassination attempts on his own person, and he used charges of heresy, sorcery, and idolatry as political weapons against his enemies. He also promoted the more general persecution of sorcery by ordering papal inquisitors to take action against sorcerers and by issuing a sentence of automatic excommunication against all those who practiced any form of demonic invocation that entailed the supplication or worship of demons. In 1329, with the papacy in nearby Avignon, the inquisitor of Carcassonne sentenced a monk to the dungeon for life and the sentence refers to: "multas et diversas daemonum conjurationes et invocationes" and frequently uses the Latin synonym for witchcraft, "sortilegia". The view was rapidly developing that magic and heresy were part of the same "demonic" conspiracy against the church. In 1401, the English Parliament passed the De heretico comburendo act, which can be loosely translated as "Regarding the burning of heretics." Lollard persecution for heresy would continue for over a hundred years in England. The Fire and Faggot Parliament met in May 1414 at Grey Friars Priory in Leicester to lay out the notorious Suppression of Heresy Act 1414, enabling the burning of heretics by making the crime enforceable by the Justices of the peace.

In 1468 Pope Paul II declared that witchcraft and heresy were crimen exceptum: crimes so foul that all normal legal procedures were superseded, so that torture could be used to extract an initial confession. Despite what some lurid modern accounts state (especially anything from Holywood that had Vincent Price in it), torture was seldom used in England, although their were cases where it was.

By the end of the fifteenth century Pope Pope Innocent VIII had issued a bull against charmers and magicians - "Summis desiderantes affectibus" - and in 1486 a Dominican inquisitor (Heinrich Kramer) asserted in a formidable volume, "Malleus Maleficarum", that the Devil and his witches were conspiring on a gigantic scale to overthrow the Catholic Church. In the view presented by Kramer witchcraft and heresy were linked together and years later another author was added to the book to give it more "clout". The mid-17th Century then bore witness to the infamous “European Witch Craze“, a period of frenzied witchcraft accusations, prosecutions and executions, which are thought to have claimed the lives of up to one hundred thousand men, women and children across the continent. Precisely how many witches were murdered in Western Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is impossible to say, but the figure of 100,000 has been credibly reported for Germany, between 3,000 and 4,500 for Scotland and somewhat less than 1,000 for England between 1566 and 1685.There are just 42 cases of witchcraft trials on record in total across the whole of Wales - and only five alleged witches were ever executed. In Ireland witch trials were almost unknown. In Catholic Spain and Portugal the numbers of witch trials were also few because the Spanish and the Portuguese Inquisition preferred to focus on the crime of public heresy rather than the crime of witchcraft.

Mary I ordered hundreds of Protestants burnt at the stake (for heresy) during her reign (1553–58) in what would be known as the "Marian Persecutions". By the time of the Chester Mystery Plays (last performed in 1575), the idea that witchcraft was entirely demonic had taken a firm hold. Edward Wightman, a Baptist from Burton on Trent, was the last person burned at the stake for heresy in England in Lichfield, Staffordshire on 11 April 1612. Thus the witch hangings at Chester in the mid 1650's date from after the end of burnings for heresy. Very few burnings for witchcraft would actually happen in mainland Britain and all appear to have been in Scotland.

Causes
What the above shows is that attitudes towards "witchcraft" varied over time and were not always the vehement and often sadistic religious hatred which eventually emerged, especially in Germany and parts of France.

Various theories have been put forward for the reasons for the "European Witch Craze" of the 17th Century. For many years one primary explanation was either the climatic disturbance of the "Little Ice Age" or the outbreaks of various Pandemics - with "witches" being the convenient scapegoat. Indeed, historical temperature indexes and witch trial data indicate that, generally, as temperature decreased during this period, witch trials increased, however in some cases the fit is not good. A more recent proposal, which has gathered some support, is that "witch-hunting" was an activity intended to attract the loyalty of undecided christians during the reformation and counter-reformation. Put in economic terms:


 * "Europe’s witch trials reflected non-price competition between the Catholic and Protestant churches for religious market share in confessionally contested parts of Christendom. By leveraging popular belief in witchcraft, witch-prosecutors advertised their confessional brands’ commitment and power to protect citizens from worldly manifestations of "Satan’s evil". Similar to how contemporary political candidates focus campaign activity in "scapegoat" battlegrounds during elections to attract the loyalty of undecided voters."

Protestants in general also tended to be more wary of witches: Luther himself authorized the execution of four accused witches, while Calvin urged Genevan officials to wipe out "the race of witches". The view taken in this article is that there was a shift in perception from witches being capable of performing crime to witches being inherently criminal and part of a conspiracy against the established order. This shift was accompanied by far more serious sanctions and therefore led to accusations being used either in essentially local disputes or to futher the ends of religio-political groups. In extreme cases this could even have reflected divisions with the protestant church itself, for example between the "mainstream" protestant churches and its more extreme sub-groups such as the Puritans.

English Witchcraft Laws


In England and Wales, as elsewhere, belief in wells, for example, had a long ancestry. In primitive times it was considered that special properties pertained to them; the Roman Catholic Church consecrated many pagan practices and long after the Reformation the healing qualities of wells continued to attract sufferers, in some cases until the present day. St. Winifred's Well, of course occupies the premier place. Of the fifty-one wells identified in Flintshire, twenty-seven bear the names of saints. Eight are dedicated to St. Mary and four to St. Michael. There are a string of healing and/or magical wells associated with churches down the River Dee. In Chester these include such dubious examples as Billy Hobbies Well in Grosvenor Park and more reputed wells such as that of Plegmund, Alfred's archbishop. Folk belief in such "superstitions" was not seen as associated with anything criminal.

As noted above early English laws against witchcraft appear to go back the laws of Alfred. Similar crimes are mentioned in the laws of Æthelstan but the implication appears to be that a crime is generally only committed when the result is harm or injury.

The law developed into the concept of "treasonable witchcraft" where there was a specific attack on the current monarch. Joan of Navarre was accused of this in 1419, during the reign of Henry V and imprisoned for some time, A later case from 1441, that of Eleanor Cobham is discussed below, but in that case the crime was conspiring to bring about Henry VI's death (or rather derermine when the king would die). These were both politically motivated cases.

The first Witchcraft Act in England was introduced in 1542 (Henry VIII's Act of 1542 (33 Hen. VIII c. 8) ). It was concerned both with treasure finding by divination and harm by witchcraft, and forbade anyone to:


 * ... use devise practise or exercise, or cause to be devysed practised or exercised, any Invovacons or cojuracons of Sprites witchecraftes enchauntementes or sorceries to the intent to fynde money or treasure or to waste consume or destroy any persone in his bodie membres, or to pvoke [provoke] any persone to unlawfull love, or for any other unlawfull intente or purpose ... or for dispite of Cryste, or for lucre of money, dygge up or pull downe any Crosse or Crosses or by such Invovacons or cojuracons of Sprites witchecraftes enchauntementes or sorceries or any of them take upon them to tell or declare where goodes stollen or lost shall become ...

The Act was repealed in 1547. The Witchcraft Act of 1563 (5 Eliz. I c. 16) introduced the death penalty for any sorcery used to cause someone's death. This included the casting of horoscopes on the rather dubious basis that predicting a death was similar to causing it. Ferdinando Stanley's mother, Margaret Stanley, Countess of Derby, had for example been excluded from the Queen's court and placed under house-arrest for allegedly plotting against Elizabeth (by having a horoscope prepared to see when the queen would die - the astrologer got the axe although Margret claimed that the accused sorcerer, William Randall, was in fact her physician). Stanley inherited a prominent social position that was both dangerous and unstable, as his mother was heir to Queen Elizabeth I under the Third Succession Act (see: Shakespeare and Chester).

The first woman executed for witchcraft in England was probably Agnes Waterhouse who was hanged on 29th July 1566. She confessed to having been a witch and that her familiar was a white cat (later turned into a toad) by the name of Satan, sometimes spelled Sathan. Agnes was put on trial in Chelmsford, Essex, England, in 1566 for using witchcraft to cause illness to William Fynne, who died on 1 November 1565. She was also charged with using sorcery to kill livestock, cause illness, as well as bring about the death of her husband. The Chelmsford trial was typical of English witchcraft in the absurdity of the charges and the emphasis upon the familiar. The chief evidence against Agnes Waterhouse came from twelve-year-old neighbour, Agnes Brown. In her testimony, Agnes Brown described the demon as a black dog with a face like an ape, a short tail, a chain and a silver whistle around his neck, and a pair of horns on his head.

While king of Scotland, James VI became utterly convinced about the reality of witchcraft and its great danger to both himself personally and his kingdom, leading to the North Berwick witch trials that began in 1590. James was convinced that a coven of powerful witches was conspiring to murder him through magic, and that they were in league with the Devil. In 1597, with the end of the trials, James published his study of witchcraft, "Daemonologie". Shortly after becoming king of England he passed his 1604 "Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked spirits" (the 1604 Wichcraft Act). It was this statute that was enforced by Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witch-Finder General whose career flourished during the English Civil War. The witch incident involving James in Chester depicted in the Chester Pageant of 1910 is entirely fictitious, and nothing of the kind occurred during James' actual visit of 1617.

The methods of investigating witchcraft used by Hopkins drew heavy inspiration from the Daemonologie of King James, which was directly cited in Hopkins' own book: "The Discovery of Witches" (1647). Although torture was nominally unlawful in England, Hopkins often used techniques such as sleep deprivation to extract confessions from his victims. He would also cut the arm of the accused with a blunt knife, and if she did not bleed, she was said to be a witch. Matthew Hopkins died at his home in Manningtree, Essex, on 12 August 1647, probably of pleural tuberculosis: the story that he was tried and executed by his own methods is a myth.

The attitude of Cromwell's government to witchcraft can hardly be motr explicitly expressed that as set out in the Act of General Pardon and Oblivion of 1652, which excludes:


 * "..all Offences of Invocations, Conjurations, Witchcrafts, Sorceries, Inchantments and Charms; and all Offences of procuring, abetting or comforting of the same; and all persons now Attainted or Convicted of any the said Offences."

Sir Thomas Browne, who has links with Chester, would become involved in the subject in 1662 and his legal analysis would later be used at the Salem Witch Trials. Witch trials would last almopst to the end of the Stuart period - in 1712, Queen Anne pardoned Jane Wenham who had been sentenced to death for witchcraft, which served as a signal to the authorities that prosecution for such "crimes" should be ceased (the last witch execution was Mary Hicks in 1716). The last to be executed as a witch in Scotland was Janet Horne in 1727, condemned to death for "using her own daughter as a flying horse in order to travel". Janet Horne was burnt alive in a tar barrel. Nine years after her death the witchcraft acts were repealed in Scotland.

The Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo. 2 c. 5) was an Act of the Parliament which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. With this, the law apparently abolished the hunting and executions of witches in Great Britain. However in September 1943, Helen Duncan was jailed under the Witchcraft Act 1735 on the grounds that she had claimed to summon spirits. Duncan's trial almost certainly contributed to the repeal of the Witchcraft Act, which was contained in the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 (itself repealed in 2008).

Chester


Turning now to witches at Chester, the city appears to have bred none of its own and its association with witchcraft relies on trials of those who were supposed witches elsewhere as well as some other incidental connections. There were some 34 accusations of witchcraft over the period 1589-1675 with most cases being centered on the mid 1650's and all but two were women. One of the interesting aspects of the Chester courts is that the same Judges also sat in North Wales, where the law on Witchcraft was quite distinct.

Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester
Eleanor Cobham was an English noblewoman who was mistress to the Duke of Gloucester and then became his second wife. In 1441 he divorced her when she was charged with Witchcraft by King Henry VI. Immortalised by Shakespeare in his play Henry VI, Eleanor was accused of trying to assassinate the King using witchcraft. Eleanor had consulted astrologers that told her that the King would fall ill and die. These rumours reached the King who had the astrologers questioned and they claimed that Eleanor instigated the necromancy. Before she could be captured and imprisoned Eleanor escaped to Westminster Abbey. Eleanor was questioned by religious leaders and confessed she had obtained ‘potions’ to help her conceive. Sadly Eleanor was found guilty, her husband divorced her and she was condemned to life in prison. In 1442, Eleanor was imprisoned at Chester Castle, she was later moved elsewhere, but is arguably Chester's most famous "witch". The choice of Chester is due to her being placed in the custody of the Stanley's (see: Stanley Palace).

Thomas Cooper
Thomas Cooper (1569/70 - 1626 or later) was born in London, attended Westminster School, then Christ Church, Oxford, taking his B.A. in 1590 and M.A. in 1593. He became vicar of Great Budworth in Cheshire, then in 1604 moved to Holy Trinity church, Coventry. At Oxford, Cooper was drawn to "magical practice", something that was not uncommon at the time, although he later became an opponent of things magical. The work for which Cooper is best known and which most commonly gets cited from is his "The Mystery of Witchcraft", 1617. This was printed by Nicholas Okes who was mostly a publisher of drama and was involved in many editions of works by the playwrights of the period, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Webster, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, James Shirley, and John Ford. The work was perhaps not very widely read, for "The Mystery of Witchcraft" was re-issued in 1622 as "Sathan transformed into an angell of light". The body text itself has not been reset, but a new dedication to the "worthy Governour of the East In­dian Merchants" replaces that to "the Mayor and Corporation of the Ancient Citie of CHESTER" in the 1617 volume. This looks as though unsold copies of Nicholas Okes' print run were left over in such numbers five years later that an attempt to shift a few more copies was made via the new title and the left-over copies being re-bound between new covers and end pages.

From the fragmentary evidence available, Cooper appears to have been an associate of John Bruen (1560–1625) and may have personally witnessed the "possession" case of twelve-year-old Thomas Harrison the "Boy of Northwich" in 1601/2. Bruen's biographer William Hinde (1568/9–1629), curate in the parish of Bunbury, and Bruen’s brother-in-law, writes of Bruen's own interest in the "Boy of Northwich" case and Cooper himself mentions that he witnessed "a child afflicated by the power of Sathan and ... though the confederacie of some Witches thereabout". Bruen is best known for his activities around Chester smashing up crosses in an iconoclastic frenzy. By the time Cooper came to write his book he was evidently of similar and firmly puritan views, ranting almost incoherently against demonic activity which he saw everywhere. He believed that his wife had been killed by witchcraft that that attempts had been made to posess his own children. As noted above, Cooper dedicated this work to the Mayor and Corporation of the city of Chester (where he had lectured brieﬂy in 1600 - possibly at St Peter) as well as the magistrates of Cheshire, among whom he singled out for special mention Mr Warburton of Arly and Mr Marbury of Mere. The former was in all probability the Cheshire gentleman, Sir Peter Warburton (c.1540–1621), a protégé of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. He was MP for Chester in the Parliaments of 1586, 1589, and 1597. Stanley Palace was built for him in 1591. His son, also Peter, was named as the executor of the will of the Northwich lecturer Thomas Pierson (d. 1633), who played a central role in the "dispossession" of Thomas Harrison.

The Northwich case of "dispossession" was not unique. John Fisher, in "The Copy of a Letter Describing the wonderful woorke of God in delivering a Mayden within the City of Chester, from an horrible kinde of torment and sicknes" (16 of February 1564) notes how vinegar could be used:


 * "At the last Maister Lane called for [vinegar], whereat the sta[n]ders by marveiled, saying, that ye thing with much more had bene often tymes attempted, but to no purpose. Notwithstanding he ceased not to call styll for it, saying, that God might do that then, which he did not before, and so received viniger, put it into his mouth & blewe it into the Maydes nostrils, wherat she cryeth a Lady, Lady. He the[n] wiled her to cal upo[n] God, and the bloud of Christ & in these doinges she being astoni[sh]ed, he called againe for more viniger, Wherat she cried: No, no, no more for Gods sake."

All the principal actors in the "Northwich case" ware therfore dead by the most notable Chester witch trials, but Cooper, among his almost endless rants, makes it clear that his view of "demonic" witchcraft is that it is a challenge to the status-quo made through those who otherwise have no power in the world. Perhaps in this his attitude is coloured by his own experimentation as a student.

The first execution for witchcraft at Chester was Sibil Marcer in 1631, and the last Mary Baguley in 1675. The other six were in two groups in 1653 and 1656 and are discussed in more detail below.

John Bradshaw
John Bradshaw (1602-1659) had been appointed Chief Justice of Chester in 1649 in part recognition of his services as Lord President of the High Court which had tried and sentenced Charles I to death. Bradshaw would remain in the post until his death. He was born on 1602 probably at Wybersley (Wyberslegh) Hall in the village of High Lane near Stockport, Cheshire, or possibly at the nearby Peace Farm, Marple (his father farmed at both) and baptised on 10 December in Stockport Church. As a child he attended the free school at Stockport, as well as schools in Bunbury and Middleton. Bunbury plays a much larger role in the history of Cheshire than might be thought given its small size and relatively isolated location.



Thomas Aldersey (whose portrait also hangs in the Grosvenor Museum) had founded a grammar school at Bunbury in 1575, which was incorporated on 2 January 1594 as "The Free Grammar School of Thomas Aldersey in Bunbury" – now Bunbury Aldersey School. He gave the school, together with substantial endowments, over to the Company of Haberdashers on 21 October 1594. It was the first school that the Company – now predominantly an educational charity – administered. At the same time, he established a preacher and curate in Bunbury, and gave the tithes and advowson (patronage) of the parish church to the Haberdashers' Company; this was the first ecclesiastical living to come under the Company's control. Dorothy Williams Whitney has suggested that this gift was associated with the later Puritanism of the Company of Haberdashers, and Bunbury became an early centre for Cheshire nonconformism amongst clerics.

After studying English law in London, Bradshaw was called to the bar at Gray's Inn on 23 April 1627. He served on the provincial bar of Congleton until he became mayor in 1637. In 1649 he was made president of the parliamentary commission to try the king. Other lawyers of greater prominence had refused the position. The King himself, as well as much of the court, professed to having never heard of him. King Charles refused to recognise the authority of the court and would not plead. After declaring Charles I guilty as a "Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer, and a public enemy," Bradshaw did not allow the king any final words. He was chosen as Chief Justice of Chester and Flint on 22nd February 1647.

Chester in 1654
On 20 April 1653, Cromwell dismissed the Rump Parliament by force, setting up a short-lived nominated assembly known as Barebone's Parliament: named after one of its members: Praise-God Barebone. The members were chosen by Cromwell and the Army Council instead of being elected, and it soon became known as Barebone's Parliament to its many critics, Barebone proving a likely target due to his name and his apparently humble origins. Bradshawe refused to submit in silence to such a daring infringement of Parliamentary liberties and resolved to take his place as head of the Council of State the afternoon that the Rump was dissolved. The Lord General was not to be so easily diverted from his purpose and expelled the Council and its members in the same manner that he had dismissed the Commons. Addressing Bradshawe and those assembled with him, he said:


 * "Gentlemen, if you are met here as private persons, you shall not be disturbed; but if as a Council of State, this is no place for you; and, since you cannot but know what was done at the House in the morning, so take notice that the Parliament is dissolved."

He was stoutly resisted by Bradshawe, who replied:


 * "Sir, we have heard what you did at the House in the morning, and before many hours all England shall hear it; but, Sir, you are mistaken to think that the Parliament is dissolved, for no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore take you notice of that."

After the dissolution of the Barebones Parliament, John Lambert put forward a new constitution known as the "Instrument of Government". It made Cromwell Lord Protector for life to undertake "the chief magistracy and the administration of government". Cromwell was sworn in as Lord Protector on 16 December 1653, with a ceremony in which he wore plain black clothing, rather than any monarchical regalia. However, from this point on Cromwell signed his name 'Oliver P', the P being an abbreviation for Protector, which was similar to the style of monarchs who used an R to mean Rex or Regina, and it soon became the norm for others to address him as "Your Highness". In 1654 Bradshaw was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Stafford and Cheshire, but because, on 12 Sept, he refused to sign the recognition pledge put on Members to declare their recognition of the new army-backed government, he took no seat for either constituency. He was summoned by Cromwell before the council of state formed by him on becoming protector, together with Vane, Rich, and Ludlow, and was bidden by Cromwell to take out a new commission as chief justice of Chester. He refused to submit to the order. He declared that he had been appointed during his good behaviour, and had done nothing to forfeit his right to the place, as he would prove before any twelve jurymen. Cromwell did not press the point, and Bradshaw immediately afterwards went his circuit as usual. But Cromwell revenged himself by seeking to diminish Bradshaw's influence in Cheshire.

In Chester an outbreak of plague in 1654 prompted the corporation to rebuild the house of correction so as to have somewhere to get the homeless off the streets. The plague did not become an epidemic. At around the same time the "Sealed Knot" was starting to plan an uprising but this was later cancelled. The warning issued by the Sealed Knot failed to reach Lancashire and Cheshire in time, and on 1 August 1659, with the encouragement of the Presbyterian clergy, George Booth mustered five hundred supporters at Warrington in Lancashire and advanced to a rendezvous with Cheshire insurgents at Rowton Heath near Chester. See "The Booth Rising" for more on this. Booth may have been involved with the failed Penruddock uprising of 1655. Thus the times in which the two sets of three "witches" were brought to trial in Chester corresponds with a period of considerable political turmoil, both for Bradshaw and the country as a whole.

The witch trials in Chester were held on the Commonhall at that time located in what was to become the Music Hall which had been built as the Chapel of St Nicholas early in the fourteenth century. The Common Hall of the city was removed here from Common Hall Street in 1545 and it remained as such until 1698.

Bradshaw and Witch Trials
On 26th September 1653 three women were brought before Bradshaw and Thomas Fell at the commonhall of pleas and charged with "wickedly devilishly and feloniously .. and of malice aforethought using certain wicked and devilish arts .. in entertaining evil spirits and bewitching Elizabeth Furnivall, who had languished and died". The women were:


 * Mother and daughter Elen and Elizabeth Stubbs,


 * Anne Stanley.

They were accused of two counts of murder and one count of "bovicide" (the death of a cow). The murder victims were Anne Lowe of Chelford and Elizabeth Furnivall of Nether Alderley. The cow belonged to Thomas Gresty of Warford. Elizabeth Furnival is said to have been the niece of John Bradshaw. The witnesses against thee included Ralph Furnivall (thw husband of one of the victims) and one Katherine Stubbs, who may have been a relative of the accused of the same name. They were all found guilty by the jury and hanged at Boughton about 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 17 October 1654.

In 1655 the Major-General in charge of Cheshire, Tobias Bridge, persuaded leading gentry not to enter Bradshaw as the county's parliamentary candidate at elections to the next parliament. There had been a proposal to nominate him for the city of London, but that came to nothing. Cromwell had effectively achieved his aim to keep Bradshaw out of Parliament. "Serjeant Bradshaw," writes John Thurloe jubilantly to Henry Cromwell in Ireland (26 Aug. 1656), "hath missed it in Cheshire, and is chosen nowhere else". Bradshaw was now an open opponent of the government. According to an anonymous letter sent to George Monck he entered early in 1655 into conspiracy with Haslerig, Pride, and others, to seize Monk as a first step towards the army's overthrow. He was also suspected, on no very valid ground, of encouraging the Fifth Monarchy Men (they were an extreme Puritan sect) in the following year.

In August 1656 an attempt was made by Cromwell to deprive him of his office of chief justice of Chester. In private and public Bradshaw vigorously denounced Cromwell's usurpation of power, and he is credited with having asserted that if such conduct ended in the Protector's assumption of full regal power, he and Cromwell "had committed the most horrid treason (in their treatment of Charles I) that ever was heard of".

Fragmentary records show that Bradshaw tried a further witchcraft case at Flint in Wales on 7th April 1656.

A further three women were sentenced to death by the same judges at Chester in 1656 and were again hanged at Boughton (a fourth is said to have fled to Wrexham). Those hanged (15th October 1656) were:


 * Ellen Beach who "did exercise and practice the Invocation and conjuration of evil and wicked spirits, and consulted and covenanted with, entertayned, imployed, ffed and rewarded certayn evill and wicked spirits",


 * Anne Osboston having "on the 20th November exercised certayn artes and Incantations on Barbara Pott, late wife of John Pott, of Ranowe, from the effects whereof she died on the 20th of January then next following", and, lastly,


 * Anne Thornton who did "wickedly, divillishly and feloniously devise, excercise and practiuce certaiyne divellish and wicked acts".

Beach was from Macclesfield and Thornton from Eaton. Before the trial John Bradshaw's eldest brother Henry was one of those appointed to conduct a preliminary examination of the witches. Two years later a "Colonel Bradshaw" is recorded as examining another witch prior to her trial. This was probably Henry as he was colonel of the Macclesfield militia. Following the fighting, Henry Bradshaw served in Cheshire as a magistrate and commissioner for the sequestration (confiscation) of royalist property.

Bradshaw was to hear another witchcraft case (at Flint) the following year when Dorothy Griffith of Llanasa Parish in North Wales was tried for witchcraft. She had been accused by a mariner by the name of William Griffith of performing witchcraft on a beach near the Point of Ayr. Hpwever in this case the local community rallied around the accused and attested to her good character. In her petition to the judge, which included 31 signatories as to her innocence, Dorothy asks him:


 * "..to seriously consider the great malice of one William Griffith, binge the cheefe enemy of your peticioner, who said the night before your petcioner was accused by him as hee went out of an alehouse confirrming with an oath that he would doe harem unto Griffith the Dedwydd or some of his children (meaning the father of your petitioner) and accordingly brought a false accusation against her."

The 31 signatures on the defence of Dorothy Griffith included: Edward Mostyn of Talacre, who was created a baronet in 1670, and belonged to a branch of the Mostyn family which long remained true to the catholic faith; Edward Morgan of Golden Grove, who also came from a Catholic family, and was a royalist captain in the Civil War; and William Smith, the puritan vicar, had been instituted at Llanasa in 1647. Dorothy also had the advantage that their were two judges sitting, the other being Thomas Fell (1598–1658), of Swarthmore Hall, Ulverston, Lancashire, considered to be "a good lawyer and a good man", whose widow Margaret was to marry George Fox, the founder of the Quakers.

There is no definite proof that Dorothy Griffith was aquitted but there is no record of an execution. A similar case involving Anne Ellis came up before Bradshaw in Flint on the 28th September 1657 and she was also exonerated. Anne was accused of bewitching a cow belonging to Susan Addams, of causing the deaths of Jane Jeffreys and Margarett Hughes, and of having bewitched Richard Hughes who “was and yet is much wasted and lamed”.

After the death of Cromwell in 1658, Bradshaw attempted to regain his lost power, but the political situation was by that time so chaotic that in October 1659 he gave up the effort:


 * "animated by his ardent zeal and constant affection to the common cause, upon hearing those words, stood up and interrupted him, declaring his abhorrence of that detestable action, and telling the council, that being now going to his God, he had not patience to sit there to hear his great name so openly blasphemed ; and thereupon departed to his lodgings, and withdrew himself from publick employment." (Ludlow Edmund. Memoirs, vol 1)

Bradshaw was himself to hang: on 30 January 1661 – the twelfth anniversary of the regicide – the bodies of John Bradshaw, Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton were ordered to be exhumed and displayed in chains all day on the gallows at Tyburn. At sunset, the three bodies that had been displayed publicly as those of the three judges being executed posthumously were all beheaded. The bodies were thrown into a common pit and the heads displayed on pikes at Westminster Hall. The story of John Bradshaw's remains being removed to Jamaica by one of his sons should be dismissed as fabulation as, for one thing, Bradshaw had no sons; he died childless and willed his estate to his nephew another Henry Bradshaw.

Did Bradshaw have a motive?
Looking at what was happening in Bradshaw's life at the time of the trials he participated in could he have had an alterior motive? As noted above there were two main kings of witch trial - those where the allegation was against a "malefic" witch, and those were there was an implication of pacts with the Devil or a definite statement of them. In the six Chester "hanging cases" it appears that the prosecution was of the second type. Almost all ordinary people (including the witches) would have believed in magic, but the conception that Devil was involved would have been mostly in the minds of the prosecutors and the more educated people associated with the trial. This can be seen in the type of charges brought where the acts are "devilish" or included the use of "evil and wicked spirits".

Bradshaw was a staunch Puritan as well as a dedicated Republican, his support for religious and political radicals was unpopular in Cheshire, and is said to have been a contributory factor in encouraging Booth's Uprising of August 1659.

He produced over a thousand reports as regards the sequestration of the assets of Royalists. Those still held at the National Archives paint a picture of a thorough, just, and dedicated lawyer. He clearly did not find against the accused witch in every case and he would find in favour of those who had been unjustly maligned as witches.

Barrel Well Hill
A myth sometimes heard in Chester is that witches were rolled down the hill in barrels into the River Dee to determine whether they were guilty or not. If they sank they were guilty and if not they were innocent. There is actually no historical basis for this form of "trial by ordeal" and a far more rational explanation is that this was the site of a well which once excavated was lined with barrels to support their sides. Rather gory stories exist elsewhere of a form of execution in which the victim is rolled downhill in a barrel through which nails have been hammered. Obviously, that would be very injurious. How the story of the (spiked or not) barrel became current in Chester is difficult to determine, but it does turn up in many folk-tales, including "Brothers Grimm" Germanic ones such as the Goose Girl.

Witches Graves
When the new Magistrates Court was constructed in 1991 a number of graves were discovered. While there is no official report on the matter the following information could be obtained from workers on the site:


 * a plague graveyard was uncovered where the victims of an Anthrax outbreak were believed to have been interred. This required the treatment of the ground with lime. Anthrax spores can survive for very long periods of time in the environment after release;


 * some of the graves appeared to be those of "witches" and various talismans were found on the site;


 * a quantity of the topsoil and been removed (possibly unofficially) and sold on to the owner of a house who had used it on the construction of a garden in a disused railway cutting. This required removal as a precaution, much to the shock of the owner.

The story cannot be confirmed by documentary evidence.

The traditional burial place for witches in Chester was in the "Castle Ditch" just outside of the graveyard of St Mary on the Hill.

Bridget Bostock
By the 18th century science had progressed to the point where more rational explanations were being sought. Nicholas Robinson (1697–1775), a governor of London's Bethlem Hospital, wanted to account “mechanically” for mental as well as bodily diseases. In "A treatise on the virtues and efficacy of a crust of bread: eat early in a morning fasting, to which are added some particular remarks concerning the great cures accomplished by the saliva or fasting spittle" Robinson refers to a "wise woman" of Coppenhall, and ascribes her cures to a "scientific theory":


 * "Old Bridget Bostock…hath, in her life-time, made it her business to cure the country-folks, her neighbours, of sore legs, and other disorders; but her reputation now seems so wonderfully to increase, that people come to her from far and near.. ..She cures the blind, the deaf, the lame of all sorts, the rheumatic, King’s evil [scrofula], histeric fits, falling fits, shortness of breath, dropsy, palsy, leprosy, cancers, and, in short, almost every things, except the French disease [syphilis], which she will not meddle with, and all the means she uses for cure is, only stroking with her fasting spittle, and praying for them."

Michael Goble
There is a story that, in 1898, Michael Goble, a local historian, began investigating and researching the story of the Boughton witches. He is reputed to have claimed that during the course of his research he was visited by the spirits of three demented women, who threatened to bring forth the devil should the historian not pledge to abandon his investigation immediately. Undaunted, Michael Goble continued to pursue his project, but never saw it finished. He died in 1902, - whilst visiting Gallows Hill. There is no confirmation of any truth in this.

Related Pages

 * Elen of the Hosts;
 * Chester Mystery Plays: just what is the connection between the subject matter of the plays and the guilds which performed them?
 * Shakespeare and Chester: was he influenced by the portent and prophecy aspects of the mystery plays?
 * Chamber's Book of days: of particular interest is Chambers' discussion of "Chester's Triumph in Honour of her Prince", which Chambers seems to consider is possibly the worst play ever performed in Chester, but which in fact is a far more complex work than he percieves it to be;
 * Queen Dido: another example of a play in Chester having a hidden political message?
 * Cholmondeley: more "fake news" from Chester;
 * Bruen: even St Werburgh gets dragged into propaganda;
 * Plegmund: manipulation of myth for gain was still happening in Chester in 1908. When Plegmunds Well was restored, things were not entirely as they seemed;
 * The Booth Rising;
 * Roger Whitley;

Online

 * Witch trials in the early modern period: at Wikipedia;
 * "A list of tracts relating to Witchcraft and Demoniacs in Cheshire and Lancashire 1564-1699": letter to Edward Baines, from R.T. Hampson, who was employed by Baines to find and copy material for the "History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster", published by Baines in 1836;
 * Witchcraft as Words: Slander and Defamation Case Studies
 * King James and the Intellectual Influences of the Witchcraft Phenomenon in England and ScotlandPhenomenon in England and Scotland
 * Reading between the lines: Old Germanic and early Christian views on abortion;
 * Thomas Cooper;
 * Thomas Cooper: The Mystery of Witchcraft;
 * Witch Trials as an economic phenomenon;
 * Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Flintshire;
 * Magic as a Political Crime in Medieval and Early Modern England: A History of Sorcery and Treason;
 * POLITICAL PROPHECY IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND;
 * Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe;
 * Chester Records Office;
 * Witch trials in Wales;
 * THE TRIAL OF ELEANOR COBHAM;
 * ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LORD PRESIDENT BRADSHAW;
 * The Marple Website: a very useful source on Bradshaw;