Name: Alice Nokes or Noakes Location: Lambourne, Essex Accusations: When a servant of Thomas Spycer snatched and refused to return a glove from the pocket of Alice’s twenty-eight year old daughter, Alice vowed revenge on the man. Although he insisted it was only a bit of fun, as she declared “I will bounce him well enough,” the …
Name: Anne Cade, alias Maidenhead Location: Great Holland, Essex Date: 1645 Accusations: According to her confession, around 1623, Anne had been initiated into witchcraft when she received four imps or familiars from her mother. Three of these were like mice, and called James, Prickeare and Robin. The fourth, in the form of a sparrow, was, …
Name: Rebecca JonesLocation: St. Osyth, EssexDate: 1645Accusations: In the midst of the fresh surge of witchcraft accusations during the Civil War period, Rebecca was accused of causing the deaths of Thomas Bumpstead and his wife Katherine through witchcraft. After her apprehension she confessed that nearly a quarter of a century beforehand, she had been in …
Name:Agnes Duke Location:Hatfield Peverel, Essex Date:1566-1589 Accusations:Agnes’ first official step on the wrong side of the law was not actually for witchcraft. At the Brentwood Assizes on 14 March 1566, she was indicted along with William Spayne on the charge of burglary; on 15 December the previous year, the pair had stolen goods from the house …
The St. Osyth witch trials of 1582 saw thirteen women tried for a variety of witchcraft-related crimes at the Chelmsford Assizes. One of those was Cicely Sellis from Little Clacton where she lived with her husband and children. Cicely entered the long and engrossing narrative of the St. Osyth trials on 1st March, 1582, when …
Arson and Arguments: Cicely Sellis and the St. Osyth Witch Trials. Read More »
With a glass of wine and the sound of bird song on a glorious summer evening, the world of 16th Century Essex could not feel further away. Turning to the dusty tome before me however, the story of Agnes Waterhouse beckons; the sixty-four year old witch from Hatfield Peverel, the first woman to be executed …
Interesting Individuals: Agnes Waterhouse – The First Witch Hanged in England Read More »
