One of the most important English witchcraft cases took place in Bottesford and the Vale of Belvoir in 1618 when Francis Manners, sixth Earl of Rutland accused three local women, Joan, Phillipa and Margaret Flower of murdering his two sons, Henry and Francis by witchcraft.
Barnes divided his 1619 pamphlet on the Bottesford witchcraft case, into a long introduction which describes the types of magical practise available to the elite in Jacobean England and which lists important witchcraft cases, as evidence for existence of witchcraft. He followed with a section which he calls ‘The Story’ that describes the relationships between ...
The Bottesford cunning woman, Anne Baker was widely suspected of crossing the barrier between white and black magic, which was why William Fairbarne had beaten Anne (who he believed had sent an illness called the Plannett to his son Thomas). Anne was accused of murder by witchcraft. “Being charged that she bewitched Elizabeth Hough, the wife ...
The idea of the witches ‘familiar’ an animal who acted as an intermediary between a witch and Satan is particular to England and was not mentioned in European cases (notwithstanding their far greater numbers). The familiars in the Rutland case, include Joan Willimott’s cat and Mole as well as the Flower’s cat, Rutterkin and white and ...
The suspects in the Rutland case, however confessed to using another type of witchcraft besides attack by familiars, a method which is known as ‘image-magic’. This example is from an examination of Margaret Flower:- ‘She saith and confesseth, that about four or five years since, her mother sent her for the right hand glove of Henry, ...
It was a peculiar feature of the ‘Image Magic’ described on the previous page, that is could be employed not only by the ‘aggressors’ in Witchcraft cases but also by the victims, as a way of defending themselves or their families. This defence was known as ‘counter magic’ and some very interesting examples have come ...
The Long Clawson ‘Bellarmines’ are examples of a type of response to witchcraft. This method entailed heating the victim’s urine in a bottle, often mixed with human hair (as with Anne Stannidge’s counter magical defence of her child), and sometimes with metal nails and pins. Examples have also been found with representations of the human ...
Frontispiece to ”The Muses Welcome to the High and Mightie Prince James” (Edinburgh, 1618) Jonson may have heard the rumours of witchcraft in the Vale of Belvoir and the suggestion that sorcery was responsible for the death of the Earl’s first son, Henry, and the precarious health of Francis, his surviving heir. Jonson was ...
