John Callow's history of a witchcraft case in late 17th-century England offers the compelling, lively and empathetic stories of three women charged in the north Devon town of Bideford. Often, these “witches” appear in historical accounts as stock figures: bogeywomen said to have killed their neighbours and worshipped the devil. But the best thing about The Last Witches of England - so called as they are labelled the last people to be hanged for witchcraft in England - is the partial biographical recovery of the three women: Temperance Lloyd, Susanna Edwards and Mary Trembles.
The prime suspect was Lloyd, twice charged with witchcraft in the 1670s and again in 1682. Instead of just repeating the stories of her accusers, Callow fills out her background as a real, ordinary woman. His research links Lloyd persuasively to an influx of Welsh miners into Bideford in the mid17th century, coming to mine coal to power the local pottery industry and munitions workshops. In the 1640s, Temperance Jones, as she was called, married a Rhys Lloyd, who seemed to have left by the 1960s when she began to receive welfare payments from the town authorities. Listed as a 'wife and not a widow”, Lloyd was scandalously abandoned and suspected of prostitution. It was a steep fall for a woman with such a Puritan Christian name. From this beginning, Callow then unfolds the tragedy of the accusations made against her.
The second suspect, Susanna Edwards, was equally unfortunate. The illegitimate daughter of a single mother, she, like Lloyd, married into a Welsh family. Widowed in the 1660s, she was left vulnerable and had already begun to receive welfare payments. And so Edwards joined Lloyd in the dismal world of proto-universal credit, pleading with the Bideford authorities for a few extra pence to tide her over a hard time.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2021 من BBC History Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2021 من BBC History Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
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