This is some background, cats, to help you to see how witches would be treated in the courts in England during the late 1500s and the 1600s. The first witch known to be executed in England was Agnes Waterhouse, in Chelmsford, in 1566 and the last execution of a convicted English witch was in 1684. So the execution of witches here only spanned about 120 years. Before 1566 there is no record of anyone being executed for witchcraft in England. The witchcraft laws had been revised in 1563, and before that date they were not so severe. Most of the witch trials were in the south of England, the majority of the so called witches tried during this time were not convicted and even when the witch trials were at their height, over half of the accused witches who were tried were not executed.
The most significant event concerning the trials of witches was when King James I came to the throne after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. He had written a book called 'Demonology', of which a new edition was made and widely distributed in 1603. This book told how to tell whether a person was a witch and, broadly, how their trial should be conducted. Many of the judiciary in England wanted to stay on good terms with the King, so witch trials became more common and the conviction of witches multiplied.
Witchcraft was considered to be a felony in England. I think that I should explain here that there were three types of crimes.
One type of crime was treason, which (unlike witchcraft in England) was punishable by burning. Treason was a crime against someone that the accused owed a bond of loyalty to. A person planning the death of the King, or an assault on him, would be guilty of high treason (hence the burning of Guy Fawkes,). The defeat of the 'Gunpowder Plot', during which Guy Fawkes and some of his associates tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, is still celebrated in England where an effigy of him is burnt on top of a bonfire on November 5th. Until 1810 (over 200 years after the Gunpowder plot) it was actually an effigy of the Pope that was burnt. A woman planning the death of her husband would be guilty of petty treason. A woman was burnt at the stake in England in 1726 after being found guilty of killing her husband, this was long after the last convicted witch was hanged. It was possible for a convicted witch to be burnt at the stake, but only if she was found guilty, for instance, of killing her husband (where she might be accused of treason). I suppose if a woman were to poison her husband in those days, in the absence of forensic science to investigate it, it might look a little like witchcraft. Priests, whether they were Roman Catholic or Protestant, were forced to accept the monarch as the head of the Church.
There were Protestants in England before Henry the Eighth came to the throne and if they refused to accept the monarch as the head of the Church, which some of them did, they were persecuted just as much as Roman Catholics were. This was treason, but the punishment for them seems to have been different, maybe because they did not actually wish anyone any harm. Their punishment was usually to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
The second type of crime was known as a felony, which included such things as murder, rape, robbery and arson (as I said, witchcraft came into the felony category). Some felonies were punishable by the death penalty and, for this type of crime, that meant by hanging. The Witchcraft Act of 1604 prescribed the death penalty for those who "use, practise, or exercise any witchcraft, charm of sorcery, whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, pined or lamed in his body."
The third type of crime was known as a misdemeanor. These crimes included Perjury or attempting (unsuccessfully) to comit a felony. The punishments for misdemeanors were generally less severe than they were for felonies.
Throughout Europe the laws against witchcraft varied. England seems to have been at odds to most of Europe. In most of Europe witchcraft was an offence punishable by being burnt at the stake. Even in Scotland the laws were different to those of England and hundreds of Scots who were found guilty of witchcraft were burnt.
I hope you enjoyed the story, cats.
Purrs,
Tiddler.