The Last Witches of England

The Last Witches of England PDF Author: John Callow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350196134
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"Fascinating and vivid." New Statesman "Thoroughly researched." The Spectator "Intriguing." BBC History Magazine "Vividly told." BBC History Revealed "A timely warning against persecution." Morning Star "Astute and thoughtful." History Today "An important work." All About History "Well-researched." The Tablet On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and members of his family had, within a matter of hours, convinced themselves that the bird was an emissary of the devil sent by witches to destroy the fabric of their lives. As the result of these allegations, three women of Bideford came to be forever defined as witches. A Secretary of State brushed aside their case and condemned them to the gallows; to hang as the last group of women to be executed in England for the crime. Yet, the hatred of their neighbours endured. For Bideford, it was said, was a place of witches. Though 'pretty much worn away' the belief in witchcraft still lingered on for more than a century after their deaths. In turn, ignored, reviled, and extinguished but never more than half-forgotten, it seems that the memory of these three women - and of their deeds and sufferings, both real and imagined – was transformed from canker to regret, and from regret into celebration in our own age. Indeed, their example was cited during the final Parliamentary debates, in 1951, that saw the last of the witchcraft acts repealed, and their names were chanted, as both inspiration and incantation, by the women beyond the wire at Greenham Common. In this book, John Callow explores this remarkable reversal of fate, and the remarkable tale of the Bideford Witches.

The Last Witches of England

The Last Witches of England PDF Author: John Callow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350196134
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"Fascinating and vivid." New Statesman "Thoroughly researched." The Spectator "Intriguing." BBC History Magazine "Vividly told." BBC History Revealed "A timely warning against persecution." Morning Star "Astute and thoughtful." History Today "An important work." All About History "Well-researched." The Tablet On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and members of his family had, within a matter of hours, convinced themselves that the bird was an emissary of the devil sent by witches to destroy the fabric of their lives. As the result of these allegations, three women of Bideford came to be forever defined as witches. A Secretary of State brushed aside their case and condemned them to the gallows; to hang as the last group of women to be executed in England for the crime. Yet, the hatred of their neighbours endured. For Bideford, it was said, was a place of witches. Though 'pretty much worn away' the belief in witchcraft still lingered on for more than a century after their deaths. In turn, ignored, reviled, and extinguished but never more than half-forgotten, it seems that the memory of these three women - and of their deeds and sufferings, both real and imagined – was transformed from canker to regret, and from regret into celebration in our own age. Indeed, their example was cited during the final Parliamentary debates, in 1951, that saw the last of the witchcraft acts repealed, and their names were chanted, as both inspiration and incantation, by the women beyond the wire at Greenham Common. In this book, John Callow explores this remarkable reversal of fate, and the remarkable tale of the Bideford Witches.

Sidelights on Austrian Society

Sidelights on Austrian Society PDF Author: " "X (pseud.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Austria
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description


A History of Witchcraft in England From 1558 to 1718

A History of Witchcraft in England From 1558 to 1718 PDF Author: Wallace Notestein
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465583580
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description


Banishment in the Early Atlantic World

Banishment in the Early Atlantic World PDF Author: Peter Rushton
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441155015
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Banishing troublesome and deviant people from society was common in the early modern period. Many European countries removed their paupers, convicted criminals, rebels and religious dissidents to remote communities or to their colonies where they could be simultaneously punished and, perhaps, contained and reformed. Under British rule, poor Irish, Scottish Jacobites, English criminals, Quakers, gypsies, Native Americans, the Acadian French in Canada, rebellious African slaves, or vulnerable minorities like the Jews of St. Eustatius, were among those expelled and banished to another place. This book explores the legal and political development of this forced migration, focusing on the British Atlantic world between 1600 and 1800. The territories under British rule were not uniform in their policies, and not all practices were driven by instructions from London, or based on a clear legal framework. Using case studies of legal and political strategies from the Atlantic world, and drawing on accounts of collective experiences and individual narratives, the authors explore why victims were chosen for banishment, how they were transported and the impact on their lives. The different contexts of such banishment – internal colonialism ethnic and religious prejudice, suppression of religious or political dissent, or the savageries of war in Europe or the colonies – are examined to establish to what extent displacement, exile and removal were fundamental to the early British Empire.

Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800

Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800 PDF Author: Peter Rushton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350005304
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book examines internal political conflicts in the British Empire within the legal framework of treason and sedition. The threat of treason and rebellion pervaded the British Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries; Britain's control of its territories was continually threatened by rebellion and war, both at home and in North America. Even after American independence, Britain and its former colony continued to be fearful that opposition and revolution might follow the French example, and both took legal measures to control both speech and political action. This study places these conflicts within a political and legal framework of the laws of treason and sedition as they developed in the British Atlantic. The treason laws originated in the reign of Edward III, and were adapted and modified in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were exported to the colonies, where they underwent both adaptation and elaboration in application in the slave societies as well as those dominated by free settlers. Relationships with natives and European rivals in the Americas affected the definitions of treason in practice, and the divided loyalties of the American revolutionary war added further problems of defining loyalty and treachery. Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800 offers a new study of treason and sedition in the period by placing them in a truly transatlantic perspective, making it a valuable study for those interested in the legal and political of Britain's empire and 18th-century revolutions.

The Last Witch Craze

The Last Witch Craze PDF Author: Tony McAleavy
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445698439
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
A fascinating account of man of letters John Aubrey’s investigation into the witch craze in 17th century England and the remarkable witch trials in Wiltshire. John Aubrey and other leading figures in the Royal Society promoted belief in witchcraft. Aubrey also had a dark secret. He personally practised a form of black witchcraft.

"At The Instigation of the Devil": Capital Punishment and the Assize in the early modern England, 1670-1730

Author: Markus Eder
Publisher: BookRix
ISBN: 3730933914
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
“Acting at the instigation of the devil” was the designation used in english indictments of the early modern period for those heavy criminals as murderers, high traitors, rapists, robbers and burglars who, on conviction, would have faced capital punishment. Although criminals of the above- mentioned kind have at all times haunted the immagination of society , up to now, no sytematical and representative analysis of the subject of capital punishment in the pre- 1718 period, the date of the passage of the so called Transportation Act, has been published. Drawing on the archival resources of one of England`s largest and most heavily populated Assize, the so called Western Circuit, Markus Eder, author of the well received Crime and Punishment in the Royal Navy of the Seven Years` War, 1755-1763 (Aldershot, 2004), unfolds before the reader`s eyes the story of the incidence, nature and punishment of capital crimes during the period 1670-1730. What emerges is the most fully and most representative study on the nature and handling of capital crime in early Modern England.

A History of English Assizes 1558-1714

A History of English Assizes 1558-1714 PDF Author: J. S. Cockburn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521084499
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Historical background and the operations of the court.

Transatlantic Holiday

Transatlantic Holiday PDF Author: Thomas Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Applewood Books
ISBN: 1429004991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Written shortly after the advent of new steamships allowing faster travel to the United States, Thomas Fitzpatrick turns his pen to a description of the ""principal States of New England"" -New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington. Originally published in 1891, Fitzpatrick aims not only to describe America in relation to her experiment with democracy, but also to lay open the beauty of America to a new class of traveler-those who new technology will allow to undertake transatlantic travel within the limits of short leisure time. In the mode of an early travel guide, Fitzpatrick's hope is to provide a ""friendly"" guide which will induce his fellow countrymen to take advantage of new steamships, with their safer and shorter journeys to the United States, so that they themselves can view the natural beauty of the American continent and man-made achievements of her cities.

A Trial of Witches

A Trial of Witches PDF Author: Ivan Bunn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134696329
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
In 1662, Amy Denny and Rose Cullender were accused of witchcraft, and, in one of the most important of such cases in England, stood trial and were hanged in Bury St Edmunds. A Trial of Witches is a complete account of this sensational trial and an analysis of the court procedures, and the larger social, cultural and political concerns of the period. In a critique of the official process, the book details how the erroneous conclusions of the trial were achieved. The authors consider the key participants in the case, including the judge and medical witness, their institutional importance, their part in the fate of the women and their future careers. Through detailed research of primary sources, the authors explore the important implications of this case for the understanding of hysteria, group mentality, social forces and the witchcraft phenomenon as a whole.