EAN: 9781350387126

THE LAST WITCHES OF ENGLAND - JOHN CALLOW KARTO...

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the witchcraft acts repealed  and their names were chanted  as both inspiration and incantation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.

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