While the ladies accused within the notorious Salem witch trials in colonial America have lengthy since been pardoned, the convictions of a whole bunch of British ladies executed below related legal guidelines formally nonetheless stand. Now, one native authority in southern England is campaigning to change that.
Decades earlier than Salem, hysteria over witchcraft was already sweeping by way of England – and maybe nowhere extra fervently than within the southeast, equivalent to within the neighboring counties of Kent and Essex, which border London.
Between 1560 and 1700, greater than 500 ladies were tried for witchcraft within the southeast area, in accordance to UK Parliament estimates. Of these, 112 were executed.
But one trial in Maidstone, Kent, in 1652 stands out for its scale and public fascination.
On July 30 that 12 months, a courtroom convened close to the place Maidstone Town Hall stands right now. Thirty-two individuals confronted prices starting from theft and homicide to witchcraft, Claire Kehily, councillor for Maidstone Borough Council, informed NCS. Six ladies, accused of bewitching to demise a 10-day-old toddler, her mom, and a 3-year-old baby, turned the main target of the city’s consideration, she stated.
In the summer season of 1652, the city was “abuzz with excitement,” Kehily defined. “People came down from London to witness what was going on. It was the biggest thing we’d had here for a long time.”
The accused were held in a small, darkish jail that as soon as stood on the bottom ground of the courthouse, now tucked away within the attic of the rebuilt Town Hall.
The trial’s notoriety was such that a particular pamphlet was revealed shortly after, titled “A Prodigious and Tragic History of the Arraignment, Trial, Confession, and Condemnation of Six Witches,” of which Maidstone Council has a uncommon reproduction.
The doc describes weird and unverified claims – together with one lady swelling “into a monstrous and vast bigness” earlier than the courtroom and one other allegedly bearing “a visible teat under her tongue.”
Three ladies were convicted after failing a crude take a look at: a pin thrust into their arms. The courtroom account stated the ladies “did not feel it, neither did it draw blood.”
Two others confessed to being impregnated “not by any man, but by the devil,” in accordance to the doc.
All six were convicted of “the execrable and diabolical crime of witchcraft” and sentenced to demise.
Their execution passed off at Penenden Heath, now a tranquil park with soccer fields and woodland.
“They were dragged on hurdles – basically carts – to the heath,” Tony Harwood, a councillor for Maidstone Borough Council, informed NCS. “Thousands came to watch. Public executions were entertainment, but also a tool of control.”
“These were women of all ages,” Harwood continued. “Very vulnerable individuals who had no idea what was going on or why they had been put into this situation. You just have to understand the absolute terror of these events – and that is partly what’s behind it. The powers that be wanted to instil terror.”
Harwood described the horror and spectacle of the scene. “Public executions – they were public participation events. Thousands of people would attend. There were crime waves around them: pickpocketing, thefts, lots of complaints. That’s why the execution spot at Penenden Heath was moved several times – because of the impact from the many thousands of sightseers who came to watch,” he stated.
“There would have been people who were just there for the show. There would have been people who were appalled by what was going on. There would have been people who were excited by it.”
After the executions, the our bodies were discarded with out ceremony. “When roads were widened or housing built, human remains have often been found,” Harwood added.
A small stone plaque on the sting of Penenden Heath that commemorates these ladies – alongside the plaques for the numerous different individuals executed at this web site – is the one mark of the atrocities that passed off.
Though the frenzy surrounding witchcraft in England pale within the many years following the Maidstone trial, and all legal guidelines criminalizing witchcraft have lengthy since been repealed, the convictions of these ladies – and a whole bunch like them – nonetheless stand.
Now, almost 400 years later, Maidstone Borough Council is asking for change.
Stuart Jeffery, chief of the council, has written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, urging the British authorities to introduce laws that would grant a basic pardon to these executed below the Witchcraft Act of 1562, together with the ladies hanged at Penenden Heath in 1652.
“Justice is timeless,” stated Harwood. “These terrible wrongs carried out between 1542 and the mid-18th century echo through the ages. They cannot just be painted over.”
“We need to set the record straight. These were innocent, vulnerable individuals who were brutally judicially murdered – often for political or personal gain. That injustice will echo down the ages.”
Kehily stated that the trials were “a very early form of violence against women and girls. It still happens. They were scapegoats.”
“By highlighting it, we remind people that this has happened – and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she added.
“To address a wrong that has been made,” Kehily stated, “is to try and get it right, to learn from history, and to bring it to the fore. This hasn’t gone away.”
Maidstone’s marketing campaign follows related efforts elsewhere within the United Kingdom to confront historic injustices.
In Scotland, then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a formal apology in 2022 to the hundreds of individuals – largely ladies – who were accused and executed below the nation’s Witchcraft Act between the sixteenth and 18th centuries. The apology got here after a sustained marketing campaign by historians and activists who argued that the victims were persecuted for being poor, susceptible, or just totally different.
There can also be precedent for legislative pardons.
In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II posthumously pardoned Alan Turing, the World War II codebreaker convicted below legal guidelines criminalizing homosexuality, and in 2017 the UK authorities prolonged the pardon to hundreds of different homosexual and bisexual males convicted below related statutes. Known because the “Turing Law,” it marked a important step in acknowledging the injustice of discriminatory laws.
Councillors in Maidstone hope that a related method might be taken to handle the legacy of the Witchcraft Act.
“This is about justice,” Harwood stated. “We’ve seen the government take steps to right past wrongs. Now it’s time to do the same for the women who were judicially murdered under the guise of witchcraft.”
A Home Office spokesperson informed NCS the federal government would reply to the council’s letter “in due course.”