The Witches of Warboys: England's Most Famous Witch Trial

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2022

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

The Cambridgeshire village of Warboys was the scene of one of the most famous English witch trials of the sixteenth century. There, the privileged daughters of the respected Squire Throckmorton accused a cantankerous elderly neighbour of witchcraft, sending the impoverished Alice Samuel to her death.

This shocking case is the subject of a dazzling new novel The Bewitching by author Jill Dawson, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb’s guest today. It explores a neglected episode of English history to powerful effect, vividly conveying the brutal tribalism that can erupt in a closed society and how victims can be persuaded to believe in their own wickedness.

For this episode, the Senior Producer was Elena Guthrie. It was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In the British Library is the only surviving copy of a pamphlet that was published in London in 1593.
0:12.0	The pamphlet has this rather long title, the most strange and admirable discovery of three witches of war boys,
0:22.0	framed, convicted and executed at the last sizes at Huntington.
0:28.0	For the bewitching of the five daughters of Robert Throck Morton Asquire and diverse other persons,
0:34.0	with sundry, devilish and grievous torment, and also for the bewitching to death of the lady Cromwell,
0:42.0	the like that have not been heard of in this age.
0:46.0	The pamphlet tells the story of what soon became one of the most famous English witch trials of the 16th century,
0:54.0	a story in which terrified children of a respected squire accused a cantankerous neighbour of witchcraft and had their words heated.
1:02.0	Or to put it another way, in which privileged girls sent an impoverished elderly woman to her death.
1:09.0	This terrible case is the subject of a sparkling new novel by Jill Dawson.
1:14.0	Jill Dawson is the award-winning author of 11 novels and one poetry collection and the editor of six anthologies of poetry and stories.
1:22.0	She's a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been a costor judge and she's taught creative writing in many different settings.
1:31.0	Her new novel, which tells the story of the Throck Morton girls and their encounter with an alleged witch,
1:37.0	the elderly Alice Samuel is called the Witching.
1:42.0	Hello Jill, thank you so much for coming on to not just the tutors.
1:51.0	I want to first of all say congratulations. This is a really wonderful book.
1:55.0	It's a historically sensitive imagining of a fascinating episode of history and I really enjoyed it.
2:02.0	Thank you.
2:03.0	Thank you for those who haven't got their hands on your glorious book yet. Could you please summarize the plot?
2:08.0	Okay, so the bewitching tells the story set in warboys of the Throck Morton family,
2:16.0	a bunch of girls aged between 8 to 16 who accuse their neighbour rather randomly it seems of being a witch in 1589
2:26.0	and then set in motion a train of events which naturally enough go from bad to worse really.
	...

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