LiveTheirStory

John Stearne’s account of his travels through Essex and East Anglia searching for witches during the turmoil-filled 17th century makes stark reading. Witches, he writes, ‘may be brought to confession either by keeping [imprisonment], though everything necessary be afforded to them, as I never did otherwise, but now lately kept none, or not above one night till we go there, and yet have their confession. Witness those executed at Ely, a little before Michaelmas last [29 Sept], who made large confessions. Also one at Chatteris there; One at March there; and another at Wimblington now lately found, still to be tried, who made very large confessions, especially the first two…‘ These cases came late in the purge of witches stirred up by Stearne and his colleague Matthew Hopkins around East Anglia, and refer to the practice of holding women in prison, some even dying before they were tried, others tortured until they confessed through lack of sleep and food. (Note Stearne distances himself from this.) Read more about the Ely witches in Malcolm Gaskill’s excellent Witchfinders: a 17th Century English Tragedy (pp. 265-8). The victims from Chatteris, March and Wimblington remain nameless, but their story survives because Stearne took it upon himself to write an account of his work, A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, which he published in 1648. Read it here.