Witchcraft in Northumberland

In 1542, during the reign of Henry VIII, the Witchcraft Act was introduced.  Witchcraft was defined as a felony to be tried through the courts with a maximum penalty of hanging.  Elizabeth I further strengthened this in 1563. A first time offender would be imprisoned for a year and placed into a pillory [sort of stock with holes for hands and feet] four times, a second offence would result in death by hanging unless the person was convicted of murder by witchcraft in the first instance.  In 1604 James IV of Scotland and James I of England strengthened English law to make death by hanging compulsory for those injured. King James was very interested in witchcraft, having written an earlier book entitled ‘Daemonologie’ and personally attending trials. Although, he did not take the opportunity to mirror the punishment carried out in Scotland of burning at the stake.  

In 1904 Balfour published “County Folklore Vol IV Northumberland” bringing together numerous sources to record different folklore stories across the county (other volumes were completed for other English counties).   Below are some of the stories told…

Acklington had a reputation for dealings in the magic arts including ‘invulation’ “by which the life, death or suffering of an enemy was attempted by means of a figure in which pins were struck” or was roasted on a fire.  Brinkburne Abbey was recorded as having its own witch living in a nearby cottage; she had an ‘evil eye’ and local villagers were afraid of her cat. The witch that lived in Hawkwell transformed herself into a hare.

A number of individuals, mostly women, are cited as being accused of being  witches; with the accounts often being heard by the then Mayor of Newcastle.   In 1659-60 Elisabeth Simpson of Tynmouth was refused a pot of beer by Frances Mason.  Elisabeth threatened Frances who became lame within days, taking to her bed claiming Elisabeth ‘did pinch her heart’.  In 1661, when Elizabeth Richardson of Blaydon took ill , Jane Watson was called. The pain disappeared, “but imediately after the paine left her, and a dogg which as in said house presently dyed”.  

Isabell Fletcher was at the Stanners near Morpeth one night and she saw a “white thing comeing through the water like a woman”.  The vision asked Isabell if she recognised her and she confirmed it was Margaret Milbourne of Bedlington “whome she was very well acquainted with, she being servant lately to…” her son William.  Isabell refused the visions instruction to visit ‘thy dame’, and was told “it would be worse for her”. When the vision came forward again, it caused Isabell to faint and be in a “distracted condition all the night”.

The case against Jane Simpson and Isabell Atcheson was heard in July 1664.  Jane had given some ‘threatening words’ towards Dorothy Hearon after selling her some cherries.  Within days Dorothy had taken ill to her bed where she suffered “sad and lamentable fitts to the admiration and astonishment of all spectators, being sometimes rageing madd, other tymes laughing and singing, other tymes dispareing and disconsolate, other tymes very solitary and mute”.  A couple of days later in her bed, crying, Dorothy said that it was Jane and Isabell that tormented her and were about to carry her away. She asked her husband Anthony Hearon, a baker and brewer, if he could see the ladies beside the bed. After moving the curtain he said that “he did clearly see Isable Atcheson standing att the bedd side, in her owne shape”, she vanished when he called for the Lord.  A footnote to this story is noted “The sick person draws blood from the suspected witch and recovers”.

How did these accusations come about?  In 1649-50 two sergeants, Thomas Stevel and Cuthbert Nicholson, from Newcastle magistrates were sent to Scotland to collect an unnamed witch-finder who could “find out witches by pricking them with pins”.  When he arrived in Newcastle a bellman was sent around the town asking anyone with a complaint against a woman for being a witch should come forward so that the women could be sent for trial with the witch-finder.

5 thoughts on “Witchcraft in Northumberland”

  1. Has the pendulum swung the other way and now militant feminists and liberal democracites become the Church of olde?!

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  2. Has there been an formal acknowledgement, pardon and apology that these women were persecuted and killed? The Witches of Scotland are campigning for this to happen in Scottish law. I think the Northumbrian women deserve no less.

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