Witches of Belvoir
![Memorial to Henry & Francis Manners in Bottesford](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/The_two_sons_of_Francis_Manners%2C_St_Mary%27s_church%2C_Bottesford_%28geograph_2736171%29.jpg/200px-The_two_sons_of_Francis_Manners%2C_St_Mary%27s_church%2C_Bottesford_%28geograph_2736171%29.jpg)
The Witches of Belvoir were a mother and her two daughters accused of witchcraft in England and the deaths of two young brothers, Henry (died 1613) and Francis Manners (died 1620), the heirs to Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland, whose seat was at Belvoir Castle. The mother, Joan Flower, died on the way to her trial after apprehension 'around Christmas' of 1618, while Philippa and Margaret were executed by hanging on 11 March 1619.[1]
The Flowers of Bottesford
Joan, Margaret and Philippa Flower were "known to be herbal healers" and came from a local family that "had fallen on hard times".
After the Flowers' were dismissed, the Earl and Countess fell ill, suffering from "vomiting and convulsions".[3] Their son and heir, Henry, Baron de Ros,[4] died, and was buried on 26 September 1613.[5] Their younger children, Francis, and daughter Katherine, suffered similarly [6] and Francis died 7 March 1620. The deaths of the two boys left the Earl without a male heir and Earldom passed to his brother after his own death in 1632.[7]
Charge of witchcraft
Three years after Henry's death, on 16 July 1616, nine women were hanged as witches in
When arrested Joan Flower professed her innocence. She was not known to be a Church-goer, but at Ancaster, en route to the prison at Lincoln,[6] she asked for bread as a substitute for the Eucharist.[11] She claimed that something so blessed could not be consumed by a witch. She choked and died after the first bite.[11]
At Lincoln, Margaret accused her mother of witchcraft, while Phillipa admitted to witchcraft on behalf of herself, Margaret and Joan.
Others accused
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Threewitches.jpg/250px-Threewitches.jpg)
During the examination, they revealed the names of other women who had aided them: Anne Baker of
All three women were taken for examination and revealed that they too had visions and consorted with familiar spirits.[13] Willimot said her familiar was called Pretty and had been blown into her mouth by her former master in the form of a fairy, later reappearing in the form of a woman who asked her to give up her soul. Willimot testified more as a cunning woman than a witch, and insisted Pretty only helped her to inquire about the health of people she had attempted to heal:
She never hurt any body, but did help divers persons that were stricken or fore-spoken (bewitched): and that her Spirit came weekly to her, and would tell of divers persons that were stricken and fore-spoken: and she saith that the use which she had of the Spirit, was to know those did which she had undertaken to amend and she did help them by certain prayers which she used.[13]
Greene claimed that she had accompanied Willimot into a wood where she said Willimot had conjured up two spirits in the form of a kitten and a "moldewarp" (mole) which had climbed on her shoulders and sucked at her ears. Greene sent these familiars to kill a man and woman with whom she had argued and both died within a fortnight. Baker also confessed to possessing a familiar in the form of a white dog, but most of her testimony concerned the visions she had witnessed.
Aftermath and legacy
![Images of memorial text at Bottesford](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Inscription_on_Tomb_of_6th_Earl_of_Rutland.jpg/250px-Inscription_on_Tomb_of_6th_Earl_of_Rutland.jpg)
Margaret and Philippa Flower were tried before
Later that year a ballad, Damnable Practises of Three Lincolnshire Witches Joane Flower and Her Two Daughters, printed by 'G. Eld for John Barnes' appeared.[5]
The Earl and Countess remained so convinced that their sons had been killed by the effects of witchcraft that they had it inscribed on their monument at Bottesford church. It reads, in part:
In 1608 he married ye
Sir John Tufton, by whom he had two sons, both of which died in their infancy by wicked practises and sorcerye[4]
In 1953, Hilda Lewis published a historical romance, The Witch and the Priest, which consists of a series of conversations between Samuel Fleming, the clergyman who oversaw the Flowers' examinations, and the ghost of Joan Flower.[5]
In 2013, historian Tracy Borman suggested that the Flower women may have been framed by a favourite of King James I, the Leicestershire born George Villiers, who was created Duke of Buckingham in 1623.[2] Borman's theory is that Villiers had plans to marry the Rutland's daughter Katherine and, with her two brothers dead, inherit the title.[2] Borman argues 'he had them poisoned – then framed Joan Flower and her two daughters as witches to create a smokescreen to cover up his own guilt'.[2] After the execution of the Flower sisters, Villiers went on to marry the Rutland's sole heir Katherine on 16 May 1620.[14]
References
- ^ Unknown (1619). The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip Flower, Daughters of Joan Flower neere Beuer castle: Executed at Lincolne, March 11.1618 Who were specially arraigned and condemned before Sir Henry Hobart, and Sir Edward Bromley, Judges of Assize, for confessing themselves actors in the destruction of Henry Lord Rosse, with their damnable practices against others the Children of the Right Honourable Francis Earle of Rutland. Together with the severall Examinations and Confessions of Anne Baker, Joan Willimot, and Ellen Greene. Witches in Leicestershire. London: G. Eld for I. Barnes, dwelling in the long Walke neere Christ-Church.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Witches of Belvoir 'may have been framed'". BBC. 31 October 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ a b "The Witches of Belvoir Castle". This Was Leicestershire. 12 November 2012. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ a b Bob, Sparford. "The Bottesford Witches, Introduction". Bottesford Living History. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f Miller, William E. (1959). "Samuel Fleming, Elizabethan Clergyman". The Library Chronicle. Vol. XXV. University of Pennsylvania. pp. 61–79. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ a b c Andrews, William, ed. (1892). Bygone Leicestershire. Leicestershire, Hull & London: F. Murray, W. Andrews & co., Simpkin, Marshall & Hamilton, Kent, & co. pp. 91–92. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ISBN 0-9711966-2-1.
- ^ Briscoe, J. Potter; Andrews (Editor), William (1892). "Witchcraft In Leicestershire". Bygone Leicestershire. Leicestershire, Hull & London: F. Murray, W. Andrews & co., Simpkin, Marshall & Hamilton, Kent, & co. pp. 126–130. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
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has generic name (help) - ^ a b Notestein, Wallace (1911). A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718. Washington: American Historical Association. p. 133. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ a b c d Chambers, Robert (1869). "March 11th". The Book Of Days. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ a b Bathurst, Bella (25 August 2013). "Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction by Tracy Borman – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ Jennifer Evans, Aphrodisiacs, Fertlity and Medicine in Early Modern History (Boydell, 2014), pp. 157-8.
- ^ a b c Bob, Sparford. "The Bottesford Witches, The Wonderful Discovery of the Witchcrafts of Joan, Margaret and Phillipa Flower". Bottesford Living History. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 36. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 49–50.
- Thomas Wright (1852). Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, from the Most Authentic Sources. Redfield. pp. 420.