1566: Agnes Waterhouse, the first witchcraft execution in England

ExecutedToday.com ^ | July 29th, 2018 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1556, Agnes Waterhouse became the first known woman executed for witchcraft in England.

“Mother Waterhouse” came accused as the matriarch of a whole clan of hags in the Essex village of Hatfield Peverel. Our record for events, a pamphlet titled The Examination and confession of certaine wytches at Chensforde [Chelmsford] in the countie of Essex: before the Quenes Maiesties judges, the xxvi daye of July, anno 1566.,* gives us Mother Waterhouse accused a sorceress along with her daughter, Joan (eventually acquitted), as well as Agnes’s sister, Elizabeth Francis. By accounts they had come by their necromancies via the guidance of a “hyr grand­mother whose nam was mother Eue of Hatfyelde Peue­rell.”

Tudor England had thus far been spared the witch persecutions that were multiplying on the continent, and even here the accusations ultimately invoked the supernatural as the means for actual material injuries: to sicken and kill both livestock and people....

[xp38]

She turned me into a newt...but I got better. :)

[Hieronymus]

Eight years into Elizabeth’s reign. While the skit is hilarious, it does play into the executions being a medieval thing, while it largely was a reformation fad.

The skit itself echoes a 1751 incident.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Osborne_(alleged_witch)

[Adder]

In the early 1500’s there was a consonant shift where ‘b’s” became “w’s”.

Explains much of the confusion...and why men called for execution...

[jimfree]

The SNL Salem Bitch Trials skit with Shannen Doherty and Chris Farley remains one of the greats.