Beorn
10-12-2009, 11:50 PM
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A question in The Times a couple of years ago ran: “Was anyone ever executed for witchcraft posthumously pardoned?”. Although the witch persecut*ions at Salem, Massachusetts, between 1692 and 1693 are widely held as an example of the injustice done to innocent persons by a panicked commun*ity, the fact that a great many of those wrongfully accused of witchcraft – including all those executed and excommun*icated – have since been exonerated ought to be better known. In 1706, Ann Putnam, one of the prime accusers, publicly begged for forgiveness. In 1711, a bill was passed by the state General Court reversing the attainders (declarations of the loss of rights and property of those sent*enced to death) of 22 of those executed. In the centuries that followed, relatives and social reformers campaigned for the exoneration of the remainder with varying success until, as recently as October 2001, the Governor of Massachusetts formally declared them all innocent (FT149:22; 155:14).
Responding to The Times’s question, Joyce Froome of the Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle pointed out that in 1938, Eunice Cole, wrongfully imprisoned in 1656 for 14 years, was pard*oned by the New Hampshire town of Hampton; and Grace Sherwood, of Pungo, Virginia, who was imprisoned for seven years after surviving a river ducking in 1706, was pardoned by the Virginia Governor in 2006, the 300th anniversary of her convict*ion. In 2004, in Scotland’s East Lothian, added Ms Froome, the current incumbent of the heredit*ary baronial court of Prestoungrange and Dolphinstoun (Dr Gordon Prestoungrange) exercised his legal authority to pardon the 81 witches “and their cats” executed in the area between 1590 and 1679. Shortly afterwards, in 2004, baronial courts were stripped of their remaining powers.
In January 2008, a group called Full Moon Investigat*ions petitioned the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood for a posthumous pardon for the (estim*ated) 4,000 “men, women and children prosecuted, tort*ured and usually executed for witchcraft” in Scotland since 1661. The last witch burned at the stake there was Janet Horne, in Sutherland, in 1722. Full Moon founder Andrea Byrne said a retrospective pardon was relevant today as many occupations such as herbalists, acupuncturists, midwives, reiki teachers and health food sellers “would have been classed as witches in those days”.
Included in the Full Moon list was a pardon for Helen Duncan, who in 1944 was convicted at the Old Bailey under the 1735 Witchcraft Act. Apparently, the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to pardon Mrs Duncan as she was convicted in an English court, but the plan is to urge MSPs to lobby the Home Secretary for a full pardon. The wartime government took an interest in her séances when it was claimed that the spirit of a dead seaman from HMS Barham spoke through her to his mother, who did not know he was dead. At the time (1943), the sinking of the Barham with its loss of around 800 lives had been kept secret (on the pretext that it would undermine public morale) and the British intelli*gence services were eager to ‘plug the leak’. Mrs Duncan was found guilty of fraud under the Act and was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment. She died in 1956; the Act itself was replaced in 1951 by the Fraudul*ent Mediums Act (Full story in FT116:40).
Despite rallying Scottish MPs and Salem scholars to their cause, the campaign has provoked a frosty response from senior legal figures. Lord Montcreiff of Kinross didn’t mince his words in calling for the appeal to be rejected. He denied that she had been “branded a witch” by the court, saying she was “tried for earning money through fraudulent means”. He said the evidence showed Mrs Duncan had made the equivalent of today’s £3,000 in less than a week from bereaved relatives, proof that “she preyed on the vulnerable”. His outrage went further: “If the parliament accepts this petition, they must also accept that Helen Duncan was genuinely able to commun*icate with the spirit world. That would be a great step back.” Her defenders are resolute in their belief that she was ‘silenced’ because she had revealed sens*itive war secrets.
Similarly, the historian Prof. Martyn Bennett, in a letter to the Independent, objects to a blanket pardon because many of the accused were indeed practising frauds of various kinds. Agnes Sampson, for example, (one of the North Berwick witches executed in 1591), was “actually involved in murder, attempted murder and perhaps attempted regicide”. This latter being a reference to the sudden storm the accused were said to have summoned to sink a ship carrying James VI (later also James I of England) in 1590. As Sampson and her fellows confessed under torture, we wonder how the professor can be so certain of the reliability of the evidence – and how that proves it fraudulent.
Meanwhile, the long movement to exonerate Anna Goeldi – thought to have been the last witch to be executed in Europe – achieved some success in June 2008, when the regional government of Glarus in Switzerland determined that she had been the victim of “judicial murder” in 1782. Working as a maid, she had an affair with her employer who then, it seems, enlisted powerful friends to get rid of her when she threatened to expose him as an adulterer. Accused of attempting to poison her employer, she was tried by a Protestant Church Council who not only had no jurisdiction but also ignored the fact that there was no mandatory death sentence for non-fatal poisoning. She was condemned after she confessed to witchcraft and publicly beheaded in the town of Mollis. The detailed records of her trial and prolonged torture are publicly available in the local museum. However, this pardon has yet to be fully ratified by the Swiss parliament.
Inspired by the Swiss result, yet another campaign – pardonthewitches.com – launched into action. Headed by Angels, a costume retailer, and John Callow, author of Witchcraft and Magic in the 16th and 17th Centuries (2001), they want nothing less than a blanket Royal pardon for all those persecuted.
At the time of writing, we were unable to ascertain the progress of these pardon campaigns.
Source (http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/misc/2161/witchcraft_exonerations.html)
A question in The Times a couple of years ago ran: “Was anyone ever executed for witchcraft posthumously pardoned?”. Although the witch persecut*ions at Salem, Massachusetts, between 1692 and 1693 are widely held as an example of the injustice done to innocent persons by a panicked commun*ity, the fact that a great many of those wrongfully accused of witchcraft – including all those executed and excommun*icated – have since been exonerated ought to be better known. In 1706, Ann Putnam, one of the prime accusers, publicly begged for forgiveness. In 1711, a bill was passed by the state General Court reversing the attainders (declarations of the loss of rights and property of those sent*enced to death) of 22 of those executed. In the centuries that followed, relatives and social reformers campaigned for the exoneration of the remainder with varying success until, as recently as October 2001, the Governor of Massachusetts formally declared them all innocent (FT149:22; 155:14).
Responding to The Times’s question, Joyce Froome of the Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle pointed out that in 1938, Eunice Cole, wrongfully imprisoned in 1656 for 14 years, was pard*oned by the New Hampshire town of Hampton; and Grace Sherwood, of Pungo, Virginia, who was imprisoned for seven years after surviving a river ducking in 1706, was pardoned by the Virginia Governor in 2006, the 300th anniversary of her convict*ion. In 2004, in Scotland’s East Lothian, added Ms Froome, the current incumbent of the heredit*ary baronial court of Prestoungrange and Dolphinstoun (Dr Gordon Prestoungrange) exercised his legal authority to pardon the 81 witches “and their cats” executed in the area between 1590 and 1679. Shortly afterwards, in 2004, baronial courts were stripped of their remaining powers.
In January 2008, a group called Full Moon Investigat*ions petitioned the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood for a posthumous pardon for the (estim*ated) 4,000 “men, women and children prosecuted, tort*ured and usually executed for witchcraft” in Scotland since 1661. The last witch burned at the stake there was Janet Horne, in Sutherland, in 1722. Full Moon founder Andrea Byrne said a retrospective pardon was relevant today as many occupations such as herbalists, acupuncturists, midwives, reiki teachers and health food sellers “would have been classed as witches in those days”.
Included in the Full Moon list was a pardon for Helen Duncan, who in 1944 was convicted at the Old Bailey under the 1735 Witchcraft Act. Apparently, the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to pardon Mrs Duncan as she was convicted in an English court, but the plan is to urge MSPs to lobby the Home Secretary for a full pardon. The wartime government took an interest in her séances when it was claimed that the spirit of a dead seaman from HMS Barham spoke through her to his mother, who did not know he was dead. At the time (1943), the sinking of the Barham with its loss of around 800 lives had been kept secret (on the pretext that it would undermine public morale) and the British intelli*gence services were eager to ‘plug the leak’. Mrs Duncan was found guilty of fraud under the Act and was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment. She died in 1956; the Act itself was replaced in 1951 by the Fraudul*ent Mediums Act (Full story in FT116:40).
Despite rallying Scottish MPs and Salem scholars to their cause, the campaign has provoked a frosty response from senior legal figures. Lord Montcreiff of Kinross didn’t mince his words in calling for the appeal to be rejected. He denied that she had been “branded a witch” by the court, saying she was “tried for earning money through fraudulent means”. He said the evidence showed Mrs Duncan had made the equivalent of today’s £3,000 in less than a week from bereaved relatives, proof that “she preyed on the vulnerable”. His outrage went further: “If the parliament accepts this petition, they must also accept that Helen Duncan was genuinely able to commun*icate with the spirit world. That would be a great step back.” Her defenders are resolute in their belief that she was ‘silenced’ because she had revealed sens*itive war secrets.
Similarly, the historian Prof. Martyn Bennett, in a letter to the Independent, objects to a blanket pardon because many of the accused were indeed practising frauds of various kinds. Agnes Sampson, for example, (one of the North Berwick witches executed in 1591), was “actually involved in murder, attempted murder and perhaps attempted regicide”. This latter being a reference to the sudden storm the accused were said to have summoned to sink a ship carrying James VI (later also James I of England) in 1590. As Sampson and her fellows confessed under torture, we wonder how the professor can be so certain of the reliability of the evidence – and how that proves it fraudulent.
Meanwhile, the long movement to exonerate Anna Goeldi – thought to have been the last witch to be executed in Europe – achieved some success in June 2008, when the regional government of Glarus in Switzerland determined that she had been the victim of “judicial murder” in 1782. Working as a maid, she had an affair with her employer who then, it seems, enlisted powerful friends to get rid of her when she threatened to expose him as an adulterer. Accused of attempting to poison her employer, she was tried by a Protestant Church Council who not only had no jurisdiction but also ignored the fact that there was no mandatory death sentence for non-fatal poisoning. She was condemned after she confessed to witchcraft and publicly beheaded in the town of Mollis. The detailed records of her trial and prolonged torture are publicly available in the local museum. However, this pardon has yet to be fully ratified by the Swiss parliament.
Inspired by the Swiss result, yet another campaign – pardonthewitches.com – launched into action. Headed by Angels, a costume retailer, and John Callow, author of Witchcraft and Magic in the 16th and 17th Centuries (2001), they want nothing less than a blanket Royal pardon for all those persecuted.
At the time of writing, we were unable to ascertain the progress of these pardon campaigns.
Source (http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/misc/2161/witchcraft_exonerations.html)