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Framingham: Margaret Bates, ellen Driver, Mary Edwards, Elizabeth Man, Anne wife of Robert Moats, Mother Nevill, Anne Palmer, Mary Scrutton, anne sherwood, Anne Usher, Elizabeth Warne, Margaret With alias Chinmey, Margaret Wyard
Large scale witch hunt, the accused were almost exclusively from the poor end of town. The history of the town include protecting Queen Mary in the Tudor era, and aristocratic Catholic reculsantry.
Large scale witch hunt, the accused were almost exclusively from the poor end of town. The history of the town include protecting Queen Mary in the Tudor era, and aristocratic Catholic reculsantry.
Appendices
Sources
https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf
Gordon Blackwood, Tudor and Stuart Suffolk, Carnegie Publishing UK 2007
Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders A Seventeenth-Century Tragedy, John Murray, Hodder Headline 2005
www.Kentwell.co.uk https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/suffolk/melford-hall Sudbury Museum displays
Suffolk Chronicle of July 16 1825
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Matthew-Hopkins- WitchFinder-General/
Local expertise provided by Ruth Philo
Sources for further research
The references given here and after each days report are from the Exeter University site and do not reflect my own reading. I include them to allow readers to further their own interests and to honour the research done at
Exeter. If you wish to verify the information provided about a particular village please use these sources:
Acton and Great Waldingfield
Stearne, Confirmation, 37; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; DN/VIS/6/1; DN/VIS/6/4; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fo.126; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 46, 208-10, 226, 303; Wal.Rev., 326; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fos 36r, 114r; B105/2/7, fo.131v; TNA, PC 2/64, 29
Stearne, Confirmation, 41-2; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.102v; Wal.Rev., 328; White, First Century of Scandalous, Malignant Priests, 23-4; Gardiner (ed.), Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, 298-9; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/4; HLRO, MP, 9 February 1640/1; HMC. Fourth Report, pp.38, 49, 57, 60; WSkRO, J 545/38, fo.43 [will of Anne Glead, alias Bisacke, of Great Waldingfield, 2 April 1668; proved 9 July 1670].
Lavenham
Stearne, Confirmation, 22-3, 30; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 85-7; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 46-7, 222 and n., 244, 252; NkRO, DN/VIS/ 5/3/3; CSPD, 1641-1643, 60; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xiv, xxxiv, l, lxvi, lxxv; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.209r; Wal.Rev., 332; Tanner MS 284, fos 42, 45-7; ODNB, sub Gurnall, William; BL, Add MS 22,916, fos 2, 4, 6; Harleian MSS 374, fos 138, 142, 146; 376, fos 41-4; Anon., Covenant- Renouncers.
Dunwich
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 298-9; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 179-80, 313n; ESkRO EE6/3/3, passim; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 300 [nos 236-7]; Cal.Rev., 454; Nickolls (ed.), Original Letters and Papers of State, 157; Oldenburg, Correspondence, v, 14-15 [Cave Beck to Oldenburg, 15 August 1668]; Petto, Faithful Narrative of ... Mr.Tho.Spatchet; TNA, PROB 11/145, fos 351r-352r [will of Robert Spatchet, 20 May 1623; proved 2 May 1625].
Yoxford
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 309; NkRO, DN/VSC; DN/VIS 5/3/4; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fo.126; Wal.Rev., 333; Cal.Rev., 100, 110, 193; ESkRO, B105/2/6, fo.31v.
Sudbury
Stearne, Confirmation, 32; WSkRO, EE 501/2/7; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, 38; Shipps, ‘Lay Patronage’, 301-4; Ford (ed.), Winthrop Papers, 1 [1498-1628], 317; Forbes (ed.), Winthrop Papers, 3 [1631-7], 62, 388; Gardiner (ed.), Reports ... Star Chamber and High Commission, 72-3; Powell, Puritan Village, 41; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xiii, xxxiii, lxiv-lxv, cvii; CSPD, 1637-1638, 384; CSPD, 1639-40, 260-1, 562; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 192-4; BL, Harleian MS 589, fos 137-9; CSPD, 1640-1641, 195, 384, 389; BL, Harleian MS 160, fo.153; HLRO, HL/PO/JO/10/1/62, 21 June 1641; HL/PO/JO/10/1/140 [1642]; WSkRO, Sudbury Borough Records, Sextus Book, 25 October 1642; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 212-4 [nos 39-41].
Long Melford
Stearne, Confirmation, 36-7; Anon., Signes and Wonders from Heaven, 4; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 191-7, 208-10, 227-8, 244; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1626, 334; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/1; Wal.Rev., 167; Green (ed.), Diary of John Rous, 121; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 429; Cal.Rev., 542; CSPD, 1653-1654, 136; LPL, MS 639, fo.231r; WSkRO, FL 509/5/1/80; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 187.
Wickham Skeith
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 302-3; NkRO, DN/VSC; Clarkson, Lost Sheep Found, 12-13; Besse, Sufferings, i, 657-8, 662, 665-6, 667, 672; Anon., Quakers are Inchanters; Humble Petition of the Counties of Suffolke and Essex, sig.A3r; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 334; Willan, Six Sermons; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, 63-4; BL, Add.MS 27,402; NkRO, DN/SUB 1/1 [1644]; Wal.Rev., 345; Redstone (ed.), Ship- Money Returns, 108; Greenwood, ‘Origins and Early History of Independency’, 65-66.
Stowmarket
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 292; Stearne, Confirmation, 26; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.84r; Hollingsworth, History of Stowmarket, 144-8, 162-5, 168-71, 183 and passim; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 5r, 137, 200r, 209v, 226r; ODNB, sub Young, Thomas; TNA, PROB 11/252, fos 211v-212v [will of Thomas Young, 27 September 1653; proved 31 January 1655/6]; Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England, 319-20; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing,
240-1 [no.103]; Cal.Rev., 59, 271; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 426; Wal.Rev., 338; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 95-103; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 148, 149, 151; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/4; TNA, PROB 11/299, fos 214r-v [will of William Keeble, 5 October 1659; proved 16 July 1660].
Bacton
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 301-2; Stearne, Confirmation, 28-9; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 95-9 [which also supplies much useful additional information, supplied from an unpublished paper by Ivan Bunn, on the lives of the witches and their victims]; Shipps, ‘Lay Patronage of East Anglian Puritan Clerics, 253; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; DN/VIS/6/4; TNA, PROB 11/245, fos 231r-v [will of Robert Garnham, yeoman, 30 August 1653; proved 22 May 1655];Hughes- Clarke and Campling (eds), The Visitation of Norfolk ... 1664, ii, 174-5.
Rattlesden
Stearne, Confirmation, 12-13, 19-20, 25, 26, 33, 53; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 92-4; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.168; Tanner MS 314, fo.195r; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xlvi-xlvii, lxvii, lxxv, lxxvii, cix, cxiii, cxvii; Powell, Puritan Village, Appendix 1, 169; Cal.Rev., 100-1; ODNB, sub Bedell, William; Olorenshaw (ed.), Notes on the History of the Church and Parish of Rattlesden, 30-2 and passim; Nickolls (ed.), Original Letters and Papers of State, 157; LPL, MS 639, fo.231r; WSkRO, J545/34, fo.302 [will of John Scarpe, 7 August 1643; proved 17 June 1646]; Rylands (ed.), The Visitation of Suffolk ... 1664 ... 1668, 128, 184; BL, Add MS 39,245, fo.180r; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 176.
Hintlesham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 297-8;Gaskill, Witchfinders, 100-2; Ryan and Redstone, Timperley of Hintlesham: A Study of a Suffolk Family; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1626, 34; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4; Wal.Rev., 344; Green, CPCC, iii, 2133-4; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 148, 151, 155-8; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 235-6 [no.92]; Cal.Rev., 527; CSPD, 1660-1661, 230; Redstone (ed.), Ship- Money Returns, 210; TNA, PROB 11/295, fos 149v-151r [will of Thomas Glamfield, 17 September 1647; proved 5 September 1659]; TNA, PROB 11/242, fos 218v-219r [will of Thomas Cooke, 25 October 1653; proved 5 May 1654].
Chattisham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 307-8; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 99-100; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 387; Wal.Rev., 342; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 39-41; Tyack, ‘Migration from East Anglia’, Appendix 1, iii; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; BN/VIS/6/1; DN/SUN4(a); Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 226 [no.71]; Cal.Rev., 348, 464; TNA, PROB 11/364, fos 257v-258v [will of Owen Stockton, 6 June 1679; proved 27 November 1680].
Copdock
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 312-3; ESkRO, C2/18/1, 14; B105/2/1, fo.81v; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 218r, 244r; Tanner MS 314, fo.125; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, ii, 450; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 44, 51, 328-9; Wal.Rev., 325; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 66-7; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 226-7 [no.73]; Hubbard, Sermo Secularis, 19; Green, CPCC, iii, 1867; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 208; ESkRO, IC/AA1/101/67 [will of Rebecca Ustwood, 15 August ?; proved 1671]; FB 21/A2/1; East Anglian Miscellany, 6 (1912), 50, 52; ESkRO, HD 1538/354/19, 22-24, 28; Redstone (ed.), Ship- Money Returns, 92; TNA, PROB 11/211, fos 103v-104r [will of Thomas Bull of Flowton, 20 September 1648, proved 16 February 1649/50].
Belsted
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 312; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fo.14r; Boorman, ‘The Administrative and Disciplinary Problems of the Church’, 86; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fos 122v, 144v-145r; TNA, PROB 11/201, fos 225v-226r [will of Richard Raymond, 2 October 1642; proved 10 July 1647]; Venn, i, 168; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 227 [no.74]; Hubbard, Sermo Secularis, 19.
Glemham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 311-12; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 114-15 [who suggests Great Glemham]; ODNB, sub Glemham, Sir Thomas; Green, CPCC, ii, 1579; BL, Add.MS 34,013, fo.19r; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; Cal.Rev., 297; NkRO, DN/ VSC; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.210r; Wal.Rev., 326.
Halesworth
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 309-11; Anon., True Relation of the Arraignment of Eighteen Witches, 3-4; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.80v; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 116-17; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.212v; CSPD, 1627-1628, 29; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1627, 83, 85; Anon., ‘Suffolk County Records’, 157; Cal.Rev., 471; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 334, 425, 426; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 290 [no.219]; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 60, 76; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 405; B105/2/5, fo.94r; B105/2/7, fo.127r.
Stradbroke
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 291, 311, 312; Anon., The Triall of Mais.Dorrell, 92-8; Wal.Rev., 330; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 4r, 6v, 213v; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 427; White, Century, 42-3; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 288 [no.215]; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 152, 157, 159, 164; Knollys, Christ Exalted, sig.Av; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4.
Aldeborough
ESkRO, EE 1/12/2, fos 248-50, 258v, 273v; Hele, Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh, 42-4; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 181-5; Wal.Rev., 265, 269, 273, 345-6, 346; HMC. Reports, Various Collections ... Volume IV, 306-9; NkRO, DN/VIS/ 6/4; Cooper (ed.), The Journal of William Dowsing, 220-1 [no.56]; ESkRO, EE 6/3/3, fo.66v; TNA, SP 24/1, fo.86v; Anon., A Signe from Heaven, 3; TNA, PROB 11/289, fos 116v-117v [will of Thomas Johnson, 15 October 1658; proved 14 March 1658/9]; Browne, History of Congregationalism, 608-12; CSPD, 1650, 426, 430; Holmes (ed.), The Suffolk Committees for Scandalous Ministers, 115-19; ESkRO, EE
Bramford
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 293-4; Stearne, Confirmation, 30-1, 44-5; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 87-9; Redstone (ed.), The Ship-Money Returns for ... Suffolk, 91; Clarke, Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines, 3-6; Blatchly, Town Library of Ipswich, 19; Venn, i, 3; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.212; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 234-5 [no.89]; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fos 40v, 42r; ESkRO, C2/18/3; HMC.Thirteenth Report, Appendix, Part 1. MSS of the Duke of Portland, vol.1, 171; Thurloe, State Papers, vii, 48; Rylands (ed.), Visitation of the County of Suffolk ... 1664 ... 1668, 111; Cal.Rev., 322; ESkRO, IC/ AA1/83/108 [will of William Stiles of Hemingstone, 19 May 1645; proved 17
March 1645/6]; TNA, PROB 11/257, fos 198r-199r [will of John Style, 3 September 1655; proved 29 August 1656]; TNA, PROB 11/192, fos 247v-248v [will of William Tyler, 29 November 1643; proved 19 January 1644/5]; CUL, Mm.I.45, 44-5; TNA, PROB 11/197, fo.79v [will of Henry Sanford, c.14 May 1646; proved 6 July 1646].
Ipswich
ESkRO, C8/4/7, 413-7, 419; B105/2/1, fo.79; Anon., The Lawes against Witches, 7-8; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 173-9; CSPD, 1625-1626, 175, 399, 458; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1627, 48, 207-8; CSPD, 1627-1628, 239, 288; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4; DN/VIS 6/1; DN/VIS 6/4; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 331, 349; [Prynne], Newes from Ipswich; Grace, ‘ “Schismaticall and Factious Humours”’, 97-119; Bodl., Tanner MS 89, fos 172-3; CSPD, 1636-1637, 129-30, 565; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xlviii-xlix, lxxvii, cvii, cix; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 2v, 30r, 210v, 244r, 287-302, 327; CSPD, 1636-1637, 529-30; CSPD, 1640-1641, 410.
CSPD, 1637-1638, 139-40, 146; CSPD, 1638-1639, 226 CSPD, 1639, 68, 135, 464, 476, 480, 482, 503; CSPD, 1639-1640, 97, 131, 221, 432, 547; CSPD, 1640, 518; CSPD, 1640-1641, 13; CUL, Mm.I.45, 31, 44-5; Perfect Diurnall of the Passages in Parliament [8-15 August 1642], 7; Wal.Rev., 328, 334-5, 339-40; TNA, PC2/51, fo.195v; Bodl., Tanner MS 220, fos 7-43; Humble Petitions of the Bailifes, Port-men, and Other the Inhabitants of Ipswich; Walter, ‘Popular Iconoclasm’, 270and n.; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 227-33 [nos 75-86]; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 365, 373-81, 383-4, 387, 389, 393, 405, 409, 413, 420; Clarkson, Lost Sheep Found, 12.
Besse, Sufferings, i, 672; NkRO, DN/VIS/6/4; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 381, 383, 399, 413, 429; TNA, PROB 11/245, fos 149r, 177r [will of John Payne, 27 March 1655; proved 8 May 1655]; NkRO, DN/VSC, sub 22 April 1635; Wal.Rev., 158; ESkRO, FB 98/E3/1; TNA, PROB 11/232, fos 123r- 125r [will of William Bull Snr, grocer/apothecary, of Ipswich, 20 October 1652 and 22 January 1652/3; proved 26 May 1653]; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 287-302; Bacon, The Annals of Ipswich, 509, 516; BL, Add MS 25,344, fos 64v, 68r, 91r, 92r, 97v, 103r, 105r, 108r, 110v; ESkRO, C2/18/1, 24; C2/18/3; Lords’ Journal, xi (1660-1666), 612, 629; Cal.Rev., 124-5; TNA, PROB 11/239, fo.82v [will of Robert Wade, c.28 November 1653; proved 13 February 1653/4]; TNA, PROB 11/192, fos 16r-v [will of John Wade, clothier, of Ipswich, 25 and 26 June 1644; proved 28 November 1644]; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 107-10; TNA, PROB 11/194, fos 164r-v [will of William Lawrence, 29 June 1643; proved 12 November 1645].
www.sarahneedhamartist.co.uk
Sources
https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf
Gordon Blackwood, Tudor and Stuart Suffolk, Carnegie Publishing UK 2007
Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders A Seventeenth-Century Tragedy, John Murray, Hodder Headline 2005
www.Kentwell.co.uk https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/suffolk/melford-hall Sudbury Museum displays
Suffolk Chronicle of July 16 1825
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Matthew-Hopkins- WitchFinder-General/
Local expertise provided by Ruth Philo
Sources for further research
The references given here and after each days report are from the Exeter University site and do not reflect my own reading. I include them to allow readers to further their own interests and to honour the research done at
Exeter. If you wish to verify the information provided about a particular village please use these sources:
Acton and Great Waldingfield
Stearne, Confirmation, 37; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; DN/VIS/6/1; DN/VIS/6/4; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fo.126; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 46, 208-10, 226, 303; Wal.Rev., 326; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fos 36r, 114r; B105/2/7, fo.131v; TNA, PC 2/64, 29
Stearne, Confirmation, 41-2; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.102v; Wal.Rev., 328; White, First Century of Scandalous, Malignant Priests, 23-4; Gardiner (ed.), Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, 298-9; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/4; HLRO, MP, 9 February 1640/1; HMC. Fourth Report, pp.38, 49, 57, 60; WSkRO, J 545/38, fo.43 [will of Anne Glead, alias Bisacke, of Great Waldingfield, 2 April 1668; proved 9 July 1670].
Lavenham
Stearne, Confirmation, 22-3, 30; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 85-7; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 46-7, 222 and n., 244, 252; NkRO, DN/VIS/ 5/3/3; CSPD, 1641-1643, 60; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xiv, xxxiv, l, lxvi, lxxv; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.209r; Wal.Rev., 332; Tanner MS 284, fos 42, 45-7; ODNB, sub Gurnall, William; BL, Add MS 22,916, fos 2, 4, 6; Harleian MSS 374, fos 138, 142, 146; 376, fos 41-4; Anon., Covenant- Renouncers.
Dunwich
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 298-9; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 179-80, 313n; ESkRO EE6/3/3, passim; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 300 [nos 236-7]; Cal.Rev., 454; Nickolls (ed.), Original Letters and Papers of State, 157; Oldenburg, Correspondence, v, 14-15 [Cave Beck to Oldenburg, 15 August 1668]; Petto, Faithful Narrative of ... Mr.Tho.Spatchet; TNA, PROB 11/145, fos 351r-352r [will of Robert Spatchet, 20 May 1623; proved 2 May 1625].
Yoxford
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 309; NkRO, DN/VSC; DN/VIS 5/3/4; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fo.126; Wal.Rev., 333; Cal.Rev., 100, 110, 193; ESkRO, B105/2/6, fo.31v.
Sudbury
Stearne, Confirmation, 32; WSkRO, EE 501/2/7; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, 38; Shipps, ‘Lay Patronage’, 301-4; Ford (ed.), Winthrop Papers, 1 [1498-1628], 317; Forbes (ed.), Winthrop Papers, 3 [1631-7], 62, 388; Gardiner (ed.), Reports ... Star Chamber and High Commission, 72-3; Powell, Puritan Village, 41; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xiii, xxxiii, lxiv-lxv, cvii; CSPD, 1637-1638, 384; CSPD, 1639-40, 260-1, 562; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 192-4; BL, Harleian MS 589, fos 137-9; CSPD, 1640-1641, 195, 384, 389; BL, Harleian MS 160, fo.153; HLRO, HL/PO/JO/10/1/62, 21 June 1641; HL/PO/JO/10/1/140 [1642]; WSkRO, Sudbury Borough Records, Sextus Book, 25 October 1642; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 212-4 [nos 39-41].
Long Melford
Stearne, Confirmation, 36-7; Anon., Signes and Wonders from Heaven, 4; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 191-7, 208-10, 227-8, 244; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1626, 334; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/1; Wal.Rev., 167; Green (ed.), Diary of John Rous, 121; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 429; Cal.Rev., 542; CSPD, 1653-1654, 136; LPL, MS 639, fo.231r; WSkRO, FL 509/5/1/80; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 187.
Wickham Skeith
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 302-3; NkRO, DN/VSC; Clarkson, Lost Sheep Found, 12-13; Besse, Sufferings, i, 657-8, 662, 665-6, 667, 672; Anon., Quakers are Inchanters; Humble Petition of the Counties of Suffolke and Essex, sig.A3r; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 334; Willan, Six Sermons; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, 63-4; BL, Add.MS 27,402; NkRO, DN/SUB 1/1 [1644]; Wal.Rev., 345; Redstone (ed.), Ship- Money Returns, 108; Greenwood, ‘Origins and Early History of Independency’, 65-66.
Stowmarket
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 292; Stearne, Confirmation, 26; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.84r; Hollingsworth, History of Stowmarket, 144-8, 162-5, 168-71, 183 and passim; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 5r, 137, 200r, 209v, 226r; ODNB, sub Young, Thomas; TNA, PROB 11/252, fos 211v-212v [will of Thomas Young, 27 September 1653; proved 31 January 1655/6]; Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England, 319-20; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing,
240-1 [no.103]; Cal.Rev., 59, 271; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 426; Wal.Rev., 338; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 95-103; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 148, 149, 151; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/4; TNA, PROB 11/299, fos 214r-v [will of William Keeble, 5 October 1659; proved 16 July 1660].
Bacton
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 301-2; Stearne, Confirmation, 28-9; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 95-9 [which also supplies much useful additional information, supplied from an unpublished paper by Ivan Bunn, on the lives of the witches and their victims]; Shipps, ‘Lay Patronage of East Anglian Puritan Clerics, 253; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; DN/VIS/6/4; TNA, PROB 11/245, fos 231r-v [will of Robert Garnham, yeoman, 30 August 1653; proved 22 May 1655];Hughes- Clarke and Campling (eds), The Visitation of Norfolk ... 1664, ii, 174-5.
Rattlesden
Stearne, Confirmation, 12-13, 19-20, 25, 26, 33, 53; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 92-4; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.168; Tanner MS 314, fo.195r; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xlvi-xlvii, lxvii, lxxv, lxxvii, cix, cxiii, cxvii; Powell, Puritan Village, Appendix 1, 169; Cal.Rev., 100-1; ODNB, sub Bedell, William; Olorenshaw (ed.), Notes on the History of the Church and Parish of Rattlesden, 30-2 and passim; Nickolls (ed.), Original Letters and Papers of State, 157; LPL, MS 639, fo.231r; WSkRO, J545/34, fo.302 [will of John Scarpe, 7 August 1643; proved 17 June 1646]; Rylands (ed.), The Visitation of Suffolk ... 1664 ... 1668, 128, 184; BL, Add MS 39,245, fo.180r; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 176.
Hintlesham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 297-8;Gaskill, Witchfinders, 100-2; Ryan and Redstone, Timperley of Hintlesham: A Study of a Suffolk Family; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1626, 34; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4; Wal.Rev., 344; Green, CPCC, iii, 2133-4; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 148, 151, 155-8; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 235-6 [no.92]; Cal.Rev., 527; CSPD, 1660-1661, 230; Redstone (ed.), Ship- Money Returns, 210; TNA, PROB 11/295, fos 149v-151r [will of Thomas Glamfield, 17 September 1647; proved 5 September 1659]; TNA, PROB 11/242, fos 218v-219r [will of Thomas Cooke, 25 October 1653; proved 5 May 1654].
Chattisham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 307-8; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 99-100; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 387; Wal.Rev., 342; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 39-41; Tyack, ‘Migration from East Anglia’, Appendix 1, iii; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; BN/VIS/6/1; DN/SUN4(a); Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 226 [no.71]; Cal.Rev., 348, 464; TNA, PROB 11/364, fos 257v-258v [will of Owen Stockton, 6 June 1679; proved 27 November 1680].
Copdock
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 312-3; ESkRO, C2/18/1, 14; B105/2/1, fo.81v; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 218r, 244r; Tanner MS 314, fo.125; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, ii, 450; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 44, 51, 328-9; Wal.Rev., 325; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 66-7; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 226-7 [no.73]; Hubbard, Sermo Secularis, 19; Green, CPCC, iii, 1867; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 208; ESkRO, IC/AA1/101/67 [will of Rebecca Ustwood, 15 August ?; proved 1671]; FB 21/A2/1; East Anglian Miscellany, 6 (1912), 50, 52; ESkRO, HD 1538/354/19, 22-24, 28; Redstone (ed.), Ship- Money Returns, 92; TNA, PROB 11/211, fos 103v-104r [will of Thomas Bull of Flowton, 20 September 1648, proved 16 February 1649/50].
Belsted
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 312; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fo.14r; Boorman, ‘The Administrative and Disciplinary Problems of the Church’, 86; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fos 122v, 144v-145r; TNA, PROB 11/201, fos 225v-226r [will of Richard Raymond, 2 October 1642; proved 10 July 1647]; Venn, i, 168; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 227 [no.74]; Hubbard, Sermo Secularis, 19.
Glemham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 311-12; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 114-15 [who suggests Great Glemham]; ODNB, sub Glemham, Sir Thomas; Green, CPCC, ii, 1579; BL, Add.MS 34,013, fo.19r; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; Cal.Rev., 297; NkRO, DN/ VSC; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.210r; Wal.Rev., 326.
Halesworth
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 309-11; Anon., True Relation of the Arraignment of Eighteen Witches, 3-4; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.80v; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 116-17; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.212v; CSPD, 1627-1628, 29; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1627, 83, 85; Anon., ‘Suffolk County Records’, 157; Cal.Rev., 471; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 334, 425, 426; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 290 [no.219]; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 60, 76; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 405; B105/2/5, fo.94r; B105/2/7, fo.127r.
Stradbroke
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 291, 311, 312; Anon., The Triall of Mais.Dorrell, 92-8; Wal.Rev., 330; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 4r, 6v, 213v; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 427; White, Century, 42-3; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 288 [no.215]; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 152, 157, 159, 164; Knollys, Christ Exalted, sig.Av; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4.
Aldeborough
ESkRO, EE 1/12/2, fos 248-50, 258v, 273v; Hele, Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh, 42-4; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 181-5; Wal.Rev., 265, 269, 273, 345-6, 346; HMC. Reports, Various Collections ... Volume IV, 306-9; NkRO, DN/VIS/ 6/4; Cooper (ed.), The Journal of William Dowsing, 220-1 [no.56]; ESkRO, EE 6/3/3, fo.66v; TNA, SP 24/1, fo.86v; Anon., A Signe from Heaven, 3; TNA, PROB 11/289, fos 116v-117v [will of Thomas Johnson, 15 October 1658; proved 14 March 1658/9]; Browne, History of Congregationalism, 608-12; CSPD, 1650, 426, 430; Holmes (ed.), The Suffolk Committees for Scandalous Ministers, 115-19; ESkRO, EE
Bramford
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 293-4; Stearne, Confirmation, 30-1, 44-5; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 87-9; Redstone (ed.), The Ship-Money Returns for ... Suffolk, 91; Clarke, Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines, 3-6; Blatchly, Town Library of Ipswich, 19; Venn, i, 3; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.212; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 234-5 [no.89]; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fos 40v, 42r; ESkRO, C2/18/3; HMC.Thirteenth Report, Appendix, Part 1. MSS of the Duke of Portland, vol.1, 171; Thurloe, State Papers, vii, 48; Rylands (ed.), Visitation of the County of Suffolk ... 1664 ... 1668, 111; Cal.Rev., 322; ESkRO, IC/ AA1/83/108 [will of William Stiles of Hemingstone, 19 May 1645; proved 17
March 1645/6]; TNA, PROB 11/257, fos 198r-199r [will of John Style, 3 September 1655; proved 29 August 1656]; TNA, PROB 11/192, fos 247v-248v [will of William Tyler, 29 November 1643; proved 19 January 1644/5]; CUL, Mm.I.45, 44-5; TNA, PROB 11/197, fo.79v [will of Henry Sanford, c.14 May 1646; proved 6 July 1646].
Ipswich
ESkRO, C8/4/7, 413-7, 419; B105/2/1, fo.79; Anon., The Lawes against Witches, 7-8; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 173-9; CSPD, 1625-1626, 175, 399, 458; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1627, 48, 207-8; CSPD, 1627-1628, 239, 288; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4; DN/VIS 6/1; DN/VIS 6/4; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 331, 349; [Prynne], Newes from Ipswich; Grace, ‘ “Schismaticall and Factious Humours”’, 97-119; Bodl., Tanner MS 89, fos 172-3; CSPD, 1636-1637, 129-30, 565; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xlviii-xlix, lxxvii, cvii, cix; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 2v, 30r, 210v, 244r, 287-302, 327; CSPD, 1636-1637, 529-30; CSPD, 1640-1641, 410.
CSPD, 1637-1638, 139-40, 146; CSPD, 1638-1639, 226 CSPD, 1639, 68, 135, 464, 476, 480, 482, 503; CSPD, 1639-1640, 97, 131, 221, 432, 547; CSPD, 1640, 518; CSPD, 1640-1641, 13; CUL, Mm.I.45, 31, 44-5; Perfect Diurnall of the Passages in Parliament [8-15 August 1642], 7; Wal.Rev., 328, 334-5, 339-40; TNA, PC2/51, fo.195v; Bodl., Tanner MS 220, fos 7-43; Humble Petitions of the Bailifes, Port-men, and Other the Inhabitants of Ipswich; Walter, ‘Popular Iconoclasm’, 270and n.; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 227-33 [nos 75-86]; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 365, 373-81, 383-4, 387, 389, 393, 405, 409, 413, 420; Clarkson, Lost Sheep Found, 12.
Besse, Sufferings, i, 672; NkRO, DN/VIS/6/4; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 381, 383, 399, 413, 429; TNA, PROB 11/245, fos 149r, 177r [will of John Payne, 27 March 1655; proved 8 May 1655]; NkRO, DN/VSC, sub 22 April 1635; Wal.Rev., 158; ESkRO, FB 98/E3/1; TNA, PROB 11/232, fos 123r- 125r [will of William Bull Snr, grocer/apothecary, of Ipswich, 20 October 1652 and 22 January 1652/3; proved 26 May 1653]; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 287-302; Bacon, The Annals of Ipswich, 509, 516; BL, Add MS 25,344, fos 64v, 68r, 91r, 92r, 97v, 103r, 105r, 108r, 110v; ESkRO, C2/18/1, 24; C2/18/3; Lords’ Journal, xi (1660-1666), 612, 629; Cal.Rev., 124-5; TNA, PROB 11/239, fo.82v [will of Robert Wade, c.28 November 1653; proved 13 February 1653/4]; TNA, PROB 11/192, fos 16r-v [will of John Wade, clothier, of Ipswich, 25 and 26 June 1644; proved 28 November 1644]; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 107-10; TNA, PROB 11/194, fos 164r-v [will of William Lawrence, 29 June 1643; proved 12 November 1645].
www.sarahneedhamartist.co.uk
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Introduction
I was invited for a one week Residency to the Pasture Project Space in Suffolk. I had been researching the sites that people accused of witch craft came from as a way of investigating the social and political environment of ‘othering’ in an historical context, as background research for a new series of works made with pigments from these sites and those associated with the economy of these sites. I was already aware of the historical background in general, of the collapse in wool trade, the Reformation, and in a broad way about the civil war and the position of women in the Early Modern era. In my work pigment and colour carry meaning.
My approach to this residency was to take a piece of research:
https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf
Which outlines the towns and villages associated with witch trials in East Anglia, including the names and numbers of the accused and the socio-religious-politico context. I used the Suffolk section to map out the villages associated with witch trials. At this point I avoided reading the contextual information. At each site visited I read the information in the research in situ, and read out the names of the people accused, sometimes also recording them in a temporary way in the land scape. At each location I collected material to make pigments, these included earth, brick flakes, (ochres) lichens (dye pigment) and organic material (that can be burned to make carbon black).
Each village section in this account is followed by the names of the accused where known.
I am very thankful to Exeter University for the public availability of such research.
Day One of the Residency: Walked from Sudbury to Great Waldingfield and Acton.
I walked along the road and through some footpaths and considered the long cast of my winter shadow. In the village of Great Waldingfield, the old oak-framed houses look as though they are peering at you through their hedges. There was a memorial to a car crash by the side of the road covered with daffodils. There was a way in which the low light of the sun caught the fresh new growth of green illuminating it against the black of the silhouetted winter trees.
The town was tidy and there was little to collect in Waldingfield except my thoughts. I sat on a bench on the green and said the names of the accused.
Between Waldingfield and Acton I found a pile of dumped earth; I collected a small sample of earth and some brick shards to make pigments with.
I walked onto Acton, I stood outside the old rectory which seems like it is hiding away behind high gates and large trees. I said the name of the accused, and wondered about the connections across the county.
I found a building site where the clay soil had been freshly dug and took a good sample of local clay.
By the end of the day I had only covered two of the accused and decided that for the rest of the residency I would concentrate as far as possible on the villages where there were multiple accusations. Reading the historical context of the trials in the Exeter documents was really helpful on site. Deciding to concentrate on the places with the most accusations also led me to notice clusters of accusations, and in those areas I tried to make a point of walking village to village.
Great Waldingfield : John Bysack alias Gleede
In 1647, this was a very poor town. There was a great deal of religious conflict. In 1631, Nicolas Bloxham was accused of simony. Replaced by Paul Pole who was also unscrupulous. Andrew Sandiland, a Laudian, took the post in the Church 1640, and resisted the destruction of the altar rails and was reported to the House of Lords for his religious practices. John Bysack’s wife may have had Puritan connections and was not accused.
Acton: one King ( a member of the family King)
Action was a centre of recusancy before the civil war, Catholics in Acton were protected by the powerful Daniels family of Long Melford. They may have had a secret Catholic priest until 1435. The King family figured in local legal records and may have been Royalists. There was a John King appointed to the bench as a JP who may have tried Richard Glamfield. Glamfield was directly involved in the prosecution of witches in nearly villages Chattisham and Hintelsham.
Day 2: Lavenham, Dunwich, Yoxford and Framingham
This day was spent considering the economic as well as religious challenges of the time. I picked up shards of a tile that had fallen from the roof of the oak timbered house next to the Little Hall in Lavenham , It had smashed on the ground and so would not have been able to be repaired, I could see that it was a lovely orange. Walking round Lavenham with its twisted beamed houses there is a sense in which the houses seem animated, you can feel them looking at you, may be gossiping. I went into a coffee shop in one of the timbered buildings and was able to see the interior, and gain an idea of how small the rooms in the small houses might have been. The Halls were closed as it is winter and they have limited opening times. Lavenham is a preserved Tudor town because economic challenges caused by changes in the wool trade were not overcome; the money to build new houses ran out. It did not take on silk like Sudbury and stayed preserved as it is (source Ruth Philo) I spoke the accused names next to the Wool Hall.
I drove over to Dunwich, a city swallowed by the sea, and collected some material from the beach, I am not sure how much colour will come out of them as they are very sandy, but will have a go. I looked over the now silted up estuary which has become a beautiful bird sanctuary and I looked out to sea, where the once big successful city port was. The liminality of this location was touching, and I thought about the way in which things are washed away and forgotten even in nature. I spoke the accused names out to sea and wrote them in the sand on the beach to be taken with the town.
I visited Yoxford, and got a sense of its place between several grand houses. I picked up some shards of brick from the path. I spoke the accused names as I stood in front of one of the grand houses.
I visited Framlingham, and walked up to the castle, there were groups of kids sitting on the castle ramparts after school, gathering together. It made me think about the gatherings that got people accused in North Berwick. I found a large piece of brick that had come out of an old wall. I spoke the accused names standing with my back to the castle looking towards the town.
Lavenham: Anne Randall, Susan Scott and women called Sweeting and Golding
Lavenham had been a successful wool town specialising in blue woad dyes. At the time of the witch hunts it was in serious decline due to the collapse in the market for English wool on the continent. There was a powerful Catholic family at Lavenham Park, the Skinners. There were large scale riots in 1642 protesting against Catholics.
It was also a centre of Puritan dissent and large numbers of families left for New England in the 1630s for both economic and religious reasons. The remaining puritans were against Laudian changes in the church, and the puritans were supported by the Coppinger family, Lords of the Manor. The church just before the hunts was dominated by the Coppinger family, staunch Parliamentarians, and then by William Gurnall. Gurnall was in office at the time of the hunts, and had a great ally in the MP for Sudbury. He preached about the activities of witches. He himself conformed at Restoration becoming once again part of the Church of England . He was represented by Sir Thomas Bowes if Bromley Hall who had been prominent in the witch hunts at Tendring
Dunwich: Precilla Collitt and Elizabeth Southerne
These women fell out and accused each other. Dunwich economically was in a state of terminal decline as the port silted up and the sea encroached on the town leaving the place depopulated and impoverished. The town was deeply divided by religion. There were a number of visiting puritan preachers including William Browne, John Swaine and Hugh Driver all of whom were involved in the interrogation of witches in other parts of Suffolk. William Browne gained the “confession” here. And there is proof in the parish record that “watchers” were paid which means the women were put through sleep deprivation in order to gain their confessions. William Dowsing visited in 1644. Both Collitt and Southerne were impoverished and recipients of charity from the Coppinger family. Thomas Spatchet who accused the witches became a freeman of the borough and then rose through the village ranks rapidly, becoming the coroner, the bailiff and a congregational minister. At Restoration he was dismissed and politically humiliated. Pricilla Collitt was probably his relative. Thomas’ grandfather left money in his will to Phoebe Collitt in 1623.
Woad, pitch, timber and tar were imported into Dunwich from Dutch and Flemish ships in the 1400s . And from other ships lead and coal and foodstuffs but fish was the main thing. The port was already in decline at this point. (The Bailiffs’ Minute Book 0f Dunwich1404-1430, Pub Suffolk Records Society 1992 ed Mark Bailey)
Yoxford : Mary wife of Richard Cloves/Clowes
Prior to the civil war, Yoxford was dominated by the interests of the recusant Bedingfield family. Sir Thomas Bedingfield supported the Royalists in the civil war. He appointed a Laudian minister to the church in 1632, Laurence Eachard, who survived the mass expulsions of loyalist clergy only to be removed in 1650. There were also puritan land owners Elizabeth Brooke of Cockfield Hall, Matthias Chandler, a puritan minister of Coddenham also owned land here. The power struggle seemed to have persisted after the Restoration with prosecutions for nonconformity in the parish quarter sessions.
Day 3 Sudbury and Long Melford
Sudbury: Ann Boreham, widow and possibly others in the same family. Hanged.
I walked through Sudbury with Ruth Philo and visited the Gainsborough Museum, the Churches and the museum. I attempted to collect clay from the water meadows where the fullers used to work, the local swan wasn’t having any of it, so I gave up. Sudbury had revived itself after the decline in the wool trade by expanding and diversifying into the silk trade. We walked past a number of silk mills and Ruth also pointed out to me the weavers’ cottages which have a distinct large window on the second floor of a three storey building. They mark the beginnings of urbanisation of textile production. Many of the oak-framed buildings have a newer frontage as a result of the wealth silk brought here, including Gainsborough’s house which has a Georgian frontage but a distinctly wattle and daub oak-framed interior. Ruth told me a great deal about the silk trade, as she has been involved in international projects that link China across the silk route to Sudbury.
During the period of the witch panic,Sudbury was a site of court battles over religious traditions and practices, closely aligned to the conflicts in Long Melford. In the 1630s, there was a large scale migration from Sudbury to New England. There were frequent riots. By 1642, Sudbury had declared for Parliament, further religious reform was instigated against a background of fear and panic, and the Puritans had gained control.
Long Melford: Alexander Sussums
Long Melford was probably John Stearne’s home town and the only person accused of witchcraft was his acquaintance Alexander Sussums who was accused but found not guilty.
Physically, Long Melford embodies some of the religious conflicts amongst the aristocracy that are in the background of the witch panics. At one end of the village there is Kentwell Hall, and at the other Melford. One Puritan, the other Catholic.
One end of the village: Kentwell Hall and puritan stronghold, and home to the historic builders of the village church, initiated in response to plague deaths. The site dates back to the Domesday book, however the current building is mostly Tudor, built by the church-building Clopton family. The family bought Monks Manor on the dissolution of the monasteries, so were enriched by the reformation. They entertained Queen Elizabeth there in 1588 but she complained of the paucity of the entertainment. At the time of the witch panics, the hall was owned by Lady Tracy Clopwell , but lived in by Thomas Gardener, and then by Anne Clopton, who was married to Sir Simon D’Ewes. There were conflicts around who had the rights to the manor within the family. Almost all the Cloptons eventually went to America.
“She was the last Clopton of Kentwell. A name rarely — if ever — found in England nowadays but plentiful in the USA, held by descendants of Clopton puritans who had emigrated there in the 17th century and have a flourishing family association.” (kentwell.co.uk)
At the other end, Melford Hall was built in the 16C, originally owned by the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Edmundsbury, and underwent rebuilding by John Reeve, who was elected Abbot. However at the reformation it was surrendered to the crown. It became the residence of Sir William Cordell and he entertained Elizabeth I lavishly at the hall. The hall was neglected after his death in 1581 and passed eventually into the hands of Thomas Savage. Savage had
connections with the Stuarts, and renovated the house. The house was extensively plundered during the civil war.
The vicar Robert Warren who was suspected of Catholic leanings was singled out for harsh treatment in the Stour Valley riots.
The village itself is described as a swollen village, having grown rapidly on the wool trade, but then also suffering from its decline. Most of the people in the village in the Middle Ages earned their money from the wool trade.
The church in Long Melford is notable for having retained a number of its stained glass windows, and I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the dominant Puritan family of the village had also been the original builders of the Church?
While walking through Long Melford, it struck me that collecting wool to represent the thread from one persecution to another was a more appropriate way to mark the towns that brought John Stearne and Matthew Hopkins into the world. So walking along the lane that connects Kentwell Hall to the village I collected wool from the fences where the sheep lived. I did not collect earth pigments here, but I did also collect a small amount of crumbled brick from the village. Neither house was open for visit in the winter. Evidence of wealth in the middle ages was there in the timbered buildings, the beautiful “wool” church and the size of both grand houses.
Day 4: Stowmarket, Wickham Skeith, Bacton and Rattlesden
Wickham Skeith: 1645: Joan Balls, Mary Brame (Joan’s daughter) Sybil Greene, Mary Winter, 1655 Richard White
The pond at Wickham Skeith has the dubious honour of being the last place in England to have a witch dunking. In 1825, Issac Stebbings a door-to-door sales man was thrown into the village pond three times with his hands tiedand his wife mad by witchcraft and of making a shoemaker’s wax unworkable by witchcraft. (According to the Suffolk Chronicle of July 16 1825) he requested this proof of innocence himself. But given that proof of innocence would have meant his death , it seems unlikely, unless he was already not of sound mind himself. He is meant to have almost died, but the process was stopped by the local vicar.
In the 1600s, it was the church minister of Hoxne Edward Willan who instigated the witch trials. Happily, by the 1800s the church was stopping them. The accused were subjected to “searching” which was often accompanied by sleep deprivation treatment, the combination of which would be considered torture in the present day. It seems likely that Balls was accused because she belonged to an “anabaptist” or Quaker sect. And it is clear that Richard White was a Quaker.
It was an area where Quaker preachers had been active just prior to the trials, and interestingly in relation to the later story the person accused of disseminating Quaker literature was an itinerant trader like Isaac Stebbings.
Edward Willan became an enthusiastic persecutor of the Quakers in the 1650s.
I arrived at Wickham Skeith with 19C story in my mind, to find the remains of a bonfire close to the pond, I was able to pick up some carbon black mixed with the clay soil and charcoal from the site of the bonfire. I spent a while at the pond, contemplating the scenery, saying the names of the accused, and noticing the now prominent life saving ring at the side, although you might not be able to get that on if your hands are tied behind your back..
I walked up to the Church, while I was on the green a man arrived to pick litter. I wrote the names of the accused in charcoal on the path. The same man appeared close by. The church was locked so I could not visit. I walked back to the green picking up some lichen to make dyes from the side of the road. The man appeared again, I seemed to be making him nervous. Or perhaps the place was making me nervous, I am not sure. It is a very pretty village quite picturesque, and if I hadn’t known the stories I don’t think I would have felt uneasy, although I may have felt slightly followed. The pretence at litter picking having been abandoned.
The village of Wickham Skeith is spread over quite a large area, there are a number of large Tudor type houses which suggests it had a history of wealth.
Stowmarket: Elizabeth Hobart (Hubbard), Goody Low, Goody Mills
There is a record of trials of these women that include local Puritan witnesses and payments to Stearne and Hopkins. This was a site of local Puritan evangelism throughout the 1630s. I walked around the town, visited the library where I found out that Thomas Young, who was the poet John Milton’s tutor at Cambridge was also the man who paid for Stearne and Hopkins to instigate the witch trials at Stowmarket.
I also read up a bit about Dowsing, the iconoclast who had done so much material damage to the churches he had visited across the county. Finding out that in places he had met resistance, while in other icons from churches had already been removed (for protection) or destroyed in advance of him coming in support of his actions, especially in East Suffolk which had more Puritans. (Tudor and Stuart Suffolk, Gordon Blackwood)
The church in Stowmarket sits in the centre of the town in a close surrounded by timber frame houses. This was a centre of Puritan evangelism, and one of the witnesses at the trial, John Hayward, was responsible for organising the invitations to speakers, possibly permitted because the local Puritan minister was considered a moderate. The church received the Dowsing treatment in 1644, with support of the church warden. The people involved with the church and the trial appear to have been Puritan Parliamentarians. The people accused to have been from the poorest sections of society.
While in Stowmarket I found an unglazed notice board and pinned a note to it to remember the names of the people tried here. I also sat in the churchyard on a bench and said their names. I collected some small crumbles of brick from beside the newer Catholic Church.
The weather had turned wet and cold. After driving in the dark in Suffolk for a few days, I decided to buy a waterproof winter yellow coat, so that I was visible in the dusk light. I had forgotten about driving in rural areas at night, where people appear on the road out of nowhere, a sudden apparition in the headlights where there is no street lighting.
Wikipedia
Bacton: Margaret Benet, Mary Bush (widow) Ellen Green leaf, Elizabeth Watcham. And possibly Ellen Allen
Bacton village is a strip of a village and dominated by new housing. In fact, the building of a new set of houses allowed me to collect some deeper clays, as the engineers were on site and kindly lifted some out of the earth for me with their digger. The team from www.elancivilengineering.co.uk used their digger to scoop out clay from a lower level in the geology of the town from the big hole they were digging, even asking me which layer of earth I required. Thank you so much!
The vicar of Bacton was supported by the lord of the manor in Bacton, both Puritans. This was a centre of Puritan lectures and Catholic dissent. The witch hunts were probably an expression of this local conflict, and a way of scapegoating some poor and powerless women.
Rattlesden: Meribel Bedford, Henry Carre, Elizabeth Deekes and her mother, Mother Orvis, John Scarfe (Scarpe)
Rattlesden was the site of puritan lectureships suspended by Bishop Wren in 1636. Between 1634 and 1640, the village witnessed a mass exodus of people to New England. Clopton hall was the residence of parliamentary soldier Lieutenant colonel John Fiske. This area remained non-conformist even after the Restoration. In 1669, there were Presbyterians, congregationalists and Quakers meeting in the village.
The accused families appear to have been a combination of the poor of the village and those unsympathetic to the Puritan cause.
The village of Rattlesden sits below the church in the valley. Rising up from the valley on the other side of the river behind the pub are the fields where I collected a little clay rich chalky earth remarkably similar in colour to the deep clay earth from Bacton. The village has an old phone box, now used as an information kiosk. I left the names of the accused in there. The sun was going down on the village as I left to drive back to the residency in Sudbury. By the time I arrived the sky was filled with stars.
At the end of each day at the Residency I was welcomed home by Ruth and Stuart and a home cooked meal. I was able to discuss what I had found and seen and collected, and sometimes we moved into more general conversations about painting and music making, and a few glasses of wine. This helped me process what I was doing .
Day 5: Hintlesham, Chattisham, Great Wenham, Copdock, Belsted
This was the day when I found the most isolated and locked up churches, no longer at the centre of the villages they served except in Great Wenham, Hopkins birthplace. I was in the East of the county, which was largely a Puritan stronghold.
Hintlesham:Bridget Bigsby (widow): Susan Marchant (widow), Joanna Potter, Susanna Stegold
Hintlesham was a Catholic centre of recusancy in the period before the civil war. The local gentry the Timperleys were Catholic and offered protection to co-religionists. There was a-lot of conflict over changing Rectors with 5 Rectors in a single year 1644-5.. The church was visited by Dowsing any many pictures were destroyed. But the font dominated as it was with crests seems untouched.
The witnesses against the accused included people from surrounding Puritan villages, and most of the witnesses appear to be related. I wrote the names of the accused in the earth in the woods opposite the grand house. I collected fallen twigs from some ancient oak trees in the garden of the house.
I visited the Church and the house at Hintlesham which is now a hotel and golf club, with a more modern facade over the original building. The Timperleys were clearly a very wealthy family. I collected earth from the field outside the grand house which had a strange deposit of red rusty colour on its surface, it is not clear whether this was something that came up from the ground or had been poured onto the surface. I walked from Hintelsham to Chattisham along lanes that are probably the same as would have been used at the time. There were real signs of spring that day. The sun was shining and the blossom appearing in the trees. I collected some earth from the roadside on my way. There were a number of large badger setts. I was offered a lift by a stranger, which I declined.
Chattisham: Anne Alderman, Mary and Nathaniel Bacon, Rebecca the wife of Francis Morris
The same witnesses show up here as in Hintlesham, as well as Hopkins being active in this trial. This village had a priest (Ravens) renowned for being a wife beater, a Catholic sympathiser and an opponent of Parliament, and preached against Puritan practices. There were Catholic sympathisers in the village, including passengers of the Mayflower in 1620.
The Lord of the Manor (Meadows) was Puritan, and wanted his son to get the Rectory, and led a campaign to oust Ravens. By the time Dowsing reached their Church the icons had already been removed. After the Reformation Chattisham remained a non-conformist haven, and site of non-conformist preaching.
I walked from Hintlesham, starting in the sun, along the road , and then a footpath that skirted the field, arriving into the village and out of the sun. It had started to rain and I was glad of my coat. The centre of the village was remarkable for its shady nature. The Church has replaced some of its icons, and traces of wall paintings can now be seen, presumably having been uncovered deliberately. There were some that looked like Tudor brass plates on the floor. The old vicarage was a rather grand and lovely building. What seems to be the old Manor House looks over the land towards Hintlesham and is clearly still a working farm.
I left the names of the accused in an old phone box which is currently used as a book exchange. I walked back along a footpath through the fields towards Hintlesham, the sun was out again, I felt quite exposed and visible. Ruth had asked me night before about what would happen to me if I had an accident, and nobody knew where I was, so I felt happy in my bright yellow coat and the bars on my mobile phone. The biggest danger really was the badger setts. I walked through the woods and needed a wee, my coat was a bit more of a hazard at that point!
The experience was starting to make me consider conformity and expectations of women. Each time I broke conventional rules, it made me consider the application of very tight rules of behaviour for women at the time, and the consequences for breaking them, which of course were much higher than simply embarrassment.
Great Wenham: No accused
So why did I visit Great Wenham? On my way to Copdock from Hintelsham, I kept passing signs for Great Wenham. It had not been on my plan to go, but since I had visited Stearne’s reputed birth place, I thought I might be able to collect some wool from Matthew Hopkins place. I think I expected to find that Hopkins had grown up in modest circumstances but that was not the case. His family home is an enormous Tudor house opposite the Church in the centre of the village, with rolling hills behind it, and a large farm next door.
And since the visit, reading Malcolm Gaskill’s Witchfinders, it becomes clear that Matthew Hopkins’ father had acquired substantial lands across the county. His father’s name is still listed as one of the former Rectors in the church. He was a strict Calvinist, backed up by a Calvinist Lord of the Manor, with the attendant belief in those chosen saved and the damned as predestined. At the centre of this belief is an assumption of an us and a them. The centre of the church is austere. The decoration being quotes from Exodus and the 10 Commandments' and a letter from the people of Wenham Massachusetts who are still in touch with their namesake. Matthew Hopkins was the only one of his brothers not to go to University.
The day slipped between sunny and cold and I felt a distinct chill in the church. When left the church I looked for a local footpath where I might walk close to some sheep pens in the hope of collecting some wool. There was a footpath sign posted next to the Hopkins house but sitting in the field were two not very friendly rams. There were little bits of wool rolling across the field, just out of reach. I spent a while looking at the rams, and decided entering the field would be a mistake. I saw a little wool just inside the field, and just at the moment when I was reaching into the field from the outside to get in, a woman came past with a dog in a wheelbarrow.
She asked me if I wanted some wool and took me to the farm, where the lambs were with their mothers. On the way to and from the farm we were chatting about what I was doing, and she commented, first that Matthew Hopkins should have known better given his father was a vicar, but then commented how sad it was that so much bad has been done in the name of religion. Her kindness shifted the chill I had been feeling.
Anyway it's important that you should know that you can buy raw rare breed sheep wool from the lovely farmers in the farm next to the old Hopkins house in Great Wenham, straight from the Priory Farm.
M Gaskill, Witchfinders, A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy, Hodder Headline UK 2005
Copdock: Susan Manners, Alice Muntford, Jane Rivet, Mary Skipper
The Copdock church is no longer surrounded by the village if it ever was. It sits (locked) next to a Tudor barn that is now a vineyard and wedding venue. The history of this area was of long-term legal battles over religion, the former owner of the barn, a Catholic was renown for taking protestants to court during Mary’s reign. It was a centre of recusancy in the 1600s, the Fosters of the local manor house was attacked during the Stour Valley Riots in 1642, and they were rumoured to have been collecting together a “secret army”. They were in debt having been fined for recusancy. In November 1648, Thomas Bedingfield (also Catholic) took over the hall as Foster was in debt to him. He was forced to sign allegiance to the government in 1652.
The Church got the Dowsing treatment, and a great deal was removed.
The vicar was probably a Laudian, and gave evidence against Puritan rioters in the Ipswich riots.
The witnesses had solid Puritan roots. During the witch-hunts the group of women, were subjected to searching, and tried. The women who searched them appear in other villages later on.
I parked outside Copdock Church, and said the names of the women, I had collected some flakes of brick from the village down the road, but also visited the vineyard (nice white wine) and they found some more brick parts from then they did their building works, although they weren't sure of the age of the pieces they gave me. The woman I spoke to at the vineyard had studied history at University, so we had a great conversation about the context of the civil war.
Belsted: Mary Goddard, Rebecca Prick,
The final Church I visited was Belsted, once again it was not in the centre of the current village and it was locked. It sat in the landscape above what would have been a grand house.
The parish had a long history of Puritan dissent, and maybe the conflict between it and Copdock, just down the road have a role to play, certainly Hubbard from Copdock preached here praising Hopkins and Stearne. I stood at the edge of the church yard and said the names of the accused.
As I stood outside the church the sun was going down, so I drove back to the residency, people walking out of the darkness in the small rural roads, as I headed west, then suddenly onto the motorway and all lit up. I arrived back in Sudbury to a slightly larger slither of moon and bright stars in the sky over the courtyard at the back of the house, put my treasures into the shed, and went in to another cosy welcome from Ruth.
Day 6: Glemham, Halesworth and Stradbroke
Glemham: Anne Barker, Ellen Bishop, Margery Blake, Rose Glamfield (maybe Clamfield), Thomas Clarke, Anne Driver, Alice wife of Richard Glamfield ( a witness for the prosecution elsewhere) Mary Sexton, Rachel Sexton, Anne Smith, Mary Smith
Little and Great Glemham surround Glemham Hall, the home of the Royalist commander Sir Thomas Glemham who was absent during the period of the trials which may have made the villagers more vulnerable. The trials may have contained a large number of Royalist sympathisers. Great Glemham was non conformist and Little Glemham had a Rector who was more Wrenite and was once pulled from the pulpit by protestors.
I parked in Great Glemham and walked along the road towards Little Glemham. It was starting to snow, so I turned back to walk through the woods that sit between the two villages, I wrote the name of the accused from both villages on fallen branches in the woods. The house in the centre really looks out across the valley between the two places behind a large brick wall.
I picked some chalk out of the fields as I walked back, and some small brick fragments from the path. The sun came out and warmed my walk. By the end of the walk my hood was down and the sun was on my face.
Halesworth: Mary and Thomas Everard, Marianne Everard (daughter), Elizabeth Hubbard, Jane Linstead, James More, Sara Spindler
The examiner may have been Puritan minister John Swaine Sr or his son.Both were ordained Puritan ministers with contacts across the county. Halesworth was visited by Dowsing in 1644, and much was removed. However the 15th C font in Halesworth Church appears un-defaced and even includes a figure that has horns between angels which looks quite devilish.
As I arrived in the village there was a group of people organising a litter pick which meant the streets were very clean, and despite the many very old houses there was not a flake of paint or brick to pick up from the street. I walked through the village to the path down to the water meadows, noticed an orange tinge in the soil at the side of the path. When I reached the river it had a distinctly orange tint and I started to get hopeful. In the end, in one of the tributaries of the river I found a big deposit of bright orange ochre, I scooped some into my bag. It was very wet and very messy. I was aware of my messy self as I walked back, it was bright and had got everywhere. There is a house in the village which seems to have used this same ochre for its outside walls. It stands in the village a profoundly rich iron oxide colour.
Halesworth included many resistant to the Puritan reforms. It seems it was a village divided. The Everards may have been Catholic recusants.
The village had a number of timber framed buildings, including some with arched beams which were lovely. One of the paths to the river has a lovely crinkle crankle (part of my new Suffolk vocabulary thanks to Ruth) wall with a tiny door in it.
Stradbroke: Anne Arnoll, Bet Bray, Anne Wright
These women ended up in trouble because accused of other villages claim to have sold imps to them. This was not the first witch trial in the village; it followed one from 1599. At the time of this trial the parish was in the grip of profound religious divisions. The Laudian vicar had excommunicated a large number of Puritans. The Puritans got their revenge by accusing Vicar Buck of preaching that the Pope was head of the Church which got him locked up in Ipswich gaol. This was followed by a period of uncertainty when John Swaine was appointed but was too busy prosecuting witches elsewhere to take up his place. He was replaced by Thomas Watts however by this time the Baptists were actively proselytising in the village.
Stradbroke was a peaceful place the day I visited, dominated by dog walkers, and people chatting on the street corner. At at the edge of the former Rectory wall there is a statue of a Bishop, erected 50 years ago. The oak for the original statue was made from the Old Rectory. It commemorates Grossteste a former Bishop of Lincoln who was born in the village in 1168. (Stradbrokeonline.org.uk) .
That evening Ruth and Stuart and I really enjoyed an evening of conversation, and delicious food as the final night of the residency, with discussions about what to do next to complete the project.
Day 7: Aldebugh, Bramford, Ipswich
That morning I packed my pigments into the back of the car and cleared the shed I had been using for collecting and processing them a little while I was there. The boot of the car was laden with materials collected from across the county. I worked out that with the places I planned to visit that day I would reach 21 villages of the 40 that had had people accused between 1645-47, satisfyingly just over half.(According to https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf) During my stay, I attempted to reach all the villages with more than three accused as well as some with smaller numbers.
The residency had been wonderful, Ruth and Stuart relieved me of all domestic tasks, provided me with the space and conversation in the evenings for a profoundly rich experience and enabled me to visit far more sites than I would have been able to do otherwise. Trailing the witch panics is an emotional process, and trying to acknowledge the presence of the accused in the sites where they lived was very moving but also disturbing. So the care taken by Ruth and Stuart was a wonderful thing each evening as I returned “home”
Aldeburgh: Widows Gardner, Wade and five other unnamed women
The Aldeburgh of the 1600s is now half under the sea, the shifting shoreline makes the Museum building that was once the centre of the town, sit on the shore line. When I arrived in the village, I parked near the Church but it was in service so I walked down to the shore. As I walked through Aldebugh I was looking for bits of brick as there were plenty of old brick buildings. Once I reached the beach, I discovered why, people had marked the beach with a red image made with bricks, called the Angel of The East for Peace in Ukraine.
Aldeburgh had been a wealthy ship building town, but by the time of the witch panics the port had silted up and in decline. It was a centre of Puritan dissent, and had been subjected by Laud. In 1644, the Puritans got their revenge and prosecuted the Vicar. Shortly before the town was visited by Dowsing who was helped by John Swaine and Thomas Johnson to remove statues and paintings. Swaine and Johnson were actively involved in the witch hunts that followed. The town was a centre of religious disputes in the 1640s and 50s.
The Moot Hall Museum in Aldeburgh was the first place I saw with information about the witch hunts, I had missed some of the local museums arriving in the villages when they were closed. I collected material on the way out of Aldeburgh near the estuary of the river. I collected clays and brick fragments and scratched Gardner Wade and 5 unknown on the path.
Bramford: John Chambers, Alice Marsh, Mr Payne, Margeret Powell, Elizabeth Richmond, Goody Smith, Lydia Taylor
Bramford was fervently Puritan in the early 1600s, with John Carter at the ehad of the Church. He was driven away and the Church fell into disrepair, and the responsibility fo John Acton of Bramford Hall (possibly a Royalist) . Dowsing visited the Church in 1644 and removed a number of pictures.
The house leading up to the church in Bramford is painted pink in the traditional Suffolk colours. I stood outside this house on the way to the church to say the names of the accused. The Church has been decorated inside with a light show with a dominant purple theme, blending Puritan stark walls with Catholic pruples in the modern time. There is a Virgin and Mary statue over the front door but all the other exterior statuary remains removed.
I walked though the village attempting to reach the riverside but did not find an easy access that wouldn’t have intruded on the sweethearts on the riverbank so gave up.
The watcher John Curtis ( a lawyer) was a local landowning Puritan and suppporter of Parliament. Witness William Styles Amy have been involved in examining Royalist suspects and had strong Puritan connections.
Ipswich: Alice Denham widow, James and Mary Emerson, MAry Lakeland, Mary Page widow, Rose wife of Christopher Parker, Mary wife of John Paine (ordered to be dipped) Margeret widfe of James Sutton
In Ipswich, the witnesses’ occupations are listed as grocer, tanner, labourer, tailor, cordwainer, clothworker, currier, labourer, sherman (shearer of sheep), cooper, dyer.
Those suppporting the accused were a labourer, currier, baker, husbandman and a yeoman.
Alice Denham was hanged. Despite being accused of causing a number of deaths, Lakeland like the others was imprisoned temporarily. One of the accusations against her was to have killed people at sea by causing a storm.
Ipswich had had a reputation for being a Puritan citadel. However, by the 1630s there was conflict between Calvanism and Arminianism. (Arminianism a new interpretation of protestant teaching particuarly reating to predestination). There was widespread resistance to the Charles I forced loan in 1627. There were riots in protest against the Bishop. Catholics were being prosecuted in the town for recusancy. Protestant non-conformists for rioting. Many left for America in the face of the clampdown on non-conformity. Once Parliament was recalled in 1640 and the tables were turned the Laudian supporters were attacked. The town was radically divided between Royalists and Parliamentarians. Many Royalists were tried in the courts for opposing Parliament. There were a significant number of smaller non conformist religious sects in operation who also got in trouble with the law. It may be that Rosa Parker was a Quaker, Mary Lakeland a follower of a smaller sect. Many of the witnesses against the accused were either involved in accusing people of witchcraft in other places, Puritans, associated directly with the Church authorities and litigators.
This is the only case in this list where some of the witnesses were bound to keep the peace against people they accused which is something that became more common after the frenzy of these two years.
I walked around the harbour area. I walked through a few streets to the grounds of a church which is being transformed into an Arts Centre with some lovely lime trees in the garden and memorials to seafaring people at the front. I said the names there. I collected shards of brick from the foot of walls outside the Church. Ipswich still feels like a divided town, the glossy marina clashing against the more rundown feel of the streets a few yards away.
This was my last visit, from here I headed back to London. I never did get the definitive answer to the nature of Suffolk pink.
After the Residency
In the period since the residency I have been gradually processing and testing out the pigments I have collected. I am currently reading Malcom Gaskill, and have a pile of reading to do about the revolution in general, and slowly I am starting to have the initial spark that usually precedes new work.
My biggest thank you goes to Ruth Philo and Stuart Blowditch for inviting me and making me so welcome at The Pasture Project Space and to Ruths son Joe for his lovely company.
Appendices
Sources
https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf
Gordon Blackwood, Tudor and Stuart Suffolk, Carnegie Publishing UK 2007
Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders A Seventeenth-Century Tragedy, John Murray, Hodder Headline 2005
www.Kentwell.co.uk
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/suffolk/melford-hall
Sudbury Museum displays
Suffolk Chronicle of July 16 1825
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Matthew-Hopkins-WitchFinder-General/
Local expertise provided by Ruth Philo
Sources for further research
The references given here and after each days report are from the Exeter University site and do not reflect my own reading. I include them to allow readers to further their own interests and to honour the research done at Exeter. If you wish to verify the information provided about a particular village please use these sources:
Acton and Great Waldingfield
Stearne, Confirmation, 37; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; DN/VIS/6/1; DN/VIS/6/4; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fo.126; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 46, 208-10, 226, 303; Wal.Rev., 326; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fos 36r, 114r; B105/2/7, fo.131v; TNA, PC 2/64, 29
Stearne, Confirmation, 41-2; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.102v; Wal.Rev., 328; White, First Century of Scandalous, Malignant Priests, 23-4; Gardiner (ed.), Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, 298-9; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/4; HLRO, MP, 9 February 1640/1; HMC. Fourth Report, pp.38, 49, 57, 60; WSkRO, J 545/38, fo.43 [will of Anne Glead, alias Bisacke, of Great Waldingfield, 2 April 1668; proved 9 July 1670].
Lavenham
Stearne, Confirmation, 22-3, 30; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 85-7; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 46-7, 222 and n., 244, 252; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; CSPD, 1641-1643, 60; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xiv, xxxiv, l, lxvi, lxxv; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.209r; Wal.Rev., 332; Tanner MS 284, fos 42, 45-7; ODNB, sub Gurnall, William; BL, Add MS 22,916, fos 2, 4, 6; Harleian MSS 374, fos 138, 142, 146; 376, fos 41-4; Anon., Covenant-Renouncers.
Dunwich
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 298-9; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 179-80, 313n; ESkRO EE6/3/3, passim; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 300 [nos 236-7]; Cal.Rev., 454; Nickolls (ed.), Original Letters and Papers of State, 157; Oldenburg, Correspondence, v, 14-15 [Cave Beck to Oldenburg, 15 August 1668]; Petto, Faithful Narrative of ... Mr.Tho.Spatchet; TNA, PROB 11/145, fos 351r-352r [will of Robert Spatchet, 20 May 1623; proved 2 May 1625].
Yoxford
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 309; NkRO, DN/VSC; DN/VIS 5/3/4; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fo.126; Wal.Rev., 333; Cal.Rev., 100, 110, 193; ESkRO, B105/2/6, fo.31v.
Sudbury
Stearne, Confirmation, 32; WSkRO, EE 501/2/7; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, 38; Shipps, ‘Lay Patronage’, 301-4; Ford (ed.), Winthrop Papers, 1 [1498-1628], 317; Forbes (ed.), Winthrop Papers, 3 [1631-7], 62, 388; Gardiner (ed.), Reports ... Star Chamber and High Commission, 72-3; Powell, Puritan Village, 41; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xiii, xxxiii, lxiv-lxv, cvii; CSPD, 1637-1638, 384; CSPD, 1639-40, 260-1, 562; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 192-4; BL, Harleian MS 589, fos 137-9; CSPD, 1640-1641, 195, 384, 389; BL, Harleian MS 160, fo.153; HLRO, HL/PO/JO/10/1/62, 21 June 1641; HL/PO/JO/10/1/140 [1642]; WSkRO, Sudbury Borough Records, Sextus Book, 25 October 1642; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 212-4 [nos 39-41].
Long Melford
Stearne, Confirmation, 36-7; Anon., Signes and Wonders from Heaven, 4; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 191-7, 208-10, 227-8, 244; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1626, 334; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/1; Wal.Rev., 167; Green (ed.), Diary of John Rous, 121; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 429; Cal.Rev., 542; CSPD, 1653-1654, 136; LPL, MS 639, fo.231r; WSkRO, FL 509/5/1/80; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 187.
Wickham Skeith
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 302-3; NkRO, DN/VSC; Clarkson, Lost Sheep Found, 12-13; Besse, Sufferings, i, 657-8, 662, 665-6, 667, 672; Anon., Quakers are Inchanters; Humble Petition of the Counties of Suffolke and Essex, sig.A3r; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 334; Willan, Six Sermons; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, 63-4; BL, Add.MS 27,402; NkRO, DN/SUB 1/1 [1644]; Wal.Rev., 345; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 108; Greenwood, ‘Origins and Early History of Independency’, 65-66.
Stowmarket
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 292; Stearne, Confirmation, 26; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.84r; Hollingsworth, History of Stowmarket, 144-8, 162-5, 168-71, 183 and passim; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 5r, 137, 200r, 209v, 226r; ODNB, sub Young, Thomas; TNA, PROB 11/252, fos 211v-212v [will of Thomas Young, 27 September 1653; proved 31 January 1655/6]; Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England, 319-20; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 240-1 [no.103]; Cal.Rev., 59, 271; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 426; Wal.Rev., 338; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 95-103; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 148, 149, 151; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/4; TNA, PROB 11/299, fos 214r-v [will of William Keeble, 5 October 1659; proved 16 July 1660].
Bacton
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 301-2; Stearne, Confirmation, 28-9; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 95-9 [which also supplies much useful additional information, supplied from an unpublished paper by Ivan Bunn, on the lives of the witches and their victims]; Shipps, ‘Lay Patronage of East Anglian Puritan Clerics, 253; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; DN/VIS/6/4; TNA, PROB 11/245, fos 231r-v [will of Robert Garnham, yeoman, 30 August 1653; proved 22 May 1655];Hughes-Clarke and Campling (eds), The Visitation of Norfolk ... 1664, ii, 174-5.
Rattlesden
Stearne, Confirmation, 12-13, 19-20, 25, 26, 33, 53; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 92-4; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.168; Tanner MS 314, fo.195r; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xlvi-xlvii, lxvii, lxxv, lxxvii, cix, cxiii, cxvii; Powell, Puritan Village, Appendix 1, 169; Cal.Rev., 100-1; ODNB, sub Bedell, William; Olorenshaw (ed.), Notes on the History of the Church and Parish of Rattlesden, 30-2 and passim; Nickolls (ed.), Original Letters and Papers of State, 157; LPL, MS 639, fo.231r; WSkRO, J545/34, fo.302 [will of John Scarpe, 7 August 1643; proved 17 June 1646]; Rylands (ed.), The Visitation of Suffolk ... 1664 ... 1668, 128, 184; BL, Add MS 39,245, fo.180r; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 176.
Hintlesham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 297-8;Gaskill, Witchfinders, 100-2; Ryan and Redstone, Timperley of Hintlesham: A Study of a Suffolk Family; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1626, 34; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4; Wal.Rev., 344; Green, CPCC, iii, 2133-4; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 148, 151, 155-8; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 235-6 [no.92]; Cal.Rev., 527; CSPD, 1660-1661, 230; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 210; TNA, PROB 11/295, fos 149v-151r [will of Thomas Glamfield, 17 September 1647; proved 5 September 1659]; TNA, PROB 11/242, fos 218v-219r [will of Thomas Cooke, 25 October 1653; proved 5 May 1654].
Chattisham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 307-8; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 99-100; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 387; Wal.Rev., 342; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 39-41; Tyack, ‘Migration from East Anglia’, Appendix 1, iii; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; BN/VIS/6/1; DN/SUN4(a); Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 226 [no.71]; Cal.Rev., 348, 464; TNA, PROB 11/364, fos 257v-258v [will of Owen Stockton, 6 June 1679; proved 27 November 1680].
Copdock
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 312-3; ESkRO, C2/18/1, 14; B105/2/1, fo.81v; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 218r, 244r; Tanner MS 314, fo.125; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, ii, 450; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 44, 51, 328-9; Wal.Rev., 325; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 66-7; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 226-7 [no.73]; Hubbard, Sermo Secularis, 19; Green, CPCC, iii, 1867; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 208; ESkRO, IC/AA1/101/67 [will of Rebecca Ustwood, 15 August ?; proved 1671]; FB 21/A2/1; East Anglian Miscellany, 6 (1912), 50, 52; ESkRO, HD 1538/354/19, 22-24, 28; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 92; TNA, PROB 11/211, fos 103v-104r [will of Thomas Bull of Flowton, 20 September 1648, proved 16 February 1649/50].
Belsted
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 312; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fo.14r; Boorman, ‘The Administrative and Disciplinary Problems of the Church’, 86; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fos 122v, 144v-145r; TNA, PROB 11/201, fos 225v-226r [will of Richard Raymond, 2 October 1642; proved 10 July 1647]; Venn, i, 168; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 227 [no.74]; Hubbard, Sermo Secularis, 19.
Glemham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 311-12; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 114-15 [who suggests Great Glemham]; ODNB, sub Glemham, Sir Thomas; Green, CPCC, ii, 1579; BL, Add.MS 34,013, fo.19r; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; Cal.Rev., 297; NkRO, DN/VSC; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.210r; Wal.Rev., 326.
Halesworth
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 309-11; Anon., True Relation of the Arraignment of Eighteen Witches, 3-4; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.80v; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 116-17; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.212v; CSPD, 1627-1628, 29; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1627, 83, 85; Anon., ‘Suffolk County Records’, 157; Cal.Rev., 471; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 334, 425, 426; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 290 [no.219]; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 60, 76; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 405; B105/2/5, fo.94r; B105/2/7, fo.127r.
Stradbroke
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 291, 311, 312; Anon., The Triall of Mais.Dorrell, 92-8; Wal.Rev., 330; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 4r, 6v, 213v; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 427; White, Century, 42-3; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 288 [no.215]; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 152, 157, 159, 164; Knollys, Christ Exalted, sig.Av; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4.
Aldeborough
ESkRO, EE 1/12/2, fos 248-50, 258v, 273v; Hele, Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh, 42-4; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 181-5; Wal.Rev., 265, 269, 273, 345-6, 346; HMC. Reports, Various Collections ... Volume IV, 306-9; NkRO, DN/VIS/6/4; Cooper (ed.), The Journal of William Dowsing, 220-1 [no.56]; ESkRO, EE 6/3/3, fo.66v; TNA, SP 24/1, fo.86v; Anon., A Signe from Heaven, 3; TNA, PROB 11/289, fos 116v-117v [will of Thomas Johnson, 15 October 1658; proved 14 March 1658/9]; Browne, History of Congregationalism, 608-12; CSPD, 1650, 426, 430; Holmes (ed.), The Suffolk Committees for Scandalous Ministers, 115-19; ESkRO, EE
Bramford
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 293-4; Stearne, Confirmation, 30-1, 44-5; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 87-9; Redstone (ed.), The Ship-Money Returns for ... Suffolk, 91; Clarke, Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines, 3-6; Blatchly, Town Library of Ipswich, 19; Venn, i, 3; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.212; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 234-5 [no.89]; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fos 40v, 42r; ESkRO, C2/18/3; HMC.Thirteenth Report, Appendix, Part 1. MSS of the Duke of Portland, vol.1, 171; Thurloe, State Papers, vii, 48; Rylands (ed.), Visitation of the County of Suffolk ... 1664 ... 1668, 111; Cal.Rev., 322; ESkRO, IC/AA1/83/108 [will of William Stiles of Hemingstone, 19 May 1645; proved 17 March 1645/6]; TNA, PROB 11/257, fos 198r-199r [will of John Style, 3 September 1655; proved 29 August 1656]; TNA, PROB 11/192, fos 247v-248v [will of William Tyler, 29 November 1643; proved 19 January 1644/5]; CUL, Mm.I.45, 44-5; TNA, PROB 11/197, fo.79v [will of Henry Sanford, c.14 May 1646; proved 6 July 1646].
Ipswich
ESkRO, C8/4/7, 413-7, 419; B105/2/1, fo.79; Anon., The Lawes against Witches, 7-8; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 173-9; CSPD, 1625-1626, 175, 399, 458; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1627, 48, 207-8; CSPD, 1627-1628, 239, 288; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4; DN/VIS 6/1; DN/VIS 6/4; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 331, 349; [Prynne], Newes from Ipswich; Grace, ‘ “Schismaticall and Factious Humours”’, 97-119; Bodl., Tanner MS 89, fos 172-3; CSPD, 1636-1637, 129-30, 565; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xlviii-xlix, lxxvii, cvii, cix; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 2v, 30r, 210v, 244r, 287-302, 327; CSPD, 1636-1637, 529-30; CSPD, 1640-1641, 410.
CSPD, 1637-1638, 139-40, 146; CSPD, 1638-1639, 226 CSPD, 1639, 68, 135, 464, 476, 480, 482, 503; CSPD, 1639-1640, 97, 131, 221, 432, 547; CSPD, 1640, 518; CSPD, 1640-1641, 13; CUL, Mm.I.45, 31, 44-5; Perfect Diurnall of the Passages in Parliament [8-15 August 1642], 7; Wal.Rev., 328, 334-5, 339-40; TNA, PC2/51, fo.195v; Bodl., Tanner MS 220, fos 7-43; Humble Petitions of the Bailifes, Port-men, and Other the Inhabitants of Ipswich; Walter, ‘Popular Iconoclasm’, 270and n.; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 227-33 [nos 75-86]; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 365, 373-81, 383-4, 387, 389, 393, 405, 409, 413, 420; Clarkson, Lost Sheep Found, 12.
Besse, Sufferings, i, 672; NkRO, DN/VIS/6/4; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 381, 383, 399, 413, 429; TNA, PROB 11/245, fos 149r, 177r [will of John Payne, 27 March 1655; proved 8 May 1655]; NkRO, DN/VSC, sub 22 April 1635; Wal.Rev., 158; ESkRO, FB 98/E3/1; TNA, PROB 11/232, fos 123r- 125r [will of William Bull Snr, grocer/apothecary, of Ipswich, 20 October 1652 and 22 January 1652/3; proved 26 May 1653]; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 287-302; Bacon, The Annals of Ipswich, 509, 516; BL, Add MS 25,344, fos 64v, 68r, 91r, 92r, 97v, 103r, 105r, 108r, 110v; ESkRO, C2/18/1, 24; C2/18/3; Lords’ Journal, xi (1660-1666), 612, 629; Cal.Rev., 124-5; TNA, PROB 11/239, fo.82v [will of Robert Wade, c.28 November 1653; proved 13 February 1653/4]; TNA, PROB 11/192, fos 16r-v [will of John Wade, clothier, of Ipswich, 25 and 26 June 1644; proved 28 November 1644]; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 107-10; TNA, PROB 11/194, fos 164r-v [will of William Lawrence, 29 June 1643; proved 12 November 1645].
www.sarahneedhamartist.co.uk
I was invited for a one week Residency to the Pasture Project Space in Suffolk. I had been researching the sites that people accused of witch craft came from as a way of investigating the social and political environment of ‘othering’ in an historical context, as background research for a new series of works made with pigments from these sites and those associated with the economy of these sites. I was already aware of the historical background in general, of the collapse in wool trade, the Reformation, and in a broad way about the civil war and the position of women in the Early Modern era. In my work pigment and colour carry meaning.
My approach to this residency was to take a piece of research:
https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf
Which outlines the towns and villages associated with witch trials in East Anglia, including the names and numbers of the accused and the socio-religious-politico context. I used the Suffolk section to map out the villages associated with witch trials. At this point I avoided reading the contextual information. At each site visited I read the information in the research in situ, and read out the names of the people accused, sometimes also recording them in a temporary way in the land scape. At each location I collected material to make pigments, these included earth, brick flakes, (ochres) lichens (dye pigment) and organic material (that can be burned to make carbon black).
Each village section in this account is followed by the names of the accused where known.
I am very thankful to Exeter University for the public availability of such research.
Day One of the Residency: Walked from Sudbury to Great Waldingfield and Acton.
I walked along the road and through some footpaths and considered the long cast of my winter shadow. In the village of Great Waldingfield, the old oak-framed houses look as though they are peering at you through their hedges. There was a memorial to a car crash by the side of the road covered with daffodils. There was a way in which the low light of the sun caught the fresh new growth of green illuminating it against the black of the silhouetted winter trees.
The town was tidy and there was little to collect in Waldingfield except my thoughts. I sat on a bench on the green and said the names of the accused.
Between Waldingfield and Acton I found a pile of dumped earth; I collected a small sample of earth and some brick shards to make pigments with.
I walked onto Acton, I stood outside the old rectory which seems like it is hiding away behind high gates and large trees. I said the name of the accused, and wondered about the connections across the county.
I found a building site where the clay soil had been freshly dug and took a good sample of local clay.
By the end of the day I had only covered two of the accused and decided that for the rest of the residency I would concentrate as far as possible on the villages where there were multiple accusations. Reading the historical context of the trials in the Exeter documents was really helpful on site. Deciding to concentrate on the places with the most accusations also led me to notice clusters of accusations, and in those areas I tried to make a point of walking village to village.
Great Waldingfield : John Bysack alias Gleede
In 1647, this was a very poor town. There was a great deal of religious conflict. In 1631, Nicolas Bloxham was accused of simony. Replaced by Paul Pole who was also unscrupulous. Andrew Sandiland, a Laudian, took the post in the Church 1640, and resisted the destruction of the altar rails and was reported to the House of Lords for his religious practices. John Bysack’s wife may have had Puritan connections and was not accused.
Acton: one King ( a member of the family King)
Action was a centre of recusancy before the civil war, Catholics in Acton were protected by the powerful Daniels family of Long Melford. They may have had a secret Catholic priest until 1435. The King family figured in local legal records and may have been Royalists. There was a John King appointed to the bench as a JP who may have tried Richard Glamfield. Glamfield was directly involved in the prosecution of witches in nearly villages Chattisham and Hintelsham.
Day 2: Lavenham, Dunwich, Yoxford and Framingham
This day was spent considering the economic as well as religious challenges of the time. I picked up shards of a tile that had fallen from the roof of the oak timbered house next to the Little Hall in Lavenham , It had smashed on the ground and so would not have been able to be repaired, I could see that it was a lovely orange. Walking round Lavenham with its twisted beamed houses there is a sense in which the houses seem animated, you can feel them looking at you, may be gossiping. I went into a coffee shop in one of the timbered buildings and was able to see the interior, and gain an idea of how small the rooms in the small houses might have been. The Halls were closed as it is winter and they have limited opening times. Lavenham is a preserved Tudor town because economic challenges caused by changes in the wool trade were not overcome; the money to build new houses ran out. It did not take on silk like Sudbury and stayed preserved as it is (source Ruth Philo) I spoke the accused names next to the Wool Hall.
I drove over to Dunwich, a city swallowed by the sea, and collected some material from the beach, I am not sure how much colour will come out of them as they are very sandy, but will have a go. I looked over the now silted up estuary which has become a beautiful bird sanctuary and I looked out to sea, where the once big successful city port was. The liminality of this location was touching, and I thought about the way in which things are washed away and forgotten even in nature. I spoke the accused names out to sea and wrote them in the sand on the beach to be taken with the town.
I visited Yoxford, and got a sense of its place between several grand houses. I picked up some shards of brick from the path. I spoke the accused names as I stood in front of one of the grand houses.
I visited Framlingham, and walked up to the castle, there were groups of kids sitting on the castle ramparts after school, gathering together. It made me think about the gatherings that got people accused in North Berwick. I found a large piece of brick that had come out of an old wall. I spoke the accused names standing with my back to the castle looking towards the town.
Lavenham: Anne Randall, Susan Scott and women called Sweeting and Golding
Lavenham had been a successful wool town specialising in blue woad dyes. At the time of the witch hunts it was in serious decline due to the collapse in the market for English wool on the continent. There was a powerful Catholic family at Lavenham Park, the Skinners. There were large scale riots in 1642 protesting against Catholics.
It was also a centre of Puritan dissent and large numbers of families left for New England in the 1630s for both economic and religious reasons. The remaining puritans were against Laudian changes in the church, and the puritans were supported by the Coppinger family, Lords of the Manor. The church just before the hunts was dominated by the Coppinger family, staunch Parliamentarians, and then by William Gurnall. Gurnall was in office at the time of the hunts, and had a great ally in the MP for Sudbury. He preached about the activities of witches. He himself conformed at Restoration becoming once again part of the Church of England . He was represented by Sir Thomas Bowes if Bromley Hall who had been prominent in the witch hunts at Tendring
Dunwich: Precilla Collitt and Elizabeth Southerne
These women fell out and accused each other. Dunwich economically was in a state of terminal decline as the port silted up and the sea encroached on the town leaving the place depopulated and impoverished. The town was deeply divided by religion. There were a number of visiting puritan preachers including William Browne, John Swaine and Hugh Driver all of whom were involved in the interrogation of witches in other parts of Suffolk. William Browne gained the “confession” here. And there is proof in the parish record that “watchers” were paid which means the women were put through sleep deprivation in order to gain their confessions. William Dowsing visited in 1644. Both Collitt and Southerne were impoverished and recipients of charity from the Coppinger family. Thomas Spatchet who accused the witches became a freeman of the borough and then rose through the village ranks rapidly, becoming the coroner, the bailiff and a congregational minister. At Restoration he was dismissed and politically humiliated. Pricilla Collitt was probably his relative. Thomas’ grandfather left money in his will to Phoebe Collitt in 1623.
Woad, pitch, timber and tar were imported into Dunwich from Dutch and Flemish ships in the 1400s . And from other ships lead and coal and foodstuffs but fish was the main thing. The port was already in decline at this point. (The Bailiffs’ Minute Book 0f Dunwich1404-1430, Pub Suffolk Records Society 1992 ed Mark Bailey)
Yoxford : Mary wife of Richard Cloves/Clowes
Prior to the civil war, Yoxford was dominated by the interests of the recusant Bedingfield family. Sir Thomas Bedingfield supported the Royalists in the civil war. He appointed a Laudian minister to the church in 1632, Laurence Eachard, who survived the mass expulsions of loyalist clergy only to be removed in 1650. There were also puritan land owners Elizabeth Brooke of Cockfield Hall, Matthias Chandler, a puritan minister of Coddenham also owned land here. The power struggle seemed to have persisted after the Restoration with prosecutions for nonconformity in the parish quarter sessions.
Day 3 Sudbury and Long Melford
Sudbury: Ann Boreham, widow and possibly others in the same family. Hanged.
I walked through Sudbury with Ruth Philo and visited the Gainsborough Museum, the Churches and the museum. I attempted to collect clay from the water meadows where the fullers used to work, the local swan wasn’t having any of it, so I gave up. Sudbury had revived itself after the decline in the wool trade by expanding and diversifying into the silk trade. We walked past a number of silk mills and Ruth also pointed out to me the weavers’ cottages which have a distinct large window on the second floor of a three storey building. They mark the beginnings of urbanisation of textile production. Many of the oak-framed buildings have a newer frontage as a result of the wealth silk brought here, including Gainsborough’s house which has a Georgian frontage but a distinctly wattle and daub oak-framed interior. Ruth told me a great deal about the silk trade, as she has been involved in international projects that link China across the silk route to Sudbury.
During the period of the witch panic,Sudbury was a site of court battles over religious traditions and practices, closely aligned to the conflicts in Long Melford. In the 1630s, there was a large scale migration from Sudbury to New England. There were frequent riots. By 1642, Sudbury had declared for Parliament, further religious reform was instigated against a background of fear and panic, and the Puritans had gained control.
Long Melford: Alexander Sussums
Long Melford was probably John Stearne’s home town and the only person accused of witchcraft was his acquaintance Alexander Sussums who was accused but found not guilty.
Physically, Long Melford embodies some of the religious conflicts amongst the aristocracy that are in the background of the witch panics. At one end of the village there is Kentwell Hall, and at the other Melford. One Puritan, the other Catholic.
One end of the village: Kentwell Hall and puritan stronghold, and home to the historic builders of the village church, initiated in response to plague deaths. The site dates back to the Domesday book, however the current building is mostly Tudor, built by the church-building Clopton family. The family bought Monks Manor on the dissolution of the monasteries, so were enriched by the reformation. They entertained Queen Elizabeth there in 1588 but she complained of the paucity of the entertainment. At the time of the witch panics, the hall was owned by Lady Tracy Clopwell , but lived in by Thomas Gardener, and then by Anne Clopton, who was married to Sir Simon D’Ewes. There were conflicts around who had the rights to the manor within the family. Almost all the Cloptons eventually went to America.
“She was the last Clopton of Kentwell. A name rarely — if ever — found in England nowadays but plentiful in the USA, held by descendants of Clopton puritans who had emigrated there in the 17th century and have a flourishing family association.” (kentwell.co.uk)
At the other end, Melford Hall was built in the 16C, originally owned by the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Edmundsbury, and underwent rebuilding by John Reeve, who was elected Abbot. However at the reformation it was surrendered to the crown. It became the residence of Sir William Cordell and he entertained Elizabeth I lavishly at the hall. The hall was neglected after his death in 1581 and passed eventually into the hands of Thomas Savage. Savage had
connections with the Stuarts, and renovated the house. The house was extensively plundered during the civil war.
The vicar Robert Warren who was suspected of Catholic leanings was singled out for harsh treatment in the Stour Valley riots.
The village itself is described as a swollen village, having grown rapidly on the wool trade, but then also suffering from its decline. Most of the people in the village in the Middle Ages earned their money from the wool trade.
The church in Long Melford is notable for having retained a number of its stained glass windows, and I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the dominant Puritan family of the village had also been the original builders of the Church?
While walking through Long Melford, it struck me that collecting wool to represent the thread from one persecution to another was a more appropriate way to mark the towns that brought John Stearne and Matthew Hopkins into the world. So walking along the lane that connects Kentwell Hall to the village I collected wool from the fences where the sheep lived. I did not collect earth pigments here, but I did also collect a small amount of crumbled brick from the village. Neither house was open for visit in the winter. Evidence of wealth in the middle ages was there in the timbered buildings, the beautiful “wool” church and the size of both grand houses.
Day 4: Stowmarket, Wickham Skeith, Bacton and Rattlesden
Wickham Skeith: 1645: Joan Balls, Mary Brame (Joan’s daughter) Sybil Greene, Mary Winter, 1655 Richard White
The pond at Wickham Skeith has the dubious honour of being the last place in England to have a witch dunking. In 1825, Issac Stebbings a door-to-door sales man was thrown into the village pond three times with his hands tiedand his wife mad by witchcraft and of making a shoemaker’s wax unworkable by witchcraft. (According to the Suffolk Chronicle of July 16 1825) he requested this proof of innocence himself. But given that proof of innocence would have meant his death , it seems unlikely, unless he was already not of sound mind himself. He is meant to have almost died, but the process was stopped by the local vicar.
In the 1600s, it was the church minister of Hoxne Edward Willan who instigated the witch trials. Happily, by the 1800s the church was stopping them. The accused were subjected to “searching” which was often accompanied by sleep deprivation treatment, the combination of which would be considered torture in the present day. It seems likely that Balls was accused because she belonged to an “anabaptist” or Quaker sect. And it is clear that Richard White was a Quaker.
It was an area where Quaker preachers had been active just prior to the trials, and interestingly in relation to the later story the person accused of disseminating Quaker literature was an itinerant trader like Isaac Stebbings.
Edward Willan became an enthusiastic persecutor of the Quakers in the 1650s.
I arrived at Wickham Skeith with 19C story in my mind, to find the remains of a bonfire close to the pond, I was able to pick up some carbon black mixed with the clay soil and charcoal from the site of the bonfire. I spent a while at the pond, contemplating the scenery, saying the names of the accused, and noticing the now prominent life saving ring at the side, although you might not be able to get that on if your hands are tied behind your back..
I walked up to the Church, while I was on the green a man arrived to pick litter. I wrote the names of the accused in charcoal on the path. The same man appeared close by. The church was locked so I could not visit. I walked back to the green picking up some lichen to make dyes from the side of the road. The man appeared again, I seemed to be making him nervous. Or perhaps the place was making me nervous, I am not sure. It is a very pretty village quite picturesque, and if I hadn’t known the stories I don’t think I would have felt uneasy, although I may have felt slightly followed. The pretence at litter picking having been abandoned.
The village of Wickham Skeith is spread over quite a large area, there are a number of large Tudor type houses which suggests it had a history of wealth.
Stowmarket: Elizabeth Hobart (Hubbard), Goody Low, Goody Mills
There is a record of trials of these women that include local Puritan witnesses and payments to Stearne and Hopkins. This was a site of local Puritan evangelism throughout the 1630s. I walked around the town, visited the library where I found out that Thomas Young, who was the poet John Milton’s tutor at Cambridge was also the man who paid for Stearne and Hopkins to instigate the witch trials at Stowmarket.
I also read up a bit about Dowsing, the iconoclast who had done so much material damage to the churches he had visited across the county. Finding out that in places he had met resistance, while in other icons from churches had already been removed (for protection) or destroyed in advance of him coming in support of his actions, especially in East Suffolk which had more Puritans. (Tudor and Stuart Suffolk, Gordon Blackwood)
The church in Stowmarket sits in the centre of the town in a close surrounded by timber frame houses. This was a centre of Puritan evangelism, and one of the witnesses at the trial, John Hayward, was responsible for organising the invitations to speakers, possibly permitted because the local Puritan minister was considered a moderate. The church received the Dowsing treatment in 1644, with support of the church warden. The people involved with the church and the trial appear to have been Puritan Parliamentarians. The people accused to have been from the poorest sections of society.
While in Stowmarket I found an unglazed notice board and pinned a note to it to remember the names of the people tried here. I also sat in the churchyard on a bench and said their names. I collected some small crumbles of brick from beside the newer Catholic Church.
The weather had turned wet and cold. After driving in the dark in Suffolk for a few days, I decided to buy a waterproof winter yellow coat, so that I was visible in the dusk light. I had forgotten about driving in rural areas at night, where people appear on the road out of nowhere, a sudden apparition in the headlights where there is no street lighting.
Wikipedia
Bacton: Margaret Benet, Mary Bush (widow) Ellen Green leaf, Elizabeth Watcham. And possibly Ellen Allen
Bacton village is a strip of a village and dominated by new housing. In fact, the building of a new set of houses allowed me to collect some deeper clays, as the engineers were on site and kindly lifted some out of the earth for me with their digger. The team from www.elancivilengineering.co.uk used their digger to scoop out clay from a lower level in the geology of the town from the big hole they were digging, even asking me which layer of earth I required. Thank you so much!
The vicar of Bacton was supported by the lord of the manor in Bacton, both Puritans. This was a centre of Puritan lectures and Catholic dissent. The witch hunts were probably an expression of this local conflict, and a way of scapegoating some poor and powerless women.
Rattlesden: Meribel Bedford, Henry Carre, Elizabeth Deekes and her mother, Mother Orvis, John Scarfe (Scarpe)
Rattlesden was the site of puritan lectureships suspended by Bishop Wren in 1636. Between 1634 and 1640, the village witnessed a mass exodus of people to New England. Clopton hall was the residence of parliamentary soldier Lieutenant colonel John Fiske. This area remained non-conformist even after the Restoration. In 1669, there were Presbyterians, congregationalists and Quakers meeting in the village.
The accused families appear to have been a combination of the poor of the village and those unsympathetic to the Puritan cause.
The village of Rattlesden sits below the church in the valley. Rising up from the valley on the other side of the river behind the pub are the fields where I collected a little clay rich chalky earth remarkably similar in colour to the deep clay earth from Bacton. The village has an old phone box, now used as an information kiosk. I left the names of the accused in there. The sun was going down on the village as I left to drive back to the residency in Sudbury. By the time I arrived the sky was filled with stars.
At the end of each day at the Residency I was welcomed home by Ruth and Stuart and a home cooked meal. I was able to discuss what I had found and seen and collected, and sometimes we moved into more general conversations about painting and music making, and a few glasses of wine. This helped me process what I was doing .
Day 5: Hintlesham, Chattisham, Great Wenham, Copdock, Belsted
This was the day when I found the most isolated and locked up churches, no longer at the centre of the villages they served except in Great Wenham, Hopkins birthplace. I was in the East of the county, which was largely a Puritan stronghold.
Hintlesham:Bridget Bigsby (widow): Susan Marchant (widow), Joanna Potter, Susanna Stegold
Hintlesham was a Catholic centre of recusancy in the period before the civil war. The local gentry the Timperleys were Catholic and offered protection to co-religionists. There was a-lot of conflict over changing Rectors with 5 Rectors in a single year 1644-5.. The church was visited by Dowsing any many pictures were destroyed. But the font dominated as it was with crests seems untouched.
The witnesses against the accused included people from surrounding Puritan villages, and most of the witnesses appear to be related. I wrote the names of the accused in the earth in the woods opposite the grand house. I collected fallen twigs from some ancient oak trees in the garden of the house.
I visited the Church and the house at Hintlesham which is now a hotel and golf club, with a more modern facade over the original building. The Timperleys were clearly a very wealthy family. I collected earth from the field outside the grand house which had a strange deposit of red rusty colour on its surface, it is not clear whether this was something that came up from the ground or had been poured onto the surface. I walked from Hintelsham to Chattisham along lanes that are probably the same as would have been used at the time. There were real signs of spring that day. The sun was shining and the blossom appearing in the trees. I collected some earth from the roadside on my way. There were a number of large badger setts. I was offered a lift by a stranger, which I declined.
Chattisham: Anne Alderman, Mary and Nathaniel Bacon, Rebecca the wife of Francis Morris
The same witnesses show up here as in Hintlesham, as well as Hopkins being active in this trial. This village had a priest (Ravens) renowned for being a wife beater, a Catholic sympathiser and an opponent of Parliament, and preached against Puritan practices. There were Catholic sympathisers in the village, including passengers of the Mayflower in 1620.
The Lord of the Manor (Meadows) was Puritan, and wanted his son to get the Rectory, and led a campaign to oust Ravens. By the time Dowsing reached their Church the icons had already been removed. After the Reformation Chattisham remained a non-conformist haven, and site of non-conformist preaching.
I walked from Hintlesham, starting in the sun, along the road , and then a footpath that skirted the field, arriving into the village and out of the sun. It had started to rain and I was glad of my coat. The centre of the village was remarkable for its shady nature. The Church has replaced some of its icons, and traces of wall paintings can now be seen, presumably having been uncovered deliberately. There were some that looked like Tudor brass plates on the floor. The old vicarage was a rather grand and lovely building. What seems to be the old Manor House looks over the land towards Hintlesham and is clearly still a working farm.
I left the names of the accused in an old phone box which is currently used as a book exchange. I walked back along a footpath through the fields towards Hintlesham, the sun was out again, I felt quite exposed and visible. Ruth had asked me night before about what would happen to me if I had an accident, and nobody knew where I was, so I felt happy in my bright yellow coat and the bars on my mobile phone. The biggest danger really was the badger setts. I walked through the woods and needed a wee, my coat was a bit more of a hazard at that point!
The experience was starting to make me consider conformity and expectations of women. Each time I broke conventional rules, it made me consider the application of very tight rules of behaviour for women at the time, and the consequences for breaking them, which of course were much higher than simply embarrassment.
Great Wenham: No accused
So why did I visit Great Wenham? On my way to Copdock from Hintelsham, I kept passing signs for Great Wenham. It had not been on my plan to go, but since I had visited Stearne’s reputed birth place, I thought I might be able to collect some wool from Matthew Hopkins place. I think I expected to find that Hopkins had grown up in modest circumstances but that was not the case. His family home is an enormous Tudor house opposite the Church in the centre of the village, with rolling hills behind it, and a large farm next door.
And since the visit, reading Malcolm Gaskill’s Witchfinders, it becomes clear that Matthew Hopkins’ father had acquired substantial lands across the county. His father’s name is still listed as one of the former Rectors in the church. He was a strict Calvinist, backed up by a Calvinist Lord of the Manor, with the attendant belief in those chosen saved and the damned as predestined. At the centre of this belief is an assumption of an us and a them. The centre of the church is austere. The decoration being quotes from Exodus and the 10 Commandments' and a letter from the people of Wenham Massachusetts who are still in touch with their namesake. Matthew Hopkins was the only one of his brothers not to go to University.
The day slipped between sunny and cold and I felt a distinct chill in the church. When left the church I looked for a local footpath where I might walk close to some sheep pens in the hope of collecting some wool. There was a footpath sign posted next to the Hopkins house but sitting in the field were two not very friendly rams. There were little bits of wool rolling across the field, just out of reach. I spent a while looking at the rams, and decided entering the field would be a mistake. I saw a little wool just inside the field, and just at the moment when I was reaching into the field from the outside to get in, a woman came past with a dog in a wheelbarrow.
She asked me if I wanted some wool and took me to the farm, where the lambs were with their mothers. On the way to and from the farm we were chatting about what I was doing, and she commented, first that Matthew Hopkins should have known better given his father was a vicar, but then commented how sad it was that so much bad has been done in the name of religion. Her kindness shifted the chill I had been feeling.
Anyway it's important that you should know that you can buy raw rare breed sheep wool from the lovely farmers in the farm next to the old Hopkins house in Great Wenham, straight from the Priory Farm.
M Gaskill, Witchfinders, A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy, Hodder Headline UK 2005
Copdock: Susan Manners, Alice Muntford, Jane Rivet, Mary Skipper
The Copdock church is no longer surrounded by the village if it ever was. It sits (locked) next to a Tudor barn that is now a vineyard and wedding venue. The history of this area was of long-term legal battles over religion, the former owner of the barn, a Catholic was renown for taking protestants to court during Mary’s reign. It was a centre of recusancy in the 1600s, the Fosters of the local manor house was attacked during the Stour Valley Riots in 1642, and they were rumoured to have been collecting together a “secret army”. They were in debt having been fined for recusancy. In November 1648, Thomas Bedingfield (also Catholic) took over the hall as Foster was in debt to him. He was forced to sign allegiance to the government in 1652.
The Church got the Dowsing treatment, and a great deal was removed.
The vicar was probably a Laudian, and gave evidence against Puritan rioters in the Ipswich riots.
The witnesses had solid Puritan roots. During the witch-hunts the group of women, were subjected to searching, and tried. The women who searched them appear in other villages later on.
I parked outside Copdock Church, and said the names of the women, I had collected some flakes of brick from the village down the road, but also visited the vineyard (nice white wine) and they found some more brick parts from then they did their building works, although they weren't sure of the age of the pieces they gave me. The woman I spoke to at the vineyard had studied history at University, so we had a great conversation about the context of the civil war.
Belsted: Mary Goddard, Rebecca Prick,
The final Church I visited was Belsted, once again it was not in the centre of the current village and it was locked. It sat in the landscape above what would have been a grand house.
The parish had a long history of Puritan dissent, and maybe the conflict between it and Copdock, just down the road have a role to play, certainly Hubbard from Copdock preached here praising Hopkins and Stearne. I stood at the edge of the church yard and said the names of the accused.
As I stood outside the church the sun was going down, so I drove back to the residency, people walking out of the darkness in the small rural roads, as I headed west, then suddenly onto the motorway and all lit up. I arrived back in Sudbury to a slightly larger slither of moon and bright stars in the sky over the courtyard at the back of the house, put my treasures into the shed, and went in to another cosy welcome from Ruth.
Day 6: Glemham, Halesworth and Stradbroke
Glemham: Anne Barker, Ellen Bishop, Margery Blake, Rose Glamfield (maybe Clamfield), Thomas Clarke, Anne Driver, Alice wife of Richard Glamfield ( a witness for the prosecution elsewhere) Mary Sexton, Rachel Sexton, Anne Smith, Mary Smith
Little and Great Glemham surround Glemham Hall, the home of the Royalist commander Sir Thomas Glemham who was absent during the period of the trials which may have made the villagers more vulnerable. The trials may have contained a large number of Royalist sympathisers. Great Glemham was non conformist and Little Glemham had a Rector who was more Wrenite and was once pulled from the pulpit by protestors.
I parked in Great Glemham and walked along the road towards Little Glemham. It was starting to snow, so I turned back to walk through the woods that sit between the two villages, I wrote the name of the accused from both villages on fallen branches in the woods. The house in the centre really looks out across the valley between the two places behind a large brick wall.
I picked some chalk out of the fields as I walked back, and some small brick fragments from the path. The sun came out and warmed my walk. By the end of the walk my hood was down and the sun was on my face.
Halesworth: Mary and Thomas Everard, Marianne Everard (daughter), Elizabeth Hubbard, Jane Linstead, James More, Sara Spindler
The examiner may have been Puritan minister John Swaine Sr or his son.Both were ordained Puritan ministers with contacts across the county. Halesworth was visited by Dowsing in 1644, and much was removed. However the 15th C font in Halesworth Church appears un-defaced and even includes a figure that has horns between angels which looks quite devilish.
As I arrived in the village there was a group of people organising a litter pick which meant the streets were very clean, and despite the many very old houses there was not a flake of paint or brick to pick up from the street. I walked through the village to the path down to the water meadows, noticed an orange tinge in the soil at the side of the path. When I reached the river it had a distinctly orange tint and I started to get hopeful. In the end, in one of the tributaries of the river I found a big deposit of bright orange ochre, I scooped some into my bag. It was very wet and very messy. I was aware of my messy self as I walked back, it was bright and had got everywhere. There is a house in the village which seems to have used this same ochre for its outside walls. It stands in the village a profoundly rich iron oxide colour.
Halesworth included many resistant to the Puritan reforms. It seems it was a village divided. The Everards may have been Catholic recusants.
The village had a number of timber framed buildings, including some with arched beams which were lovely. One of the paths to the river has a lovely crinkle crankle (part of my new Suffolk vocabulary thanks to Ruth) wall with a tiny door in it.
Stradbroke: Anne Arnoll, Bet Bray, Anne Wright
These women ended up in trouble because accused of other villages claim to have sold imps to them. This was not the first witch trial in the village; it followed one from 1599. At the time of this trial the parish was in the grip of profound religious divisions. The Laudian vicar had excommunicated a large number of Puritans. The Puritans got their revenge by accusing Vicar Buck of preaching that the Pope was head of the Church which got him locked up in Ipswich gaol. This was followed by a period of uncertainty when John Swaine was appointed but was too busy prosecuting witches elsewhere to take up his place. He was replaced by Thomas Watts however by this time the Baptists were actively proselytising in the village.
Stradbroke was a peaceful place the day I visited, dominated by dog walkers, and people chatting on the street corner. At at the edge of the former Rectory wall there is a statue of a Bishop, erected 50 years ago. The oak for the original statue was made from the Old Rectory. It commemorates Grossteste a former Bishop of Lincoln who was born in the village in 1168. (Stradbrokeonline.org.uk) .
That evening Ruth and Stuart and I really enjoyed an evening of conversation, and delicious food as the final night of the residency, with discussions about what to do next to complete the project.
Day 7: Aldebugh, Bramford, Ipswich
That morning I packed my pigments into the back of the car and cleared the shed I had been using for collecting and processing them a little while I was there. The boot of the car was laden with materials collected from across the county. I worked out that with the places I planned to visit that day I would reach 21 villages of the 40 that had had people accused between 1645-47, satisfyingly just over half.(According to https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf) During my stay, I attempted to reach all the villages with more than three accused as well as some with smaller numbers.
The residency had been wonderful, Ruth and Stuart relieved me of all domestic tasks, provided me with the space and conversation in the evenings for a profoundly rich experience and enabled me to visit far more sites than I would have been able to do otherwise. Trailing the witch panics is an emotional process, and trying to acknowledge the presence of the accused in the sites where they lived was very moving but also disturbing. So the care taken by Ruth and Stuart was a wonderful thing each evening as I returned “home”
Aldeburgh: Widows Gardner, Wade and five other unnamed women
The Aldeburgh of the 1600s is now half under the sea, the shifting shoreline makes the Museum building that was once the centre of the town, sit on the shore line. When I arrived in the village, I parked near the Church but it was in service so I walked down to the shore. As I walked through Aldebugh I was looking for bits of brick as there were plenty of old brick buildings. Once I reached the beach, I discovered why, people had marked the beach with a red image made with bricks, called the Angel of The East for Peace in Ukraine.
Aldeburgh had been a wealthy ship building town, but by the time of the witch panics the port had silted up and in decline. It was a centre of Puritan dissent, and had been subjected by Laud. In 1644, the Puritans got their revenge and prosecuted the Vicar. Shortly before the town was visited by Dowsing who was helped by John Swaine and Thomas Johnson to remove statues and paintings. Swaine and Johnson were actively involved in the witch hunts that followed. The town was a centre of religious disputes in the 1640s and 50s.
The Moot Hall Museum in Aldeburgh was the first place I saw with information about the witch hunts, I had missed some of the local museums arriving in the villages when they were closed. I collected material on the way out of Aldeburgh near the estuary of the river. I collected clays and brick fragments and scratched Gardner Wade and 5 unknown on the path.
Bramford: John Chambers, Alice Marsh, Mr Payne, Margeret Powell, Elizabeth Richmond, Goody Smith, Lydia Taylor
Bramford was fervently Puritan in the early 1600s, with John Carter at the ehad of the Church. He was driven away and the Church fell into disrepair, and the responsibility fo John Acton of Bramford Hall (possibly a Royalist) . Dowsing visited the Church in 1644 and removed a number of pictures.
The house leading up to the church in Bramford is painted pink in the traditional Suffolk colours. I stood outside this house on the way to the church to say the names of the accused. The Church has been decorated inside with a light show with a dominant purple theme, blending Puritan stark walls with Catholic pruples in the modern time. There is a Virgin and Mary statue over the front door but all the other exterior statuary remains removed.
I walked though the village attempting to reach the riverside but did not find an easy access that wouldn’t have intruded on the sweethearts on the riverbank so gave up.
The watcher John Curtis ( a lawyer) was a local landowning Puritan and suppporter of Parliament. Witness William Styles Amy have been involved in examining Royalist suspects and had strong Puritan connections.
Ipswich: Alice Denham widow, James and Mary Emerson, MAry Lakeland, Mary Page widow, Rose wife of Christopher Parker, Mary wife of John Paine (ordered to be dipped) Margeret widfe of James Sutton
In Ipswich, the witnesses’ occupations are listed as grocer, tanner, labourer, tailor, cordwainer, clothworker, currier, labourer, sherman (shearer of sheep), cooper, dyer.
Those suppporting the accused were a labourer, currier, baker, husbandman and a yeoman.
Alice Denham was hanged. Despite being accused of causing a number of deaths, Lakeland like the others was imprisoned temporarily. One of the accusations against her was to have killed people at sea by causing a storm.
Ipswich had had a reputation for being a Puritan citadel. However, by the 1630s there was conflict between Calvanism and Arminianism. (Arminianism a new interpretation of protestant teaching particuarly reating to predestination). There was widespread resistance to the Charles I forced loan in 1627. There were riots in protest against the Bishop. Catholics were being prosecuted in the town for recusancy. Protestant non-conformists for rioting. Many left for America in the face of the clampdown on non-conformity. Once Parliament was recalled in 1640 and the tables were turned the Laudian supporters were attacked. The town was radically divided between Royalists and Parliamentarians. Many Royalists were tried in the courts for opposing Parliament. There were a significant number of smaller non conformist religious sects in operation who also got in trouble with the law. It may be that Rosa Parker was a Quaker, Mary Lakeland a follower of a smaller sect. Many of the witnesses against the accused were either involved in accusing people of witchcraft in other places, Puritans, associated directly with the Church authorities and litigators.
This is the only case in this list where some of the witnesses were bound to keep the peace against people they accused which is something that became more common after the frenzy of these two years.
I walked around the harbour area. I walked through a few streets to the grounds of a church which is being transformed into an Arts Centre with some lovely lime trees in the garden and memorials to seafaring people at the front. I said the names there. I collected shards of brick from the foot of walls outside the Church. Ipswich still feels like a divided town, the glossy marina clashing against the more rundown feel of the streets a few yards away.
This was my last visit, from here I headed back to London. I never did get the definitive answer to the nature of Suffolk pink.
After the Residency
In the period since the residency I have been gradually processing and testing out the pigments I have collected. I am currently reading Malcom Gaskill, and have a pile of reading to do about the revolution in general, and slowly I am starting to have the initial spark that usually precedes new work.
My biggest thank you goes to Ruth Philo and Stuart Blowditch for inviting me and making me so welcome at The Pasture Project Space and to Ruths son Joe for his lovely company.
Appendices
Sources
https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf
Gordon Blackwood, Tudor and Stuart Suffolk, Carnegie Publishing UK 2007
Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders A Seventeenth-Century Tragedy, John Murray, Hodder Headline 2005
www.Kentwell.co.uk
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/suffolk/melford-hall
Sudbury Museum displays
Suffolk Chronicle of July 16 1825
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Matthew-Hopkins-WitchFinder-General/
Local expertise provided by Ruth Philo
Sources for further research
The references given here and after each days report are from the Exeter University site and do not reflect my own reading. I include them to allow readers to further their own interests and to honour the research done at Exeter. If you wish to verify the information provided about a particular village please use these sources:
Acton and Great Waldingfield
Stearne, Confirmation, 37; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; DN/VIS/6/1; DN/VIS/6/4; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fo.126; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 46, 208-10, 226, 303; Wal.Rev., 326; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fos 36r, 114r; B105/2/7, fo.131v; TNA, PC 2/64, 29
Stearne, Confirmation, 41-2; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.102v; Wal.Rev., 328; White, First Century of Scandalous, Malignant Priests, 23-4; Gardiner (ed.), Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, 298-9; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/4; HLRO, MP, 9 February 1640/1; HMC. Fourth Report, pp.38, 49, 57, 60; WSkRO, J 545/38, fo.43 [will of Anne Glead, alias Bisacke, of Great Waldingfield, 2 April 1668; proved 9 July 1670].
Lavenham
Stearne, Confirmation, 22-3, 30; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 85-7; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 46-7, 222 and n., 244, 252; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; CSPD, 1641-1643, 60; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xiv, xxxiv, l, lxvi, lxxv; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.209r; Wal.Rev., 332; Tanner MS 284, fos 42, 45-7; ODNB, sub Gurnall, William; BL, Add MS 22,916, fos 2, 4, 6; Harleian MSS 374, fos 138, 142, 146; 376, fos 41-4; Anon., Covenant-Renouncers.
Dunwich
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 298-9; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 179-80, 313n; ESkRO EE6/3/3, passim; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 300 [nos 236-7]; Cal.Rev., 454; Nickolls (ed.), Original Letters and Papers of State, 157; Oldenburg, Correspondence, v, 14-15 [Cave Beck to Oldenburg, 15 August 1668]; Petto, Faithful Narrative of ... Mr.Tho.Spatchet; TNA, PROB 11/145, fos 351r-352r [will of Robert Spatchet, 20 May 1623; proved 2 May 1625].
Yoxford
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 309; NkRO, DN/VSC; DN/VIS 5/3/4; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fo.126; Wal.Rev., 333; Cal.Rev., 100, 110, 193; ESkRO, B105/2/6, fo.31v.
Sudbury
Stearne, Confirmation, 32; WSkRO, EE 501/2/7; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, 38; Shipps, ‘Lay Patronage’, 301-4; Ford (ed.), Winthrop Papers, 1 [1498-1628], 317; Forbes (ed.), Winthrop Papers, 3 [1631-7], 62, 388; Gardiner (ed.), Reports ... Star Chamber and High Commission, 72-3; Powell, Puritan Village, 41; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xiii, xxxiii, lxiv-lxv, cvii; CSPD, 1637-1638, 384; CSPD, 1639-40, 260-1, 562; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 192-4; BL, Harleian MS 589, fos 137-9; CSPD, 1640-1641, 195, 384, 389; BL, Harleian MS 160, fo.153; HLRO, HL/PO/JO/10/1/62, 21 June 1641; HL/PO/JO/10/1/140 [1642]; WSkRO, Sudbury Borough Records, Sextus Book, 25 October 1642; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 212-4 [nos 39-41].
Long Melford
Stearne, Confirmation, 36-7; Anon., Signes and Wonders from Heaven, 4; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 191-7, 208-10, 227-8, 244; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1626, 334; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/1; Wal.Rev., 167; Green (ed.), Diary of John Rous, 121; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 429; Cal.Rev., 542; CSPD, 1653-1654, 136; LPL, MS 639, fo.231r; WSkRO, FL 509/5/1/80; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 187.
Wickham Skeith
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 302-3; NkRO, DN/VSC; Clarkson, Lost Sheep Found, 12-13; Besse, Sufferings, i, 657-8, 662, 665-6, 667, 672; Anon., Quakers are Inchanters; Humble Petition of the Counties of Suffolke and Essex, sig.A3r; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 334; Willan, Six Sermons; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, 63-4; BL, Add.MS 27,402; NkRO, DN/SUB 1/1 [1644]; Wal.Rev., 345; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 108; Greenwood, ‘Origins and Early History of Independency’, 65-66.
Stowmarket
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 292; Stearne, Confirmation, 26; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.84r; Hollingsworth, History of Stowmarket, 144-8, 162-5, 168-71, 183 and passim; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 5r, 137, 200r, 209v, 226r; ODNB, sub Young, Thomas; TNA, PROB 11/252, fos 211v-212v [will of Thomas Young, 27 September 1653; proved 31 January 1655/6]; Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England, 319-20; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 240-1 [no.103]; Cal.Rev., 59, 271; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 426; Wal.Rev., 338; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 95-103; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 148, 149, 151; NkRO, DN/VIS 6/4; TNA, PROB 11/299, fos 214r-v [will of William Keeble, 5 October 1659; proved 16 July 1660].
Bacton
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 301-2; Stearne, Confirmation, 28-9; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 95-9 [which also supplies much useful additional information, supplied from an unpublished paper by Ivan Bunn, on the lives of the witches and their victims]; Shipps, ‘Lay Patronage of East Anglian Puritan Clerics, 253; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/3; DN/VIS/6/4; TNA, PROB 11/245, fos 231r-v [will of Robert Garnham, yeoman, 30 August 1653; proved 22 May 1655];Hughes-Clarke and Campling (eds), The Visitation of Norfolk ... 1664, ii, 174-5.
Rattlesden
Stearne, Confirmation, 12-13, 19-20, 25, 26, 33, 53; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 92-4; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.168; Tanner MS 314, fo.195r; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xlvi-xlvii, lxvii, lxxv, lxxvii, cix, cxiii, cxvii; Powell, Puritan Village, Appendix 1, 169; Cal.Rev., 100-1; ODNB, sub Bedell, William; Olorenshaw (ed.), Notes on the History of the Church and Parish of Rattlesden, 30-2 and passim; Nickolls (ed.), Original Letters and Papers of State, 157; LPL, MS 639, fo.231r; WSkRO, J545/34, fo.302 [will of John Scarpe, 7 August 1643; proved 17 June 1646]; Rylands (ed.), The Visitation of Suffolk ... 1664 ... 1668, 128, 184; BL, Add MS 39,245, fo.180r; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 176.
Hintlesham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 297-8;Gaskill, Witchfinders, 100-2; Ryan and Redstone, Timperley of Hintlesham: A Study of a Suffolk Family; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1626, 34; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4; Wal.Rev., 344; Green, CPCC, iii, 2133-4; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 148, 151, 155-8; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 235-6 [no.92]; Cal.Rev., 527; CSPD, 1660-1661, 230; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 210; TNA, PROB 11/295, fos 149v-151r [will of Thomas Glamfield, 17 September 1647; proved 5 September 1659]; TNA, PROB 11/242, fos 218v-219r [will of Thomas Cooke, 25 October 1653; proved 5 May 1654].
Chattisham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 307-8; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 99-100; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 387; Wal.Rev., 342; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 39-41; Tyack, ‘Migration from East Anglia’, Appendix 1, iii; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; BN/VIS/6/1; DN/SUN4(a); Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 226 [no.71]; Cal.Rev., 348, 464; TNA, PROB 11/364, fos 257v-258v [will of Owen Stockton, 6 June 1679; proved 27 November 1680].
Copdock
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 312-3; ESkRO, C2/18/1, 14; B105/2/1, fo.81v; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 218r, 244r; Tanner MS 314, fo.125; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, ii, 450; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 44, 51, 328-9; Wal.Rev., 325; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 66-7; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 226-7 [no.73]; Hubbard, Sermo Secularis, 19; Green, CPCC, iii, 1867; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 208; ESkRO, IC/AA1/101/67 [will of Rebecca Ustwood, 15 August ?; proved 1671]; FB 21/A2/1; East Anglian Miscellany, 6 (1912), 50, 52; ESkRO, HD 1538/354/19, 22-24, 28; Redstone (ed.), Ship-Money Returns, 92; TNA, PROB 11/211, fos 103v-104r [will of Thomas Bull of Flowton, 20 September 1648, proved 16 February 1649/50].
Belsted
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 312; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fo.14r; Boorman, ‘The Administrative and Disciplinary Problems of the Church’, 86; Bodl., Tanner MS 314, fos 122v, 144v-145r; TNA, PROB 11/201, fos 225v-226r [will of Richard Raymond, 2 October 1642; proved 10 July 1647]; Venn, i, 168; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 227 [no.74]; Hubbard, Sermo Secularis, 19.
Glemham
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 311-12; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 114-15 [who suggests Great Glemham]; ODNB, sub Glemham, Sir Thomas; Green, CPCC, ii, 1579; BL, Add.MS 34,013, fo.19r; NkRO, DN/VIS/5/3/4; Cal.Rev., 297; NkRO, DN/VSC; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.210r; Wal.Rev., 326.
Halesworth
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 309-11; Anon., True Relation of the Arraignment of Eighteen Witches, 3-4; ESkRO, B105/2/1, fo.80v; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 116-17; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.212v; CSPD, 1627-1628, 29; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1627, 83, 85; Anon., ‘Suffolk County Records’, 157; Cal.Rev., 471; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 334, 425, 426; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 290 [no.219]; Holmes (ed.), Suffolk Committees, 60, 76; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 405; B105/2/5, fo.94r; B105/2/7, fo.127r.
Stradbroke
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 291, 311, 312; Anon., The Triall of Mais.Dorrell, 92-8; Wal.Rev., 330; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 4r, 6v, 213v; Shaw, History of the English Church, ii, 427; White, Century, 42-3; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 288 [no.215]; Redstone, ‘Presbyterian Church Government’, 152, 157, 159, 164; Knollys, Christ Exalted, sig.Av; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4.
Aldeborough
ESkRO, EE 1/12/2, fos 248-50, 258v, 273v; Hele, Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh, 42-4; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 181-5; Wal.Rev., 265, 269, 273, 345-6, 346; HMC. Reports, Various Collections ... Volume IV, 306-9; NkRO, DN/VIS/6/4; Cooper (ed.), The Journal of William Dowsing, 220-1 [no.56]; ESkRO, EE 6/3/3, fo.66v; TNA, SP 24/1, fo.86v; Anon., A Signe from Heaven, 3; TNA, PROB 11/289, fos 116v-117v [will of Thomas Johnson, 15 October 1658; proved 14 March 1658/9]; Browne, History of Congregationalism, 608-12; CSPD, 1650, 426, 430; Holmes (ed.), The Suffolk Committees for Scandalous Ministers, 115-19; ESkRO, EE
Bramford
Ewen, Witch Hunting, 293-4; Stearne, Confirmation, 30-1, 44-5; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 87-9; Redstone (ed.), The Ship-Money Returns for ... Suffolk, 91; Clarke, Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines, 3-6; Blatchly, Town Library of Ipswich, 19; Venn, i, 3; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fo.212; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 234-5 [no.89]; ESkRO, B105/2/4, fos 40v, 42r; ESkRO, C2/18/3; HMC.Thirteenth Report, Appendix, Part 1. MSS of the Duke of Portland, vol.1, 171; Thurloe, State Papers, vii, 48; Rylands (ed.), Visitation of the County of Suffolk ... 1664 ... 1668, 111; Cal.Rev., 322; ESkRO, IC/AA1/83/108 [will of William Stiles of Hemingstone, 19 May 1645; proved 17 March 1645/6]; TNA, PROB 11/257, fos 198r-199r [will of John Style, 3 September 1655; proved 29 August 1656]; TNA, PROB 11/192, fos 247v-248v [will of William Tyler, 29 November 1643; proved 19 January 1644/5]; CUL, Mm.I.45, 44-5; TNA, PROB 11/197, fo.79v [will of Henry Sanford, c.14 May 1646; proved 6 July 1646].
Ipswich
ESkRO, C8/4/7, 413-7, 419; B105/2/1, fo.79; Anon., The Lawes against Witches, 7-8; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 173-9; CSPD, 1625-1626, 175, 399, 458; Lyle (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1627, 48, 207-8; CSPD, 1627-1628, 239, 288; NkRO, DN/VIS 5/3/4; DN/VIS 6/1; DN/VIS 6/4; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 331, 349; [Prynne], Newes from Ipswich; Grace, ‘ “Schismaticall and Factious Humours”’, 97-119; Bodl., Tanner MS 89, fos 172-3; CSPD, 1636-1637, 129-30, 565; Tyack, ‘Puritan Migration’, Appendix 1, xlviii-xlix, lxxvii, cvii, cix; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 2v, 30r, 210v, 244r, 287-302, 327; CSPD, 1636-1637, 529-30; CSPD, 1640-1641, 410.
CSPD, 1637-1638, 139-40, 146; CSPD, 1638-1639, 226 CSPD, 1639, 68, 135, 464, 476, 480, 482, 503; CSPD, 1639-1640, 97, 131, 221, 432, 547; CSPD, 1640, 518; CSPD, 1640-1641, 13; CUL, Mm.I.45, 31, 44-5; Perfect Diurnall of the Passages in Parliament [8-15 August 1642], 7; Wal.Rev., 328, 334-5, 339-40; TNA, PC2/51, fo.195v; Bodl., Tanner MS 220, fos 7-43; Humble Petitions of the Bailifes, Port-men, and Other the Inhabitants of Ipswich; Walter, ‘Popular Iconoclasm’, 270and n.; Cooper (ed.), Journal of William Dowsing, 227-33 [nos 75-86]; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 365, 373-81, 383-4, 387, 389, 393, 405, 409, 413, 420; Clarkson, Lost Sheep Found, 12.
Besse, Sufferings, i, 672; NkRO, DN/VIS/6/4; ESkRO, C8/4/7, 381, 383, 399, 413, 429; TNA, PROB 11/245, fos 149r, 177r [will of John Payne, 27 March 1655; proved 8 May 1655]; NkRO, DN/VSC, sub 22 April 1635; Wal.Rev., 158; ESkRO, FB 98/E3/1; TNA, PROB 11/232, fos 123r- 125r [will of William Bull Snr, grocer/apothecary, of Ipswich, 20 October 1652 and 22 January 1652/3; proved 26 May 1653]; Bodl., Tanner MS 68, fos 287-302; Bacon, The Annals of Ipswich, 509, 516; BL, Add MS 25,344, fos 64v, 68r, 91r, 92r, 97v, 103r, 105r, 108r, 110v; ESkRO, C2/18/1, 24; C2/18/3; Lords’ Journal, xi (1660-1666), 612, 629; Cal.Rev., 124-5; TNA, PROB 11/239, fo.82v [will of Robert Wade, c.28 November 1653; proved 13 February 1653/4]; TNA, PROB 11/192, fos 16r-v [will of John Wade, clothier, of Ipswich, 25 and 26 June 1644; proved 28 November 1644]; Walter, Understanding Popular Violence, 107-10; TNA, PROB 11/194, fos 164r-v [will of William Lawrence, 29 June 1643; proved 12 November 1645].
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