Source 2: This woodcut is from a pamphlet about the trial of Mother Sutton who was accused of being a witch. Swimming as a way of identifying a witch was first introduced in 1612 and acts as a reminder of the medieval trials by ordeal.
County
Sussex Surrey Hertfordshire Kent Essex
Total
No. of Accusations 1560-1700 33 71 81 132 473 (50 of these were the work of Matthew Hopkins in 1645.) 790
No. of executions 1560-1700 1 5 8 16 82
Source 1: Pamphlet from the Civil War which describes how this witch was shot at but she simply caught the bullets and ate them. Questions: 1.
2.
3.
112
Source 3: Accusations of witchcraft which came to court between 1560 and 1700 in 5 countries. There were many accusations that never came to court. The peak time for accusations was 1558 to 1603. In Essex nearly 200 of the accusations took place between 1580 and 1599.
Using source one and your own knowledge what did people during the civil war think about witches? Look at Source 3. What can this tell us about people being convicted of witchcraft between 1560 and 1700? Why do you think this was? Using sources two and three and your own knowledge discuss the statement, ‘women that were suspected of being witches were given an opportunity to prove their innocence and if they were not innocent then they deserve to be killed.’
Extension: Using all three sources and the information that you have learnt in the lesson find 2 comparisons and two differences between the crime of witchcraft and the punishment of it and the punishment of 2 other crimes we have looked at in the module so far. How do they compare?
Miss Groves – GCSE History