CORNISH WITCH TRIALS

Seventeenth-century Cornwall was witness to a dozen or so witch trials at the Assize courts held at Launceston. Witchcraft had been made a crime under legislation introduced by the Tudor monarchs as early as 1542 and updated during the early years of James I's reign. Cornishmen and women found themselves hauled before the Assizes accused of bewitching cattle and of murdering children. For example, in the 1650s more than 25 people were sent to Launceston Gaol after a woman was accused by her neighbours of being a witch. She promptly implicated others in her alleged practice of the dark arts, some of whom were executed.

In 1671 Isaac Pearce was accused of laming Honor Teague by witchcraft. A little later in 1675, Mary Glasson was accused of murdering 11-year old Isabella Hockin of Camborne by witchcraft. Most dramatic perhaps were the cases of Jane Nicholas and Mary Guy, in 1686 and 1696 respectively, who were accused of bewitching two children and of tormenting them to the point that they suffered from fits and vomited pins, nails and other assorted objects that were produced in court as evidence. The boy at the centre of the 1686 case claimed that Jane Nicholas "very often appeared to him, sometimes in [her own shape]; at other times like a Cat; whereupon the Boy would shriek, and cry out that he would not see her, laying his hands over his Eyes and Mouth, and would say with a loud voice, she is putting things into my Mouth, she will Choke me, she will Poison me." One of the towers of Launceston Castle was formerly known as the Witch's Tower, owing to the belief that witches were burnt at its base, though under English law those convicted of witchcraft were hanged.