Hundreds of women were killed during the 1640-50 witch hunts. These trials, driven by an angry and puritan theology, encouraged people to turn on each other out of fear and moral panic. Starting in south-east England and quickly growing into a mass violence killing hundreds, this is the story of ten cases that perfectly demonstrate the national scale of the crisis.
With the British civil wars raging in the background, Marion Gibson shares the stories of Anne West, Ellen Driver, Henry Maggs, Ann Jefferies and others unfairly accused and executed. Based on three years of archival research across Britain, Witchland offers a fresh new history of the country’s biggest witch hunt and why it’s still relevant today.
This is a gripping historical account of witchcraft, inequality and the violence that rises during times of political and economic uncertainty.