Witch · Warboys · Legendary
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A squire's daughters screamed, and a village grandmother went to the gallows.
Stand where it happened
St Mary Magdalene stands on Church Road and the churchyard is open; A Church Near You lists regular Sunday services but no weekday opening hours, so check before you go if you want to see inside. The Throckmorton manor house where the fits began is not open to the public.
Warboys ahead: in 1589 a squire's daughter here began to shake and scream, and pointed at the old woman next door.
In November 1589 nine-year-old Jane Throckmorton, daughter of the squire of Warboys, began having fits and blamed her elderly neighbour Alice Samuel. Her sisters and several servants soon claimed the same torments. Lady Cromwell, wife of Sir Henry Cromwell, Oliver Cromwell's grandfather, came to Warboys and confronted Alice. Afterwards she dreamed Alice was tormenting her, fell ill and died, and that death was laid at Alice's door. Alice confessed, retracted, then confessed again before the Bishop of Lincoln. In April 1593 she, her husband and her daughter were tried at Huntingdon for murder by witchcraft, found guilty and hanged. A pamphlet about the case was printed the same year and made it famous.