Witches

Throughout Europe the existence of witches was a long-held orthodox Christian belief. But it took on a more disturbing form from the 16th century. In England witchcraft was not a criminal offence until 1542, late in the reign of Henry VIII. But the law was repealed in 1547. Still, following growing and widespread European continental anti-witch concerns, and based on the biblical authority of Exodus 22.18 “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”, a new statute was passed during the reign of Elizabeth in 1563. Under its terms, people convicted of using “conjurations, enchantments and witchcrafts” should receive the death penalty.

Demonising the 'other' 

As a capital offence, this set a nasty scene. All sorts of behaviour which might have seemed slightly odd or unconventional to people at the time could be conveniently classed as sorcery or witchcraft. This offered a handy way to deal with neighbours you didn’t like, or those maybe seen in various ways as rivals. It clearly attracted the puritan-spawned armies of the self-righteous. Several myths surround the history of witchcraft, so loaded with false information that most of what is believed is untrue. So a straightening out seems sensible. Historian Suzannah Lipscomb has done some fine work in this sphere.

Model of a cunning woman - Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Boscastle

In Britain the period of peak persecution was relatively short. It lasted little over a century, from 1566, with the first trial and execution of a supposed witch, a 63 year old widow named Agnes Waterhouse. Apart from a few notorious cases, like Devon’s Bideford witches of 1682, and the Huntingdon hanging of Mary Hicks and her nine year old daughter Elizabeth in 1725, trials had pretty well died out by the 1670s. This followed the European pattern which saw a general decline in such persecution after the mid-17^th century. With growing concern about the reliability of trial evidence, the death penalty for witches was finally abolished formally in 1736.

Witch burning?

The first record in the British Isles of a witch being burned was of Petronilla de Meath on November 3 1324 at Kilkenny, Ireland. But from then on Ireland neither tried nor burned any more supposed witches. And against common belief, England did not burn witches, preferring hanging instead. Not to be confused with heretics, the only burnings recorded were in Lothian and the Scottish borders where religious faiths were in conflict and many were inclined to see Satan in the other person’s manner of worship. Throughout Britain, though not in all European countries, the Church did not conduct witch hunts or prosecutions. These were left to the secular authorities.

Neither was torture officially used to gain confessions, at least in England. It was sometimes applied in late 16^th century Scotland, (mainly through sleep deprivation) and to an extent during the breakdown of law and order during the Civil War. But in England it was illegal. Usually the weight of neighbours’ accusations was enough to convict a person, typically though not inevitably an old woman, especially if others accused were promised freedom for testifying against her.

Facts and figures

Estimates differ according to the source, but it seems probable that in England only about one in four of those suspected of diabolic dealings were actually put to death. Modern research suggests around 400 people in total were executed in England for witchcraft in the century or so in question. The figure for Europe as a whole, over a longer span of 250 years, was probably more like 50,000. Though high, the number is a small fraction of the millions claimed by some writers.

Plaque commemorating the executions of the Bideford witch trials 

Nor were they all women. While in Britain 80-85% were female, a sizable minority were male. And in many northern European regions, such as Scandinavia and Russia, most of the convicted ‘witches’ were men. This may sit uncomfortably with today’s common assertion that witch persecution was a crime of misogyny by men against women. There’s little evidence either to support the idea that those targeted were ‘healers’ or midwives - especially when the records suggest that among the keenest accusers or witnesses against supposed witches were other women.

Scottish dimension

At the time society’s belief system embraced the supernatural, including the Devil, spirits and so on to explain misfortune, or perhaps just the unknown. While these beliefs were normal throughout Britain, in Scotland the action they provoked was more extreme than in England. We are lucky in having a store of detailed and accurate data, made available via Edinburgh University’s Survey of Scottish Witchcraft. It suggests that in Scotland some 4000 people were accused of witchcraft, much lower than the 30,000 of earlier estimates. Maybe 2000 were put to death. Allowing for different population sizes, this was proportionately perhaps 25 times the rate of England. While many were sentenced to be burned, the universal practice was to strangle the victim at the stake and then burn the body.

North Berwick Witches 'meeting the Devil in a kirkyard'

Scotland saw five periods of intensive ‘witch alarms’, from 1590 to 1662. A panic phase was usually followed by a period of calm. The earliest of these, mainly in the Lothians, was the most severe. Intense episodes were the result of local or regional acts, not a prescribed national blitz. Witches were defined as such by their neighbours, via gossip and quarrelling. Many had lived with their reputation for 20 years or more. If some bodily blemish could be found, or often created by pricking the victim, it could helpfully be characterised as the ‘Devil’s mark’.

Witchfinder General

In England the 1612 Pendle witch trials represented one panic period, though in truth there were not many. The most intense by far was from 1644 to 1646 in Essex and East Anglia, when the Civil War had strained formal civic authority. A certain Matthew Hopkins was responsible for this murderous initiative. Calling himself Witchfinder General (a title not bestowed by Parliament), he had 300 people tried and executed in these two years. These victims alone accounted for a horrific 75% of England’s 100 year total.

Matthew Hopkins in a 19th century edition of 'Discovery of Witches'

Hopkins went from town to town in East Anglia being paid by local groups, whose virtue had evidently been outraged, to clear each place of ‘witchcraft’. Somehow it’s hard to rid yourself entirely of the feeling that given the stoking of widespread populist sentiment, something along similar lines could still happen again. Hopkins retired in 1646 aged 27 and died the following year. Actor Vincent Price said it all in the film Witchfinder General, when, in a chillingly self-righteous voice he intoned, “God’s work, Matthew, God’s work”.

The King James Bible - deserved reputation?

Many claim that the 1611 'King James Bible' is the foundation of the modern English language and a lynchpin of our culture. Some are astonished that the 50 or so clerics who spent years preparing the so called ‘authorised version for King James I’ spoke so often with one voice - apparently miraculously. Of course they did. That voice (never acknowledged by them) was that of William Tyndale. Remarkably, nearly 90% of the version's New Testament came directly from him, writing some 75 years earlier.

Tyndale as Bible translator 

William Tyndale’s Bible translations are perhaps the best kept secret in English historical scholarship. Many have heard of Tyndale but few have knowingly read him. Yet no other Englishman - including Shakespeare - has reached so many. Tyndale believed in the Protestant mantra, ‘justification by faith’. His 1534 New Testament was his greatest achievement. And as vast numbers read it and used it as the basis for other written scholarship, it's probably the most influential text in world history. English is, after all, the global lingua franca. A ravishing solo effort, this book and its author deserve proper recognition.

Start of Tyndale's St John Gospel,1525 New Testament

Tyndale translated straight from the Greek (New Testament) and later Hebrew (Old). He bypassed the Latin (Vulgate) version used by the Church for hundreds of years, and through the printed word, made these works directly accessible to hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. The medieval church tried hard to stop this, fearing, rightly, that it would lose power if bishops and priests were circumvented. Tyndale further compounded this opposition by cutting away institutional props: ‘faith hope and charity’ became ‘faith hope and love’; Church was ‘congregation’; ‘do penance’ became ‘repent’.

Tyndale was originally from Gloucestershire and went on to study at Oxford. Based in London for a while, he found it an increasingly hostile environment for religious reformers. Forced overseas in 1524, Tyndale then plied his trade of writing and translation mainly in Hamburg, Worms and, later, Antwerp. He would never see his own country again, for despite Antwerp’s reputation for tolerance, Tyndale was eventually betrayed by the English agent, Phillips. Cromwell wrote to Charles V pleading for his life but Tyndale was finally executed by the imperial authority near Brussels in October 1536.

Power of Tyndale's English

Tyndale, a phenomenal linguist, found Greek and Hebrew texts lent themselves far more readily to English than to Latin. ‘Let there be light’ shows strength and simplicity. Tyndale preferred a strong direct English phrase, and short sentences, to the Latinate pattern of circumlocution and sub-clauses. We can admire phrases of lapidary beauty - ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you’. (Matt. 7). Or perhaps ‘With God all things are possible’ (Matt.19). Or some of the lovely passages from John 1: ‘In the beginning was the word’; ‘in him was life, and the life was the light of men’; ‘And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’. We can see here the cadence and rhythm of the wonderful English language, the language of Tyndale.

We still use his phrases all the time: Am I my brother’s keeper?; salt of the earth; sign of the times; they made light of it; eat drink and be merry; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak; in his right mind; the scales fell from his eyes; full of good works; a law unto themselves; the powers that be; filthy lucre; the patience of Job; fight the good fight; the twinkling of an eye; gave up the ghost.

William Tyndale memorial Vilvoorde, near Brussels

The flow and power of these English words comes straight off the page. Their influence is vast. "No Tyndale, no Shakespeare", as scholar David Daniell said. Yet the anniversary of the 1611 Bible passed with barely a mention of Tyndale. Media coverage suggested that his role might rather have obstructed the prepared narrative - or in other words they simply hadn't considered him. Some of Tyndale's strong phrases were used with admiration, though never attribution. 1611 was not the date of an ‘Authorised’ or ‘King James Version’ in a way we would understand (it was never signed off by the monarch). It was accepted for centuries though its full idolatry only began 150 years later in the 1760s. And as the committee producing it often reverted to Latinate prejudices the text has a reputation it does not merit.

Precursor to the Enlightenment

Tyndale surely deserves wider recognition. The European Reformation was politically crucial in shaping the modern world of today - a sine qua non of progress in learning and its application in philosophy, law, science and medicine. Tyndale was writing 150 years before the Enlightenment, but his work was a vital stepping stone to what we now take for granted.

Thousands of copies of Tyndale’s bible were smuggled into Britain. People read them. His tolerant, modest attitude shines through all his work. Some of the Protestant reformers were as self-righteously cruel and dogmatic as the most extreme Catholic diehards. But Tyndale’s approach was more relaxed - ‘democratic’ we might say. If someone could improve on his writing, fine. Justification by faith, not works, perhaps. But what works! Tyndale was eventually burned at the stake for this heresy.

Tyndale's achievement

The 16^th century began with a debate on the worthiness of ‘rough’ English. By the 1530s Tyndale had given English its first classic prose - with its flexibility, directness, nobility and rhythmic beauty. He showed just what English could do. Given its lucidity, suppleness and expressive range, it was clearly a language which could far out-reach Latin in stature.

Supposed William Tyndale from 1620 - likelier to be John Knox 

Despite some fine recent biographies, and Ian Mortimer's brilliant, memorable keynote address to the 2015 Oxford Tyndale Society Symposium, Tyndale has largely been denied his place in the 16^th century learning revival. The achievements were his role in breaking the suffocating power of the medieval church, and as father of the modern English language. Towering feats by any standard. 

And that’s why Tyndale is so important. A revolutionary, of course, and clearly a prophet without honour in his own land. But his effect on our culture is incalculable and his final legacy is with us today. Crucially he bridges the gulf between the religious and the secular, so that people of faith and of no faith can be equally grateful to him. Some achievement.

1588 - the Spanish Armada

Few episodes in English History are as myth laden as the story of the Armada. The Elizabethan propaganda machine swung smartly into gear and successfully ensured 1588’s fake news stuck. It had Sir Francis Drake standing defiantly against Spain, a heroic symbol of England’s swashbuckling confidence toward the world. And Queen Elizabeth making inspirational heroic speeches to the army about to fight an invasion. Unfortunately many people still believe this spin. 

Philip's aim

So where to start demythologising? Philip II of Imperial Habsburg Spain had married Mary, Elizabeth’s half-sister, over 30 years before. He had tried to rein in some of her excesses, but as a highly devout Catholic he was still keen to turn Protestant Elizabethan England back to the true faith. English privateers were attacking Spanish ships, too, with Drake’s provocative 1587 raid on Cadiz seen as the last straw. But Mary Queen of Scots’ execution that year was also key, as there was no longer a risk that England would fall under the control of the Habsburg empire's main rival, France.

Philip II of Spain by Anguissola

Philip finally acted, building up a large fleet. Its purpose was not basically to invade, but to create a bridgehead and provide support for the Duke of Parma’s battle hardened army of 30,000 to cross from the Spanish Netherlands. Backed, Philip thought, by large numbers of English Catholics rising in sympathy, they would move on London to remove Queen Elizabeth and her government. 

The Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocratic court favourite, was appointed to lead this ‘enterprise’. He had no experience of naval command and didn’t want the job - he wasn't sure he was up to it. He wrote to Philip asking that a man with more relevant qualifications take responsibility. He also said he believed the plan would fail, though this advice was kept from Philip. Farnese, the Duke of Parma, also thought it would fail. An attempt was made to cobble something together, and Spain ended up with a plan nobody much wanted. Philip said God would guide them.

Duke of Medina Sidonia

130 ships left in late May from Lisbon, then after storms struck, started again from Corunna. Medina Sidonia was even less confident now and wrote to Philip that his force was weak, and ‘we should seek honourable terms with the enemy’. Meanwhile Parma warned Philip that the flat river barges to carry his troops across the channel could not meet the Armada at sea. “If we come across any armed English or Dutch rebel ships they could destroy us with the greatest ease”. 

Engaging the Spanish fleet

Yet the Armada set sail and was sighted off the Lizard on 19^th July. It moved in a crescent formation up the channel. Lord Howard, the English commander, had 200 ships in total, though only 34 were naval warships, and much of the fleet was at first trapped in Plymouth by the tide. Drake was Vice Admiral, having contributed 12 privateer vessels. When two of the Armada ships, San Salvador and Nuestra Señora de Rosario, collided, and were abandoned, Drake turned his ship back to loot them. This was characteristic of him, of course, and it angered colleagues. The result was to cost the English fleet a whole day to re-group and catch up. They were chasing the Armada up the channel. But they were wasting ammunition, with their guns mainly out of range and having little effect. Spanish vessels sunk? Zero.

The Armada waited at anchor at Gravelines, near Dunkirk, the nearest point of the Spanish Netherlands to England. But Parma had not yet arrived. Worse, Dunkirk was blockaded by 30 Dutch rebel vessels (called flyboats) under Admiral Justinus of Nassau. These effectively barred the way for Parma’s barges in the shallow waters. So it was impossible to make the rendezvous. In any case Parma’s force had been decimated by illness and he had only 16,000 troops available.

Duke of Parma

On 28 July eight English ships were loaded with pitch and explosives, set alight, and sent into the Armada off Gravelines. Some of the Spanish vessels slipped their anchors. These fireships were not as effective as the ‘Antwerp hellburners’ used by the Dutch against Spain a few years earlier. A few Spanish ships ran aground on the shoals of that coast. But still no vessels had been sunk.

Then the wind changed direction and pushed the Armada largely intact into the North Sea. Despite the myth of it being scattered, it was in reasonable order at this stage. The English ships, being low on ammunition, followed at a respectful distance. Drake actually raided one or two easy transports, not armed warships, for prizes. Typical behaviour similar to the earlier - but much more costly - Rosario affair, when Drake, ordered to shadow the Armada, had turned off his light and left his station. Howard buried his doubts, reluctant to court martial a naval hero during a national crisis.

Tilbury speech 

On 8^th August Elizabeth addressed some of the 4000 troops Lord Dudley had gathered at Tilbury. This speech “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman…” has gone down in history as a defiant national call to arms. But it was a full 10 days after the Gravelines clash. The Armada was by then way up in the North Sea in Scottish waters. Easier to sound tough once the enemy has withdrawn. And in one of her many mean spirited acts, the queen ordered immediate demobilisation of the army to save less than £800 a day.

The Armada later ran into severe storms across the north of Scotland and on the Irish Atlantic coast, where many of the ships were wrecked. Despite this, most of the fleet returned home to Spain. The ships themselves were understandably in a poor state, and many of the sailors sick and hungry. Yet the English sailors were starving too. Illness also caused them to die by the thousand. Scandalously they also went unpaid. Some English commanders used their own funds to try and alleviate suffering.

Legacy

England decided to offer a return fixture next year. 150 ships and 23,000 men were sent under Drake to attack Spain. 40 of his vessels were captured or sunk, and many thousands of men were killed or died of disease. The chance to strike a decisive blow against a weakened Spanish navy was lost. This catastrophic failure almost emptied the English treasury. Another disaster that for some reason many of us didn’t learn anything about in school.

Historian Robert Hutchinson points out that some smaller Spanish efforts in 1596 and 1597 were also stymied by storms. Token landings in Cornwall and Kinsale, to assist Irish rebels, all failed. Finally in 1604 the new king James I ended an expensive, near 20 year, period of hostilities. England stopped supporting the Dutch rebellion in the Netherlands, and agreed to end privateer attacks on Spanish shipping, as Philip had wanted in 1588. Spain accepted that official hopes of restoring Catholicism to England were over. This ended a period when a leading power refused to accept the legitimacy of the English state, a recurring problem in Europe and beyond up to the present.

Sir Francis Drake

This was the legacy of the episode. So was the Armada beaten by a brave queen and her swashbuckling sailors fighting against superior forces? No. It was defeated by an incoherent strategy, bad planning, the help of Dutch allies - and of course, appalling weather. And the conflict lasted a further 16 years. This is far from the narrative of Elizabeth’s spinners, the myth that lots of us learned as children, and many still believe today.

Indeed it’s a dangerous picture to paint. By ignoring inconvenient facts, it sets us on a collision course with reality. It exaggerates what Britain did, and can do, as a small nation, taking an imagined glorious national past of buccaneering derring-do as a model for the present and future. Fit only for fantasists it's false equivalence writ large. Historian Robert Saunders perceptively writes, ‘History is the mask worn by ideology when it wants to be mistaken for experience.’ He is absolutely right.

1558 onwards – ‘the Great Elizabethan Age’

Tudor monarch Henry VIII’s daughter by Anne Boleyn has been lauded through English history. As Queen Elizabeth I she’s viewed as presiding over a golden age. An age of national growth, prosperity and of military and naval triumphs. In the 44 year reign of Good Queen Bess, England saw a flowering of literature, theatre and music. A time of strong, confident and decisive government, with Treasury books balanced and the country’s reputation soaring. Surely this was a highpoint in England’s history, tied to a growing sense of national consciousness and identity.

Well we can accept the last point, though this process more accurately began with her grandfather, King Henry VII, first of the Tudor monarchs. And the Queen did have several virtues - a sound instinct for survival, being intelligent and well educated for the time (she spoke several languages, including French, Italian and maybe even Welsh). She also picked and kept good advisers. But personal flaws and policy errors surely leave a pretty negative balance. The problem is her perceived pluses are at the heart of a supposed age of peace and harmony.

Elizabeth as a Princess

Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 on a sea of optimism. The reign of her half-sister (Bloody) Mary had been a failure bordering on disaster. The new 25 year old queen was greeted in London as a saviour with a big fanfare of pageants, music and general merriment. She impressed with her first speeches. But by the end of her reign she left a starving country, heavily indebted, an army still fighting in Ireland, and the Spanish war not yet ended. Contemporary sources suggest many people were relieved at her death. For some years they had been wishing her gone.

Scottish and Irish challenges

Elizabeth's coronation procession 

Scotland was her first test. Mary of Guise, a leading French Catholic, married Scots King James V, but he died in 1542 leaving a baby daughter, Mary, later Queen of Scots. Guise became Regent, spending her life trying to keep Scotland as a pro-French, Catholic nation for her girl. But she faced the full force of the Protestant Reformation. The Scots Lords, vying for power by 1560, asked for Elizabeth’s help against Mary of Guise in Leith, the port of Edinburgh. A fleet and army were duly sent but Anglo-Scots losses were heavy. In the event Mary died and France agreed to end its fortification of Edinburgh. But the problem in various forms kept coming back.

Ireland presented perhaps a bigger, and certainly a more attenuated, issue. Successive military campaigns against different rebellions proved expensive in money and human life. In one period Elizabeth’s scorched earth policy there left at least 30,000 men, women and children to starve. She thought the Irish ‘rude and barbarous’. Poor commanders such as favourites like the earl of Essex, were appointed. At the end of her reign, fighting continued in the north against Hugh O’Neil. Peace only came after she died.

Policy failures 

Another policy failure was with the Dutch Protestants. Habsburg Spain had extended its influence in the Spanish Netherlands and along the French channel coast. In 1585 Elizabeth promised the Dutch military aid. But she sent scant support under Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, and held secret talks with Spain. Then she publicly pulled the rug from Leicester, ruining his standing and credibility with the Dutch. She blocked resources for her troops fighting in the Netherlands and never ensured supplies for any military or naval engagements. She left thousands of starving soldiers and sailors each time. Advisers like Walsingham had to use their own funds for State security. She seemed relaxed at seeing them bankrupt.

Lord Robert Dudley

She took shares in the booty from privateers. The actions were always deniable. She was lucky in that respect. But after the Armada in 1588 England suffered a series of costly naval failures which for some reason many of us never heard about in school. It was a major drain on the country and weakened Elizabeth’s popularity.

In later years after 1590, the so called ‘second reign’ was increasingly difficult. Key ministers had died. In a floundering economy Gloriana granted trading or product monopolies, rather than using Parliament to raise money. A cost free system of patronage, but it encouraged price fixing and other abuses. The result? To enrich a few courtiers at public expense. The tax burden on a struggling population of 4m (pretty well the same as in Roman times) rose. The high costs of Irish and French wars were compounded by poor harvests, bringing years of famine.

What of the supposed cultural bonus - the flowering of literature, theatre and music during Elizabethan times? Most of this happened towards the end of her reign, or in that of her successor James I. But while she enjoyed dancing, the queen seemed largely uninterested in Shakespeare, Marlowe or Byrd. She certainly didn’t support any of the arts, either with her own or state money. She was just there when it happened. To credit her with a cultural blooming is like praising Queen Victoria for railways, a development in which she had played no part.   

Personal weaknesses  

Elizabeth suffered from smallpox in 1562, when she was 29. This must have had a lasting effect as she tried to cover the scars all her life. She was short sighted, had a fear of the dark, and was narcissistic (stories of her extravagance with jewellery and her thousands of dresses are legion). She was short tempered and often indecisive, as in signing or not signing Mary Queen of Scots’ death warrant, and with an exasperating habit of avoiding commitment on numerous issues.

Elizabeth painted after her death

She had a mean and vengeful streak, too. Her dog in a manger attitude to Lettice Knollys after she had married Dudley, earl of Leicester, was obvious, as was her humiliation of Leicester in the Netherlands. And there was a cruel element to her makeup. In 1569, after a Catholic rising in the North, 750 rebels were executed on Elizabeth’s orders.

Successes?

So with all these policy and personal failings, were there any positives? Yes. A religious settlement, drafted by her advisers and launched at the start of her reign, was undoubtedly her main real achievement. A pragmatist in such affairs, she was a Protestant, who was declared illegitimate by the Catholic Church. Partly for home and partly for wider consumption, she sought a solution that Parliament would support, without riling Catholics too much. She wouldn’t tolerate extremes, such as with the more radical Puritans. The result was a Protestant Church of England with her as Governor, but with several Catholic elements, including vestments, later the subject of some religious strife.

The Act of Supremacy became law in May 1559. Public officials had to swear an oath of allegiance, heresy laws were repealed, and a new Act of Uniformity made church attendance and an adapted Book of Common Prayer compulsory. But ‘recusants’ and moderate non-conformists were not really punished harshly. The religious settlement led to peace, and spared England the debilitating and horrific religious conflicts seen in other European countries, notably France.

But in total, the public view of her reign remains far too charitable. Historians JE Neale and AL Rowse of an earlier generation viewed Elizabeth’s reign as a golden age of progress. Worryingly, they also idealised her personally. She could do little wrong. Her unlovely traits were ignored or perhaps excused as the result of stress. More recent historians have swung the other way.