{"id":37957,"date":"2024-10-30T10:16:24","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T09:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/30c2dcbe-3a68-4621-ab6f-239cc28876e5"},"modified":"2024-10-30T10:53:12","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T09:53:12","slug":"the-last-woman-sentenced-to-be-executed-for-witchcraft-in-england-may-have-survived-new-evidence-suggests","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/rss_feed\/the-last-woman-sentenced-to-be-executed-for-witchcraft-in-england-may-have-survived-new-evidence-suggests\/","title":{"rendered":"The last woman sentenced to be executed for witchcraft in England may have survived, new evidence suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 30 October 2024 at 09:16 AM<\/p>

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The last person in England thought to have been sentenced to death for witchcraft may have survived, a historian has said.<\/p>

Records show that Alice Molland was sentenced at Exeter Castle in Devon in 1685 for \u2018bewitching\u2019 three of her neighbours.<\/p>

She was thought to have been executed the same year, following the execution of three other alleged witches \u2013 the \u2018Bideford Three\u2019 \u2013 in Exeter in 1682.<\/p>

But Professor Mark Stoyle, a historian at the University of Southampton, says that he\u2019s uncovered evidence that \u2018Alice\u2019 was never \u2018Alice\u2019 at all \u2013 and the real woman survived.<\/p>

Professor Stoyle said: \u201cCourt records from the 17th century<\/a> were written in Latin, and in this form it would only have taken a single mis-stroke of the clerk of the court\u2019s pen to transform \u2018Avicia\u2019 (Avis) into \u2018Alicia\u2019 (Alice).<\/p>

\u201cAlmost nothing is known about Alice\u2019s life and attempts to illuminate it have failed. So when I saw reference to an \u2018Avis\u2019 Molland in local archives \u2013 knowing Molland was an unusual name in Exeter \u2013 I was struck by its close resemblance. I immediately asked myself; did \u2018Alice\u2019 Molland ever exist? Is Alice, in fact, Avis?<\/p>

\u201cIndependent of my investigations, fellow historian Peter Elmer also noted this possibility in an article footnote, which spurred me on to try and find out more.\u201d<\/p>

Through studying local records, Professor Stoyle has found out more about Avis\u2019 life. She married Cornelius Molland at Exeter Cathedral in 1663. The couple had several children. In 1667, they were brought before city magistrates accused of enticing a boy to steal tobacco, but the case was dismissed.<\/p>

It’s possible this alleged crime was due to the family struggling to make ends meet, because although Cornelius was a freeman of the city, the family were listed among the poorest. Sadly, over a period of ten years, three of their children died and at some point, Cornelius also died, leaving Avis a widow.<\/p>

\u201cBy the time of the 1685 trial, Avis Molland was a poor, middle aged widow, who was burdened with loss \u2013 precisely the kind of woman who was likely to be accused of witchcraft in early modern England,\u201d Professor Stoyle said.<\/p>

There is also circumstantial evidence connecting Avis with imprisonment at Exeter Castle. She is noted in court records in 1685 testifying against a woman accused of predicting an uprising of 2,500 weavers in a civil rebellion spreading across the West Country. It is possible Avis overheard this woman boasting about the insurrection while visiting her husband who was imprisoned in the castle for rioting. If this is the case, then it places Avis in jail there around the time of \u2018Alice\u2019s\u2019 trial.<\/p>

If \u2018Alice\u2019 was Avis, then the sentence of death was not carried out. Parish registers show that Avis Molland died in 1693. This would make the Bideford Three \u2013 Temperance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards and Mary Trembles \u2013 the last people executed for witchcraft in England.<\/p>

Professor Stoyle said: \u201cThe lack of records for Alice\u2019s life, and the circumstantial evidence in support of the case for Avis being our condemned woman points to a witch that lived! But the truth is, despite all my diligent searching, we may never know for sure whether history has got it wrong.\u201d<\/p>

Professor Mark Stoyle\u2019s full article \u2018In Search of Alice Molland: An English Witchcraft Will o\u2019 the Wisp\u2019 is due for publication in the November edition of The Historian<\/em>, the magazine of the Historical Association.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n