The Bewitching
This 16th-century tale tells the true story of a woman accused by her neighbours of witchcraft. Visiting her new neighbours in the Fenland village of Warboys, Alice Samuels meets the daughters of Squire Throckmorton, gifted the position by Sir Henry Cromwell. One of the girls, Jane, is experiencing terrifying fits. Jane points to Alice and calls her an ‘old witch’.
The story is narrated by Martha, a servant whose mother was a nun and who looks after the Throckmorton children. Martha senses that there is some kind of ‘wrongness’ in the household. The son, Gabriel, is in disgrace and is being sent away, and nobody knows why. She watches all these goings-on but feels her position does not entitle her to say anything. The master is strangely keen to ask her counsel. The fits spread to the other girls, and the doctor says the cause is ‘sorcery’. More ‘signs’ of Alice’s witchery arise, many of them simply tricks the girls use to get attention, and many simply made up. Even the lice in Bessie’s hair are a ‘sign’. High-born as they are, their word is taken as evidence.
This is a credible account of a conspiracy theory gaining traction and snowballing, but Martha never actually denies the craziness, so the reader is swept along. It’s a bygone time, when life centred around the master’s great house. The local abbey lies in ruins, the black-hooded monks with their silver incense burners gone, the nuns told to get married. The old herbs are considered witchery, the old prayers popery. The dynamics between the servants, their masters and the children make the story all the more tragic.
It is well written, and there are some lovely agricultural metaphors. I found it effective that the story was told from a servant’s point of view.
