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Court System: Rebecca Weste, Elizabeth Clarke, And Anne Leech

831 Words4 Pages

During this series of court proceedings and examinations by the upper level of the court system, Elizabeth Clarke, Anne Weste, Elizabeth Gooding, Rebecca Weste, Hellen Clarke, and Anne Leech were all accused of witchcraft. Of these six women, only Elizabeth Gooding pleaded innocent to the accusations of witchcraft. Anne Weste had previously been convicted for witchcraft and was now a repeated offender, which carries a harsher sentencing. In the examinations, we see that these women are built up to be witches based on the English stereotype of witches. All of the women are accused of and admit to having a familiar spirit which they nurse with their own bodies. They’re all seen as social outcast based on physical appearance, social circle, …show more content…

They’re accused of and admit to having sex and a contract with the devil and to associating with other witches, the other accused women. All six of these women also are accused of having cursed a person or an animal so as to cause harm. Out of the six women, five are executed and only Rebecca Weste is acquitted by the jury of life and death. From this series of long and highly detailed trials, we can see that the English legal system did allow for the execution of witches, but also for people to be acquitted of the crime of witchcraft. We see the acquittal with Rebecca Weste and with her mother, Anne Weste’s first offence of committing witchcraft. With this knowledge, we can start to see the role that the English legal system may have played in keeping the volume of executions for witchcraft lower than that of continental Europe. By giving the accused people a legitimate trial process and requiring evidence to prove guilt, the English may have been able to keep the death toll down by a significant …show more content…

This all goes back to the idea of having sufficient evidence to convict a person accused of witchcraft. If during any step of the legal process the notion came forth that there was not sufficient evidence to convict, then the accused witch was to be set free. Looking into the cases of the one-hundred twenty-four people tried in Suffolk in 1645, we see that the evidence apparently was not enough for them all to be convicted and executed for the crime of witchcraft and that first-time offenders could be let off without

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