witchcraft 🧙‍♀️

• 1542 witchcraft act Henry VIII made it a capital offence
• 1735 Witchcraft act, no longer a capital offence, punished with fines or imprisonment
• why did belief become widespread?

  -significant economic problems

  -falling wages amd rising unemployment

  -increased tension in small communities

  -widespread fear of vagabonds

  -protestant ideas became more popular and more people feared the old religion of Catholicism

  -James I's book Daemonologie in 1597

  -gunpowder plot worried the king

  -English civil wars 1642 created a climate of fear and people were more attracted to superstitious ideas
• Matthew Hopkins Witchfinder general:

  -in 1645 he was employed by a JP in Essex to uncover witches

  -victims often forces into confession as he would starve them and deprive them of sleep

  -led to around 300 investigations and around 112 executed by hanging
• around 1000 people executed for witchcraft between 1542 and 1736, most common type of execution being hanging
• why did accusations of witchcraft decline?

  -Hopkins influence ended after he died in 1647

  -enlightenment ideas became more common, demanding a more scientific approach to life

  -Royal society established in 1660

  -higher standards of evidence became expected in courts