Encyclopedia of the British Parliamentary System
Encyclopedia of Religion, Faith, and Beliefs
The Witchcraft Act of 1563 and Women: England, Scotland and the European Witch Hunts
The Witchcraft Act and Women
The history of women burned under English and Scottish law belongs to the wider history of religious authority, criminal law, witchcraft, heresy and the government of belief in early modern Britain. Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, women could be subjected to judicial execution for offences classified as heresy, witchcraft, treason or murder, and in particular circumstances burning formed part of the legally authorised punishment. The history cannot be separated from the transformation of religious doctrine into public law after the English Reformation and the Scottish Reformation, when Parliament, Crown, church courts and secular courts increasingly treated religious and supernatural offences as matters affecting the security of the realm.
In England, an important legal foundation was the statute De Heretico Comburendo, enacted in 1401 during the reign of Henry IV. It authorised the burning of persons convicted of certain forms of heresy. The statute was directed principally against religious dissent rather than witchcraft, but it established a powerful precedent: the English state could employ death by fire as a judicial punishment when religious belief was classified as a threat to the established order. Burning therefore existed in English law centuries before the Elizabethan witchcraft legislation. The religious character of the punishment remained important throughout the Tudor period, particularly during the successive religious settlements under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
The connection between women and burning became particularly visible during the reign of Mary I, when Protestant heretics were executed under the revived heresy laws. Between 1555 and 1558, during the Marian persecutions, hundreds of Protestants were burned at locations including Smithfield in London, Canterbury, Colchester, Oxford, Lewes and other towns. Among the victims were women. Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer and numerous lesser-known men and women entered the historical record through these executions. The Marian burnings were executions for religious heresy and not witchcraft prosecutions, but they demonstrate the legal environment in which religious conformity, criminal punishment and death by fire could be joined together.
The Witchcraft Act of 1542, enacted during the reign of Henry VIII, created a specific statutory framework against witchcraft, conjuration and related practices. It treated certain magical practices as a felony. The legislation was subsequently repealed under Edward VI in 1547, leaving a legal gap concerning the punishment of witchcraft. Under Elizabeth I, Parliament again legislated on the subject. The resulting statute of 1563, formally 5 Elizabeth I c.16, An Act agaynst Conjuracions, Inchantmentes and Witchecraftes, became one of the principal foundations of English witchcraft prosecutions during the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The preamble of the 1563 Act described the alleged practices in the language of the period: “Invocacions and Conjuracions of evill and wicked Spirites,” “Wytchecraftes,” “Enchantmentes,” “Charmes” and “Sorceries.” It declared that such practices endangered the persons and goods of subjects and were contrary to the laws of Almighty God. The statute established a hierarchy of punishments. Where witchcraft or sorcery resulted in the death of a person, conviction could lead to death as a felon, with the offender losing the privileges of sanctuary and clergy. Where magical practices allegedly caused a person to be wasted, consumed or lamed, or destroyed goods or cattle, a first conviction could bring one year’s imprisonment, public appearance in the pillory once each quarter, and public confession of the offence. A second conviction could bring the death penalty.
The last known English execution for witchcraft occurred at Exeter in 1685, while the last English witchcraft trials occurred at Leicester in 1717
The Act also criminalised alleged magical attempts to discover hidden gold and silver, recover lost or stolen property, provoke unlawful love, or injure persons and property. The statute thus transformed a broad range of supernatural accusations into categories capable of entering the machinery of English criminal justice. Witchcraft was no longer merely a matter of ecclesiastical suspicion or neighbourhood belief; under the statute, specified forms of alleged supernatural conduct could become offences prosecuted by the state.
The role of Bishop John Jewel in the passage of the 1563 Act has become an important subject of historical discussion. Jewel preached before Elizabeth I in the period around 1559–1560, and he referred to witchcraft in the context of the religious controversies of the period. In a letter to the Protestant reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli, written in late 1559, he also mentioned witchcraft among his complaints concerning the religious condition of England. The eighteenth-century historian John Strype, in his Annals of the Reformation, later treated Jewel’s sermon as significant evidence of pressure for stronger action against witches. The direct causal connection, however, has been disputed by later historians, who point out that Jewel’s references occurred within a wider Protestant polemic against Catholicism and religious disorder. The historical record therefore preserves both propositions: Strype’s attribution of influence to Jewel and the subsequent questioning of whether his remarks were actually the immediate cause of the legislation.
The legal backbone for the 1563 Scottish Witchcraft Act—and the execution of thousands of women—was a literal reading of Exodus 22:18: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” 1 Timothy 2:12 (“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet”) and Ephesians 5:22 (“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands”) were enforced as absolute state law, not as optional spiritual advice.
The Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 belonged to the same year but developed within a different political and religious structure. The Scottish Parliament enacted the statute during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, following the Scottish Reformation of 1560. Witchcraft and consulting with witches became capital offences. The new Protestant establishment was organised around the concept of a godly commonwealth, in which public authorities and ecclesiastical institutions were expected to suppress conduct believed to offend divine law. Witchcraft was therefore treated not simply as private superstition but as an offence against the religious and political order.
Scotland subsequently became one of the most heavily persecuting regions in Europe in relation to witchcraft accusations. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, thousands of people were accused, with women constituting approximately four-fifths or more of the accused. Particularly vulnerable were elderly women, widows, poor women, women living without strong household protection, and persons involved in neighbourhood disputes. Accusations frequently emerged from conflicts concerning illness, livestock, food, money, domestic quarrels, failed remedies and unexplained deaths. Once such accusations entered the judicial system, local suspicion could acquire the authority of a formal investigation.
The Scottish system developed an institutional relationship between the kirk session, the presbytery and secular courts. Interrogation could involve severe pressure, including sleep deprivation and examination of the accused for supposed Devil’s marks. The belief that the Devil could establish a physical mark upon a witch gave investigators a supposed material sign of an otherwise invisible crime. The accused woman could consequently be examined not merely for what she had done but for a physical indication interpreted as evidence of an invisible relationship with Satan.
The reign of James VI of Scotland gave the persecution an additional royal dimension. In 1590, following the stormy voyage associated with his marriage to Anne of Denmark, James became deeply interested in witchcraft investigations. The North Berwick witch trials in East Lothian became one of the most important Scottish witchcraft prosecutions of the period. James subsequently wrote Daemonologie, published at Edinburgh in 1597. Written as a dialogue between Philomathes and Epistemon, the work presented arguments for the reality and prosecution of witchcraft. It treated dealings with the Devil as an offence of the highest religious seriousness and reflected contemporary assumptions about the particular susceptibility of women to demonic deception.
The Scottish experience was substantially more lethal than the English one. Scotland’s Witchcraft Act of 1563, enacted after the Scottish Reformation, operated within a religious culture that regarded witchcraft as an existential threat to a godly society. Between roughly 1550 and 1700, nearly 4,000 people were accused in Scotland; approximately 85 percent were women, and between one-third and one-half of those accused were executed. The evidence indicates that most convicted witches were strangled and their bodies subsequently burned.
When James became James I of England in 1603, the Scottish royal experience entered the English monarchy. British Parliament enacted the Witchcraft Act of 1604, which expanded the criminal law concerning witchcraft. The new legislation strengthened the punishment of alleged dealings with evil spirits and treated certain forms of magical practice as capital offences even where the prosecution did not establish the physical destruction contemplated by the Elizabethan statute. The movement from the 1563 Elizabethan Act to the 1604 Jacobean Act therefore represents an important development in the legal history of witchcraft.
The English witch-hunts of the seventeenth century produced notorious cases. The Pendle witch trials of 1612, held at Lancaster, involved accusations against members of several families in the Pendle district of Lancashire. Ten people were ultimately executed. The East Anglian witch-hunts of the 1640s, during the political and religious upheaval of the English Civil War, produced another concentration of prosecutions. Matthew Hopkins, who styled himself the “Witchfinder General,” operated principally in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and neighbouring counties. His activities, together with those of John Stearne, contributed to a large number of accusations and executions. The methods associated with this period included interrogation, searches for alleged Devil’s marks and prolonged examination of suspects.
English witchcraft executions were generally carried out by hanging, rather than by burning alive. The distinction is important because the wider European and British historical memory frequently combines several different practices under the image of the witch burned at the stake. In Scotland, convicted witches were commonly strangled, and their bodies subsequently burned, whereas in England the principal judicial punishment for convicted witches was hanging. Burning alive in England belonged principally to other legal categories, particularly heresy and certain forms of treason, rather than constituting the normal punishment under the English Witchcraft Acts.
The intellectual and legal consequences of James’s writings travelled beyond Britain. English colonists carried European demonological assumptions and English legal traditions into New England. In Massachusetts, Connecticut and other colonies, witchcraft was incorporated into legal and theological systems derived from English precedents. The Salem witch trials of 1692–1693 in Massachusetts therefore belonged to a transatlantic history rather than appearing as an isolated colonial phenomenon. Cotton Mather, Increase Mather, and other Puritan ministers interpreted witchcraft through a theological framework in which Satanic activity could be understood as a direct assault upon Christian society. The Salem prosecutions resulted in the execution of nineteen people, most of them women, while another accused person, Giles Corey, was pressed to death after refusing to plead.
The history of women under these legal systems has to be situated alongside the wider religious conception of female authority. Early modern European Christianity contained scriptural passages that were repeatedly invoked in constructing social relations between men and women. Exodus 22:18, traditionally rendered “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” became one of the most frequently cited biblical foundations for anti-witchcraft thought. Passages such as 1 Timothy 2:12 and Ephesians 5:22 were also interpreted within early modern societies as statements concerning female religious authority and marital subordination. These texts operated within institutions in which theology, family structure, public morality and criminal law were closely interconnected.
A different legal and civilizational tradition appears in the ancient Manusmṛti, or Mānava-Dharmaśāstra. Its chronology, authorship, and historical formation belong to the ancient Indian Dharmaśāstra tradition rather than the early modern European world. The text contains an explicit statement concerning the honour accorded to women in 3.56: “Yatra nāryastu pūjyante ramante tatra devatāḥ”—where women are honoured, there the gods rejoice. Verses 3.57–3.58 continue the discussion by connecting the welfare of families with the condition of their women. The text also recognises strīdhana, property associated with women, within its rules concerning marriage, gifts and inheritance. These provisions form part of a much larger system governing dharma, household, inheritance, kingship, punishment and social order.
The comparison is historically significant precisely because the two systems organised religious authority differently. In the early modern English and Scottish kingdoms, Christian theological propositions concerning heresy, Satan, witchcraft and religious conformity could become statutory offences and could lead to imprisonment, corporal punishment and execution. In the Dharmaśāstra tradition, the status of women was articulated within a different jurisprudential structure involving dharma, household obligations, property, kinship and ritual order. The two systems should therefore be studied through their actual texts, institutions and historical applications rather than through modern ideological categories.
The Scottish persecution continued long after the great trials of the sixteenth century. The last known execution for witchcraft in Scotland was Janet Horne, executed at Dornoch in 1727. The political climate had by then changed substantially. Growing scepticism concerning supernatural prosecutions, developments in natural philosophy, changing standards of evidence and the increasing reluctance of central authorities to sustain witchcraft prosecutions weakened the legal foundations of the persecutions. The British Parliament eventually enacted the Witchcraft Act 1735, which abandoned the earlier criminal assumption that witches possessed supernatural powers and instead treated claims to magical powers as forms of fraud and imposture. The legislation was enacted in 1735 and came into force in subsequent years, marking the end of the statutory witchcraft regime.
The history of women burned in England and Britain therefore extends beyond the narrow category of witches. It encompasses the relationship between religious doctrine and criminal law, the power of Parliament to define spiritual offences as crimes, the authority of monarchs such as Elizabeth I and James VI and I, the institutional role of Protestant churches, the vulnerability of socially marginal women, the transformation of neighbourhood accusations into judicial proceedings, and the transmission of European demonology across the Atlantic. Burning, hanging, strangulation, imprisonment, pillory and public confession belonged to different parts of this legal order. The record preserves a civilization in which questions concerning God, the Devil, female conduct, religious conformity, property, family and public security could become questions of criminal jurisdiction. The final abolition of witchcraft as a statutory crime in the eighteenth century did not erase that history. It marked the termination of a particular legal conception of supernatural crime after more than three centuries in which religious belief, political authority and judicial punishment had operated together.
Sarvarthapedia Conceptual Node: Women, Witchcraft and Judicial Punishment
Women Burning in England
Connects the history of women, judicial execution, heresy, witchcraft, treason, religious authority and criminal law. This is the principal node from which the wider network develops.
Witchcraft
See also: Witchcraft Act 1542, Witchcraft Act 1563, Witchcraft Act 1604, Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563, Witchcraft Act 1735, English Witch Trials, Scottish Witch Trials, Demonology, Devil’s Mark, Witch-Hunting.
Heresy
See also: De Heretico Comburendo, Religious Persecution, Reformation, Protestant Reformation, Catholic Reformation, Marian Persecutions, Burning at the Stake, Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction.
Judicial Burning
See also: Burning at the Stake, Heresy Executions, Treason in English Law, Execution Methods, Public Punishment, Capital Punishment in England.
English Legal Cluster
De Heretico Comburendo
See also: Henry IV, Heresy, Burning at the Stake, Medieval English Law, Ecclesiastical Courts, Religious Uniformity.
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- Yale’s ties to slavery and slave trade: Text of University Statement
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Witchcraft Act 1542
See also: Henry VIII, English Reformation, Treason, Felony, Witchcraft Legislation, Repeal under Edward VI.
Witchcraft Act 1563
See also: Elizabeth I, 5 Elizabeth I c.16, John Jewel, English Parliament, Conjurations, Sorcery, Charms, Evil Spirits, Capital Punishment.
Witchcraft Act 1604
See also: James I, James VI, Daemonologie, Demonology, English Witch Trials, Devil Worship, Witchcraft Prosecution.
Witchcraft Act 1735
See also: Decline of Witch Trials, Enlightenment, Scepticism, Natural Philosophy, Fraud and Imposture, Repeal of Witchcraft Laws.
Tudor Religious Transformation
Henry VIII
See also: English Reformation, Witchcraft Act 1542, Act of Supremacy 1534, Dissolution of the Monasteries, Religious Treason.
Edward VI
See also: Protestant Reformation in England, Repeal of Witchcraft Act 1542, Book of Common Prayer, Religious Transformation.
Mary I
See also: Marian Persecutions, Protestant Martyrs, Burning of Heretics, Smithfield, Oxford Martyrs, Religious Restoration.
Elizabeth I
See also: Elizabethan Religious Settlement, Witchcraft Act 1563, John Jewel, English Parliament, Protestant England, Religious Conformity.
John Jewel Cluster
John Jewel
See also: Bishop of Salisbury, Elizabethan Religious Settlement, Protestant Polemic, Witchcraft Act 1563, John Strype, Peter Martyr Vermigli.
John Strype
See also: Annals of the Reformation, John Jewel, Elizabethan England, Historiography of Witchcraft, Reformation Historiography.
Peter Martyr Vermigli
See also: John Jewel, European Protestant Reformation, English Reformation, Reformed Theology.
Scottish Witchcraft Cluster
Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563
See also: Mary, Queen of Scots, Scottish Reformation, Presbyterianism, Kirk Sessions, Scottish Witch Trials, Capital Punishment, Witchcraft Act 1735.
Scottish Reformation 1560
See also: John Knox, Church of Scotland, Presbyterianism, Godly Discipline, Mary, Queen of Scots, Religious Transformation.
John Knox
See also: Scottish Reformation, Church of Scotland, Presbyterianism, Godly Commonwealth, Religious Discipline.
Kirk Sessions
See also: Church of Scotland, Scottish Witch Trials, Godly Discipline, Local Courts, Witchcraft Investigations.
Scottish Witch Trials
See also: Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563, North Berwick Witch Trials, James VI, Janet Horne, Demonology, Witch-Hunting.
James VI and I Cluster
James VI of Scotland
See also: James I of England, North Berwick Witch Trials, Daemonologie, Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563, Witchcraft Act 1604, Royal Demonology.
James I of England
See also: Union of the Crowns 1603, Witchcraft Act 1604, Daemonologie, English Witch Trials, King’s Bench, Religious Authority.
Daemonologie
See also: James VI, Demonology, North Berwick Witch Trials, Witchcraft Act 1604, Devil’s Pact, Devil’s Mark, Swimming Test.
North Berwick Witch Trials
See also: James VI, Daemonologie, Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563, Demonology, Torture, Royal Witchcraft Policy.
English Witch-Trial Cluster
English Witch Trials
See also: Witchcraft Act 1563, Witchcraft Act 1604, Pendle Witch Trials, East Anglian Witch Trials, Matthew Hopkins, Witchcraft Prosecutions, Women Accused of Witchcraft.
Pendle Witch Trials 1612
See also: Lancashire, Pendle Hill, English Witch Trials, James I, Witchcraft Act 1604, Family Accusations, Execution by Hanging.
East Anglian Witch Trials
See also: English Civil War, Matthew Hopkins, John Stearne, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Witchcraft Prosecution.
Matthew Hopkins
See also: Witchfinder General, East Anglian Witch Trials, John Stearne, Devil’s Mark, Swimming Test, English Civil War.
Witchfinder General
See also: Matthew Hopkins, English Witch Trials, Witchcraft Investigation, Interrogation, Witchcraft Evidence.
Gender and Social Structure Cluster
Women Accused of Witchcraft
See also: Widows, Elderly Women, Poor Women, Social Isolation, Neighbourhood Conflict, Female Criminality, Gender and Law.
Women and Religious Authority
See also: 1 Timothy 2:12, Ephesians 5:22, Women’s Religious Roles, Church Authority, Female Education, Marriage, Patriarchal Legal Structures.
Women and Criminal Law
See also: Witchcraft, Treason, Heresy, Petty Treason, Murder, Coverture, Women’s Legal Status, Capital Punishment.
Widows in Early Modern England
See also: Women and Property, Poor Women, Parish Society, Witchcraft Accusations, Strīdhana, Marriage Law.
Biblical and Christian Textual Cluster
Exodus 22:18
See also: Witchcraft, Biblical Law, Mosaic Law, Witchcraft Prosecution, Christian Biblical Interpretation, Old Testament Law.
1 Timothy 2:12
See also: Women in the Church, Female Religious Authority, Pauline Epistles, Early Christianity, Christian Gender Theology.
Ephesians 5:22
See also: Marriage, Christian Household, Wives and Husbands, Pauline Epistles, Gender Relations, Christian Social Ethics.
New Testament and Women
See also: Mary Magdalene, Virgin Mary, Women Disciples, Women in Early Christianity, Pauline Christianity, Women in the Church.
Mary Magdalene Cluster
Mary Magdalene
See also: Jesus, Women Disciples, Resurrection Narratives, New Testament, Gospel Tradition, Western Christian Tradition.
Mary Magdalene and Prostitution
See also: Luke 7, Mary Magdalene Tradition, Papal Tradition, Gregory the Great, Western Medieval Christianity, Female Sanctity.
Mary, Mother of Jesus
See also: Virgin Mary, Theotokos, Christian Mariology, Female Sanctity, New Testament, Women in Christianity.
Mary Magdalene and Virgin Mary
See also: Female Religious Identity, Women in Christianity, Sexual Morality, Virginity, Repentance, Female Sanctity, Christian Iconography.
Manusmṛti
Manusmṛti
See also: Mānava-Dharmaśāstra, Dharmaśāstra, Dharma, Rājadharma, Strīdhana, Marriage, Inheritance, Women in Ancient India.
Yatra Nāryastu Pūjyante
See also: Manusmṛti 3.56, Women in Hindu Tradition, Household Dharma, Female Honour, Family, Dharmaśāstra.
Manusmṛti 3.56–3.58
See also: Women and Family, Female Honour, Household Prosperity, Dharma, Ritual Order, Women in Dharmaśāstra.
Strīdhana
See also: Women’s Property, Marriage Gifts, Inheritance, Manusmṛti, Dharmaśāstra, Hindu Law, Women’s Economic Rights.
Comparative Civilizational Cluster
Women in European Religious Law
See also: Canon Law, Heresy, Witchcraft, Marriage Law, Church Authority, Women’s Religious Authority, Capital Punishment.
Women in Ancient Indian Law
See also: Manusmṛti, Dharmaśāstra, Strīdhana, Marriage, Inheritance, Household Dharma, Rājadharma.
Religious Text and State Law
See also: Biblical Law, Dharmaśāstra, Canon Law, Witchcraft Legislation, Religious Courts, Secular Courts, Theocracy.
Religion and Criminal Law
See also: Heresy, Witchcraft, Blasphemy, Apostasy, Religious Persecution, Capital Punishment, State Religion.
Sacred Authority and Political Authority
See also: Divine Law, Kingship, Parliament, Church and State, Rājadharma, Canon Law, Religious Legislation.
Transatlantic Cluster
English Witchcraft Law in Colonial America
See also: New England, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Connecticut Colony, Puritanism, Witchcraft Legislation, James I, Daemonologie.
Salem Witch Trials 1692–1693
See also: Massachusetts, Puritanism, Cotton Mather, Increase Mather, Witchcraft, English Legal Tradition, Colonial Law.
Cotton Mather
See also: Salem Witch Trials, Puritan Theology, Witchcraft, Magnalia Christi Americana, Memorable Providences, Demonology.
New England Witch Trials
See also: English Witchcraft Law, Salem, Puritanism, Colonial America, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Witchcraft Prosecutions.
Decline of Witchcraft Prosecution
Decline of Witch Trials
See also: Witchcraft Act 1735, Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution, Natural Philosophy, Scepticism, Evidence Law, Judicial Reform.
Witchcraft Act 1735
See also: British Parliament, George II, Decline of Witchcraft, Fraudulent Witchcraft Claims, Enlightenment, Repeal of Witchcraft Laws.
Janet Horne
See also: Scottish Witch Trials, Dornoch, 1727, Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563, Last Witchcraft Execution in Scotland.
Core Sarvarthapedia Conceptual Web
Religion → Law
Biblical Interpretation → Religious Authority → Parliamentary Legislation → Criminalisation → Trial → Punishment
Religion → Women
Biblical Texts → Female Religious Authority → Church Regulation → Social Discipline → Women’s Legal Position
Witchcraft → State
Popular Belief → Accusation → Ecclesiastical Investigation → Secular Trial → Conviction → Execution
Witchcraft → Gender
Social Isolation → Neighbourhood Conflict → Female Accusation → Witchcraft Investigation → Judicial Prosecution → Execution
Monarchy → Witchcraft
James VI → North Berwick Trials → Daemonologie → Royal Demonology → James I → Witchcraft Act 1604
England → Scotland → America
English Reformation → Scottish Reformation → Witchcraft Legislation → James VI and I → English Colonies → New England → Salem
Heresy → Witchcraft
Religious Deviance → Heresy Law → Burning → Demonology → Witchcraft Law → Criminal Courts → Capital Punishment
Manusmṛti → Women
Dharma → Household → Women → Honour → Strīdhana → Marriage → Property → Family Order
Bible → Women
Scriptural Text → Interpretation → Church Authority → Female Religious Role → Marriage → Social Regulation
Comparative Civilizational Law
Manusmṛti → Dharmaśāstra → Hindu Legal Tradition
Bible → Canon Law → Christian Legal Tradition
Witchcraft Acts → English Criminal Law → Early Modern State
Scottish Witchcraft Act → Presbyterian Discipline → Scottish Criminal Law
Colonial Codes → New England Law → Salem Witch Trials
Primary See-Also Network
Women Burning in England
See also: Witchcraft in England; English Witch Trials; De Heretico Comburendo; Witchcraft Act 1542; Witchcraft Act 1563; Witchcraft Act 1604; Witchcraft Act 1735; Heresy in England; Marian Persecutions; Women and English Criminal Law; Burning at the Stake; James VI and I; Daemonologie; Matthew Hopkins; Pendle Witch Trials; Scottish Witch Trials; Salem Witch Trials; Manusmṛti; Strīdhana; Women in Ancient India; Women in Christianity; Mary Magdalene; Virgin Mary; Biblical Law; Religious Authority and State Law.
