Rough injustice: what really happened at a witch trial?

A spell behind bars

The magistrate would call Mary into his study and ask her about the suspected crime. If Mary was a respectable person, and had good answers, she could maybe go home, and the case would be dropped. But if the magistrate thought there was any vaguely plausible reason to send her for formal trial, he would do that, as a duty to his community. The constable would take Mary to the village lock-up and arrange for her transport by cart to prison in a local town. Prisons were haunted by rats and disease and prisoners had to pay for their own food and bedding, so each day Mary spent in jail she was creating a debt – most witchcraft suspects tended to be poor and weren’t able to pay. If she was unlucky, she might catch jail fever and die before her case came to trial. If she was luckier, she would get her day in court.

The trial would be held in the prison town. The judges would ride out from London and hold ‘assize’ courts in each of the biggest settlements, judging criminal cases. Even if Mary had been accused by her neighbours, she would be prosecuted in the monarch’s name, and the queen’s judges would ultimately decide her fate. However, before that, the actual decision about whether she was guilty would be taken by two juries: a grand jury of 24 men and a petty jury of 12 men.

First, the charges against Mary would be drawn up in an ‘indictment’, a document sent to the grand jury. If the grand jury thought the indictment contained a plausible case, they would pass it on to the petty jury. If the grand jury was not happy with the indictment – maybe there was a mistake in the date of the crime, or the crime described wasn’t covered by the law against witchcraft – they could reject the indictment and set Mary free. However, most cases went on to petty jury trial.

The petty, or little, jury is the one we still have in criminal cases in Britain today, but the juries who judged witchcraft cases in the 16th to 18th centuries were all male. They were 12 reasonably respectable and wealthy citizens. When they received the indictment from the grand jury they would file into the courtroom – which might be a public hall or a market building – and be sworn in, pledging to judge the case fairly. Mary would then stand before them, facing the judge, and her indictment would be read out. She would plead “guilty” or “not guilty”. If she said “guilty”, no trial would take place. Mary would be sent out to wait for her judgment. If she said “not guilty”, the trial would begin.

The judge would ask Mary directly about the crime. She would not be represented by a lawyer, but by herself: a big challenge for a village woman unused to public speaking. The judge might ask: had she put a spell on the pig? Was she a witch? If not, why was she being accused? Mary’s answers would be vital – she would have to convince the jury. After about 10 minutes – most trials took only that amount of time – the judge would ask the jury for their verdict. They would confer, and then deliver the verdict. Imagine the hush in court, and Mary’s terror. Witchcraft cases were frightening and humiliating. Spectators would come into the courtroom to see the supposed witch, to chat about her crimes, or even to shout abuse and accusations. Mary would be upset, intimidated and anxious about the trial’s outcome.

From pillory to post

If Mary was to be found guilty of magically killing her neighbour’s pig, she would be imprisoned for one year. During that time, she would make four appearances at the pillory. Pillories were wooden frames in market places and village greens into which convicted criminals were inserted. People would be encouraged to view and scorn them, and even throw rotten fruit or mud. After a year’s jail and pillory Mary would be freed, but she would still have to pay her jail fees or find someone else who could. Then she could go home.

But if she re-offended and was convicted again, she would be executed by hanging for that second witchcraft offence. And imagine for a moment that the first crime Mary was accused of involved killing a child, not a pig. That was murder, and that meant she would be hanged rather than imprisoned. In 1604, there was a change in the law, and Mary would be hanged for most types of witchcraft – even killing a pig. The sentence would be delivered by the judge after he heard the jury’s verdict. He would wear a special cap and speak solemnly and horrifyingly to the convicts, telling them how they would be executed.

Elsewhere, anti-witchcraft laws applied in Scotland as well as England and Wales, although there were differences in their content and in trial processes. If Mary lived in Scotland, she might be tried by a local court or by the authority of the Scottish monarch’s council. In at least one case, the king himself questioned witches and determined their fate.

Marion Gibson is professor of Renaissance and magical literatures at the University of Exeter, and author of several books on witchcraft history, including The Witches of St Osyth: Persecution, Murder and Betrayal in Elizabethan England (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials (Simon & Schuster, 2023)