Bewitched - Or Victims Of A Rumour
By Peter Rook

In 1598, three people from the Fenland village of Warboys were hanged because it was believed they were witches. More than 400 years on, new evidence has finally uncovered the extraordinary truth behind the mystery.

When nine-year-old Jane Throckmorton started having convulsions, her father Robert suspected it could be the onset of epilepsy.

Looking on in anguish at the writhing body of his daughter before him, Robert called in the local doctor for the village of Warboys.

The girl claimed that a cat was ripping the skin from her face with its claws. But there was no cat in the room.

The fits were so bad he had to tie her to the bed for her own safety.

Doctor Barrow carried out a thorough examination, but ruled out epilepsy.

He suggested, instead, that a spell had been cast on her.

He had seen the symptoms too many times before. The sensation of insects crawling beneath the skin, and the body in spasms so dramatic that the head almost touched the heels.

They were symptoms that sometimes led to insanity and sometimes death.

She had become bewitched.

His verdict gained substance when the village misfit, Alice Samuel, was accused by Jane of “looking like a witch” and being the cause of her illness.

If ever there was a woman who bore a striking resemblance to a witch it was poor Alice. She kept herself to herself, owned a cat, was aged about 60, with a heavily wrinkled and gnarled face, a hairy lip, protruding teeth and a witch-like squeaky voice.

Before long, Alice, her husband John, and daughter Agnes were dragged to the gallows to be hanged as the witches of Warboys. Their trial had lasted barley a morning.

They were among the 40,000 witches that were killed in Britain and Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries.

For the medieval people who saw their family members convulse, as Robert Throckmorton had witnessed, the ancient dark art of witchcraft was the only possible explanation.

But today, more than 400 years on, scientists and historians now believe they have solved the mystery of what caused such terrible, painful spasms, which had nothing to with witchcraft.

The answer could lie in the drug that powered the psychedelic revolution of the ’60 – LSD.

It is thought that the convulsions were brought on by eating rye contaminated with the fungus called ergot,from which LSD is derived.

In short, Jane Throckmorton was suffering from a very bad acid trip.

In medieval times, this early form of LSD poisoning defied all normal symptoms of illness. It did not appear to be infectious and, conversely, victims had been in isolation, but still fell prey to it.

In a world where medical knowledge was scant, witchcraft seemed the only explanation.

But professor of behavioural sciences Linnda Caporael, of Rensselar Polytechnic Institute, New York, believes ergot poisoning is the only explanation.

She said: “The optimum conditions for ergot growth are warm, rainy conditions in marshy ground.

“The convulsions experienced by Jane, and later by her sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, mirrored the side effects of ergot consumption.”

A historian has also found that a large proportion of witchcraft trials in Europe were concentrated in the regions where rye was usually grown.

In Britain, witchcraft trials were rarely held outside of Essex and East Anglia, where rye was extensively grown.

It was in the 1580s that rye became a staple crop in East Anglia– at the time Robert Throckmorton and his five daughters arrived in Warboys.

It is believed the family must have eaten bread that was made with rye containing ergot.

By the time the local vicar came to pray with the family, all five of the sisters had gone into uncontrollable fits.

Family friend Lady Cromwell went to visit Alice Samuel.

When Lady Cromwell returned home she died suddenly.

The suggestion that Alice was a witch gathered momentum and the Throckmorton family lured her to their home and imprisoned her.

When Alice grazed her skin, drawing blood, the girls accused her of allowing evil spirits to feed on her blood and demanded she admit she was a witch.

She refused, but the girls told the vicar she had confessed. She and her husband and daughter were hauled before the Bishop of Lincoln.

Told they would go free if they confessed, all three said they were witches.

As self-confessed witches they were handed over to the Huntingdon assizes and sentenced to death.

It has taken modern science 400 years to finally prove that they were innocent.