| Description Of Item | Clipped article by George Henry Alexander Clowes (H.A. Clowes) for the British Medical Journal in response to a previous article on ‘A Harveian tercentenary’ in a scrapbook from the collection of John Ritchie relating to a William Harvey’s involvement in the trial of the Lancashire witches of the Pendle witch trials in 1634. Clowes traces the legal proceedings through archival research in the Records Office: in a letter dated May 16th 1634 by Sir William Pelham of Brocklesby; evidence given by Bishop John Bridgeman of Chester from an assessment of the womens’ ‘intimate relations with the devil’; a letter from Secretaries of State Henry Montagu (Earl of Manchester, Lord Privy Seal), Sir John Cooke and Sir John Francis Windebank to His Majesty’s Surgeons Alexander Baker and Sergeant William Clowes directing them to choose midwives to inspect the bodies of the women according to instructions from the King’s physician Mr. Dr. William Harvey; a certificate signed by William Clowes and Baker sent to the Council of Whitehall detailing this inspection on the named women Janet Hargraves, Frances Dicconson, Mary Spencer and Mary Johnson. H.A. Clowes also discusses chief witnesses of the trial Edmund Robinson and his 10-year-old son Edmund, who made a recantation of his evidence upon examination by justice of the peace for Middlesex George Long, and a meeting of the Council of Whitehall where under-sheriff Robert Maudesley – who escorted the women from Lancaster -- was discharged from attendance. |