But that wasn't what the Act was about

Jan 13, 2007 16:03


A moderately interesting article, Campaign to pardon the last witch, jailed as a threat to Britain at war, rather weakened by a failure to understand what the Witchcraft Act of 1735 actually was - 'a person who pretended to have the power to call up spirits, or foretell the future, or cast spells, or discover the whereabouts of stolen goods was to be punished as a vagrant and a con artist, subject to fines and imprisonment'. A conviction under the Act did not involve any belief that the accused had been trafficking with Dark Powers. I can see that because it was called the Witchcraft Act people might easily have got the wrong idea, especially given the way the case was reported at the time. Which is no excuse for perpetuating said wrong idea.

The enforcement of this Act was extremely haphazard in the C20th. The Duncan case looks like a classic case of 'use whatever legal stratagem you can' (cf Al Capone and tax evasion), in the context of wartime fears that she had somehow gained knowledge which she should not have had access to involving a breach of national security.

law, war, witches, witchcraft, unexamined-assumptions, witchhunts, journalism

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