That Was Not Justice...!

I often find really interesting stories while I'm on the Ancestry site...some are gruesome, as when I found two of my people had been hung, drawn and quartered...some make me smile...especially the Wills and the extra careful way small amounts of monies were left for specific purposes...'one shilling for each grandchild to buy fur mittens' was one which appealed to me...and there are many records of events I've never heard of before, which send me scurrying onto the web for details...

Then today I found a witch.

In 1651 in Connecticut, in a small community of Pilgrims which they'd named Windsor...there was a Thomas Gilburt living with his wife Lydia...they had a lodger, Henry Stiles, who was a life-long bachelor...it was Henry who I'd been looking for.

They all three lived in harmony with no rows or cross words...but one day Thomas and Henry were outside and Thomas's musket went off by accident and shot poor Henry stone dead.

Thomas went before the court and was found guilty of killing, but not murdering Henry...he was fined 20 pounds and told he couldn't own another firearm for the period of one year.

Three years later...Lydia was suddenly accused of causing Henry's death by using witchcraft...hauled before the pious holier than thou Pilgrims and asked to explain why she was in league with Satan himself poor Lydia must have been frightened witless.

The church elders felt they had good enough reason for their accusations, because Lydia was well-known for using herbals as cures...the plain fact that her husband had confessed to the accidental shooting of Henry three years previously seemed to have passed them by.

So what happened to Lydia...did she hang from the tree in the town square while Thomas looked on in horror...did she escape and go and live far away...or did she and Thomas runaway from the town together to make something of a new start elsewhere...

Historians have puzzled and argued about Lydia's fate...most of them relying on the Will which Thomas left that doesn't mention her at all, which they say point to her having been hanged...but she could have predeceased him and died of natural causes or disease...others say she was found guilty and was due to be hanged but somehow escaped...

There is an annual ceremony held in the present day in the town of Windsor Connecticut...the church bell tolls once for each of the eleven women who did meet their deaths by hanging for practicing the 'infernal art of witchcraft'...then roses are placed at the bottom of the tree in the square with one additional white rose, placed to remember all the children who were left motherless when their mothers were killed for 'consorting with Satan'

Maybe we'll never know for certain what happened to Lydia...I hoped she escaped and made a new life for herself but somehow I doubt that.

[Hidden]

Lovely story as usual vashti xx

[knitter]

Another interesting picture in words...thanks.

[hufferpuffer]

Very interesting history Vashti! isn't it facinating, I would probably have been hung up as a witch because I love herbs 😇 x

[peege]

Sadly it's still the same for women in some cultures. Forbidden to have an opinion, speak out, stand up for themselves, wear what they like or even leave the house without permission. They are merely chattels for childbearing.

Still no justice in some countries for women.

A few hundred years ago men could sell their wives at Smithfield if they were fed up with them!

Cripes, not so long ago a group of punk singers were thrown in jail in Russia.

Vashti, I love your literary ramblings. By now you've enough for a little book? I know a lovely publishing agent 😃

[Azure_Sky in reply to peege]

My Grandad said you could sell your wife and children as recently as the early 20th Century. He might have been having me on though.

[Nikkers]

Just think where we would be today without all these so-called "witches". Many of todays medicines are based on the discoveries they made using herbs etc.,

[Hidden]

Great story Vasthi I very much enjoy reading them and along with the others, look forward to your book

[casper99]

Facinating story, as usual vashti. I'm so glad I wasn't born in those days, lol.