The Manningtree Witches: 'the best historical novel... since Wolf Hall'

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In retrospect, it’d have been pretty easy to cop an accusation, and the book highlights the cases of those who accused, a type of kill-or-be-killed of the time. Torture produced confessions but not the truth. Blakemore’s clear agenda is to give these silenced women a voice, and in fiction, she can thrust herself into Rebecca’s consciousness. The discipline of history doesn’t allow that, which often leaves it gesturing toward the silencing without being able to give it voice. The big difference between the societal norms of 17th-century England and the notoriety of “Witch-finder General” Matthew Hopkins is the sheer scale of the horrors he enacted. Hopkins and his cohorts were responsible for the deaths of more “witches” within a two-year period than had been killed in the previous 100 years. Between 1644 and 1646, Hopkins is believed to have secured the convictions of around 300 women, leading directly to their execution. To put this in context, approximately 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials, and 20 were executed.

Here is my very unchristian thought: I wish I had something horrible to hand to put into her mouth. I imagine I am lowering a wriggling mouse between her lips by its pink tail, then clamping my hand down over it. Or no. A jar of hot horses’ piss, a fistful of rabbit droppings, blood—pig’s blood—hot from the slice— Manningtree has traditionally claimed to be the smallest town in England, but its 2007 population of 700 people in 20 hectares [3] and the 2011 census population for the civil parish of 900 are much higher than the 351 population of Fordwich, Kent. [4] However, it is believed to be the smallest town by area. [5] AK Blakemore has won the Desmond Elliott prize for best debut, with her historical novel about the English witch trials of the 17th century, The Manningtree Witches, praised by judges as a “stunning achievement”.

The Manningtree Witches" by A. K. Blakemore, written in beautifully crafted literary prose, describes the Witch Craze of the English Civil War and is interspersed with excerpts from the Essex Witch Trials of 1645. Rebecca West's coming-of-age included accusations of witchcraft, imprisonment, teenage angst, stirrings of romance and the reading and understanding of the gospel. Her character development, as well as the detailed descriptions of other women and girls accused of bewitchment, was masterfully penned. This debut work of literary fiction from poet A. K. Blakemore is a read I highly recommend. The novel’s strength lies in its realistic character portrayals and in its lyrical description of the sights, sounds, smells, squalor, and poverty of 17th century England. Superstition, fear, Puritan fervor, lies, petty jealousies, and betrayal coalesce to scapegoat destitute women living on the fringes of society. The tension gradually builds up as layer upon layer of “evidence” against the women accumulates until the unthinkable happens.

There’s men, and then there’s people.” So remarks one jaded widow to another, a little way into The Manningtree Witches. The two are merely gossiping, but the aside is slyly placed, for the man who afterwards happens into view will more than prove her point. AK Blakemore’s first novel is a fictional account of the Essex witch trials, and though it brims with language of arresting loveliness, it speaks plainly when it must.One other recent witch novel, Rivka Galchen’s “ Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch,” wrestles with some of these same questions, turning on the intellectual battle between early scientist Johannes Kepler and those who had arrested his mother. Galchen sought to give a voice to a woman whose true nature can only be gleaned in occasional spaces in the court records. Seventeenth-century England was a world turned upside down. Arguments over religion erupted in violence. Calvinists wanted a stripped-down Christianity wholly determined by literal readings of the Bible. The Church of England had adopted Protestant doctrines but still incorporated Catholic rites. Calvinists believed in the equality of believers but not women, whom they saw as responsible for original sin. Without any legal representation, the women were arrested, interrogated and kept prisoner in the cells of Colchester Castle before being tried at the Assize courts in Chelmsford. Fifteen of them were executed in Chelmsford, but the four named above were brought to Manningtree to be hung here on the village green before a gathered crowd.

Artist susan pui san lok was one of the artists selected and she chose to recreate Old Knobbley in her work 'A Coven A Grove A Stand' which explores ideas of history, myth, collective witnessing and resistance. The following is excerpted from Fear and Loathing, the sound walk created as part of this project, which you can dowload from Discovering Britain: What follows must be hinted at with care, since Blakemore here spans a historical void, but it is persuasive and satisfying. Crucial to the proceedings is a grimly fascinating depiction of Hopkins, and one that strips away the aggrandisements of popular myth to show us an etiolated zealot who can’t decide what offends him most – the baseness of his own nature or the knowledge that a woman has seen and understood it. What he denounces as sin, Rebecca tells him at a climactic moment, is “the filth you like to play in”. There are people, and then there are men. And lastly, because where [women] think they can command, they are more proud in their rule, and more ready in setting such work on whom they may command, than men. And, therefore, the Devil works mostly to make them Witches: because they, upon every light displeasure, will set him on work, which is that which [Satan] most desires Richard Bernard (1627) A Guide to Grand Jury Men, Divided in two books.If you love beautifully written historical fiction, I’d definitely recommend giving this one a read. As Imogen Simon argues strongly in her documentary, these eight women of Manningtree were victims of misogyny as much as religious fervor. The highlighting of misogyny is correct and is often overlooked in discussions of witch-trials. Eastern England of the 1640s was a Puritan stronghold, a society in which women were considered culturally inferior to men. It was a culture in which women could be accused so readily of being witches.