Hanging was the punishment given for being convicted of causing death by witchcraft under the Statute of Elizabeth I. In the reign of James I, practising witchcraft was enough to cause a person to be hung. As a result of this, some 82 Essex people ended their lives at the end of a rope. During the reign of Elizabeth I, imprisonment was also used as a form of punishment, and at least 50 men and women are known to have died of 'gaol fever' (most probably the plague) while under sentence or waiting trial at the Assizes.
During the years 1560 - 1680, somewhere in the region of 2300 people were involved in cases of witchcraft in Essex, either as suspect or victim. Of these, over 500 were prosecuted at the Assizes, Quarter Sessions or Ecclesiastical courts. This total however probably represents less than two thirds of all those believed to have actually been accused during the period. The most intense areas of prosecution were in the northern part of Essex, with one particularly violent outbreak at Manning tree. The towns of Chelmsford, Braintree and Halstead also had high percentages of witchcraft prosecutions. Mainly though, the prosecutions spread across the whole county. Of the 420 villages in Essex at the time, over half had at least one involvement with a witchcraft case. The main reason that out of all the counties in England, Essex had the highest rate of witchcraft prosecutions is mainly down to one man, the 'Witch finder General' Matthew Hopkins. Hopkins established himself as a self - appointed witch finder - general in the Essex parish of Manning tree in the mid - 1640's. Hopkins and his two assistants, John Stearne and Mary Phillips toured the villages of Essex, investigating accusations of witchcraft. In the space of little more than a year, Hopkins brought over 100 women, typically old, poor and physically unattractive to the gallows in Essex. The fact that the women he charged with witchcraft fitted so closely to people's conventional idea of what a witch should be like, doubtlessly did much to help him in succeeding with his many convictions
By the end of the 16th century, most educated Europeans believed in witches who performed harmful magic.
Due to the isolation of most of the Essex villages, the primitive conditions and lack of education, people were extremely superstitious and believed that witches could cast magic spells over their families, animals and crops to cause them harm. These superstitious beliefs were often encouraged by the church, which taught people about the devil and his sins. The church told people that witches were in league with the devil and were therefore evil. This superstitious belief in witchcraft and the devil was undoubtedly one of the main accusations that appeared in witchcraft trials in Essex.
The few facts that can be gained from surviving records show us that in Hatfield Peverel, the fiercest accusations took place between families who had been living in the village for at least 40 years. The four major families involved in the witchcraft prosecutions; Duke , Frauncis, Osborne and Waterhouse had all been present in Hatfield Peverel in 1524, as were many of their victims families, such as the Wilmotts, Hawkins, Highams, Augurs and Wardolls. In the village of Boreham, only one family connected with witchcraft, the Pooles, had been assessed in 1524.
As previously mentioned, many of those who were accused of being witches were fairly poor. By studying the records from the Essex Quarter Sessions, we can also see that the majority of those accused were women, who were considerably older than the accusers and who were usually widowed or spinsters. Of the witches convicted in Essex, 95% of them were women.
In conclusion, the main factors which appear to have influenced the convictions of Essex witches during the 16th and 17th centuries are economics, superstition and religion, social factors and personal factors of the accused, such as their age, sex and marital status.
