Bideford Witches 1682

 The story of the **Bideford Witches** is one of the most tragic and significant chapters in English legal history. In 1682, three poor, marginalized women from the North Devon town of Bideford became the last group of people in England to be convicted and hanged for the crime of witchcraft.

At a time when witch-hunting had largely died down across the country and most trials ended in acquittal, a perfect storm of local superstition, social anxiety, and malicious gossip led to their deaths.

## The Accused

The three women at the center of the trials were social outcasts. They were elderly, impoverished, and survived by begging for food or selling small goods like apples:

 * **Temperance Lloyd:** An abandoned wife, beaten down by unremitting poverty, who had faced and been acquitted of similar charges years prior.

 * **Susanna Edwards:** A widow born out of wedlock, who had been left entirely alone by her family.

 * **Mary Trembles:** An unmarried woman who had been marooned in Bideford following the deaths of her itinerant Irish parents.

## The Accusations and the "Evidence"

In the summer of 1682, the town of Bideford was recovering from years of hardship, including the fallout of the English Civil War, plague outbreaks, and extreme food shortages. Tensions were high, and the community was looking for scapegoats.

### The Magpie and the Pins

The panic began in July 1682 when a local shopkeeper, Thomas Eastchurch, complained that Temperance Lloyd was tormenting a local woman named Grace Thomas. Grace had been suffering from severe internal pains. When she crossed paths with Temperance in the High Street, Temperance asked after her health; that night, Grace's pains worsened dramatically.

To modern ears, the "evidence" brought to the local magistrates sounds absurd:

 * **The Familiar:** A magpie allegedly fluttered and tapped at Grace Thomas’s window. In local folklore, this was immediately branded as the Devil in disguise, sent by a witch as a familiar spirit.

 * **The Poppet:** Lloyd was accused of fashioning a leather image of Grace and pricking it nine times to inflict pain.

### The Shaking Fit

Shortly after Temperance was locked up, Mary Trembles and Susanna Edwards were denounced after another local woman, Grace Barnes, blamed them for an illness.

During the interrogation at the local Guildhall, a man named Anthony Jones noticed Susanna nervously wringing her hands and accused her of "tormenting some person." When he returned to the room later, he suddenly cried out that he had been bewitched, fell into a violent shaking fit, and collapsed unconscious for half an hour.

Terrified and exhausted, Mary Trembles confessed to witchcraft but blamed Susanna Edwards for leading her astray. Susanna, in turn, confessed and pointed the finger back at Temperance Lloyd.

## The Trial and Execution

Because Bideford did not have the legal authority to execute capital sentences, the three women were marched across Devon to the Exeter Assizes at Rougemont Castle.

They were tried before Sir Thomas Raymond. Overwhelmed, confused, and likely terrified out of their wits, the women did not deny the charges. Even on the scaffold, Temperance Lloyd did not fully recant her confession.

 * **The Sentence:** They were found guilty of sorcery and compacting with the Devil.

 * **The Execution:** On **August 25, 1682**, Temperance, Susanna, and Mary were hanged at the Heavitree gallows just outside Exeter.

 * **The Burial:** Their bodies were thrown into a quicklime pit in unconsecrated ground near the gallows to deny them a Christian burial.

*(Note: Another Devon woman, Alice Molland, was sentenced to death for witchcraft in Exeter in 1685, making her technically the final individual sentenced, though few records of her actual execution survive. The Bideford three remain the last fully documented group hanged in England.)*

## Legacy and Remembrance

For centuries, the Bideford witches were remembered through the distorted lens of the court records or as local ghost stories. Today, however, historians view them as victims of "othering"—persecuted simply for being old, poor, and unprotected.

 * **The Rougemont Plaque:** A commemorative plaque stands at the ruins of Rougemont Castle in Exeter, dedicated to the Devon Witches "in the hope of an end to persecution and intolerance."

 * **The Bideford Audio Trail:** The town of Bideford features a walking audio trail hosted by the Burton Art Gallery, allowing people to walk the streets and use their smartphones to hear the history of Temperance, Susanna, and Mary where it actually happened.

?