Witches of Essex

Seldom have I been saddened by lampposts.

In Chelmsford in Essex, an artist has painted white-on-black images and words in memory of the many victims of witch trials which took place there in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Our Pendle Witches might be more famous, but the alleged witches of Essex were more numerous. The accusations of causing harm or death by witchcraft were often borne from ignorance or economic and social rivalry, while judges and magistrates needed to be seen to be protecting the populace and demonstrating their loyalty to the state. The data we have on numbers, locations, accusations and verdicts tell us much of those tumultuous centuries and the hardship common people faced, and rather little about actual witchcraft. I suspect that a great many lies were spoken at those trials, though few came from the mouths of the accused. When we look for evil instead of Christ, we find it; when we look for Christ Himself, He finds us. 

For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd. Zechariah 10:2

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