Next year marks the 300-year anniversary of a landmark event in human achievement:
“The last execution for witchcraft in England took place in 1716, when Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth were hanged.”
By the early Enlightenment, Europe had progressed to the point of shedding many superstitions and the often-bizarre cultural, political, and legal practices based upon them.
Yet, 300 years later, I wonder if I should initiate a claim of reparations. After all, who knows where the Hicks clan might be now if we hadn’t been so unjustly persecuted?
I’m sorry! Or we’re sorry … or something. I’ll send you a check.
Is it in the mail yet, Ed? (And I thought you Canadians were supposed to write “cheque.”)
And I’m supposed to believe she wasn’t actually a witch because why? 🙂
So maybe I have some witchery traits too, Bret?
I know, “checks” & “cheques” – I translated for you Yanks.
Er, funny you haven’t received it yet.
…Ahem.
I seen this page within my family history,when my grandfather was creating book here.. paul.. through my mothers side… yes stephen i feel that some things seem witchy traits,but as long as gift of god and not developed through demonation.. it was such horrible fate for our ancestors.
There is no evidence that the 1716 trial took place. There is only a catchpenny pamphlet, with close verbal similarities to other contemporary frauds. The details are lifted from older pamphlets. Neither contemporary newspapers nor books attacking such
trials mention the recent supposed cases.
Im a Hicks too Related to the ancestor Robert Hicks that wae one of the first settlers in america i came here to see about my family in general.
Further to David Harley’s comments – Check Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 (1968 reprint), pp. 375-82, where the authenticity of the relevant pamphlet, along with a couple of other late witchcraft trial pamphlets, is severely questioned. The crucial point is that the conviction of Jane Wenham in 1712 provoked a massive media reaction – no other source from 1716 mentions the Hicks case. So I wouldn’t hold my breathe until the reparations came.
Further to David Harley’s comments – check out Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 (1968 reprint), pp. 375-82 where the 1716 pamphlet is discussed along with a couple of other spurious late English witch trial pamphlets. The crucial point is that the conviction of Jane Wenham for witchcraft in 1712 provoked a massive media controversy – the conviction of two witches in 1716, one of them a nine-year-old girl, would have done the same, but there’s no mention of the case in contemporary sources other than the trial pamphlet. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the reparations.
Robert Hicks is also my ancestor, on my maternal grandmothers side. Her mom was Carrie Hicks.
I was just on ancestry.com and came to find that Steven Hicks is my 10th great-grandfather. So, here I am.
I’m a hicks to and also related to Robert!
Witches lives matter too!