7 Royal Witches
Show notes
Witch! The word struck terror in the hearts of many a medieval man. It whispers of people, mostly women, using dark magic and even selling their souls to Satan to get what they want. Forcing men to fall in love with them and cursing their enemies. Sorceresses have been feared since ancient times. And while their certainly have been purveyors of magical arts throughout history, it was often healers, midwives, girls dabbling in divination games and innocent people who were accused of the most heinous of enchanted crimes. Between 1300 and 1850, nearly 40,000 people in Europe were victims of witch trials. And 14,000 met their end on the gallows or the pyre. Some of them came from the highest ranks of society, even the royal family. In fact witchcraft was a convenient accusation to level against inconvenient royal women. As courts operated on a notion of guilty until proven innocent, and it was infuriatingly difficult to prove that you hadn’t danced in the moonlight, uttered a curse or poisoned the king, the stigma of sorcery was strong. Let’s meet 7 women from history who were accused of being Royal Witches. Valentina Visconti, Duchess of Orléans, 1371 – 1408 Veronika Desinićka, Countess of Celje, ? – 1425 Joan of Navarre, Queen of England, 1368 – 1437 Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Duchess of Bedford, 1415 – 1472 Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, 1400 – 1452 Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England, 1437 – 1492 Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, 1501? – 1536 Sources: Hollman, G. (2020). Royal witches: witchcraft and the nobility in fifteenth- century England. First Pegasus Books hardcover edition. New York, Pegasus Books.
Music: Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns, Public Domain, Performed by Kevin MacLeod
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