BookShared
  • MEMBER AREA    
  • Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy

    (By Malcolm Gaskill)

    Book Cover Watermark PDF Icon Read Ebook
    ×
    Size 29 MB (29,088 KB)
    Format PDF
    Downloaded 696 times
    Last checked 16 Hour ago!
    Author Malcolm Gaskill
    “Book Descriptions:

    By spring 1645, two years of civil war had exacted a dreadful toll upon England. People lived in terror as disease and poverty spread, and the nation grew ever more politically divided. In a remote corner of Essex, two obscure gentlemen, Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne, exploited the anxiety and lawlessness of the time and initiated a brutal campaign to drive out the presumed evil in their midst. Touring Suffolk and East Anglia on horseback, they detected demons and idolators everywhere. Through torture, they extracted from terrified prisoners confessions of consorting with Satan and demonic spirits.

    Acclaimed historian Malcolm Gaskill retells the chilling story of the most savage witch-hunt in English history. By the autumn of 1647 at least 250 people--mostly women--had been captured, interrogated, and hauled before the courts. More than a hundred were hanged, causing Hopkins to be dubbed "Witchfinder General" by critics and admirers alike. Though their campaign was never legally sanctioned, they garnered the popular support of local gentry, clergy, and villagers. While "Witchfinders" tells of a unique and tragic historical moment fueled by religious fervor, today it serves as a reminder of the power of fear and fanaticism to fuel ordinary people's willingness to demonize others.

    Google Drive Logo DRIVE
    Book 1

    The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689

    ★★★★★

    Jonathan Healey

    Book 1

    KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money

    ★★★★★

    John Higgs

    Book 1

    The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown

    ★★★★★

    Anna Keay

    Book 1

    Witches, a tale of Scandal, Sorcery and Seduction

    ★★★★★

    Tracy Borman

    Book 1

    The Witches: Salem, 1692

    ★★★★★

    Stacy Schiff

    Book 1

    Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape

    ★★★★★

    Jeremy Harte

    Book 1

    Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now - As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It

    ★★★★★

    Craig Taylor

    Book 1

    Britain after Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070

    ★★★★★

    Robin Fleming

    Book 1

    Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom

    ★★★★★

    Tom Holland

    Book 1

    Thin Air: A Ghost Story

    ★★★★★

    Michelle Paver

    Book 1

    The Blade Artist (Mark Renton, #4)

    ★★★★★

    Irvine Welsh

    Book 1

    The Glutton

    ★★★★★

    A.K. Blakemore

    Book 1

    1000 Years of Annoying the French

    ★★★★★

    Stephen Clarke