Joan Guppie: Bill. (Catalogue ref: STAC 8/149/24)
When people were accused of witchcraft by their neighbours sometimes those people might take it upon themselves to enact justice upon the supposed witches. In this source Joan Guppie tells the story of violence that was done to her by her neighbours, on suspicion that she was a witch. December, 1605.
(Note: a Bill was a legal document submitted by somebody who was claiming an injustice had been committed against them.)
Transcript
- To the Kings most excellent Majesties
- Humbly complaining sheweth unto your most excellent Majesty your poor dutiful and obedient subjects, Thomas Guppies of South Perrot in the county or Dorset and Joan
- Guppie his wife. That whereas your said subject Joan Guppie hath all her time lived in good report and honest estimation amongst her neighbours, so it is may it please
- your most excellent Majesty that Robert Gibbs, Judith Gibbs, Richard Shepard and Margaret Abington, wife of Andrew Abington, upon the nine and twentieth day of
- June last being causeless malice against your said subject, did plot practice and combine to bring an imputation [accusation] upon your said subject Joan Guppie that she
- should be a witch. Thereby to bring your said subject Joan into contempt and disgrace amongst her honest neighbours. And the more notoriously to defame and abuse
- your said subject Joan. They well knowing that your said subject Joan Guppie, in and upon the said nine and twentieth day of June last past, did appoint and intend
- to ride into South Perrot aforesaid unto Crewkerne being a market town within the said County of Somerset to buy and provide such provision as these defendants
- thought fit for themselves and their families. They the said Robert Gibbs Margaret Abingdon the wife of Andrew Abingdon, gent, and Judith Gibbes, out
- of their said inveterate [long-standing] and causeless hatred and malice towards your said subject Joan Guppie and desiring by all means to make some mischievous
- revenge upon your said subject Joan Guppie, although she never gave them any cause of hatred or malice [wish to harm] against her, and thinking and imagining
- that they could never hold a fitter time to effect their pretended revenge and malice towards your said subject Joan Guppie, then at such a time and place
- that none might see or know of their barbarous and uncivil demeanours intended as aforesaid, did confederate conspire [secretly plan] and agree between them
- selves to watch and waylay [stop] your said subject Joan Guppie as she should pass towards Crewkorne aforesaid then and there to work and
- effect their cankered [corrupt] hatred and malice as aforesaid. And your said subject Joan Guppie according to her intent and purpose aforesaid did in and upon
- the said nine and twentieth day of June last past ride towards Crewkerne aforesaid intending then and there to have dispatched her needful occasions as aforesaid
- whereupon the said confederates according to their pretended plot and confederacy, did in and upon the said nine and twentieth day of June last past
- being armed and arrayed with long piked staves, swords, daggers and other warlike weapons and having all provided great overgrown brambles
- to tear and rend the flesh of the said Joan Guppie in riotous and unlawful manner assemble themselves together at or near unto the
- street of South Perrot in the said county, and did then and there beset and waylay your said subject Joan Guppie and did then and there in most
- riotous and barbarous manner set upon and assault your said subject, being in God’s peace and your Majesty’s, riding towards Crewkerne as aforesaid.
- And the said Robert Gibbs giving the first onset came unto your said subject Joan Guppie, and took hold by the bridal of the beast whereon she rode
- and stayed the same, and the said Judith came also and assaulted your said subject Joan Guppie and did with pins prick your said subject, and thrust
- them into the body and legs of your said subject Joan Guppie and took the said great overgrown bramble and drew them about the face of your said
- subject Joan Guppie, and did therewith rent and tear the flesh from the face of your subject Joan Guppie saying that your said subject Joan Guppie was a
- witch, and that they came for the blood of your subject Joan Guppie, and they would have it and her life also before they left her