Manningtree: The Bad Beginning
March 1645.
Manningtree, a quiet riverside locale and one of England’s smallest towns, seems today an unlikely place to start a brutal witch-hunt.
But in March 1645, trouble was brewing in Manningtree and the nearby villages of Mistley and Lawford.
Elizabeth Clarke of Manningtree was thirty-nine years old, disabled (having only one leg), and extremely poor. She had a bad reputation because her mother had been executed as a witch. Her reputation was further stained as she had had an illegitimate child, Jane Clarke. Anne West of Lawford, a widow, also had a daughter, a young woman named Rebecca. Anne and Rebecca had moved to Lawford from Rivenhall in 1638 to escape suspicions there that Anne was a witch. Anne’s reputation followed the Wests and she was prosecuted for witchcraft in Lawford in 1641 and 1642, but released. This did little to convince her neighbours of her innocence.
It was a bleak winter. Richard Edwards, Chief Constable of Tendring Hundred, and his wife Susan had at least three children die in five years. The most recent loss had been a boy, John, who had died in July 1644. Others in Manningtree and Mistley had suffered or died under mysterious circumstances. The latest grief was that the wife of John Rivet, a Manningtree tailor, had fallen ill.
Rivet made an official accusation against Elizabeth Clarke for bewitching his wife to the local Justices of the Peace. Rivet believed Elizabeth responsible because her mother had been executed for witchcraft.
Elizabeth was imprisoned in her home. Her body was searched for a Devil’s mark, a physical sign thought to be left on a witch’s body. She was then ‘watched’, a process for coercing a confession by depriving a suspect of sleep and forcing them to walk about the room to remain awake. The latter was likely particularly exhausting for Elizabeth given her disability. Her watchers had considered ‘swimming’ her, an ordeal where an accused witch is dunked in water to see if they float or sink, with floating an indication of a person’s guilt while sinking indicated innocence. She was not swum.
Elizabeth was interrogated for three days. Finally, she confessed.
Elizabeth showed the watchers ‘her imps’, small demons in animal form that served a witch. It is likely the watchers mistook real animals or shadows for Elizabeth’s imps. There were some eight or ten watchers present, so it is unlikely the stories of Elizabeth’s imps were a concocted conspiracy, but that the watchers saw demons because they expected to see them. Among these watchers who claimed to have seen Elizabeth Clarke’s imps were John Stearne and Matthew Hopkins, who would prove integral to the spread of the witch-hunt beyond Manningtree.
Meanwhile, in Lawford, suspicions had once more risen against Anne West. Rebecca West confessed under questioning that not only was her mother a witch, but that she was one, too.
Elizabeth and Rebecca were forced to accuse others as witches, igniting a witch-hunt that would spread beyond Manningtree and Mistley across Essex.
Today.
We don’t know where Elizabeth Clarke lived in Manningtree. Our only clue is that John Rivet described her as living above his house on the side of a hill, with there being a few hills in Manningtree still to this day.
The Red Lion Pub - Manningtree
The Red Lion is Manningtree’s oldest remaining pub, having been established in 1605.
It is one of a few pubs in the area that have claimed to be directly linked to Matthew Hopkins or the witch trials. It would have been standing in March 1645 as the initial investigations began in Manningtree, but we cannot be certain in what capacity it was frequented by those involved in the witch-hunt.
Located at 42 South Street.
No.42 High Street - Manningtree
Originally built in 1616, the Church of St Michael’s and All Angels was a site of worship for witches and witchfinders alike. A buttress wall is all that remains of it today as the building was demolished in 1966. A plaque attached to the wall identifies it. Artifacts and photographs of the original site are housed at the Manningtree Museum.
No. 42a High Street, across from Lucca Italian restaurant.
St Mary’s - Lawford
This Grade I listed church was built in the fourteenth-century but has undergone alterations over the years. It is the church Anne and Rebecca West would have attended. In February 1645, a pregnant church-goer named Prudence Hart experienced abdominal pain so terrible she was forced to leave the service, and gave birth prematurely to a stillborn child. Prudence blamed Anne and Rebecca West. John Edes, rector at St Mary’s, questioned Rebecca West and coerced her into confessing.
St Mary’s is normally open during the week whenever possible.
Top of Church Hill, Lawford.
River Stour
Elizabeth Clarke was not ‘swum’, but bodies of water like the River Stour were used for ‘swimming’ witches to determine their guilt or innocence based on whether or not they floated. Across the Stour is Suffolk where the witch-hunt would later spread.
Manningtree Museum
The Manningtree Museum is a small, one-room but lovingly researched museum dedicated to local history including the infamous witch-hunt. It is located in the Manningtree Library and is open Wed 10:00-12:00, Thurs 14:00-16:00, and Sat 10:00-16:00.
Located on High St.
For more places to visit in Manningtree and the surrounding area, click here.
Further Reading.
A true and exact relation of the severall informations, examinations, and confessions of the late witches, arraigned and executed in the county of essex. ( London, 1645)
Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy (Harvard University Press, 2005)
Marion Gibson, Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials, (Simon & Schuster UK, 2024), ch 5