by Aella

Joan Flower and her daughters,Margaret and Phillipa,were employed by the Earl of Rutland of Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire,England early in the 17th Century.

Margaret was in charge of the laundry and poultry, and lived within the Castle,whilst her mother and sister lived in the nearby village of Bottesford. After Margaret's dismissal from her positon,for allegedly taking provisions from her place of work back to the family dwelling, things began to go rapidly wrong for the three women.

She was obviously upset by this move and had been heard cursing all that were the cause of her discontentment. Not such an unusual response but add to this the statement from a Thomas Simpson, claiming that Phillipa was "lewdly transported" with the love for him and that he was "bewitched" by her, and we begin to see how tongues would have wagged
and fuel be added to the fire.

And yes, Joan may indeed have been a woman prone to outbursts of shouting and swearing, with a strange and exotic appearance and fiery, hollow eyes, but who was to say that she was not just fiercly protective of her daughters or was in the throes of the menopause? Or even just plain eccentric.She was also known to have been a wise-woman and had told an
aquaintance of hers, Joan Wilmot, that she, herself, should be neither hanged nor burnt.

But alas, the label of "witch" was by now firmly attached to the three women and the death of the Earl's eldest son, Henry, the illness of his second son, Francis, and the sickness of Lady Katherine, were all said to have been brought about by the three women. It appears to have been overlooked that sickness often ran in families and that this was probably the cause of their malaise.

Now, firmly under suspicion, they were apprehended around Christmas time in 1617. On the way to Lincoln jail, Joan is supposed to have called for bread and butter and wishing "it might never go through her,if she was guilty", fell down and died. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise as I can only imagine the methods used to extract confessions from Margaret and Phillipa of the "evil" deeds that they and their mother were supposed to have carried out to bring harm to the Earl and his family.

Because when you think about it what women, in their right minds, would freely confess to letting rats and owl-like creatures suckle from her,admit to having been visited by four devils whilst in Lincoln gaol, and tell them that she had procured personal items of clothing from the Earl's family with which their mother had caused their downfall..

Obviously, Margaret and Phillipa were aware of the consequences of such a confession and unless they were both of unsound mind, it is hardly likely that they would have given the information freely.

And so it was that after around three months of imprisonment and several examinations, Sir Henry Hobert,Lord Chief Justice of the common pleas, and Sir Edward Bromley, a Baron of the Exchequer, arrived in Lincoln to hand the sisters their fate.

Margaret and Phillipa Flower were found guilty,condemned and hung, apparantly "to the terror of all beholders", on the 11th day
of March 1618.

Their mother Joan was buried at Ancaster.

IN LOVING MEMORY