From 1560 to 1700, over 500 suspected witches felt the heat of the broomstick burn! In South-East England, 513 people were put on trial, with 112 getting more than just a trick—they got the ultimate treat: execution.
Across England, at least 500 witches were sent to the great beyond, with the last known execution happening in 1685 in Devon. And the last witch trial? That creaky old courtroom closed its doors in Leicester in 1717, just shy of 300 years ago.
By 1736, Parliament finally decided that maybe witches weren’t so bad after all and all laws against witchcraft vanished. But don’t put your cauldron away just yet! If you claimed to have magical powers, you could still end up paying a fine or getting thrown in the dungeon—at least until 1951!
But, in a final plot twist, fortune-telling, astrology, and spiritualism were also cast into the cauldron of crimes under the Vagrancy Act of 1824. The Fraudulent Mediums Act, which cast a suspicious eye over mediums and their spooky séances, haunted the legal books right up until 2008! So, if you’re consulting the stars this Halloween, make sure to keep it low-key, or you might just summon the spirit of ancient British law…
