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The Witch Craze in Britain, Europe and North America, c1580–c1750

The ending of the witch craze

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 3

Overview

Recall questions on the growing cost of prosecution, the return of assize justice, John Gaule's attack, the last trials, and the repeal of 1736.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Numbers

What 1736 act repealed the witchcraft laws in Britain?

Key term

What phrase describes the waning belief in witchcraft and the supernatural?

Who and when

Why did witch-hunting become too expensive to sustain?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What 1736 act repealed the witchcraft laws in Britain?

    Model answer

    The Witchcraft Act of 1736.

  2. 2

    What phrase describes the waning belief in witchcraft and the supernatural?

    Model answer

    The 'decline of magic'.

  3. 3

    Why did witch-hunting become too expensive to sustain?

    Model answer

    Towns had to pay for imprisonment, searchers, witch-finders' fees and executions, and communities such as Ipswich found the cost unsupportable.

  4. 4

    How did the restoration of traditional authority end the hunts?

    Model answer

    Once assize judges resumed circuits and central government reasserted control, magistrates who had acted on their own were restrained and cases collapsed.

  5. 5

    Who was John Gaule?

    Model answer

    The Huntingdonshire minister whose 1646 Select Cases of Conscience attacked Hopkins's methods from the pulpit and in print, and helped end his career.

  6. 6

    What did Gaule argue?

    Model answer

    That the tests used proved nothing, that every old woman with a wrinkled face was liable to be accused, and that the godly should not condemn on such evidence.

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