Elizabeth Frauncis

Elizabeth Frauncis
Born1529 (1529)
Hatfield Peverel
Died1579 (aged 49–50)
Chelmsford
Cause of death
Execution by hanging
OccupationSpinner
Years active1566–1579
Known forWoman tried for witchcraft in Tudor England three times; attracted the first witch trial pamphlet and popularised the concept of a witch's familiar
Criminal charges
Witchcraft (1566, 1573, and 1579)
Criminal penalty
One-year imprisonment and pillorying (1566, 1573)
Capital punishment (1579)
SpouseChristopher Frauncis
ChildrenAt least 1

Elizabeth Frauncis (also recorded as Francis, Francys, Frances, or Fraunces;[1][2][3][4] c. 1529 – 1579) was an English woman who was tried for witchcraft three times, ending with her execution.[5][6]

Frauncis' initial trial was the first to attract a witch trial pamphlet, which recounted the events of witchcraft cases for general readers,[7][8] and the first to popularise the concept of a witch's familiar during the witch trials in England.[9][10]

Biography

Elizabeth Frauncis was raised in Hatfield Peverel.[11] She had a grandmother named Eve, also of Hatfield.[11] Her profession was spinning wool, though she lived in relative poverty, and resorted to begging from neighbours on occasion.[12][13][14]

At some point before her first trial, she married Christopher Frauncis, a yeoman, with whom she had a daughter.[15][8][16][17] She would later claim she was initially more interested in a man named Andrew Byles, known locally to be of "some wealth."[11][15]

First trial: 1566

In July 1566, Frauncis was tried for witchcraft by the assizes of Chelmsford alongside a daughter and mother pair, Joan and Agnes Waterhouse.[13][18] Frauncis, who had come under suspicion first, for subsequently accused her neighbours, the Waterhouses, of being her accomplices.[13][19] Later, Frauncis would describe Agnes as her sister, though it is unclear whether Frauncis meant they were siblings, sisters-in-law, or merely 'sister witches.'[15][20][21]

The women were charged under the 1562 Act against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts, introduced by the second Parliament of Queen Elizabeth I to criminalise acts seen as venerating the Devil.[22] The act was less punitive than laws which came later.[22] The 1562 act provided that a first-time offender who had not killed another person would receive a year's imprisonment and time in a pillory, and only reoffenders would risk execution.[22]

Woodcut print of Sathan, Frauncis' alleged familiar (1566 pamphlet).

Frauncis freely confessed to learning witchcraft from her grandmother, Eve, who gave her a familiar in the form of a wish-granting cat named Sathan when Frauncis was twelve.[23] When Frauncis' attempt to secure a wealthy husband, Andrew Byles, ended with Byles impregnating and leaving her, she enlisted Sathan to kill both Byles and her unborn child.[23] She later married Christopher, but when their relationship proved unhappy and verbally abusive, she asked Sathan to injure Christopher and kill the child they had together.[15][23]

Having tired of the cat, she entrusted it to co-accused Agnes Waterhouse, who allegedly utilised its services for nine years before the trial began.[23][24] Agnes also confessed to sorcery, though she likely did so to save her daughter Joan's life.[11][25]

Proceedings were attended by several prominent members of the royal court, including John Fortescue, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Gilbert Gerard, Attorney General.[13] Historian Wallace Notestein posits that their attendance suggests the trial was of some importance to the state.[13] Indeed, the trial would prove to be one of the first under the 1562 legislation to result in an execution.[25] Agnes Waterhouse was executed by hanging at Chelmsford's gallows on 29 July 1566;[1] Joan was acquitted.[26]

First English witch trial pamphlet

The 1566 trial of Elizabeth Frauncis and Agnes Waterhouse is recognised to be the first entry into a literary body of pamphlets reporting on witch trials,[7] or, sensationalist texts published cheaply for general audiences.[8][27] Indeed, much of what is known about the trial derives from a pamphlet published in London a month after the case concluded.[23][24][28] As historian Notestein warns, witch trial pamphlets were often exaggerated; it was also not uncommon for these publications to contain invented details.[13]

Court records from the time provide that Frauncis was found guilty on one charge, that of paralysing a child named William Auger.[6] This was not one of the crimes recorded in the pamphlet, nor one of the most serious among Frauncis' self-described offences.[23][29] It is possible that the prosecution dismissed her testimony, as no records suggest the court attempted to verify the existence of an Andrew Byles and whether he had died as Frauncis described.[13]

Frauncis was sentenced to a year in prison and time in the pillory.[30] Commentators including Rossell Robins and Rosemay Guiley believe that the absence of Frauncis' supposed interactions with Auger were omitted from the pamphlet, despite their apparent greater importance to the court, because its writer deemed them insufficiently salacious.[29][31]

Analysis of Frauncis' motivations

Academic Marianne Hester and magician Walter B. Gibson suggest that Frauncis' detailed testimony implies she truly believed she was capable of sorcery.[32][33] Hester contrasts Frauncis' grandiose claims with the later trials of the St Osyth witches, wherein one accused, Elizabeth Bennett, attempted to provide a rational alternative theory of her alleged magical crime.[32]

It is also possible Frauncis was charged due to local gossip.[34] Folklorist Winifred Finlay theorises that her arrest may have been the result of speculation about her husband Christopher's condition, as he was implied to have a limp.[28][34] According to both Notestein and Silvia Federici, Frauncis' poverty and subsequent socially undesirable reputation also influenced her first and later arrests.[13][14] Her begging was likely a nuisance to her more affluent neighbours.[14] According to academic Deborah Willis, the choice of poetry that opens the 1566 trial pamphlets paints Fraunces as a "malevolently solitary figure," and her apparent lack of concern with leading a conventional family life would have been frowned upon by her neighbours.[35]

Frauncis' choice to admit to witchcraft while accusing other women may have therefore been a strategic attempt to share the blame and reduce her own sentence.[36] As a possible self-preservation tactic, this was one Frauncis employed in the face of later accusations.[36]

Second trial: 1573

Frauncis (appearing under the name Elizabeth Francys[4]) was charged in August 1572[37] with a second offence of alleged witchcraft.[12][8][30] While her surname was recorded with a different spelling during these proceedings to her 1566 trial, all contemporary records describe the accused Elizabeth as committing her offence in Hatfield Peverel, while married to a man named Christopher.[8][16][17]

On this occasion, Frauncis was accused of bewitching Mary Cocke, another local of Hatfield Peverel who had "languished for 10 days" following an enchantment by Frauncis.[37] Although Cocke recovered, she had feared for her life while ill.[37] The first indictment against Frauncis was initially poorly drafted and needed to be rewritten,[4] pushing Frauncis' trial to March 1573.[16][37]

She was tried alongside another accused witch, Agnes Francys, wife of William Francys, who may have been Elizabeth Frauncis' sister-in-law.[37][38][39] Frauncis gave evidence against Agnes Francys; both were found guilty.[16][29][40]

Sentencing

Despite this being Frauncis' second conviction under the 1562 act, she received the same sentence as a first-time offender: a year's imprisonment, and pillorying.[8] Authors Willow Winsham and Marion Gibson believe that the administrative errors surrounding the indictment's first draft meant Frauncis was sentenced as a first-time offender, as the redraft did not mention her first conviction.[8][16] Historian Peter Maxwell-Stuart observes that the Chelmsford assizes were unusually busy with witch trials in 1572 and 1573, and its juries may have grown reluctant to deliver the harshest penalties.[37] However, Maxwell-Stuart also notes that of the five witches tried in the court's session March 1573 session, Frauncis was the only defendant to escape the gallows.[37]

Third trial: 1579

In 1579, Frauncis stood trial for a crime allegedly committed in June of the previous year.[29] The proceedings, largely recorded in another pamphlet, saw Frauncis stand trial at the same time as Elleine Smith.[41][42]

Frauncis was accused of conspiring with evil spirits in order to kill her neighbour, Alice Poole, after Poole denied Frauncis' request to borrow some yeast during Lent.[7][42] A demonic entity in the form of a white dog tormented Poole, who allegedly fell ill and died in November, with Frauncis being the last person to speak to her before she became bedridden.[7][16][42]

While admitting her guilt, Frauncis again attempted to give evidence against other women.[7][42] She denounced two widows in Hatfield Peverel as fellow witches, providing the names Mother Osborne and Elizabeth Lord.[37][43] Court records do not suggest that either woman was investigated following Frauncis' claims.[37]

Frauncis was found guilty for a third and final time, and executed by hanging.[37]

In media

  • Frauncis' first trial, and her role in the trial of the Waterhouses, was featured in the Sky History documentary series Witches of Essex (2025), presented by historian Alice Roberts and broadcaster Rylan Clark.[1][44]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Chelmsford witch trials: The tragic case of Agnes Waterhouse". Sky HISTORY TV channel. Retrieved 2026-03-31.
  2. ↑ Pavlac, Brian A. (2009-02-17). Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-313-34874-7.
  3. ↑ Bonnici, Kate Bolton (2020-01-12). "Witch Stichomythic: from The Confession of Elizabeth Fraunces, late of Hatfeelde in Essex". Counter Text. 6 (3): 461–467. doi:10.3366/count.2020.0205. ISSN 2056-4406.
  4. 1 2 3 Cockburn, J. S. (1975). Calendar of Assize Records, Elizabeth I: Essex indictments. H.M. Stationery Office. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-11-440057-6. Let a new indictment be drawn, in which the recital will be clearer than in this. (1572)
  5. ↑ Gibson, Marion (2004-09-23). Essex witches (act. 1566–1589). Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70257.
  6. 1 2 Golden, Richard M. (2006-01-30). Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 336, 874. ISBN 978-1-85109-512-4.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Levack, Brian P. (2013-03-28). The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America. OUP Oxford. pp. 291–292. ISBN 978-0-19-957816-0.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gibson, Marion (2005-10-07). Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing. Routledge. pp. 10, 41. ISBN 978-1-134-60763-1.
  9. ↑ Gibson, Marion (31 October 2017). "The first witch's cat was white and spotty – and called Satan". University of Exeter. Retrieved 2026-03-31.
  10. ↑ Kennedy, Maev (2017-10-31). "West Country witchcraft and the hanged women of urban Exeter". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-31.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Uszkalo, Kirsten C.; Liepert, Susan (2009-10-15). "Searching with Sathan: The English Witch's Familiar as Interface Model". Digital Studies/Le champ numérique. 1 (3). doi:10.16995/dscn.264. ISSN 1918-3666.
  12. 1 2 Ewen, C. L'Estrange (2013-06-17). Witch Hunting and Witch Trials (RLE Witchcraft): The Indictments for Witchcraft from the Records of the 1373 Assizes Held from the Home Court 1559-1736 AD. Routledge. p. 125. ISBN 978-1-136-74004-6.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Notestein, Wallace (1911). A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718. Washington: The American Historical Association. pp. 33–56 – via Project Gutenberg.
  14. 1 2 3 Federici, Silvia (2004). Caliban and the Witch. Autonomedia. pp. 171–173. ISBN 978-1-57027-059-8.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Summers, Montague (2012-03-16). Witchcraft and Black Magic. Courier Corporation. pp. 54, 66. ISBN 978-0-486-41125-5.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Winsham, Willow (2015-03-16). "Third Time Unlucky: Elizabeth Francis and the Chelmsford Assizes". Willow Winsham. Retrieved 2026-03-31.
  17. 1 2 Cockburn, J. S. (1978). Essex Indictments, Elizabeth I. H.M. Stationery Office. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-11-440095-8.
  18. ↑ Gibson, Marion (29 July 2021). "The Trial of Agnes Waterhouse – Witchcraft in Essex, 1566". Essex Record Office.
  19. ↑ Stavreva, Kirilka (2015). Words like daggers: violent female speech in early modern England. Early modern cultural studies. Lincoln; London: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 94–95. ISBN 978-0-8032-5488-6.
  20. ↑ Gibson, Marion (2005-10-07). Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing. Routledge. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-134-60763-1.
  21. ↑ Purkiss, Diane (1996). The witch in history: early modern and twentieth-century representations. London; New York: Routledge. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-415-08761-2.
  22. 1 2 3 Mitchell, Ruby (2025-10-30). "The Witch Trials: enshrined in law". Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. Retrieved 2026-03-29.
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Anon (23 August 1566). "The Examination and confession of certaine wytches at Chensforde in the countie of Essex". ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. London: Willyam Powell. Retrieved 2026-03-30.
  24. 1 2 3 Luttmer, Frank. "Chelmsford Witches: Edited from the original text by Frank Luttmer". Hanover College. Retrieved 2026-03-30.
  25. 1 2 Kesselring, Krista (2024-01-12). "Elizabethan England's First Witches". Legal History Miscellany. Retrieved 2026-03-30.
  26. ↑ Golden, Richard M. (2006-01-30). Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 336. ISBN 978-1-85109-512-4.
  27. ↑ Francisconi, Tsea (2022-03-04). "Witch Pamphlets". UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon).
  28. 1 2 Anon (23 August 1566). "The Examination and Confession of certain Witches at Chelmsford in the County of Essex". Willyam Powell – via Internet Archive.
  29. 1 2 3 4 Guiley, Rosemary (2010-05-12). The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca. Infobase Publishing. pp. 58–60. ISBN 978-1-4381-2684-5.
  30. 1 2 Levin, Carole; Bertolet, Anna Riehl; Carney, Jo Eldridge (2016-11-03). A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen: Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts, 1500-1650. Taylor & Francis. p. 326. ISBN 978-1-315-44071-2.
  31. ↑ Robbins, Rossell Hope (August 1974). The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (12 ed.). New York: Crown Publishers. p. 89. LCCN 59-9155.
  32. 1 2 Hester, Marianne (2002). "Patriarchal Reconstruction and Witch Hunting". In Oldridge, Darren (ed.). The Witchcraft Reader. Psychology Press. pp. 282–283. ISBN 978-0-415-21493-3.
  33. ↑ Gibson, Walter Brown (1973). Witchcraft. Grosset & Dunlap. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-448-02182-9.
  34. 1 2 Lochhead, Marion (29 November 1980). "Black Malice". The Scotsman (Fiction Section). p. 4.
  35. ↑ Willis, Deborah (2013). "The Witch-Family in Elizabethan and Jacobean Print Culture". Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies. 13 (1): 4–31. doi:10.1353/jem.2013.0003. ISSN 1553-3786.
  36. 1 2 Radford, Jill; Russell, Diana E. H., eds. (1992). Femicide: the politics of woman killing (PDF). New York : Toronto : New York: Twayne; Maxwell Macmillan Canada; Maxwell Macmillan International. pp. 32–33. ISBN 978-0-8057-9026-9.
  37. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Maxwell-Stuart, P. G. (2014). The British Witch: The Biography (1 ed.). Stroud: Amberley. pp. 300–323. ISBN 978-1-4456-2202-6.
  38. ↑ MacFarlane, Alan (2002-09-10). Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England. Routledge. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-134-64466-7.
  39. ↑ Davies, R., ed. (2021-12-02). Routledge Library Editions: Witchcraft. Vol. 4. Routledge. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-136-73200-3.
  40. ↑ Apps, Lara; Gow, Andrew Colin (2003-05-02). "Male Witches on Trial". Male Witches in Early Modern Europe. Manchester University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-7190-5709-0.
  41. ↑ Anon (1579). A Detection of damnable driftes, practized by three Witches arraigned at Chelmsforde, in Essex, at the laste Assizes there holden, whiche were executed in April 1579 (1 ed.). London: Edward White.
  42. 1 2 3 4 5 College of Wooster Special Collection (August 28, 2018). "English Historical Library of Wallace Notestein". The College of Wooster. BF1581.A2 D47.
  43. ↑ Dunham, William Huse; Pargellis, Stanley (1968). Complaint and Reform in England, 1436-1714: Fifty Writings of the Time on Politics, Religion, Society, Economics, Architecture, Science, and Education. Octagon Books. p. 186.
  44. ↑ Richardson, Hollie; Duggins, Alexi; Seale, Jack; Harrison, Phil; Wardell, Simon (2025-10-14). "TV tonight: Rylan Clark goes witch-hunting in Elizabethan Essex". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-31.
  45. ↑ Hoppe, Amanda (2015-09-22). "The Confessions of the Chelmsford Witches". Sci-fi & Fantasy Anthology – via Whatcom Community College.
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