In April 1593, Alice Samuel, her daughter Agnes, and her husband John were hanged for witchcraft. They had been convicted of the bewitching of the five daughters of Robert Throckmorton of Warboys, and the bewitching to death of Lady Cromwell, second wife of Sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchinbrook. After the deaths of the Samuels, the text informs us in its concluding paragraph, none of the bewitched children manifested any signs of possession. ‘But they have all of them been in as good a state and as perfect health as ever from their birth.’ This was the first well-known case in England of accusations of bewitchment by possessed girls leading to the deaths of those accused.

For the previous three and a half years, the Throckmorton children had shown all of the signs of the possessed. Around 10 November 1589, Jane, ten years of age and the second youngest of the five girls, began to exhibit convulsions and a trance. Within two months, all the sisters, ranging in age from nine to fifteen years, were having violent fits from several to many times a day, of which they later claimed to have no memory. The oldest girl Joan predicted that twelve people in total would be bewitched, herself and her five sisters, and seven female servants. And thus it happened. When the servants were sent away they recovered, but their replacements became similarly afflicted.