#judicial murder

[scotianostra]

On November 8th 1576 Elizabeth Bessie Dunlop was found guilty of Witchcraft and sentenced to be burnt at the stake.

Today, she would have been seen as a wise woman, a psychic or a medium. But when Bessie Dunlop went on trial in Edinburgh in 1576, she was quickly branded “The Witch of Dalry”, tortured, then burned at the stake.

For years, she had been helping locals with potions, predictions and cures for cattle. But she was an early victim of the Scottish witch purges, when the saying: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” was taken literally.

Records of Bessie’s trial survived through the centuries and, perhaps because of that, she remains one of Scotland’s most famous “witches”. Plays and books have been written about her over the years.

Most recent accounts portray Bessie as a woman who helped locals and their livestock with herbal cures. She also claimed to possess “second sight” – and talked to spirits and “fairies”.

Under torture, most witches would admit to almost anything – from consorting with the Devil, putting curses on locals or even killing children. Not Bessie.

Instead, she claimed merely to have met with a spirit guide, who introduced her to the fairy folk, who resided in Cleeves Cove – the secluded caves just a mile and a half from Dalry.

In her confession, she claimed that while taking her cow to a field, she came across an elderly man with a grey beard.

He claimed to be the spirit of Thomas Reid, a former Baron Officer to John Blair of Dalry, who had been killed at the battle of Pinkie in 1547.

At the time Bessie was stressed with worry, her child, husband and cow were ill, and it seemed that they would not recover. The old man comforted her and predicted that her cow and child would die, but her husband would make a full recovery. He then disappeared down a hole in a dyke that was to be much too small to let any mortal man pass by it.

On their next meeting, the strange apparition offered her material goods in the form of horses and cows if she would denounce Christianity. She refused and said that she would rather be whipped. The angry spirit disappeared.

On his return, he introduced her to the ‘fairies’. Swearing secrecy, he introduced her to four men and eight women of Elfame, another name for the fairy realm. They were dressed as humans but very smartly, the men like gentlemen, and the women had ‘all plaids about them’. They were very friendly towards Bessie but when she refused to go with them ,they left with a “hideous ugly blast of wind” leaving Bessie lying sick on the ground.

She claimed her spirit mentor taught her how to cure cattle and children. People came to her for advice on a regular basis and her reputation was beginning to spread. She was allegedly even able to tell people the location of missing items.

And it wasn’t just the poor folk of the town who consulted her.

Lady Johnstone sent a servant to consult her regarding the sickness of her daughter. Bessie in turn consulted Thomas. “Her sickness,” he is recorded as having told her, “is due to cauld blood that went about her heart, that caused her to pine away. Therefore, let her take equal parts of cloves, ginger, annis-seed, and liquorice, and mix them together in ale; seethe them together; strain the mixture; put it in a vessel, then take a little quantity of it in a mutchkin can, with some white sugar cast among it; take and drink thereof each day in the morning; walk a while after, before meat, and she would soon be better.” Bessie was also consulted by Lady Blackhall and received as payment a peck of meal and some cheese. Lady Thirdpart, in the barony of Renfrew, sent to her to discover who had stolen some coins out of her purse – Bessie named the culprit.

She was also consulted by the daughter of William Blair of Strand, who was to be married to the Laird Crawford of Baidland. Thomas, speaking through Bessie, suggested that if she were to marry him she would come to an untimely demise by her own hand. The wedding plans were dropped and the laird finally married the woman’s sister.

Thomas also allegedly predicted that Bessie would face trial for her dealings with the spirit world, but her neighbours would save her from evil. Sadly for Bessie, that prediction failed to come true.

The crime of which she was accused was “sorcery, witchcraft, and incantation, with invocation of spirits of the devil, continuing in familiarity with them at all such times as she thought expedient, dealing with charms, and abusing the people with devilish craft of sorcery aforesaid”.

Bessie is believed to have been burned to death on Edinburgh’s Castle Hill.

An alternative legend claims she was brought back to Ayrshire and burned at Corsehillmuir, Kilwinning. The court records fail to describe her final fate.

An ongoing campaign goes on in Scotland to have all those who were killed after a witchcraft conviction, tro be pardoned.

[yesiamreallyshort]

[vague-humanoid]

@chrisdornerfanclub @startorrent02

The practice of giving sedatives to people detained by police has spread quietly across the nation over the last 15 years, built on questionable science and backed by police-aligned experts, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found. Based on thousands of pages of law enforcement and medical records and videos of dozens of incidents, the investigation shows how a strategy intended to reduce violence and save lives has resulted in some avoidable deaths.

At least 94 people died after they were given sedatives and restrained by police from 2012 through 2021, according to findings by the AP in collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS) and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism. That’s nearly 10% of the more than 1,000 deaths identified during the investigation of people subdued by police in ways that are not supposed to be fatal. About half of the 94 who died were Black, including Jackson.

[ananiujitha]

Alito’s opinion relies on an infamously misogynistic witch-hunter

If his idea of "religious freedom" allows judicial murder of alleged clerics of of supposed religious minorities, it's not freedom. Theres little evidence that there was such a religion, but one etymology derives witch, and wicce/wicca, from PGmc *wiho, meaning cleric or priest: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/w%C4%ABh%C3%B4

[zigzagziggyyy]

Judicial consent. Billy as Martin 💛

[nansheonearth]

[heartofstanding]

To torture you: Courtenay extremely reluctantly giving Hal any last rites he may need in case the Dagger Incident does end fatally

Oh mannnn. I was actually poking at the thing I've been writing about the Dagger Incident and trying to determine just whether Courtenay knew about the Dagger Incident before Hal pulled it or whether he didn't know until afterwards (I think he's somewhere in the middle - he knew the gist of what Hal was planning but not the details). But man. Courtenay being the one who Hal goes to for the last rites? I'm going to go insane.

Though I might raise you a wounded Hal, post-Shrewsbury and delirious with pain, insisting that Courtenay give him last rites...

And both are like an inverse of Hal at Courtenay's death bed, where "after extreme unction, with his own hands wiped his feet and closed his eyes". I'm going to chew glass.

[edwardseymour]

seymwhore girlies (gnc) like—

[darcylightninglewis]

Supporting a population of people in mourning who suffered a terror attack (of which the death & kidnapped toll is still growing) and largely don’t support the actions of the current regime isn’t the same as supporting the government’s actions.

I know everyone wants one side to be bad but it’s not cut and dry. The Palestinians largely don’t support Hamas (their governing body) and I have to believe, for my own sanity and faith in humanity that you know the difference between the two.

[zarya-zaryanitsa]

Have to study post-World War II legal history of Poland for an exam. Contempt for tankies intensifies immeasurably.

[fideidefenswhore]

According to Chapuys, ‘the King, immediately on receiving the news of the decapitation of [anne], entered his barge and went to [Jane]’ at Chelsea. We do not know how she reacted. But, at the least, she showed no compunction in stepping to the throne over the headless corpse of her rival. Anne might talk of killing Catherine; the gentle Jane went further and was an accessory-after-the-fact to the judicial murder of her predecessor.

Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey

+

Strickland conveniently forgot that Anne, only a decade earlier, had begun scheming to supplant her royal mistress, and later tried to compass that lady’s death.

In refusing the King’s advances without removing herself from his presence, and accepting her role as his wife’s replacement (which is just what Anne, in her day, had done), she behaved discreditably. Probably she had had little choice in the matter, with the King ardently pursuing her and her family vigorously maneuvering [...]

Weir A. (2010). The lady in the tower : the fall of anne boleyn.

so....woof.... lots to unpack here. 

1) i’m not going to split hairs here, if the language/presentation is offensive to some here, like, okay, but at the core of it, the sequence of events is not...wrong? 

there’s debate to the reports of AB saying she wanted catherine AND mary  dead, we could circle that for hours, i’d rather not (the main thing here is contradiction...chapuys both asserts that she’s said she will do this if it’s ever in her power, wants to do this, wants henry to do this, asks this of henry, constantly, but he also asserts that anne’s influence and power over henry is limitless/ultimate. the two simply cannot have been true at the same time. either she was constantly pushing for this and henry was unwilling or she wasn’t and his assessment of her influence was correct or near-correct); and there’s debate to the tone (myself, i don’t believe she was ‘joking’ per say, rather frustrated to the level of venting recklessly, but i do think she was being flippant... and i think it’s maybe relevant to remember she had a rather cavalier attitude about her own death, even before her imprisonment, so possibly just death in general) ; 

regardless,

assuming it’s completely true, i understand having contempt for AB in this matter, however, if you do, how can you not for her successor? starkey isn’t wrong here, talking about something is absolutely not the same as accepting it at the price of admission. we don’t have any records of jane’s contempt for anne and elizabeth the same way we do for anne’s of catherine and mary; but we do have record of her connection to a group that had that contempt for them in extremity...so, ultimately, it’s not that far a leap of supposition, no?

2) ‘which is just what anne had done’ except she did remove herself from henry’s presence. the letters demonstrate that he asked her to return to it several times and several times she refused.

now, again, myself, i don’t believe that’s proof-positive of ‘sexual harassment’, per say. i believe there are multiple explanations for anne’s choice of separation  (maybe it was her choice, maybe it was the choice/advice of her family, if they knew of it at the time, just for starters); however, the above alone...sure, i can see why some believe that’s what that evidence proves, or at least suggests. we don’t have anything similar for jane, we have a public protestation/rejection and a continuation of her visiting henry in the chambers that cromwell granted the seymours. we have, again, beliefs/words not aligning with actions. 

so again, the answer to/of ‘why are these women/relationships spoken of differently/ “treated” (?) differently’, well...because they were? one is a passionate union of years with twists and turns, whereas the other has the singular twist and turn of my wife was a murderous whore and now she’s dead, you’re up. 

what we have, also, with anne that we don’t with her successor, is evidence of years that would suggest she was deeply committed to henry. was jane as deeply committed? she must have been to the extent that she married him, but we simply know much less about how she ultimately felt. 

[suvarnarekha]

"judiciary is an impartial, licit body that enforces the rule of law"

[tiercel]

Very sad nobody can be normal about crime and render everything into a spectacle with total disregard towards the (often still surviving) family members of the victim. Hell even the family of the perpetrator too

[n7india]

Ranchi : युवती की गला रेतकर हत्या के दोषी युवक को आजीवन कारावास

Ranchi : रांची जिले के अपर न्यायायुक्त की अदालत ने युवती की गला रेतकर हत्या करने के आरोपी को दोषी करार देते हुए आजीवन कारावास की सजा सुनाई है। घटना 2019 की है। रांची के ओरमांझी थाना क्षेत्र में पवन गोप नामक शख्स ने प्रियंका कुमारी नामक युवती से किसी बात को लेकर हुए झगड़े के बाद चाकू से उसका गला रेत डाला था। गंभीर रूप से जख्मी हालत में उसे अस्पताल पहुंचाया गया था, जहां उसने दम तोड़ दिया। बाद में…

[milfjensenackles]

.

[agentfascinateur]

Self-explanatory