Jeremy and the Witches' Medallion: The Witch Hunt

Randy Gauthier

Description

Jeremy and the Witches' Medallion will take its readers back to the medieval England during one of the most well-known witch-hunts in history. While combining modern day narrative and medieval times, there is magic, witchcraft, talking animals and English history to take a reader on a thrilling adventure that they will never forget.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781647501532
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Jeremy and the Witches’ Medallion: The Witch Hunt
Randy Gauthier
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-11-30
Jeremy and the Witches’ Medallion: The Witch Hunt Copyright Information © Preface Chapter 1 The Gallows’ Pole Chapter 2 The Act of Sale Chapter 3 The Surveyor Chapter 4 The Old Farmer Chapter 5 Jeremy Chapter 6 A Feather in Time Chapter 7 A Chance Meeting of Guy Fawkes Chapter 8 Maggie Flies Off Chapter 9 Hung, Drawn, and Quartered Chapter 10 Dudley Chapter 11 A Shakespearian Experience Chapter 12 The Companions Chapter 13 The Adventure Continues Chapter 14 The Book of Merlin Chapter 15 The Cries of a Wolf Chapter 16 Mt. Snowdon Chapter 17 Lady of the Lake Chapter 18 Waken the Dead Chapter 19 Back to England Chapter 20 Maggie Gets Close to Home Chapter 21 Ghostly Stories Chapter 22 The Giant on the Bridge Chapter 23 An Old Friend Chapter 24 The Race Is On Chapter 25 A Confrontation Chapter 26 Braveheart Country Chapter 27 Magnus Chapter 28 Maggie’s Nightmare Chapter 29 A Jaybird’s Song Chapter 30 The Last Tract Chapter 31 Pendle Hill Chapter 32 Home Time
Copyright Information ©
Randy Gauthier (2020)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ordering Information
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Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Gauthier, Randy
Jeremy and the Witches’ Medallion
ISBN 9781647501525 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643786568 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781647501532 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020920305
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
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New York, NY 10005
USA
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Preface
From the medieval days to the renaissance, kings and queens ruled the land with an iron fist. These monarchies are the law of the land. In the years of religious persecution from the beginning of the Tudor period, Henry VIII’s reign to the end of King James I’s reign, there was no such thing as freedom of religion. If a person was caught practicing a different religion other than that of the king or queen in those times, a person could find him or herself, sentenced to death, by beheading, hanging, or burned at the stake. Some would have their head stuck on a pole as a deterrent to practicing some other religion than the one the ruler acknowledged.
During Henry VIII’s rule, a person would live peacefully and attend the Protestant religion—that of the Church of England—or go into hiding practicing the Catholic religion. Henry VIII, a merciless ruler in his day, struggled with the authority of Roman-led churches that were of the Catholic religion. He then started his own church, the Church of England. With this separation from the Roman Catholics, Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church of England.
After Henry’s death in 1547, Edward VI, his youngest child, succeeded him at the throne and continued the merciless persecution of the Catholics. While falling mortally ill, Edward VI tried to remove Queen Mary—who was the eldest of Henry VIII’s children—from the line of succession because of religious differences. On his death in 1553, their cousin Lady Jane Grey was at first proclaimed queen. Mary assembled a force and successfully disposed of Jane who was ultimately beheaded.
Queen Mary, another merciless monarch, was given the nickname bloody Mary by her opponents, for her brutal persecution of the Protestants. Queen Mary is remembered for her restoration of the Roman Catholic religion after the short-lived Protestant reign of her half-brother. During her five-year reign, there were 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake. Queen Mary’s re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Church was reversed—after her death in 1558—by younger half-sister Elizabeth I.
Queen Elizabeth succeeded Queen Mary upon her death and her first order of business was to re-establish the English Protestant Church of which she became Supreme Governor. The Elizabethan religious settlement later evolved into today’s Church of England. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, Catholic priests once again went into hiding but only in remote areas as they continued to celebrate Mass in secrecy. If found out, they would be convicted of their crimes and punished.
Elizabeth I passed a law in the form of an Act; this Law was the Act against conjurations, enchantments, and witchcrafts. This demanded the death penalty, but only by causing harm; lesser offenses were punishable by a term of life imprisonment. The act stated that anyone who uses, practices, or exercises any witchcraft, enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby any person shall happen to be killed or destroyed, was guilty of a felony without the benefit of clergy and will be put to death. After Elizabeth’s death in 1603, King James VI of Scotland began his reign in England and continued the prosecution on religion, along with witch-hunting.
During King James I’s reign, he styled himself King of Great Britain and Ireland. King James was a scholar and wrote several books to his credit. One book, however, he wrote—while still only King James VI of Scotland—was titled ‘Daemonologie.’ In this book, he approves and supports the practice of witch-hunting. When King James became the king of all three kingdoms, he prosecuted witches throughout.
Chapter 1

The Gallows’ Pole
On this day, August 10 th , 1612, his majesty King James I of England ordered every justice of the peace in Lancashire County, England, to compile a list of recusants in the area, i.e., those who refuse to attend the Church of England and take the Holy Communion shall be a criminal offense at the time. This order by King James was the background of a beginning to seeking out religious nonconformists.
Just five days later in this year, 1612, Justice of the Peace Roger Nowell investigated a complaint made by a family member of John Law who claimed to have suffered an injury by witchcraft. Many of those who subsequently found themselves implicated as the investigation progressed indeed considered themselves witches. The investigation soon was over and Justice of Peace Roger Nowell made the arrest of 12 accused of practicing witchcraft.
Of the 12 so-called witches, Elizabeth Southerns died in her cell whilst awaiting trial and Jennet Preston went to the York Assizes to await her trail as she lived in Gisburn that was located in Yorkshire County, not of Lancashire County. Alice Grey was found not guilty and the last nine were found guilty of murdering or doing bodily harm to people and animals by the use of witchcraft. The trials were decisive and quick; the sentence handed down by the king himself was death by execution.
The two-day trial ended some time ago and now a report was being published publicly with banners being posted throughout Lancashire County.
On this day, 20 th of August 1612
The courts of His Majesty King James
Willfully carry out the death penalties
Of the nine accused witches.
They shall be hanged at the Gallows
Hill, in the city of Lancaster
Dutifully signed
Roger Nowell
Joiners worked hard building a scaffold and ropes already dangled from the rafters; it looked as if there is an execution about to take place. The job will not take long with a group of 15 men working steadily. Crowds gather seeing two men, a hooded man that looked to be an executioner and another—perhaps a bailiff—bearing a scroll in hand, walking up the newly built stairs to the platform. The two men walk to the front of the platform, and the hooded man points at a rope, shaking his head.
Then, he realizes that the other man is a bailiff as he comes forth, starts to open the scroll, and blurts out, “By the order of King James, I hereby announce the nine accused of witchcraft that are found guilty and sentenced. The sentence shall be death by hanging. Executioner, usher these witches to the pole!” The hooded man leaves from the platform. Once the bailiff announced the execution, the crowd started to grow.
As the crowd gathered overnight, most slept on a damp floor, while others stayed up all night drinking ales and discussing the event at hand. During the long night, the nine accused sat locked away deep down in the dungeons of Lancaster Castle. As the night moved on, down in the dungeons—dark and damp stone structures—the nine accused hurled profanities from their 5x9 cold, dark, damp cells toward King James after he condemned them to the gallows pole.
The next morning, all nine accused were escorted from the dungeons of Lancaster Castle to Gallows’ Hill by an elite group of the king’s guards, led by the hooded executioner. As they walked down a cobblestone avenue, the crowds continued to grow. A mob eventually formed in the crowd with pushing and shoving, trying to pass through the guards to attack the accused.
The hurling of vegetables and fruit came from a nearby market stand. An apple flew past the executioner and struck one of the accused witches, a young boy named James Device. The apple hit on the cheek of his face, and, while bound in chai