The Severn’s Silent Witnesses: A Shropshire Witch Trial Tragedy

In 1636 Shrewsbury, two innocent women face a chilling accusation of witchcraft. As fear grips the town, Mary and Kathryn must confront a cruel fate in the murky depths of the River Severn.

I stood at the edge of the River Severn, my heart pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer against an anvil. The chill of the autumn air bit into my skin, but it was nothing compared to the icy dread that gripped my very soul. I, Mary Lacye Garner, once a respected midwife in Shrewsbury, now stood accused of the most heinous crime imaginable — witchcraft.

The crowd that had gathered was a sea of faces I once knew as neighbours and friends. Now, their eyes were filled with a mixture of fear, disgust, and morbid curiosity. How quickly the tides of fortune can turn, I thought bitterly. Just a fortnight ago, I had been delivering the baker’s wife of a healthy baby boy. Now, here I stood, about to face a trial that was no trial at all.

My sister-in-law, Kathryn, stood beside me, her face a mask of stoic resignation. We had been inseparable since I married her brother, Thomas, five summers past. Now, we were bound not by familial love, but by hempen rope and the weight of false accusation.

“Mary,” Kathryn whispered, her voice barely audible above the murmur of the crowd, “whatever happens, know that I love you. We are innocent, and God knows it.”

I nodded, unable to speak past the lump in my throat. How had it come to this? The memories of the past few weeks swirled in my mind like leaves caught in the Severn’s relentless current.

It had begun with whispers, as these things often do. A child had fallen ill, then another. Crops withered in the fields, and livestock sickened and died. In times of hardship, people seek someone to blame, and all too often, that blame falls upon those who are different.

Kathryn and I, with our knowledge of herbs and healing, had always been viewed with a mixture of respect and suspicion. But when young Thomas Rowley accused us of cursing his family’s cows, the whispers turned to shouts, and suspicion became certainty in the minds of our accusers.

The trial, if it could be called such, had been a farce. We were not permitted to speak in our own defence, and every protestation of innocence was taken as further proof of our guilt. The so-called evidence against us was nothing more than hearsay and superstition, but in the grip of fear and ignorance, reason held no sway.

And now, here we stood, on the banks of the river that had been the lifeblood of Shrewsbury for centuries. The same waters that had nurtured and sustained our town were now to be the arbiters of our fate.

The constable, a man I had once tended when he was laid low with fever, approached us with a length of rope. “Mary Lacye Garner, Kathryn Garner,” he intoned, his voice carrying across the hushed crowd, “you stand accused of the foul crime of witchcraft. By the ancient custom of trial by water, your innocence or guilt shall be determined.”

I felt my left thumb being bound to my right toe, the rope biting into my flesh. Beside me, Kathryn was similarly bound. We were no longer women, no longer human in the eyes of those who had once called us friend and neighbour. We were now merely objects of their fear and loathing.

As they prepared to cast us into the river, I caught sight of my husband, Thomas, in the crowd. His face was a mask of anguish, tears streaming down his cheeks. He had fought for us, had pleaded our innocence, but to no avail. Now, he stood helpless, forced to watch as his wife and sister were subjected to this cruel mockery of justice.

“If they float, they are in league with the Devil and must burn,” the constable continued. “If they sink, they are innocent in the eyes of God.”

A bitter laugh threatened to escape my lips. What kind of justice was this, where innocence meant death by drowning, and guilt meant a fiery end at the stake?

As they lifted us, I caught Kathryn’s eye one last time. In that moment, I saw not fear, but a fierce defiance. We may die this day, her gaze seemed to say, but we die innocent.

The shock of the cold water drove the breath from my lungs as we were cast into the Severn. The current immediately began to pull at us, the weight of our sodden clothes dragging us down. I struggled against my bonds, instinct overriding reason in a desperate bid for survival.

But it was futile. The rope that bound my thumb to my toe made it impossible to swim, and the weight of my clothes pulled me ever downward. As the murky waters closed over my head, my last thoughts were not of anger or fear, but of sorrow for the ignorance that had led to this moment.

As my lungs began to burn with the need for air, a strange calm settled over me. In the green-tinged twilight of the river’s depths, I saw flashes of my life pass before my eyes. I saw my childhood in the rolling hills of Shropshire, the day I met Thomas, the joy on Kathryn’s face when I became her sister by marriage. I saw the faces of the babies I had helped bring into the world, the sick I had tended, the lives I had touched.

And then, as the darkness began to close in, I saw something else. A future that would never be. A world where reason triumphed over superstition, where knowledge was valued over ignorance, where justice was truly blind. It was a beautiful vision, and in my final moments, I prayed that someday, it might come to pass.

As consciousness slipped away, my last thought was of hope. Hope that our deaths might not be in vain, that they might serve as a warning to future generations of the dangers of fear and ignorance. Hope that someday, the people of Shrewsbury, of Shropshire, of all England, might look back on this day with shame and resolve to do better.

And then, there was only darkness.

In the years that followed, the story of Kathryn and Mary Garner would be whispered around firesides and in taverns throughout Shropshire. Some would speak of it as a cautionary tale, a reminder of the dangers of accusation and the importance of true justice. Others would use it to frighten children into obedience, spinning tales of wicked witches and divine retribution.

But for those who knew the truth, who remembered the gentle midwife and her kind-hearted sister-in-law, it would always be a story of tragedy. A tale of two innocent women, victims of fear and ignorance, whose only crime was to be different in a world that feared what it did not understand.

And on quiet nights, when the mist rises from the Severn and the moon hangs low over Shrewsbury, some say they can still hear the echoes of two voices, raised in a final protest of innocence, carried on the wind that whispers through the ancient streets of the town.

For a historical account of the true events surrounding Mary Lacye Garner and Kathryn Garner’s trial in 1636 Shrewsbury, explore the article here.

Bob Lynn / 23-Sep-2024