Witch trials and errors

THINK of witch trials and you often think of the hysteria of Salem in Massachusetts, US, where more than 200 men and women stood accused between February 1692 and May 1693.

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But witch trials were also rife in England, with around 1,000 trials held between 1560 and 1680. Now, one town is trying to clear the names of its executed "witches".

Here EMILY HALL looks at what happened in Maidstone, Kent...

"DOUBLE, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble!"

When William Shakespeare wrote those lines for Macbeth, first performed in 1606, witchcraft was seen as a very real threat.

And the trio of women who chanted them, in between chats with the ill-fated Scottish general, were not only a spooky nuisance but a coven of criminals.

People were convinced that communication with the devil could happen. And in a religious society where resources were often scarce, loss of crops or cattle could be seen as evil at work.

The first law to make witchcraft illegal was "An Act Against Conjurations, Witchcrafts, Sorcery And Inchantments" passed by Henry VIII in 1541.

Witch trials then started taking place across England, and would span more than 300 years.

Most were carried out in the 16th and 17th Centuries, with around 500 people executed.

Maidstone, the county town of Kent, had one of the largest trials of the 17th century.