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Witchcraft (1): Witchcraft and Royalty: The Cases against Eleanor Cobham and Joanne of Navarre

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giaconda's avatarGiaconda's Blog

Fake news – smearing the opposition

With the current interest in the media about the spread of ‘fake news’ and misinformation, it seems appropriate to reconsider the cases of two royal ladies who were both accused and found guilty of witchcraft during the early C15th. Were these simply cases of politically motivated ‘fake news’ stories? It is clear that in both cases that their enemies stood to gain by their fall and that witchcraft was an easy accusation to bring against any woman in an age of superstition and bigotry.

la-pucelle La Pucelle – Joan of Arc was brought down by accusations of heresy and witchcraft

They were also not the only women in the public eye to be brought down using similar methods – we have the very public example of Joan of Arc who was contemporary with Eleanor of Cobham and accused of heresy and witchcraft and burnt at the…

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10 responses to “Witchcraft (1): Witchcraft and Royalty: The Cases against Eleanor Cobham and Joanne of Navarre”

  1. Witchcraft (2): The Pendle Trials | murreyandblue

    […] North Berwick witches to drown him and his wife on their way back from Denmark. His obsession with witchcraft led him to write a book on the subject.  After the Gunpowder Plot, he had a similar view of Roman […]

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  2. Elizabeth Woodville and witchcraft in medieval England…. | murreyandblue

    […] so Elizabeth Woodvile was a witch, and so was her mother, Jacquette of Luxembourg. Well, everyone knew that already, because Philippa […]

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  3. The suppression of witchcraft, 1484 style…. | murreyandblue

    […] with supreme ardour”). Its purpose was to suppress the practice of witchcraft by any necessary […]

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  4. Was Elizabeth Woodville a witch….? – murreyandblue

    […] isn’t new, after all, King Arthur had Merlin. And when it suited one’s enemies, a charge of witchcraft was always a guaranteed spanner in the […]

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  5. The downfall of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester. – murreyandblue

    […] have been trying to understand the downfall of Eleanor Cobham. Not because I plan to write about her (life is too short) but purely because I like to understand […]

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  6. RALPH NEVILLE, 2ND EARL OF WESTMORLAND – HIS HOME, BRANCEPETH CASTLE AND BURIAL IN BRANCEPETH CHURCH. – murreyandblue

    […] Cobham (d. somewhere between 1466-1471)  daughter to Reginald Cobham (and  niece to the infamous Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester who would go on to be imprisoned for life after being found guilty of […]

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  7. Where did the poisoning witch the Duchesse d’Orléans take refuge….? – murreyandblue

    […] the 14th century the unfortunate Duchesse d’Orléans , Valentina Visconti, was accused of using witchcraft upon the mentally ill Charles VI, and of poisoning his Dauphin, Charles. I doubt she was guilty of […]

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  8. Where to dig and investigate next….? – murreyandblue

    […] in Kent….and its many royal connections, one of which was Henry IV’s “witch queen” Joan of Navarre. She spent two years of her house arrest being kept at Leeds Castle. Not that she lived in penury. […]

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  9. Royal stepchildren – murreyandblue

    […] of Aquitaine had left her eldest daughters behind with Louis VII when their marriage was annulled. Joan of Navarre had six surviving children from her marriage to John IV of Brittany, although only brought her […]

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  10. A BOOK ON PLANTAGENET QUEENS-BUT WHERE IS ANNE? – murreyandblue

    […] the book is a bit disappointing overall, although I did enjoy the chapter on Joanna of Navarre (who often gets overlooked as a consort) and the author did make a few amusing statements about […]

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