“Where there are many women, there are many witches” (Malleus Maleficarum, 1486)

My Lords and Gentlemen, I have of late been in downcast mood. I was minded to accompany my Lord Godolphin to the matches at Newmarket.  No sooner than my bags were packed and loaded on the stage than his Man deliver’d to me a note written in his Lordship’s own hand. In it his Lordship had […]

“Every heire is either a male, a female, or an hermaphrodite, that is both male and female” Sir Edward Coke, Institutes.

As I related in my last essay, it had been vouched safe to me that a Mob had assembled in Whitehall demanding that My Lady Rowling be burned as a witch because she was heard to mutter in her sleep that God had created Men and Women. I must now relate what followed. After making […]