page_title: Witches of Belvoir
section_title: Aftermath and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Witches of Belvoir / Aftermath and legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Inscription on Tomb of 6th Earl of Rutland
context_page_description: The Witches of Belvoir were a mother and her two daughters accused of witchcraft in England and the deaths of two young nobles, Henry and Francis Manners, the heirs to Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland, whose seat was at Belvoir Castle. The mother, Joan Flower, died on the way to her trial, and the two daughters, Margaret and Philippa, were supposed to be hanged in Lincoln. It is said that Phillipa drugged the guards and managed to escape and make her way to Kent where she died after having three children.
context_section_description: Margaret and Philippa Flowers were tried before Henry Hobart, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Edward Bromley, a Baron of the Exchequer, and found guilty. and Margaret was hung at Lincoln castle on 11 March 1619.
  Later that year a ballad, Damnable Practises of Three Lincolnshire Witches Joane Flower and Her Two Daughters, printed by 'G. Eld for John Barnes' appeared.
  The Earl and Countess remained so convinced that their son had been killed by the effects of witchcraft that they had it inscribed on their monument at Bottesford church. It reads, in part:
  In 1608 he married ye lady Cecila Hungerford, daughter to ye Honorable Knight Sir John Tufton, by whom he had two sons, both of which died in their infancy by wicked practises and sorcerye
  In 1953, Hilda Lewis published a historical romance, The Witch and the Priest, which consists of a series of conversations between Samuel Fleming, the clergyman who oversaw the Flowers' examinations, and the ghost of Joan Flower.
  In 2013, historian Tracey Borman suggested that the Flowers women may have been framed by a favourite of King James I, the Lincolnshire born George Villiers, who was created Duke of Buckingham in 1623. Watson's theory is that Villiers had plans to marry the Rutland's daughter Katherine and, with her two brothers dead, inherit the title. Watson argues 'he had them poisoned – then framed Joan Flower and her two daughters as witches to create a smokescreen to cover up his own guilt'. After the execution of the Flowers sisters, Villiers went on to marry the Rutland's sole heir Katherine on 16 May 1620.
caption: 'died in their infancy by wicked practises and sorcerye' – part of the memorial at Bottesford
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