This petition was submitted during the 2015 to 2017 Parliament
Rejected petition We ask HM Government to grant a pardon to Anne West for a conviction of murder.
Rejected on
Anne West was hanged for murder by witchcraft in 1645. Her fourteen year old daughter Rebecca had been coerced into testifying against her mother, in trade for her own freedom. Granting Anne a pardon can go some way in exonerating all witch hunt victims, and strengthening our stand on human rights.
Resources used include:
Essex Record Office, ERO Archivists LS , www.essex.gov.uk/ero; http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk
Gaskill, Malcolm, Witchfinders, A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy 2005, John Murray, London
Thurston, Robert W., The Witch Hunts, A history of the witch persecutions in Europe and North America, 2007.
Wallington, Nehemiah circa 1660 Diary, John Ryland Library at the University of Manchester in Manchester, England http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.
A pardon of this kind would be granted by the Monarch.
You could start a petition to ask the Government to request such a pardon in this case.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.