Sharpe tells the story of Anne Gunte, a 17th-century villager in North Moreton, near Didcot, who her parents claimed had been bewitched. She had fits during which she writhed and contorted; she fell into trances; she vomited and voided foreign bodies, especially pins. She named three women as witches: Agnes Pepwell, who ran away, Agnes's illegitimate daughter Mary, and Elizabeth Gregory. Mary Pepwell and Elizabeth Gregory were tried and acquitted of witchcraft at Abingdon in March 1605. Gunter's father Brian reopened the case by arranging a meeting between his daughter and the King, James I. James had a reputation as a witch-hunter, and Brian Gunter was building his hopes on this. The plan misfired badly. By October Anne had confessed that she had been put up to it by her father as part of a village feud.
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