I've uploaded year 1692 to the TSP Wiki... http://tspwiki.com/index.php?title=1692 Here are some one liners... The Salem Witch Trials and Slender Man -- 19 hang. 1 is crushed. I talk about hysteria and the near murder of a 12-year-old girl by her friends so that they could meet "Slender Man". Waving the Bloody Shirt and Whitfield's Shirt Cuffs! -- The MacDonald clan waits too long to pledge loyalty to the new King and are massacred brutally. The surviving wives wave their husbands bloody shirts to work up the troops. I talk about George Whitfield, holy relics and chunks of the Twin Towers.
The Salem Witch Trials and Slender Man
Two young girls, aged 9 and 11, are having fits that are not epilepsy. Then a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old are afflicted. It is judged that they have been bewitched. An investigation is launched to find the witches who cast the spell. The usual suspects are rounded up and questioned. Some die in custody including a baby born to Sarah Good. A trial is begun. Giles Corey refuses to enter a plea. In the modern day, when this happens, a judge will enter a "not guilty" plea on behalf of the defendant, but no such option exists in the law as yet. In order to force Giles to make a plea, the court has him "pressed". That is... progressively larger stones are placed on his chest until he speaks, or he is crushed to death. It takes Giles 2 days to die. Sarah Good is a homeless woman who walks from house to house begging for charity. When she is refused she walks away muttering to herself. When accused of casting spells, she says she was only reciting her (Bible) Commandments. When the court asks her to recite her Commandments, she stumbles through part of a Psalm. She has told a fatal lie. Out of 72 accused witches, 19 are found guilty, 14 of them are women. They all hang for the crime of witchcraft. [1][2][3] [4] [5]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
There are a lot of directions I can go with the Salem Witch Trials. Was it simple hysteria? That is an interesting word, "hysteria". It is a Latin word that refers to a woman's womb. It was once believed that a woman's volatile moods centered on disturbances within her womb. Nowadays, it means uncontrollable panic. I don't think the court panicked. It took months to conduct the investigations and with a new King and Queen taking the throne (William and Mary) the court waited for new government representatives to arrive. No one was ever burned at the stake, but people did believe in possession and in "The Walking Dead," the zombies, not the TV series. Those were frightening times and it hasn't improved much today. In the summer of 2014, two 12-year-old girls lured their friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times. They believed that offering their friend up as a sacrifice would cause "Slender Man" to appear. (Their friend lived.... just barely.) "Slender Man" is a fictional Internet character whose image appears in unexpected places and is a little freaky-looking. When I was a kid I would see graffiti declaring that "Kilroy was here." It was usually accompanied by the drawing of a man with a long nose peering over a wall. I never thought of him as real, though. FYI, as of this writing (December 2015) the trial has been postponed awaiting a decision on whether a 12-year-old can be tried as an adult, but the law in that state is clear.... in a murder case... yes. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
There are a lot of directions I can go with the Salem Witch Trials. Was it simple hysteria? That is an interesting word, "hysteria". It is a Latin word that refers to a woman's womb. It was once believed that a woman's volatile moods centered on disturbances within her womb. Nowadays, it means uncontrollable panic. I don't think the court panicked. It took months to conduct the investigations and with a new King and Queen taking the throne (William and Mary) the court waited for new government representatives to arrive. No one was ever burned at the stake, but people did believe in possession and in "The Walking Dead," the zombies, not the TV series. Those were frightening times and it hasn't improved much today. In the summer of 2014, two 12-year-old girls lured their friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times. They believed that offering their friend up as a sacrifice would cause "Slender Man" to appear. (Their friend lived.... just barely.) "Slender Man" is a fictional Internet character whose image appears in unexpected places and is a little freaky-looking. When I was a kid I would see graffiti declaring that "Kilroy was here." It was usually accompanied by the drawing of a man with a long nose peering over a wall. I never thought of him as real, though. FYI, as of this writing (December 2015) the trial has been postponed awaiting a decision on whether a 12-year-old can be tried as an adult, but the law in that state is clear.... in a murder case... yes. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Waving the Bloody Shirt and Whitfield's Shirt Cuffs!
King William the 3rd of England and his wife, Queen Mary the 2nd have taken the Throne of England and chased out the former King James the 2nd. But King James was also King of Scotland and a number of clans rebelled in support of King James. Once King James escaped to France, the handwriting was on the wall. King William gave the Scots the opportunity to pledge loyalty to him and if they did he would grant them a pardon for rebelling. The one holdout was Alastair Maclain, chief of the MacDonald clan. Maclain intended to wait until the deadline and then submit. However, when he showed up, the official said he wasn't authorized to accept such an oath of loyalty. Maclain headed out to another town to declare his clan's loyalty to the King, but a snow storm delayed them well past the deadline. Nevertheless, Maclain had the impression that a little late was good enough. No one said otherwise. He gave his oath to the second official and then returned to Glenncoe. The Campbell clan was a long-time enemy of the MacDonalds and one morning, the Campbells rose early and massacred the MacDonalds. In the hands of the Campbells was a writ of permission from the King. Apparently, a little late was too late as far as the King was concerned. It was a brutal and bloody message. A few of the MacDonald clan wives managed to escape. They wanted revenge so they "waved the bloody shirts" of their dead husbands to rouse the clans to action. [13] [14]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
It seems strange to wave the clothing of the dead to inspire the troops, but this was more common than one might think, or want to talk about, but we are going to talk about it anyway. When the American Colonies were burdened under the Stamp Act, they sent two people to England to protest: Benjamin Franklin and Reverend George Whitfield. When Whitfield returned, he made it clear that revolution was coming. Had he lived he would have been an inspirational leader but he died in 1770 and was buried in a crypt under his pulpit. Nevertheless, when the American Revolution got started, the men who remembered him, visited his crypt, opening it and took pieces of his clothing... apparently as inspirational relics. Many churches have holy relics and when George Whitfield had himself buried under his pulpit, he was making himself into a holy relic. This need for relics extends to the gift shop of the Freedom Tower in New York, the site where the Twin Towers once stood. Crass as it might seem, you know darn well that if they thought they could get away with it, the gift shop would be selling chunks of the Twin Towers there. I don't know why human beings have this need, but we do. We are more embarrassed by it nowadays, but the feeling remains. [15] [16]
It seems strange to wave the clothing of the dead to inspire the troops, but this was more common than one might think, or want to talk about, but we are going to talk about it anyway. When the American Colonies were burdened under the Stamp Act, they sent two people to England to protest: Benjamin Franklin and Reverend George Whitfield. When Whitfield returned, he made it clear that revolution was coming. Had he lived he would have been an inspirational leader but he died in 1770 and was buried in a crypt under his pulpit. Nevertheless, when the American Revolution got started, the men who remembered him, visited his crypt, opening it and took pieces of his clothing... apparently as inspirational relics. Many churches have holy relics and when George Whitfield had himself buried under his pulpit, he was making himself into a holy relic. This need for relics extends to the gift shop of the Freedom Tower in New York, the site where the Twin Towers once stood. Crass as it might seem, you know darn well that if they thought they could get away with it, the gift shop would be selling chunks of the Twin Towers there. I don't know why human beings have this need, but we do. We are more embarrassed by it nowadays, but the feeling remains. [15] [16]
This Year on Wikipedia
Year 1692, Wikipedia.
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