Talks & Lectures Mary Wellesley – The Savage Remains: Women, Treason, Fire

The Savage Remains: Women, Treason, Fire is a history of women burnt at the stake for treason in Britain between the 15th and 18th centuries. Mary Wellesley’s Festival talk will focus on a midwife and healer named Agnes Sampson, burnt at the stake during the North Berwick Witch Trials – the first of the major witchcraft trials to grip Scotland in this period, where a young James VI/I personally interrogated suspected witches, convinced that witchcraft was being used to harm him and his bride.

Dr Mary Wellesley is an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research and an Associate Member of Oxford University’s English Faculty. Her first book, Hidden Hands: the Lives of Manuscripts and Their Makers was one of The Sunday Times’ history books of the year. Mary frequently contributes to both the London and New York Review of Books; for the former, she also co-hosts a hit medieval literature podcast series.