Nestling in the far north-eastern corner of Leicestershire, on the edge of the Vale of Belvoir, is the magnificent church of St Mary’s, Bottesford. A testament to the God-fearing and prosperous inhabitants of the nearby castle, it is one of the largest village churches in England and its lofty spire can be seen for miles around. The fame of the so-called ‘Lady of the Vale’ derives not from its scale and magnificence, however: it is from something altogether darker.
At the eastern end of the church lies the chancel, which houses the tombs of the lords of Belvoir Castle. In order to accommodate these cumbersome monuments, the arches and capitals were hacked into, and the roof of the chancel was pushed upwards. Even so, there was barely room to house the most unwieldy tomb of them all – a classical-style ‘mass of pretentious vulgarity’, flanked by pillars and crowned by an enormous canopy, on top of which a peacock crest is jammed in with its head touching the rafters.1 This is the tomb of Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland.
But the figures who immediately draw attention are the two small boys kneeling alongside, each clutching a skull. The long and ‘insufferably pompous’ inscription records that the earl’s second wife, Lady Cecilia Hungerford, bore him these two sons, ‘both who dyed in their infancy by wicked practice & sorcerye’.2 The earl was so determined that the shocking story of his sons’ demise would live on after his own death that he personally commissioned this extraordinary inscription. It is the only reference to witchcraft that can be found in an English church.
The alleged murderers of his two boys were Joan Flower and her daughters Margaret and Phillipa – the Witches of Belvoir.