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THE LOWESTOFT WITCHES |
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SISTER OF SAMUEL PACY, WIFE AND MOTHER Margaret was Samuel Pacy's elder sister by four years she was born at Lowestoft in February 1620 at at the time of the trial she was 42 years old. Like her younger brother she espoused the non-conformist cause and supported the embryonic Congregational movement. On the 23rd May 1640 she married, by licence, 33 years old Matthew Arnold of Lowestoft. Matthew was the eldest son of a sailor bearing the same name and his wife Ann (aka Agnes) Drake. After the death of her husband in 1619 Agnes married a widower named Francis Ewen, a local brewer and the father of Ann Landefielde who also gave evidence at the trial. The Arnold family, like those of the Pacys' and Landefieldes', were a well established Lowestoft family. Margaret and Matthew were married in the nearby parish of Somerleyton by the Reverend John Brinsley. Brinsley had been ejected from his living at nearby Great Yarmouth in 1632 because of his non-conformist views and records show that many of his supporters went to Somerleyton to hear him preach. Five years after officiating at Margaret's wedding Brinsley was back at Great Yarmouth where he helped examine the "witches" who had been discovered there by Matthew Hopkins the "Witchfinder General". |