Margery Jourdemayne, burned at Smithfield

Margery Jourdemayne, called the Witch of Eye, was burned at the stake at Smithfield on 27 October 1441. The charge against her was false belief and witchcraft.

Wikipedia records that Margery Jourdemayne, called "the Witch of Eye Next Westminster", was an English woman accused of witchcraft and false belief. On 27 October 1441 she was burned at Smithfield Market. Wikipedia says a church court probably sentenced her, and that no surviving record confirms the charges. It adds that Edward Coke later claimed to have seen a document stating she was burned as a heretic.

Executed Today tells her story alongside a case from the same year. In late June 1441, it says, three servants of the Duchess of Gloucester, Eleanor, were accused of plotting the king's death using astrology to predict the date of it. Wikipedia's article on Eleanor Cobham says Thomas Southwell and Roger Bolingbroke were arrested on charges of treasonable necromancy, and that Bolingbroke named Eleanor as the person who prompted him. Eleanor herself took refuge in Westminster Abbey.

Executed Today records what became of the three servants. Bolingbroke died by hanging, drawing and quartering on 18 November. Southwell died abruptly in prison around when Jourdemayne was put to death, and the site raises the possibility that he poisoned himself. The third, John Home, was shown to have known of the plans without taking part, and received a royal pardon.