The 1612 pamphlet The Witches of Northamptonshire describes five hangings at Abington gallows on 22 July. Three of those hanged lived in the Nene valley, and are less well remembered than the Guilsborough pair.
Arthur Bill of Raunds, the only man, was suspected of bewitching a woman named Martha Aspine, alias Jeames, to death. His neighbours put him, his father and his mother into the water, and all three floated, which was taken as proof of guilt. Sir Gilbert Pickering of Titchmarsh committed him to prison. His mother came to see him and then, afraid for him and for herself, cut her own throat. The pamphlet says she had claimed to consult a spirit that told her she would be hanged. His father is said to have given evidence against him.
Helen Jenkenson of Thrapston was described as having lived many years poor and scorned. She was accused of bewitching cattle and of bewitching a child to death. The pamphlet adds a story that a woman who helped search her for a witch's mark found next morning that her smock on the washing line was covered in pictures of toads and snakes. Mary Barber of Stanwick, according to the pamphlet, was charged with bewitching a man to death, and Sir Thomas Tresham committed her in May.
These are real people who died on the evidence of a hostile pamphlet. The details above are the pamphlet's claims as retold by a nineteenth century writer, and the supernatural parts are stories about them, not facts. The pin is placed on Raunds as the most central of the three villages. The gallows themselves are covered by the existing Abington Park entry.
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