'The scandal of the century': The English duchess charged with treason and witchcraft

Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, seemed destined to become queen of England. Then she was convicted of necromancy, heresy and witchcraft, a scandal that led to the Wars of the Roses. Was she a scheming satanist or a political pawn? A new novel tells her story.

In 1441, Eleanor Cobham was the wife of Humphrey of Lancaster, Duke of Gloucester, the heir presumptive of the weak and childless King Henry VI. The prospect of becoming queen was tantalisingly close. But as Humphrey's influence at court waned, allegations surfaced that Eleanor had turned to the dark arts in order to shore up his succession. These led to a conviction of treasonable witchcraft that became the scandal of the century and created space for rival claims to the throne.

Now, Philippa Gregory's fictional re-telling of Eleanor Cobham's story, Royal Witch, is putting a spotlight on a woman who is remembered for her ambition and beauty but who became a divisive figure. Some believe the evidence against England's first and only convicted royal witch was falsified and that she was a pawn in a political game, but Gregory depicts a more ruthless figure who was the author of her own destiny.

"She succumbed to the temptation to use witchcraft to kill the king and to get herself, via her husband, on the throne of England," says the author. "She's one of the very, very unusual women accused of witchcraft who actually did practise witchcraft."

For some, this former lady-in-waiting who poached the husband of her mistress, Jacqueline, Countess of Hainault, while still in her service, was a suspicious figure from the start – an unscrupulous interloper whose ostentatious lifestyle caused additional resentment. She needed to be put in her place.

Eleanor and Humphrey's interest in the supernatural was visible from the couple's extensive library. But rumours reached the King's Council that Eleanor, eager to become queen, had conspired to prophesise the king's death − with, among others, the wise woman Margery Jourdemayne, known as the "Witch of Eye", and the esteemed scholar and astrologer Roger Bolingbroke. A case for treason was formed.

Led by Humphrey's half-uncle and arch-rival, Cardinal Henry Beaufort, 18 charges of necromancy (summoning dead spirits to gain hidden knowledge), heresy, and witchcraft were levelled against Eleanor. These included procuring magical potions, commissioning an astrological chart to predict the king's death and creating a wax figure of the king to cause him fatal harm. Perhaps to fend off the allegations of treason and to suggest that the magic was purely domestic, Eleanor admitted to procuring love and fertility potions from Margery Jourdemayne.

For many historians, these were trumped-up charges that were politically motivated. As Gemma Hollman notes in her book Royal Witches: From Joan of Navarre to Elizabeth Woodville (2019), astrological prediction to inform important decisions "was no unusual activity, even among royalty". She continues: "If she did try love potions to produce a child, she can hardly have been too different from many other women in her predicament at the time."

Some commentators feel Eleanor deserves our pity. "I think there's something quite sad about this," Dr Euan Roger, a historian of late medieval and Tudor England, and the principal records specialist at the National Archives, tells the BBC. "I think what is actually........

© BBC