Evening talk by Dr Joanne Edge on Eleanor Cobham's 1441 trial for plotting against King Henry VI by occult methods.
The London Archives are hosting a talk on the trial of Eleanor Cobham on Wednesday 21 October, from 5:30pm to 7:00pm. It's a deep dive into a 1441 case that sits right at the intersection of witchcraft, necromancy and high-stakes politics.
Eleanor Cobham was the second wife of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, who was King Henry VI's uncle and next in line to the throne. Henry was childless and suffered periods of severe mental incapacitation, which pushed the political stakes to the extreme. In 1441, Cobham was tried for plotting against the king using occult methods, alongside three co-accused: Thomas Southwell, Roger Bolingbroke and Margery Jourdemayne.
Cultural historian Dr Joanne Edge leads the talk. Her first book, Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain, came out in 2024, and she frames the trial as a window onto late medieval culture and the link between astrology, necromancy and witchcraft in the century before the witch trials. The crime is also traced through the geography of London: where Eleanor was arrested, where the accused were held and where Bolingbroke and Jourdemayne were executed.
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The London Archives itself is a free public archive of London's history running from 1067 to the present, located in Clerkenwell near Farringdon Station. The talk runs from 5:30pm to 7:00pm on Wednesday 21 October and tickets are £10.
