On a Saturday in July 1682, a shopkeeper called Thomas Eastchurch, complained to the town’s constable, that Temperance Lloyd, was practising witchcraft. Temperance was then arrested and locked in a place called the old chapel. Thomas Gist,  the Mayor of Bideford and John Davie both interrogated Temperance on the following Monday morning.

 

Temperance after her interrogation was then faced with charges of having used sorcery upon the body of a Grace Thomas, a woman who had been ill at the time. Grace believed her illness  was  all down to Temperance. All because in the previous September, after Grace had been ill and then regained her health, Temperance had wept with joy. This reaction provoked suspicion.

 

Temperance had also questioned about witchcraft, by another neighbouring woman, Anne Wakely, This was after she saw a magpie fly to Thomas Eastchurch chamber window. Anne Wakely, claimed that that Temperance was visited by a "black man" in the form of a bird. Anne Wakely said that Temperance had said that this black man had sucked her extra teats.

 

 Thomas Eastchurch was a respected man, his statement was treated seriously. He claimed, that she confessed to meeting "something in the likeness of a black man" who tempted her to go and torment Grace Thomas. Temperance had claimed that at first, she refused but then agreed, following him to Grace Thomas's home where the black man told her to pinch Grace several times. Temperance, then said, on leaving the house, to have seen a tabby cat go into Thomas Eastchurch's shop.  To what she believed the cat to have been the Devil.

 

Temperance had said she had met the same black man again, at a later date. The man  told her to kill Grace Thomas, . Whereupon Temperance did go to the house with the black man and that she went into the chamber where Grace Thomas lay. Then further did confess that she did pinch and prick Grace Thomas again in several parts of her body, declaring with both of her hands how she did do it.  After doing this, Grace Thomas did cry out terribly. Temperance confessed, that she would be invisible during this attack.

Elizabeth, who was  Grace Thomas’s  Sister said she had found nine pricks in her knee, and suspecting witchcraft,  then confronted  Temperance Lloyd, who replied that she had pricked a piece of leather nine times.

Temperance was questioned by the rector, Michael Ogilvy. Although Temperance confessed to turning into a cat, stealing a doll and placing it in Grace Thomas's bedchamber, she denied using image magic despite the specific questioning by Michael Ogilvy.

 

William Herbert was the final witness against Temperance.  On the 2nd February 1671, William said that he had heard his father whisper on his deathbed, that Temperance had bewitched him and sent him to his death. He then had found marks on his father’s body after he had died. William then had Temperance charged with witchcraft.

 

On the 8th July, Temperance was sent to Exeter Gaol and waited for her trial. At her  execution, she tried to give justification for her actions,  and said, "The Devil met me in the street, and bid me kill her, and because I would not he beat me about the head and back."’