Robert Neill – The Devil’s Door

Robert Neill – The Devil’s Door (Arrow, 1981: originally Hamilton, 1979)

Blurb:
In those days, during the wars, there was much that many would like to forget.The cry of‘Witch!‘ was everywhere. There was one they thought was a witch: they pulled the clothes off her, and held her down while pins were stuck into her flesh. That was how it was then. . .
But now it is 1662, and King and Church are back in their own. All should be well in the land.
But when the butter won’t churn as Sir Laurence Linley and his household prepare for a wedding, the superstitious begin to talk of witches. With every day that passes, every new illness and every new occurrence, the fear and hysteria build — until the cry of ‘Witch!’ is loud enough to torment the innocent, and drive an entire village to the brink of destruction

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Robert Neill – Witch Bane

Robert Neill – Witch Bane   (Arrow 1968, 1970: originally Hutchinson, 1967)

Blurb:
Lancashire in the time of Cromwell, a county cursed, like the rest of England, by civil war and beliefs in witchcraft ….

Accused of the murder of her husband by witchcraft, Mary Standen is only saved from hanging by the intervention of a young commander of a Troop of Horse as she lies naked and bound hand and foot. That same night, as an unwilling witness to a graveyard orgy, she sees for herself that there is indeed a witch coven in the village. Refusing to betray the participants, some of whom she knows, she finds suspicion once more pointing at her, and as the scene is set for a double battle – between royalists and parliamentarians and the witches and their persecutors – Mary is forced to flee for safety at the same time as the Scots march into Preston and Cromwell comes through the hills from Skipton.

see also the Witch-Bane thread on the Vault forum

Robert Neill – Witchfire At Lammas

Robert Neill – Witchfire At Lammas (Arrow, 1979)

Blurb
1715. Queen Anne is dead and the German King George reigns over England. Throughout the country, Jacobite support is stirring and in a village at the foot of the Pennines, loyalty to the ‘true King across the water’ is strong.

Into a community seething with superstition and mistrust comes young Celia Bancroft, well-bred, educated and talented. But her mysterious talents lie in the dark realms of witchcraft, amulets and incantations.

At a time when unrest and the lust for blood run high, the forces of white and black magic begin a power struggle that culminates in a chilling and macabre climax.