Contemporaries suspected him of practising the dark arts,[2] and it was known he had predicted the death of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk.
[3] Writing to John Paston in 1450, William Lomner reported how Stacy had advised Suffolk that "if he might escape the danger of the Tower, he should be safe".
Under acerrimum examen, literally, 'severe examination' (i.e., torture)[6][7]—he implicated Thomas Burdet of Arowe,[8] a retainer of George, Duke of Clarence household.
[13] Blake was reprieved after a petition from the Bishop of Norwich,[14] but Burdet and Stacy, still protesting their innocence, were taken to Tyburn the following day and hanged, drawn and quartered.
[15][11] The medical historian Jonathan Hughes argues that Stacy's involvement in the events of 1477 indicate how "infiltration of black magic into the affairs of state" was unprecedented.