Joan Pechey, widow, was then brought forward; and Ales Hunt, herself an accused witch, deposed against her that she was angry because, at a distribution of bread made by the said Brian Darcy, she had gotten a loaf which was too hard baked for her; whereat in a pet she said it might have been given to some one younger, and not to her, with no teeth to eat through the crust. And then Ales watched her home, and saw her go in alone to her own house where no human soul was; but there she heard her say, as to some one, “Yea, are you so sawsie; are yee so bolde; you were not best to bee so bolde with mee: For if you will not bee ruled, you shall have Symonds sawse; yea, saide the saide Joan, I perceive if I doe give you an inch you will take an ell.” All of which talk Ales Hunt found was to no Christian creature, but to her foul and wicked imps. The which testimony her sister, Margerie Sammon, confirmed, saying that old Joan was as clever as their own mother (a noted witch, one Mother Barnes), or any oneelse in S. Osees skilled in sorcery and magic. Another examinate then came forward with a story of a bewitched cow unbewitched by a fire lighted around it: which, however, does not apparently touch any of the accused. And then the accuser, Ales Hunt, was made to take the place of the accused, and listen to the catalogue of her own sins. The chief witness against her was her little daughter-in-law (step-child?) Febey, of the age of eight or thereabouts, who deposed to her having two little things like horses, the one white the other black, which she kept by her bedside in a little low earthern pot with wool, colour white and black, and which she fed with milk out of a black “trening” dish. When the Commissioners went to search the place they found indeed the board which Phœbe said was used to cover them, and she pointed out the trening dish whence they were fed; but the little things like horses were gone; when Phœbe said they had been sent to Hayward of Frowicke. After a time Alice Hunt was brought to confess not only to two, but four, imps; two like colts, black and white, called Jack and Robbin; and two like toads, Tom and Robbyn. Mother Barnes, her mother, gave them to her, she said, when she died; and she gave her sister, Margerie Sammon, two also. When Margerie was confronted with Alice and heard what she had deposed, she got very angry and denied the whole tale, saying: “I defie thee, though thou art my sister,” saying that she had never any imps given to her on her mother’s death-bed, or at any other time. But Alice took her aside and whispered something in her ear; after which Margerie, “with great submission” and many tears, confessed that she had in truth these two imps, given to her by her mother as her sister had said, and thatshe had carried them away that same evening in a wicker basket filled with black and white wool. Her mother had said that if she did not like to keep them old Joan Pechey would be glad of them; but she did not part with them just then; and that she was to feed them on bread and milk, otherwise they would suck her blood. Their names were Tom and Robbin, and last evening she took them away—being perhaps afraid to keep them longer, now that the scent was warm—and went into Read’s ground, where she bade them “go.” Immediately they skipped out of the wicker basket toward a barred gate going into Howe Lane, to Mother Peachey’s house, whereat she, Margerie, said, “All evill goe with you, and the Lorde in heaven blesse mee from yee.”
All of which Mother Peachy, who seems to have been an upright, high-spirited old dame, stoutly denied. She was threescore year and upwards, she said, and had lived forty years in S. Osees in honour and good repute. She knew Mother Barnes, yet knew her for no witch, nor ever heard her to be so accompted, or to have skill in any witchery; nor was she at her death-bed; nor knew she of her imps. For her own part she denied that she had any “puppettes, spyrites, or maumettes;” or had had any spirits conveyed to her by Margery Sammon, or since Mother Barnes’s death. She denied all that Ales Hunt had said, as, “Yea, art thou so bolde,” &c., she denied that she had had any hand in Johnson’s death, as she had been accused of, but when he died said only he was a very honest man: she also denied some very shocking passages with her son, which he, however, had been brought to confess; and when questioned more closely concerning her imps, said that she had only a kitten and a dog at home. Whenasked of what colour were they? she answered tartly, “Ye may goe and see.”
Ales Newman was also condemned and executed; being obstinate to the last; denying the four counts with which she was charged, viz. her imps, the slaughter of her own husband, of John Johnson, and of his wife. But William Hoke deposed that on his death-bed her husband had been perpetually crying out against her, saying, “Dost thou not see—dost thou not see?” meaning the imp with which she tormented him, and which he strove vainly to beat away. Seeing her obstinacy, Brian Darcy told her that he would sever her and her spirits asunder; to which she answered quickly, “Nay,” sayth shee, “that shal ye not, for I will carry them with mee.” Then seeing that they took note of her words, she added, “if I have any.” The admission was enough, and she was hanged.
Elizabeth Bennet denied that she had had any hand in the bewitching to death Johnson or his wife, saying that the aforesaid Ales had done it all. But William Bonner had his stone ready for her on the other side, accusing her of bewitching his wife, for “shee, being sickely and sore troubled, the said Elizabeth vsed speeches unto her, saying, a goode woman howe art thou loden, and then clasped her in her armes and kissed her. Wherevpon presently after her vpper Lippe swelled and was very bigge, and her eyes much sunked into her head, and shee hath lain sithence in a very strange case.” Yet these two women were familiar friends, and “did accompanie much together;” which shows that friendship was as dangerous as enmity in those mad times when the swelling of a lip, or the familiarity of a house pet, could bring the best of a district to the gallows. And then Ursley Kemp’s testimonywas remembered against Elizabeth, and the mysteries of Suckin and Liard sought to be fathomed. Elizabeth at the first was obdurate and would confess to nothing beyond that she had certainly a pot, but no wool therein, and no imps to lay on it; but at last she too was persuaded by Brian Darcy’s fine false words; so falling on her knees, “distilling tears,” she made her public moan. William Byet and she dwelt as neighbours together, she said, living as neighbours should, well and easily; but latterly they had fallen out, because William called her “old Trot” and “old witch,” and “did ban and curse her and her cattle.” So she replied with calling him “knave,” saying, “Wind it vp Byet, for it will light vpon yourself.” And Byet’s beast died forthwith. Then Byet’s wife beat her swine with great “gybels,” and made them sick; and once she ran a pitchfork through the side of one so that it was dead, and when the butcher who bought it came to dress and cut it up, it proved “a messel,” so she had no money for it, for the butcher would not keep it and she was forced to take it back again. So far was only the ordinary quarrelling of ill-tempered country folk, and nothing very damaging to confess to; but now Brian Darcy’s fair words drew from her all about her imp Suckin, a he and like a black dog, and Lierd, a she and like a hare or a lion, and red. Suckin had first come to her a long time ago, as she was returning home from the mill; he held her by the coats, she being amazed, but vanished when she prayed. Again, when nigh hand at home, he tugged at her coats as before, yet vanished when she prayed. The next day he came with Lierd, and asked “why she was so snappish yesterday?” and thus they were for ever troubling and visiting her, till at last she yielded to their solicitations, and set them tothe work she was accused of. This was the second instance in which Brian Darcy found that old Ursley and her imp Tiffin had spoken the truth.
Ales Manfielde bewitched John Sayer’s cart, keeping it standing stock still for above an hour, because she was offended that he would not let his thatcher cover in an oven for her; and she lamed all Joan Chester’s cattle, because Joan refused her some curds. So Ales Manfielde was condemned and executed; but not before she made her confession. She said that Margaret Greuell (Greville), twelve years since, gave her four imps—Robin, Jack, William, and Puppet or Mamet: they were like black cats, two shes and two hes, and were put into a box with some wool, and placed on a shelf by her bed. But Margaret denied it all, even when Ales was confronted with her; denied too that queer tale of how she had bewitched John Carter’s two brewings, so that half a seame had to go to the swill tub, all because he would not give her Godesgood. The brewing was only unbewitched when John’s son, a tall lusty man of thirty-six, managed to stick his arrow in the brewing-vat. He had shot twice before, but missed, though he was a good shot and stood close to the vat—which was evident sorcery, somehow. Margaret denied also that she had bewitched Nicholas Strickland’s wife so that she could make no butter, because Nicholas, who was a butcher, refused her a neck of mutton. But in spite of all her denials, she, the hale woman of fifty-four, was condemned to remain in prison, heaven knows for how long; escaping the gallows by a greater miracle than any recorded of herself.
Elizabeth Ewstace, a year younger than Margaret Greville, was told that she had bewitched Robert Sanneuer, drawing his mouth all awry so that it couldbe got into its place again only with a sharp blow; and that she had killed his brother Crosse, three years ago, and bewitched his wife when with child and quite lusty and well, so that she had a most strange sickness, and the child died soon after its birth; that she made his cows give blood instead of milk; and caused his hogs “to skip and leap about the yarde in a straunge sorte,” because of the small bickerings to which S. Osees seemed specially subject. And she hurt all Felice Okey’s geese, and in particular her favourite goose, because she, Felice, had turned hers out of her yard; all of which Elizabeth Eustace denied to the face of Alice Mansfield and her other accusers. And as, on being searched, she was found to have no “bigges” or witch marks, she was mercifully kept in prison—for the time. And Annis Glascocke, wife of John the sawyer, got into the trouble that had its end only in the hangman’s cord, because Mychel the shoemaker charged her with being a “naughtie woman,” and because Ursley Kemp, informed by Tiffin, accused her of sundry things about as true as all the rest of the story. Being found well supplied with witch marks, her denial was not allowed to go for much; whereupon she abused Ursley, and said she had bewitched her and made her like to herself, she, Annis Glascocke, all the time ignorant and innocent of her devilish arts.
Then came the sad story of Henry Celles (Selles) and his wife Cysley. They were said to have killed Richard Ross’s horses, because Richard had refused Cicely a bushel of malt which she had come for, bringing a poke to put it in. And to make the accusation stronger, little Henry their son, only nine years old, affirmed that at Candlemas last past about midnight there came to his brother John a spirit, which took him by the leftleg and also by the little toe, and which was like his little sister, only that it was black. At which his brother cried out, “‘Father, father, come helpe me; there is a black thing that hath me by the legge as big as my sister;’ whereat his father saide to his mother, ‘Why thou ——, cannot you keepe your imps from my children?’ Whereat she presently called it away from her sonne, saying, ‘Come away, come away.’ At which speeche it did depart.” He further said that his mother fed her imps daily with milk out of a black dish; that their names were Hercules, Sotheons, or Jacke which was black and a he, and Mercurie, white and a she; that their eyes were like goose eyes; and that they lay on some wool under a stack of broom at the old crab-tree root. And also that his mother had sent Hercules to Ross for revenge; at which his father, when he heard of it, said, “She was a trim fool.” As she very likely was; but for other things than sending imps to her neighbours. John, a little fellow of six and three-quarters, confirmed his brother’s deposition, adding to it that “the imps had eyes as big as himself,” and that his mother fed them with thin milk out of a spoon. He gave the names of other people whom his mother had bewitched, and he showed his scarred leg, and the nail of the little toe still imperfect. And Joan Smith deposed that one day, as she was making ready to go to church, holding her babe in her arms, her mother, one Redworth’s wife, and Cicely were all at her door, ready to draw the latch as she came out, “whereat the grandmother to the childe tooke it by the hand, and shoke it, saying, ‘A mother pugs, art thou coming to church?’ and Redworth’s wife, looking on it, said, ‘Here is a iolie and likely childe—God blesse it.’ After which speeches, Selles hiswife saide, ‘shee hath neuer the more children for that, but a little babe to play withall for a time.’ And she saith within a short time after her said childe sickened and died. ‘But,’ she saith”—her womanly heart carrying it over her superstition—“‘that her conscience will not serve her to charge the said Cysley or her husband to be the causers of any suche matter, but prayeth God to forgive if they haue dealt in any such sorte.’” Then Thomas Death accused Cicely Selles and one Barker’s wife of bewitching George Battell’s wife and his own daughter Mary, who got such good of the witches by a wise man’s ministering that she saw her tormentor standing in bodily shape before her; and Ales Baxter was pricked to the heart by a white imp like a cat which then vanished into the bushes close by, and so badly holden that she could neither go nor stand nor speak, and did not know her own master when he came by, but was forced to be taken home in a chair by two men. All of which Henry Selles and his wife Cicely denied; specially the story of the imp and the children, who, if there were imps at all in the matter, were the only imps afloat. But denial did them no good, for Cicely had witch marks, so was condemned, and the two little lying varlets made themselves orphans and homeless.
A very crowd of witnesses came to testify against Annis Herd. Of some she had bewitched the cream, of others the milk; of some the cows or pigs or wives; but all this was mere floating accusation until the Commissioners got hold of her little “base” daughter of seven, who gave them plenty of information. Asked if her mother had imps, she said “Yes;” in one box she had six “auices,” or blackbirds, and in another box six like cows as big as rats, with short horns, lying inthe boxes on white or black wool. And she said that her mother gave her one of the cow imps, a black and white one, called Crowe; and to her little brother one, red and white, called Donne; and that she fed the avices or blackbirds with wheat and barley and oats and bread and cheese; giving to the cows wheat straw, bean straw, oat straw, or hay, with water or beer to drink. When her brother sees these blackbird imps come a “tuitting and tetling” about him, added the little base daughter, he takes and puts them in the boxes. Some of them sucked on her mother’s hands, and some on her brother’s legs, and when they showed her the marks she pointed them out one by one, saying, “Here sucked aves and here blackbird.” She was sharp enough though to shield herself, young as she was; for when asked why one of her hands had the same kind of mark, she said it was burnt. Anis Herd was kept in prison, but not hanged just then, for she could not, luckily for her, be got to confess to anything very damaging. She said that she was certainly angry with the churl Cartwright for taking away a bough which she had laid over a flow in the highway, but she had not bewitched him or his; and that she had, truly, kept Lane’s wife’s dish fourteen days or more, as Lane’s wife had said, and that Lane’s wife had sent for the twopence which she, Anis, owed her, and that she had grumbled with her—also with this neighbour and that neighbour, according to the habits of S. Osees—butthatshe had bewitched none of them. And she denied the avices and the blackbirds and all and sundry of the stories of Crow or Dun; which, indeed, with some others spoken of by the children, seem to have been,if existing at all, toys or treasures kept hoarded from them, to which they added these magical and absurdconditions as their imaginations taught them or their examiners prompted.
Joan Robinson, another S. Osees witch, was to blame for various acts of sorcery and witchcraft—hurting one woman’s brood goose, and another’s litter of pigs, drowning cows, laming ambling mares, and the rest of the witch’s playful practices; all of which she, too, denied strenuously, but nevertheless formed one of the thirteen victims whom the offended justice of the times found necessary to condemn and execute. So this sad trial came to an end, and Brian Darcy covered his name with infamy so long as W. W. has a black letter copy extant.
The following singular table is drawn up at the end of the book:—
“The names ofXIIIWitches and those that have been bewitched by them.The Names of those persons that have beene bewitched and thereof haue dyed, and by whome, and of them that haue receyved bodyly harme, &c. As appeareth vpon sundrye Enformations, Examinations, and Confessions taken by the worshipfull Bryan Darcey, Esquire; and by him certified at large vnto the Queene’s Maiestie’s Justices of Assise of the Countie of Essex, theXXIXof Marche, 1582.
“The names ofXIIIWitches and those that have been bewitched by them.
The Names of those persons that have beene bewitched and thereof haue dyed, and by whome, and of them that haue receyved bodyly harme, &c. As appeareth vpon sundrye Enformations, Examinations, and Confessions taken by the worshipfull Bryan Darcey, Esquire; and by him certified at large vnto the Queene’s Maiestie’s Justices of Assise of the Countie of Essex, theXXIXof Marche, 1582.
“The sayd Ursley Kemp had foure spyrites, viz., their names Tettey a hee like a gray Cat, Jack a hee like a black Cat, Pygin a she like a black Toad, and Tyffin a she like a white Lambe. The hees were to plague to death, and the shees to punish with bodily harme, and to destroy cattell.“Tyffyn, Ursley’s white Spirit, did tell her alwayes (when she asked) what the other witches had done: and by her the most part were appelled, which spirit telled her alwayes true. As is well approved by the other Witches confession.“The sayd Ales Newman had the sayd Ursley Kemps spirits to vse at her pleasure. Elizabeth Bennet had two spirits, viz., their names Suckyn, a hee like a blacke Dog: and Lyard, red lyke a Lyon or Hare.“Ales Hunt had two spirits lyke Colts, the one blacke, the other white.“11. Margery Sammon had two spirits lyke Toads, their Names Tom and Robyn.“Cysley Celles had two spirits by seuerall names, viz., Sotheons, Hercules, Jack, or Mercury.“Ales Manfield and Margaret Greuell had in common by agreement, iiii Spirits, viz., their names Robin, Jack, Will, Puppet, alias Mamet, whereof two were hees, and two were shees, lyke vnto black Cats.“Elizabeth Ewstace had iii Impes or Spirits of colour white, grey, and black.“Annis Herd had vi Impes or Spirites, like auises and black byrdes, and vi other like Kine, of the bygnes of Rats, with short hornes; the Auises shee fed with wheat, barley, otes, and bread, the Kine with straw and hay.
“The sayd Ursley Kemp had foure spyrites, viz., their names Tettey a hee like a gray Cat, Jack a hee like a black Cat, Pygin a she like a black Toad, and Tyffin a she like a white Lambe. The hees were to plague to death, and the shees to punish with bodily harme, and to destroy cattell.
“Tyffyn, Ursley’s white Spirit, did tell her alwayes (when she asked) what the other witches had done: and by her the most part were appelled, which spirit telled her alwayes true. As is well approved by the other Witches confession.
“The sayd Ales Newman had the sayd Ursley Kemps spirits to vse at her pleasure. Elizabeth Bennet had two spirits, viz., their names Suckyn, a hee like a blacke Dog: and Lyard, red lyke a Lyon or Hare.
“Ales Hunt had two spirits lyke Colts, the one blacke, the other white.
“11. Margery Sammon had two spirits lyke Toads, their Names Tom and Robyn.
“Cysley Celles had two spirits by seuerall names, viz., Sotheons, Hercules, Jack, or Mercury.
“Ales Manfield and Margaret Greuell had in common by agreement, iiii Spirits, viz., their names Robin, Jack, Will, Puppet, alias Mamet, whereof two were hees, and two were shees, lyke vnto black Cats.
“Elizabeth Ewstace had iii Impes or Spirits of colour white, grey, and black.
“Annis Herd had vi Impes or Spirites, like auises and black byrdes, and vi other like Kine, of the bygnes of Rats, with short hornes; the Auises shee fed with wheat, barley, otes, and bread, the Kine with straw and hay.
Thus did W. W. and Bryan Darcey finish their respective works, in which, perhaps, this formal tabular statement, this pretence at scientific arrangement and accuracy, is the strangest and most revolting element.[105]
Another rare and curious[106]black-letter pamphlet gives a marvellous account of a woman’s possession, as it happened in Somersetshire; which perchance we of the light-minded and sceptical nineteenth century might interpret differently to what the believing sixteenth held likely.
One Stephen Cooper, of Ditchet, a yeoman of honest reputation, good wealth, and well beloved by his neighbours, being sick and weak, sent his wife Margaret to a farm of his at Rockington, Gloucestershire, where she remained a few days—not finding all to her liking, she said. When she returned she found her husband somewhat better, but she herself was strange and wild, using much idle talk to him concerning an old groat which her little son had found and which she wanted to see, and raving about the farm in Gloucestershire, as if she had been bewitched, and knew not what she said. Then she began to change in very face, and to look on her husband with “a sad and staring countenance;” and, one night, things came to a climax, for she got very wild and bad, and shook so frightfully that they could scarce keep her down in the bed; and then she began talking of a headless bear, which, she said, she had been into the town to beat away during thetime of her fit, and which had followed her from Rockington: as the sequel proved was true. Her friends and husband exhorted her to prayer and patience, but she still continued marvellously holden, the Devil getting quite the better of her until Sunday night, when she seemed to come to her worst. Suddenly the candle, which they had not been noticing, went out, and she set up a lamentable cry; they lighted another, but it burnt so dim it was almost useless, and the friends and neighbours themselves began to be disquieted. Wildly and hurriedly cried Margaret, “Look! do you not see the Devil?” herself all terrified and disturbed. They bade her be still and pray. Then said Margaret, “Well, if you see nothing now, you shall see something by and bye;” and “forthwith they heard a noise in the streete, as it had been the coming of two or three carts, and presently they in the chamber cried out, ‘Lord helpe us, what manner of thing is this that commeth here!’” For up to the bedside where the woman lay with heaving breasts and dilated eyes, came a thing like a bear, only that it had no head and no tail; a thing “half a yard in height and half a yard in length” (no bigger, Margaret? not so big as a well-trussed man on all-fours?) which, when her husband saw, he took a joyn’d stool, and “stroke” at it, and the blow sounded as though it had fallen on a feather bed. But the creature took no notice of the man: it wanted only Margaret. Slowly it paddled round the bed, then smote her thrice on the feet, took her out of bed, and rolled her to and fro in the chamber, round about the floor and under the bed; the husband and friends, sore amazed and affrighted, only calling on God to assist them, not daring to lift a hand for themselves or her. And all the while the candle grew dimmer anddimmer, so that they could scarce see each other: which was what Margaret and the headless bear, no doubt, desired. Then the creature took her in its arms, thrust her head between her legs so that he made her into a round ball, and “so roulled her in a rounde compasse like an Hoope through three other Chambers, downe an highe paire of staires, in the Hall, where he kept her for the space of a quarter of an hour.” The people above durst not come down, but remained above, weeping pitifully and praying with loud and fervent prayer. And there was such a terrible stench in the hall, and such fiery flames darting hither and thither, that they were fain to stop their noses with clothes and napkins, expecting every moment to find that hell was opening beneath their feet, and that they would be no longer able to keep out of harm’s way and the Devil’s. Then Margaret cried out, “He is gone. Now he is gone!” and her husband joyfully bade her come up to him again; which she did, but so quickly that they greatly marvelled at it, and thought to be sure the Devil had helped her. Yet she proved to be none the worse for the encounter: which was singular, as times went. They then put her in bed, and four of them kept down the clothes, praying fervently. Suddenly the woman was got out of bed: she did not move herself by nerves, muscles, or will, of course; but she was carried out by a supernatural power, and taken to the window at the head of the bed. But whether the devil or she opened the window, the pamphlet does not determine. Then her legs were thrust out of the window, and the people heard a thing knock at her feet as if it had been upon a tub; and they saw a great fire, and they smelt a grievous smell; and then, by the help of their prayers, they pulled Margaret intothe room again, and set her upon her feet. After a few moments she cried out, “O Lord, methinks I see a little childe!” But they paid no heed to her. Twice or thrice she said this, and ever more earnestly; and at last they all looked out at the window, for they thought to be sure she must have some meaning for her raving. And “loe, they espied a thing like unto a little child, with a bright shining countenaunce casting a greate light in the chamber.” And then the candle, which had hitherto burnt blue and dim, gave out its natural light so that they could all see each other. Whereupon they fell to joyful prayer, and gave thanks to God for the deliverance. And Margaret Cooper was laid in her bed again, calm, smiling, and collected, never more to be troubled by a Headless Bear which rolled her about like a ball, or by a bright shining child looking out from the chinks of a rude magic lantern. As for the bear, I confess I think he was nearer akin to man than devil; that he was known about Rockington in Gloucestershire; and that Margaret Cooper understood the conduct of the plot from first to last. But then this is the sceptical nineteenth century, wherein the wiles of human cunning are more believed in than the power of the devil, or the miracles of supernaturalism. Yet this was a case which, in spite of all its fraud and folly so patently displayed, was cited as one of the most notorious and striking instances of the power of Satan over the bodies as well as the souls of those who gave themselves up to the things of the world.
In 1589, Robert Throckmorton, Esquire, lived at Warbois, in Huntingdonshire. He had five daughters, the eldest of whom, Miss Joan, was fifteen, while the rest came down in steps, two years or so between each, in the ordinary manner. On the tenth of November, Mistress Jane, being then near ten years of age, was suddenly seized with a kind of fit. She “screeked” loud and often, lay as if in a trance for half an hour or more, shook one leg or one arm and no other, “as if the Palsie had been in it,” made her body so stiff and rigid that no man could bend her, and went through the usual forms of a young girl’s hysteria. A neighbour, one Alice Samuel, who lived next door to the Throckmortons, went in to see the afflicted child; for all the neighbours were flocking in to see her as a kind of curiosity; and, stepping up into the chimney-side, sat hard down by her, she being held in another woman’s arms by the fire. Suddenly the child cried out, “Did you ever see one more like a Witch than she is?” pointing to Mother Samuel; “take off her black-thrumb’d cap, for I cannot abide to look at her.”
Nothing was thought of her words at the time, the mother merely chiding her for her lightness of speech; but “the old woman hearing her, sat still, without saying a word, yet looked very dismally, as those that saw her remembered very well.” And as well she might, poor old soul; for she must have known that Mrs.Jane’s light speech would in all probability be heavy enough to bring her down to the grave.
Doctoring did the child no good. Dr. Barrow of Cambridge, the most noted man of the district, gave the distemper no satisfactory name, and his remedies were powerless to remove it; Mr. Butler, another skilful man, was equally at fault; and when, about a month after Mrs. Jane had been attacked, two other daughters were driven to the like extremity, and “cry’d out upon Mother Samuel, ‘Take her away, look where she standeth there before us in a black thrumb’d Cap (which she commonly wore, though not then); it’s she that hath bewitched us, and she will kill us if you don’t take her away,’” the parents were moved to believe the whole thing supernatural, and that Mother Samuel had indeed bewitched them as they said. About a month after the affliction of these two, a younger child, not quite nine years old, was taken like the rest; and soon after Mrs. Joan, of fifteen, went the same way—only more severely handled than them all. Mrs. Joan had a specialty in her fits. She was not only hysterical like her sisters, but she had a Spirit, and this Spirit sounded in her ears information of things to come: as, that the servants as well as the five children should be bewitched—which they were, but did not become so notorious as the little impostors of better blood; all recovering so soon as they left the house for other situations, and nothing more being heard of them. Things went on then in this manner, the children being perpetually tormented with fits, and for ever crying out against old dame Samuel, when, in February of the next year (1590), it was resolved to bring her to the house that the children might “scratch” her, and so relieve themselves somewhat. Whereuponshe, her young daughter Agnes, and one Cicely Burder—both of whom were accused of the same malpractices as herself—were haled to Mr. Throckmorton’s, there to undergo their preliminary ordeal. Every care was taken to prevent the mother from holding any communication with her daughter Agnes; but at the entry she managed to lean over and whisper to her. Mr. Pickering, the children’s uncle, who had undertaken to conduct this Scratching, was ready to swear that she said, “I charge thee do not confess anything;” but Mother Samuel swore, in her turn, that she had only charged her to hasten home to get her father his dinner; for that same father was a terrible old Turk, and not likely to wait patiently for his dinner or aught else.
When the women went into the house the children were standing by the fire, perfectly well; but the instant they saw Mother Samuel, they fell down in their fits, leaping and springing about like fishes newly taken out of the water, drawing their heads and heels backwards, and throwing out their arms with great groans that were terrible and troublesome to those that beheld them. They screamed and struggled to get at the old woman, scratching at the bed-clothes, or the maids’ aprons, or anything they could touch, crying out, “O! that I had her! O! that I had her!” And when Mr. Pickering forced Mother Samuel’s hand within theirs, they scratched at it with so much vehemence that one of them splintered her nails “with her eager desire of revenge;” doing the same by Cicely Burder, who thus, we are not told how or why, found herself in a dangerous and equivocal position, but seems to have got well out of it in time. Or perhaps she died between whiles, happily for herself.
For the next few months it was Mrs. Elizabeth Throckmorton who kept up the ball. Mr. Pickering took her away with him to his own house, where she fooled them all to the top of their bent, crying out to Mother Samuel to take away her mouse, for she would have none of it, and exclaiming in piteous tones that Mother Samuel was trying to force a cat, or a frog, or sometimes a toad, into her mouth; hopping about on one leg, pretending to be utterly incapable of putting the other to the ground; sometimes going for two steps at a time, when “she would halt and give a beck with her head as low as her knees;” asking if no one heard the spirit within her lapping the milk she had just taken; playing at cards with her eyes shut, or seemingly so; and falling into drowsy fits which took her even in the midst of meals, or any while else specially untimely. Her bewitchment took a certain controversial turn too, and witnessed for the Pope and the Devil; for “on the Eleventh, one asked her if she loved the Word of God; whereupon she was much troubled and tormented. When they asked, Love you Witchcraft? she was content. Love you the Bible? it shaked her. Love you Papistry? the Devil within her was quiet. Love you Prayer? it raged. Love you the Mass? it was still. Love you the Gospel? it heaved up her Belly; so that every good thing it disliked; but whatever concerned Popish Idolatry it was pleased with.” Mr. Pickering kept this sectarian young lady from March to September, and then it pleased Mistress Elizabeth to require change of air and scene, and she demanded to be taken back to her father’s house at Warbois. There she played off her tricks with new vigour, when Lady Cromwell, wife of Sir Henry Cromwell, Knt., hearing of these heavy afflictions came tovisit the children and comfort the parents. The children of course went off into their customary state; it was not their game to disappoint my Lady; “and were so grievously Tormented that it moved the good Lady’s Heart with Pity, so that she could not forbear Tears, and caused old Mother Samuel to be sent for, who durst not deny to come, because her Husband was Tenant to Sir Henry Cromwell.” As soon as she came in, the children were so much worse that the Lady, transported beyond herself, and exceedingly angry that Mother Samuel would not confess to her crime, seized hold of her as she was struggling to get free of their hands and slip out of the room, pulled off her kircher, and cut off a lock of her hair, which she gave privately to Mrs. Throckmorton together with the old dame’s hairlace; bidding her burn them. The old woman turning against the Lady, said, half sorrowfully, “Madam, why do you use me thus? I never did you any harm as yet:” words to be remembered and treasured up against her, when the hour came. That very night Lady Cromwell had bad dreams concerning Mother Samuel and her cat, which she said came to strip all the flesh from her—and awakened, crying mightily and much distressed. From that time she had fits, and continued very hardly holden till her dying day, which was one year and a quarter after the visit to Warbois. So Mother Samuel’s words were held to have been witch’s threats, and the whole country was convinced that Lady Cromwell had died by her magic arts, and bewitched. As she was, poor lady, with nervous fear and superstition and ignorance.
The next year, in the winter of 1591, Mr. Henry Pickering, a young student at Cambridge, tried to makeDame Samuel confess, but she would not suffer him or his companions to speak, and when they desired her to speak softlier, answered: “She was born in a Mill, begot in a Kiln, and must have her Will, and could speak no softlier.” Then Mr. Henry began to question her on her faith, but got only tart answers; so, losing patience, he said that if she did not repent and confess to having worked that wickedness on the children, he hoped one day to see her burn at the stake, and that he would bring wood and faggots and the children should blow the coals. To which old Dame Samuel replied that she “would rather see him doused over head in the pond;” and so went away home, to be beaten for gossiping and staying late, by that terrible old Turk of hers.
And now the children would be well only when the dame was with them; so the parents sought to engage her to live with them, but the old Turk would not give his consent, and beat her severely with a cudgel on the slightest pretext. The whole thing angered him, and his dame could not do right let her do what she would. However, he was prevailed on to spare her for eight or nine days, during which time the lying little girls professed themselves cured of all their haunting spirits—dun chickens, naked babes, and the like; to the old woman’s extreme consternation and passionate assurances of innocence. Then the children turned against Agnes Samuel, the daughter, declaring that she had bewitched them equally with the mother: whereupon the father, Mr. Throckmorton, went to bring her to the house; when she hid herself in an attic or loft, barricading herself in by sacks of wool piled up on the trapdoor. She was forced to come down at last, and her fear was made the chief evidence against her. Thehour had come round for her on Time’s cruel dial, and she could not escape the inevitable decree that had gone forth. All this while the old mother was forcibly detained at Mr. Throckmorton’s house; the children pretending that they could be well only in her presence, and absolutely refusing to let her go, though she was sick and fearful and weary, and cried to get home again to her daughter and husband. That uncompromising oaken cudgel of his was less terrible than the awful suspicion under which she was living here; and the harassing uncertainty of her life—never knowing what new lie the children might frame against her, nor how much nearer they might bring her to the gallows by some wicked fancy or delusion—was infinitely worse than all the oaths and ill-usage of home, of which she knew at least the extent and end. She seems to have been a gentle-spirited old creature in spite of her crusty tongue; and at the beck of every one who chose to knock her about and require from her service and submission. When Mr. Throckmorton had teased and threatened and exhorted her, till she was completely “dazed and mazed” with all she heard—and when the children had acted their fits with such power and accuracy that they simulated nature to the life, and had impressed even her with all the wicked things which their Spirits told them of her and of her daughter—her mind, enfeebled by suffering and terror, gave way, and she was deluded into a confession of sin and penitence; after which she obtained leave to go home. As her husband gave her but a harsh welcome, angry with her for her weakness in confessing, she recanted as of course; when Mr. Throckmorton, getting hold of her by an open window beneath which his friends were stationed, bullied and deluded her once moreinto making a confession which they might hear; and on the strength of which he carried off both dame and daughter, to be examined by the Bishop of Lincoln.
The Bishop found her easy. Yes, she had an imp; a dun chicken which sucked on her chin, and which she had sent to torment the Throckmorton girls. The dun chicken and the rest of the spirits were now at the bottom of her stomach, and made her so full and heavy that she could not lace her coat, nor was the horse on which she rode able to carry her all the way: she had three spirits, all like dun chickens—Pluck, Catch, and White, which had been given her by an “upright man,” extremely hard, of the name of Langland, of no particular dwelling and now gone beyond seas; and she had sent all three to the children and had plagued them sorely. This she said at various times, at each clause conjuring the devil and her spirits to inform her of the facts required by the Right Reverend Father in God. After her examination she and her daughter were committed to gaol; but Mr. Throckmorton got Agnes out on bail that he might take her home to the children, and see what they would say of her. This seemed to him the best way to complete the evidences of guiltiness against her, which at present were very slight and worthless. So the net closed tighter and tighter round this hapless family, and soon the deep black waves, rolling onward, dashed over their devoted heads.
When they heard that Agnes was brought back to Warbois, the children fell into their fits again, each saying, “I am glad, I am glad; none so glad as I.” They knew the cruel sport preparing for them, and were in no hurry to abandon the pleasant excitement of theirPossession, during which they were made so many centres of public interest, petted and commiserated and looked at and talked about and made of more consequence than the finest lady in the land. When the game was over they must sink down into the humdrum lives of good little girls in a country town, of no possible interest to living being outside their own house door. Surely an event to be deferred to the latest moment possible! For the first three or four days after Agnes’ arrival they condescended to be well, but, being by that time tired of their new companion, they fell back into their former state, and cried out against her more bitterly than they had ever done against her mother. She was more helpless, too, than the mother, and more entirely in their power; so that the sport was greater, and the fear of opposition or detection less. Specially did Mistress Joan, the eldest girl, torment her; who, being at this time seventeen, had other ideas of spirits than dun chickens, mice, or frogs, which were all very well in the days of her infancy but quite uninteresting to her now. The manner in which she introduced her Spirits was singular. One day, just after her nose had bled, and she had said “it would be a good thing to throw her handkerchief into the fire, and burn the young witch,” she suddenly looked about her smiling, and said, “What is this in God’s Name that comes tumbling to me? It tumbles like a Foot-bal, it looks like a puppit-player, and appears much like its Dame’s old thrumb Cap. ‘What is your Name, I pray you?’ said she. The Thing answered, his Name was Blew. To which she answered, ‘Mr. Blew you are welcome, I never saw you before; I thought my Nose bled not for nothing, what News have you brought? What,’ says she, ‘dost thou say I shall be worse handled than everI was? Ha! what dost thou say? that I shall now have my Fits, when I shall both hear and see and know every Body? that’s a new Trick indeed. I think never any of my Sisters were so used, but I care not for you: do your worst, and when you have done, you will make an end.’” Then she cried out that Agnes Samuel had too much liberty, and must be more strictly looked to; for that Mr. Blew had told her she should have no peace till she and the old dame were hanged.
Mrs. Joan had opened a most prolific and amusing vein. Her imagination stopped at nothing, and she showed herself no mean hand at romance. She was very consecutive too, and kept up the likeness well. In the evening Mr. Blew appeared again, chiefly for the purpose of telling her that young Nan Samuel was his Dame, and to ask when the Spirit Smack, of whom he was jealous, had been with her. Mrs. Joan said she knew of no Smack. “You do,” says the Thing, “and it is he that tells you all these things, but I will curse him for it.” “Do your worst to me or him, I care not for you,” says she. “Farewel,” says the Thing. “Do you bid me farewel?” says she; “farewel, and be hanged; and come again when you are sent for.” So then she came out of her fit. The next day a strange gentleman coming, Mrs. Elizabeth passed off into one of her wild states, and Mr. Throckmorton, “to show the gentleman a wonder,” sent for young Agnes, and made her say after him, “I charge thee, thou Devil, as I love thee, and have Authority over thee, and am a Witch, and guilty of this matter, that thou suffer this Child to be well at this present.” Upon which Mrs. Elizabeth wiped her eyes, and was perfectly well; and the wretched young girl was by so many steps nearer to her doom. The next day was a grand field-day forMrs. Joan. Her spirits were in admirable disorder. Mr. Smack came from fighting with Pluck about her, for they were both in love with her, and had fought with great cowl staves last night in old dame’s back yard, and Smack had broken Pluck’s head, for which Mrs. Joan was not at all thankful, but, when he looked for a little loving word of gratitude, answered, scornfully, that she wished Pluck had broke his neck also, and so bid him go and be hanged for she would have nought to do with him. Presently in came Mr. Pluck, hanging down his broken head and looking very sheepish, but jealous and angry with Smack who seemed to have the best chance of them all with the young lady. Another day it was Catch who came in limping, with a broken leg got from the redoubtable Smack; but when Mrs. Joan tried to break his other leg with a stick she had in her hand—for she was a very scornful young lady to them—she could not; for ever as she struck at him he leaped over the stick, “just like a Jack-an-apes,” as she said. Mr. Blew’s turn came next. He appeared before her at supper with his arm in a sling: Smack had broken it. So Smack broke Pluck’s head, Catch’s leg, and Blew’s arm, and then came himself to tell her that he would beat them all again, with the help of his cousin another Smack, and one Hardname, whose “Name standeth upon eight Letters, and every Letter standeth for a Word, but what his Name is otherwise we know not.” Then Smack and she conversed about the propriety of “scratching” Agnes Samuel; and it was agreed between them that she should not scratch her then, because her face would be healed by the Assizes, but just before that time when all the world might see the marks.
And now began a scene of painful brutality.Whenever the children fell into their fits, they would only consent to be got out of them by Agnes’ repeating a form of conjuration, in which she acknowledged herself to be a witch and guilty of their disease, commanding the devil, whom she had sent into them, to leave them. Then they came round, and were well until strangers called, when they invariably went off into their fits—which we can quite well understand—or until they got tired of the monotony of health. The most terrible threats were held out against Nan Samuel; and each child talked to its particular spirit with passion and fury of scratching her. It came at last: the little diabolical tempers which rose higher and higher with each fresh indulgence, getting weary of only fits and muttered communications with spirits and the thirst for blood grew into a frenzy. One of the younger children, Mrs. Mary, one day fell into a “very troublesome Fit,” which held her half an hour, and at the last, growing better, she said, “Is it true? Do you say this is the day I must scratch the young Witch? I am glad of it; I will pay her home both for myself and Sisters.” The young Pickering men who were standing by, hearing this, sent for Agnes to come into the room; when she came in the child cried out, “Art thou come, thou young Witch, who hath done all this mischief?” At which Agnes seemed surprised, this being the first time Mrs. Mary had abused her. Then one of the company told her to take Mary in her arms, and carry her down stairs; but she had no sooner got hold of her than the child fell to scratching her head and face with eager fierceness; the poor girl standing still and holding down her head, not defending herself but only crying out pitifully, while the child scratched on her face a broad and bleeding wound. When she was out of breath andthus forced to leave off, she cried and said “she was sorry for her cruelty, but the Thing made her do it, so that she could not help herself.” Another day it was another of them who fell upon the maid, she not defending herself or resenting, but “crying out sadly, desiring the Lord to pitty her.” Then they abused her, saying, “Thy Mother is a Witch, thy Father is a Witch, and thou art a Witch, and the worst of all;” and then they clamoured for the father, the old Turk, and would have him in to scratch him too. Just at that moment old Samuel chanced to come in to see his daughter—for he knew what kind of treatment she had to undergo—when a great hubbub arose. The children cried out against him, and—wretched young hypocrites!—exhorted him in the godliest terms to confess and repent; called him witch and naughty man and all the rest of the injuries then current; while he retorted fiercely and rudely, and told one of the little baggages she lied—as she did. But Mr. Throckmorton got angry, and would not let him go till he had pronounced the same conjuration as that by which his poor daughter was forced to “fyle” herself; and when he had said the words, the child came out of her fit, and acted amazement and shame to the life. So it went on: the children having their fits, being visited by their spirits, of whom there were nine now afloat—three Smacks, Pluck, Blew, Catch, White, Callicot, and Hardname—and every day or so scratching poor Nan till her face and back and hands were one mass of scars and wounds. And then the Assize time came, and the three Samuels—father, mother, and daughter—were put upon their trial for bewitching Lady Cromwell to death, and tormenting Mrs. Joan Throckmorton and her sisters. There could be no mistake about it now, for not only had they allthree convicted themselves by their own confessions in the conjuration which they had been obliged to repeat, but even before the judge, Mrs. Jane played off the like trick, falling into a terrible fit which only old Samuel could get her out of by repeating the charm. At first he was obstinate and sturdily refused to say the words; but on the judge telling him that he should be brought in guilty if he did not, he consented, and had no sooner said—“As I am a witch, and did consent to the death of the Lady Cromwell, so I charge thee, Devil, to suffer Mrs. Jane to come out of her Fit at this present”—than Mrs. Jane wiped her eyes, looked round her, and said, “O Lord father where am I?” pretending to be quite amazed at her position. No hand is wanting when there is stoning to be done. Now that the Samuels were fairly convicted of witchcraft in one instance, witnesses came forward to prove them guilty of the like in others. It was remembered how certain persons had died who had offended the old dame; how others had lost their cows and whole farm stock in consequence of giving her rough language; how, even since she had been in gaol, she had bewitched to his death one of the turnkeys who had chained her to a bedpost, and had cruelly afflicted the gaoler’s own son, so that he could not be recovered but by “scratching” her; with the further proof that when the grand jury returned a true bill, “billa vera,” against them, old father Samuel burst out passionately to her with, “A plague of God light on thee, for thou art she that has brought us all to this, and we may thank thee for it.” So the judge, “after good divine counsel given to them, proceeded to Judgment, which was to death.” But the poor old woman set up a plea of being with child, though she was near fourscore years of age; at which all thecourt laughed, and she herself most of all, thinking it might save her. Some one standing near to Agnes counselled her to try the like plea; but the brave young girl, who had something of her father’s spirit in her, indignantly refused. “No,” said Agnes, with the gallows straight before her, and this desperate plea perhaps able to save her—“no; it shall never be said that I was both Witch and ——.” She died with the same haughty courage maintained to the last: but old mother Samuel maundered through a vast number of confessions—implicated her husband—confessed to her spirits—but with one affecting touch of nature, through all her drivel and imbecility steadily refused to criminate her daughter. No, her Nan was no witch; she was clear and pure before God and towards man; and neither force nor cajolery could make her forswear that bit of loving truth.
When those three helpless wretches were fairly dead, the children, upon whose young souls lay the ineffaceable stain of Murder, and whose first steps in life had been through innocent blood, gave up the game and pronounced themselves cured: so we hear no more of their fits or their spirits, or Mrs. Joan’s ghostly lovers fighting with cowl staves and breaking each other’s heads out of jealousy and revenge: and the last record of the case is, that Sir Henry Cromwell left an annual sum of forty shillings to provide for a yearly sermon against witchcraft, to be preached at Huntingdon by a B.D. or D.D. member of Queen’s College, Cambridge. How terrible to think that three human lives were sacrificed for such wild and wilful nonsense, and that sane and thoughtful and noble-minded people of this present day walk on the way towards the same faith! Better by far the most chill and desolate scepticism,which at least will light no Smithfield fires for any forms of creed or monstrous imaginings of superstition, than beliefs which can only be expressed and maintained by blood, and the culmination of which is in the suffering and destruction of all dissentients.
A young lawyer, a Mr. Darrel, had a call to the ministry. He was made aware of this by the extraordinary sluggishness that came upon him when he turned to open a law book; so, as preaching puritanical sermons extempore was less toilsome and cost less study than learning the intricacies of the Codex Anglicanus, he became converted to extreme doctrines, and was principally regarded as a Man of Hope, skilful in casting out devils and marvellously apt at discovering witchcraft. His first essay at this work was in 1587 with Katherine Green, a young girl of seventeen, who had some hysterical affection which caused her to swell to an enormous size and led her to fancies and delusions, as, that she saw shapes and apparitions, and a young child without feet or legs looking at her from out a well. She also had fits, which she afterwards confessed were simulated in order to make her father-in-law, who was generally exceedingly severe with her, more kind and pliable: but Mr. Darrel said they were the fits of possession, and, as a proof, cast eight devils out of her; specially one sturdy devil, called Middlecub, which had been sent into her by Margaret Roper. Mr. Darrelat once seized Margaret Roper, accusing her of this Middlecub imp, and sending her off to the magistrate, Mr. Fouliamb; and in the meanwhile Katherine suffered herself to be repossessed, having been imprudent enough to talk with the devil in the likeness of a handsome young man who met her in the lanes, where he entertained her with propositions of marriage, and gave her some bread to eat. Mr. Fouliamb happened to be a man of sense, and discharged Margaret Roper, at the same time threatening to send Darrel to prison in her stead if he took on himself to calumniate honest folk without cause. This rebuff cooled the young lawyer parson’s ardour a little; but in 1594 the Starkies of Lancashire announced themselves possessed, and Mr. Darrel must needs go down to vex the foul fiend that had gotten them. For he was so holy a man that the devils hated him mightily, being sorely vexed in his presence, andcryingout, “Now he is gone; now he is gone; now blacke coate is gone,” as soon as he quitted them, wearied with his wrestling. The story of the Starkies was this:—
Anne, aged nine, and John, of ten, were taken with “dumpish heavie countenances,” and fearful startings of their bodies, loud shouting fits, and convulsions. The father went to Hartley, a known conjuror, who came to their aid with popish charms and certain herbs; and so stilled them for a year and a half. But when he “fained as thought he would haue gone into another countrey,” the children fell ill again, and Mr. Starkie thought it best to secure the perpetual services of the conjuror by a fee of forty shillings yearly. But Hartley wanted more, and thereupon began a quarrel which ended in the Possession of the children, of three scholars living at the Starkies, of Margaret Byron, and lastly ofHartley himself. Now Hartley had a devil, and whomsoever he kissed he inoculated with this devil and breathed it into them. And as he was always kissing some one—John for love often, the little wenches in jest, to Margaret Hardman “promising a thraue of kisses,” “wrestling with Johan Smyth, a maid, to kiss her”—he had given the devil in rich proportion all through the Starkies’ house, and only Mr. Darrel could exorcise him. The possessed leaped about like goats, and crawled on all fours like beasts, and barked like dogs, and had communications from a white dove, and saw horned devils under the beds, and had visions of big black dogs with monstrous tails and bound with chains, and huge black cats and big mice that knocked them down at a blow, and left them speechless, cold, and dead. And then they took to “slossinge up their meat like greedy dogges or hogges,” and they made the same noises as a broken-winded horse; and they howled and shrieked; and one of them, Jane Ashton the servant aged thirty, fell foul of Edmund Hartley for all his kisses and promises of marriage; and they “yelled and whupped;” and there was in very truth the devil to pay in that horrible house when Mr. More and Mr. Darrel went to exorcise the fiends and restore the possessed to their senses. After some days of prayer, and of fighting with the devil who would cry out when Mr. Darrel was preaching, “Bible bable, he will never have done prating, prittle prattle;” and “I must goe, I must away; I cannot tarrie; whither shall I goe? I am hot, I am too hot, I will not dye!” and such like, six of them were delivered, and visibly and bodily dispossessed. With one, Mary Byron, the devil came up from her stomach to her breast, then to her throat, when it gave her “a sore lug,” whilst a mist dazzled her eyes.Then she felt it go out of her mouth, leaving behind it a sore throat and a filthy smell, and it was in the likeness of a crow’s head, and it sat in a corner of the parlour in the dark; but suddenly flashing out all a fire it flew out of the window, and the whole place was in a blaze, according to her imagination. John Starkie lost his in the shape of a man with a humpback and very ill-favoured, who, when he had gone out wished much to re-enter, but Master John withstood him, and had the best of it. He was like a “foule ugly man with a white beard and a ‘bulch’ on his back.” The same tale had little Ellin Holland and Anne Starkie to tell, all save the white beard. Elinor Hardman lost hers as an urchin, but presently returning through a little hole in the parlour, he offered her gold and silver in any quantity if she would let him enter again, and when she resisted he threatened to cast her into the fire and the pit, and to break her neck; all of which threats being unheeded by the little maid of ten, he left her again in his old form of “urchin.” The next day, and the next, all these devils came again, seeking to repossess the children. They came in various forms—as a black raven; a black boy, with his head bigger than his body; a black rough dog with a firebrand in his mouth; five white doves; a brave fellow like a wooer; two little whelps that played on the table, and ran into a dish of butter; an ape; a bear with fire in his mouth; a haystack—all, haystack as well as the rest, promising them bags of gold and silver if they might come into them again, but threatening to break their necks and their backs, and throw them into the pit and the fire, and out of the window, if denied. But Messrs. More and Darrel were instant in prayer, and successfully withstood them. The childrenwere pronounced finally dispossessed: all save Jane Ashton, who went away to a popish family and became popish herself; wherefore the devil recovered her, says Mr. Darrel, and her last state was worse than her first. As for Edmund Hartley, he was hanged at Lancaster, chiefly through Mr. Darrel’s exertions.
In 1596 Mr. Darrel had more work. Thomas Darling, “the Boy of Burton,” had offended old Alice Goodridge; so Alice possessed him, and Mr. Darrel was sent for the undoing. His chief weapon in this case was a ranting tract called “The Enemie of Securitie,” which the devil could not abide any how, and during the reading of which he would cry out—through the earthly medium of the Boy of Burton—“Radulphus, Belzebub can doe no good, his head is stricken off with a word.”—“We cannot prevaile (against the church and Mr. Darrel), for they will not be holpen by witches. Brother Radulphus, we cannot prevaile; let us go to our mistress and torment her; I have had a draught of her blood to-day.” “Againe—‘There is a woman earnest at prayer, get her away.’ ‘Nay,’ quoth John Alsop (a man that was present), with a loude voice, ‘we cannot spare her.’ Thus the Boy graced Mistress Wightman, his aunt. And againe, ‘Brother Glassop (another devil), we cannot prevaile, his faith is soe strong. And they fast and pray, and a preacher prayeth as fast as they.’” And “I bayted my hooke often, and at last I catcht him. Heere I was before, and heere I am againe, and heere I must stay, though it be but for a short tyme. I leade them to drink, carouse, and quaffe. I make them to sweare. I have leave given mee to doe what I will for a time. What is wightier than a Kinge in his owne lande? A King I am, in whome I raigne, heere I am King for a time.” With muchmore of the same kind. In the mean time old Alice Goodridge, who had wrought all this mischief, died in prison, while her devilish spirit or imp, Minnie, whom she had sent into the boy, racketed and rioted in his soul and body, and Mr. Darrel wrestled against him with prayer and “the Enemie of Securitie.” He finally prevailed, and after Thomas Darling had been possessed and dispossessed and repossessed again, delivered him from Radulphus and Minnie and Glassop and Beelzebub, and so had leisure to turn to some one else when needed.
That some one else was soon found; for there was Will Somers, a lad living with Mr. Brakenbury at Ashby-de-la-Zouch during the time of Mr. Darrel’s ministry there, who was now at Nottingham, and one of the most accomplished demoniacs of the day. Nothing would satisfy Will but that Mr. Darrel should be sent for to cast the devil out of him. He had known of his prowess with Katherine Wright, and the Starkies, and the Boy of Burton, and why should he not glorify God and the Puritans as well in Nottingham as in Lancashire? Accordingly, that gentleman was sent for on the 5th of November, 1597, and the farce began. Before Mr. Darrel even saw the lad he said he was possessed, and he said the same thing to himself—counterfeiting or illness being of course put out of court; and he described to the bystanders in what shape the devil would appear when driven out of the lad—for he would make himself visible to them if they had but faith and courage and patience to see the end, and if they would not be terrified when the boy “scriehed or cryed aloude in a strange and supernaturall manner; sometimes roaring fearfullye lyke a beare, and crying like a swyne.” The shapes, then, in which he wouldgo were these—“a Mouse, a Man with a Hunch-back higher than his Head, an ugly Man with a white Beard, a Crow’s Head round, a great Breath, ugly like a Toad, an Urchin, &c.” And he told them, also in the lad’s hearing, of what other possessed persons had done: how they had cast themselves into fire or water, gnashed with their teeth, writhed with their necks, and drawn their mouths awry, foaming. Then he said that Will Somers was afflicted for the sins of Nottingham, and God had made even the devil a preacher to deter them from them; whereat Will acted by signs all the sins of Nottingham, and Mr. Darrel explained them to the people as he went on. With such a master as this, it was no difficult matter for the pupil to succeed. Two sermons were preached on his behalf. During Mr. Aldred’s he lay still, excepting a little struggle now and then: this was to show that Mr. Aldred was not powerful as a Man of God. But when Mr. Darrel began, he roused himself up, and on his describing the fourteen signs of Possession one after the other, acted them all to the life as he told them off. “He tore; he foamed; he wallowed; his Face was drawn awry; his Eyes would stare and his Tongue hang out; he had a Swelling would seem to run from his Forehead down by his Ear and Throat, and through his Belly and Thighs, to the Calf of his Legs; he would speak with his Mouth scarce moving; and when they looked his Tongue would seem drawn down his Throat; he would try to cast himself into the Fire and Water; he would seem heavy that they could not lift him, and his Joints stiff that they could not bend them.” And when Mr. Darrel further exhorted them all to stand firm, and they would see the glory of God in the dispossession, he cried and rended and laid as if dead, just in the orderwhich the preacher desired. Then he rose up cured and exorcised; but Mr. Darrel told him he might be possessed again, and he must be very careful and watchful. Of course he was possessed again. He had been too great a gainer by the first trial not to venture on a second. If he had been bought off his apprenticeship, had large presents of clothes, and kept in idleness at his father-in-law’s, for a first trial, what might not fall from the skies on this second occasion? So Will began to talk wildly of a black dog that haunted him, offering him gold and ginger, and of the devil who came with six more shapes to torment him—namely, as a cock, a crane, a snake, an angel, a toad, a newt, a set of viols, and dancers, and that he stood before him “with a foure-forked cappe on his heade;” sometimes, too, making noises and motions like whelps or “kitlings.” Fourteen persons were thrown into prison, accused of bewitching Master Will, of whom the most celebrated was Millicent Horslie, whom no human skill could have saved had not the impostor betrayed himself in time. For Will Somers had a revelation concerning her, which must be told in the words of his “confession,” as reported by Harsnet:—“Maister Darrel told my father-in-law and others in my hearing, that he, the said Maister Darrel, Maister Aldred, and some others, were going to carrie Millicent Horsley (that present morning) to the said Maister Perkins, to be examined. Whereupon, I gessing by the time of Maister Darrel’s departure, and by the distance of the way, and of the likelihood that she woulde deny herselfe to bee a witche, said to those that were present by mee in one of my fittes, about eleven of the clocke, that Millicent Horsley was in examining, and that she denyed herselfe to be a witch.” This coincidence was too striking an instance of supernaturalpower to be overlooked. Mr. Darrel worked on it as one of the most marvellous proofs of the boy’s undeniable possession, and Millicent Horsley lay in gaol, together with thirteen others, to satisfy the craft of one and the credulity of the other, and to prove the whole age sick, diseased, and enfeebled by superstition.
Will’s sister, Mary Cowper, seeing how pleasant and profitable a thing it was to be bewitched, followed in her brother’s steps, and cried out on Alice Freeman, a poor old creature who thought to escape by saying she was with child. The plea was not a very safe one, for Mr. Darrel told her if she was, it was by the devil, and she had better have held her tongue. But by this time the parish authorities got frightened, and interfered; sending Will off to the workhouse, where he still continued his fits and antics, until a rough fellow there, one John Shepheard, told him that if he “did not leave and rise up he would set such a pair of Knip-knaps upon him as should make him rue it”—when he gathered himself up and confessed his imposture. Mr. Darrel would have none of this recantation. He said he was more possessed than ever, and that it was the devil within him that made him to lie. So Will wrote the following letter, as a kind of quietus to his zealous friend:—
“Mr. Darrel, my hearty Commendations unto you. This is to desire you that you would let me be at quiet: For whereas you said that I was Possessed, I was not; and for those Tricks that I did before you came, was through Folks Speeches that came to me: And those that I did since, was through your Speeches, and others. For as you said I could not hear, I did hear all Things that were done in the House, and all Things that I did were counterfeit; And I pray you to let it pass; forthe more you meddle in it, the more discredit it will be for you: And I pray God, and you, and all the World to forgive me.”
Even this was not enough. Will was bribed over by the promise of a good place in a gentleman’s house if he would be properly demoniac again; and consenting thereto, played again his old tricks; but the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edmund Anderson, not believing a word of it all, encouraged him kindly to tell the truth, and not be afraid; so Will started up and was perfectly well, and for the greater satisfaction of the gentlefolks showed them how he worked.