The next year saw Mr. Fairfax of Knaresborough—Edward Fairfax, the scholar, the gentleman, the classic, our best translator of Tasso, graceful, learned, elegant Edward Fairfax—pursuing with incredible zeal six of his neighbours for supposed witchcraft on his children. The children had fits and were afflicted with imps, so Edward Fairfax thought his paternal duty consisted in getting the lives of six supposed witches, the hanging of whom would infallibly cure his children, and drive away the evil spirits possessing them. But fortunately for the accused the judge had more sense than Mr.Fairfax; and, though the women were sent back again for another assize, suffered them to escape with only the terror of death twice repeated. It is strange to find ourselves face to face with such stupid bigotry as this in a man so estimable and so refined as Fairfax.
Lady Jennings and her young daughter Elizabeth, of thirteen, lived at Thistlewood in the year 1622. One day an old woman, coming no one knew whence, perhaps from the bowels of the earth, appeared suddenly before the girl, demanding a pin. The child was frightened, and had fits soon after—fits of the usual hysteric character, but quite sufficiently severe to alarm Lady Jennings. A doctor was sent for; but also, as well as the doctor, came a clever shrewd woman called Margaret Russill, or “Countess,” a bit of a doctress in her way, perhaps a bit of a white witch too, who thought she could do the afflicted child some good, and had beside a love of putting her fingers into everybody’s pie. At the end of one of her fits the child began to cry out wildly, then mentioned Margaret and three others as the persons who had bewitched her. And then she went on, incoherently, “These have bewitched all my mother’s children—east, west, north, and south all these lie—all these are witches. Set up a great sprig of rosemary in the middle of the house—I have sent this child to speak, to show all these witches—Put Countess in prison, this child will be well—If she had been long ago, all together had been alive—Them she bewitched with a cat-stick—Till then I shall be in great pain—Till then, by fits, I shall be in great extremity—They died in great misery.” No mother’s heart could resist the appeal contained in these wild words; poor Countess was arrested, and taken before Mr. Slingsby, a magistrate. When there she said, though heaven knows what prompted her to tell such falsehoods, “Yesterday she went to Mrs. Dromondbye in Black-and-White Court, in the Old Baylye; and told her that the Lady Jennings had a daughter strangely sicke, whereuppon the said Dromondbye wished her to goe to inquire at Clerkenwell for a minister’s wiffe that cold helpe people that were sicke, but she must not aske for a witch or a cunning woman, but for one that is a phisition woman; and then this examinate found her and a woman sitting with her and told her in what case the child was, and shee said shee wold come this day, but shee ought her noe service, and said shee had bin there before and left receiptes there, but the child did not take them. And she said further that there was two children that her Lady Jennins had by this husband, that were bewitched and dead, for there was controversie betweene two howses, and that as long as they dwelt there, they cold not prosper, and that there shold be noe blessing in that howse by this man.” When asked what was this “difference,” she answered, “Between the house of God and the house of the world:” but when told that this was no answer, and that she must explain herself more clearly, she said that “she meant the apothecary Higgins and my Lady Jennings.” “And shee further confessed that above a moneth agoe she went to Mrs. Saxey in Gunpouder Alley, who was forespoken herself, and that had a boke that cold helpe all those that were forespoken, and that shee wold come and shewe her the booke and help her under God. And further said tothis examinate, that none but a seminary priest cold cure her.” So here again we have the constantly recurring element of sectarianism, without which, indeed, we should be at a loss how to understand much that meets us. “Countess” was committed to Newgate, and the bewitched child cried out more and more against her, making new revelations with each fit, when the pitiful farce was brought to a close by the minister’s wife, Mrs. Goodcole, who, when confronted with Countess, denied point blank the more important parts of her evidence. And then all this evil—this much ado about nothing—was found to have arisen from a private quarrel; and when Dr. Napier was sent for, he unbewitched the possessed child with some very simple remedies, and the great balloon burst and fell to the ground in hopeless collapse.
On the 13th of August, 1626, Edward Bull and Joan Greedie were indicted at Taunton for bewitching Edward Dinham. Dinham was a capital ventriloquist, and could speak in two different voices beside his own, as well as counterfeit fits and play the possessed to the life. One of his two feigned voices was pleasant and shrill, and belonged to a good spirit; the other was deadly and hollow, and belonged to an evil spirit. And when he spoke his lips did not move, and he lay as if in a trance, and both he and the voices said that he was bewitched, and all the people believed them. And the good voice asked who had bewitched him, to which the bad replied, “A woman in greene cloathes and a blackehatt with long poll, and a man in gray srite, with blewe stockings.” When asked where she was now, the bad spirit answered, “At her own house,” while he was at a tavern in “Yeohull,” Ireland. Then after some pressing the bad spirit said that the name of one was “Johan,” of the other “Edward;” and after more pressing still, confessed to the surnames, “Greedie and Bull.” So in consequence of this reliable report messengers were sent off to find old Joan, and when found arrest her. Then the good spirit, who played the part of a benevolent Pry, asked how these two became witches, to which the bad answered, “By descent.” “But how by descent?” says the good spirit, anxious not to leave a lock unfastened or a problem unsolved. “From the grandmother to the mother, and from the mother to the children,” says the bad. “But howe were they soe?” says Goody. “They were bound to us and we to them,” answered the bad, with more words than explanation.
Good Spirit—“Lett me see the bond.”
Bad Spirit—“Thou shalt not.”
Good Spirit—“Lett me see it, and if I like it I will seale it alsoe.”
Bad Spirit—“Thou shalt, if thou wilt not reveale the contentes thereof.”
Good Spirit—“I will not.”
At this point it was pretended that a spectral bond was passed from the bad to the good ghost; and then broke out the “sweet and shrill voice” of the ventriloquist with “Alas! oh, pittifull, pittifull, pittifull! What! eight seales? bloody seales! four dead and four alive; oh, miserable!” Then came in the man’s natural voice, addressing the spirit: “Come, come, prithee tell me why did they bewitch me?” Bad Spirit—“Because thou didst call Johan Greedie witche.” Man—“Why, is shee not a witche?” Bad Spirit—“Yes, but thou shouldst not have said so,” which was a fine bit of worldly policy in the bad ghost. Good Spirit—“But why did Bull bewitche him?” Bad—“Because Greedie was not strong enough.”
On this evidence further messengers were sent off for Edward Bull, but whether to Yeohull or not I cannot say. They were disappointed for the moment, for Bull had run away; and then, in a future interview, and to fill up the time until braver sport should be provided, the bad and the good spirits had a wrestle for Dinham’s soul, which, judging from what evidence we have had left us, was not worth the struggle, and would be no great gain to either party. In the struggle the good spirit speaks Latin. “Laudes, laudes, laudes,” says he, being well educated and not ashamed. But the bad was, as befitted his nature, churlish and ill-taught, and did not understand his opponent’s talk, but translated it into “ladies,” which made a laugh among them all. Then they struggled for the Prayer Book; but here again the bad was discomfited, and the man kept the talisman; after which the good spirit made “the sweetest musicke that ever was heard.” When they set out to catch Bull again, they found him in bed; and now, when both the Possessors were safe, Dinham was freed and his voices dumb for ever. Perhaps he had caught cold. I do not know the fate of these poor wretches, but I should not think it doubtful.
In 1627 Mr. Rothnell exorcised an evil spirit out of one John Fox; but notwithstanding this John continued dumb for three years after; which was rather an unfortunate comment on the exorcism, but not at all likely to open the eyes of any one willing to be blind.
We have seen what Lancashire was in sixteen hundred and twelve: it was not much better twenty-one years later; for in 1633 we find that Pendle Forest was still of bad repute, and that traditions of old Demdike and her rival Mother Chattox yet floated round the Malkin Tower, and hid, spectre-like, in the rough and desert places of the barren waste. Who ever knew of evil example waiting for its followers? What Mothers Demdike and Chattox had done in their day, their children and grandchildren were ready to do after them. The world will never lose its old women, “toothless, blear-eyed, foul-tongued, malicious,” for whom love died out and sin came in long years ago; and Edmund Robinson, son of Ned of Roughs, was one of those specially appointed by Providence to bring such evildoers to their reward.
Edmund, then about eleven years of age (how many of these sad stories come from children and young creatures!), lived with his father in Pendle Forest; lived poorly enough, but not without some kind of romance and interest; for on the 10th day of February, 1633, he made the following deposition:—
“Who upon oath informeth, being examined concerning the great meeting of the Witches of Pendle, saith that upon All Saints’ Day last past, he, this Informer, being with one Henry Parker, a near-door neighbour to him in Wheatley-lane, desired the said Parker to give him leave to gather some Bulloes, which he did. In gathering whereof he saw two Grayhounds, viz., a black and a brown one, come running over the next field towards him, he verily thinking the one of them to be Mr. Nutter’s, and the other to be Mr. Robinson’s,the said Gentlemen then having such like. And saith, the said Grayhounds came to him, and fawned on him, they having about their necks either of them a Collar, unto each of which was tied a String; which Collars (as this Informer affirmeth) did shine like Gold. And he thinking that some either of Mr. Nutters or Mr. Robinsons Family should have followed them; yet seeing no body to follow them, he took the same Grayhounds, thinking to course with them. And presently a Hare did rise very near before him. At the sight whereof he cried Loo, Loo, Loo: but the Doggs would not run. Whereupon he being very angry took them, and with the strings that were about their Collars, tied them to a little bush at the next hedge, and with a switch that he had in his hand he beat them. And in stead of the black Grayhound, one Dickensons Wife stood up, a Neighbour, whom this Informer knoweth. And in stead of the brown one a little Boy, whom this Informer knoweth not. At which sight this Informer, being afraid, endeavoured to run away; but being stayed by the Woman, (viz.) by Dickensons Wife, she put her hand into her pocket, and pulled forth a piece of Silver much like to a fair shilling, and offered to give him it to hold his tongue and not to tell; which he refused, saying, Nay, thou art a Witch. Whereupon she put her hand into her pocket again, and pulled out a thing like unto a Bridle that gingled, which she put on the little Boyes head; which said Boy stood up in the likeness of a white Horse, and in the brown Grayhounds stead. Then immediately Dickensons wife took this Informer before her upon the said Horse and carried him to a new house called Hoarstones, being about a quarter of a mile off. Whither when they were come, there were divers persons about the door, and hesaw divers others riding on Horses of several colours towards the said House, who tied their Horses to a hedge near to the said House. Which persons went into the said House, to the number of three score or thereabouts, as this Informer thinketh, where they had a fire, and meat roasting in the said House, whereof a young Woman (whom this Informer knoweth not) gave him Flesh and Bread upon a Trencher, and Drink in a Glass, which after the first taste he refused, and would have no more, but said it was nought.
“And presently after, seeing divers of the said company going into a Barn near adjoining, he followed after them, and there he saw six of them kneeling, and pulling all six of them six several ropes, which were fastened or tied to the top of the Barn. Presently after which pulling, there came into this Informers sight flesh smoaking, butter in lumps, and milk as it were syleing (straining) from the said ropes. All which fell into basons which were placed under the said ropes. And after that these six had done, there came other six which did so likewise. And during all the time of their several pulling, they made such ugly faces as scared this Informer, so that he was glad to run out and steal homewards; who immediately finding they wanted one that was in their company, some of them ran after him near to a place in a Highway called Boggard-hole, where he, this Informer, met two Horsemen. At the sight whereof the said persons left following of him. But the foremost of those persons that followed him he knew to be one Loinds Wife; which said Wife, together with one Dickensons Wife, and one Jennet Davies, he hath seen since at several times in a Croft or Close adjoining to his Fathers house, which put him in great fear. And further this Informer saith, upon Thursdayafter New Years Day last past he saw the said Loinds Wife sitting upon a cross piece of wood being within the Chimney of his Fathers dwelling-house; and he, calling to her, said, Come down, thou Loynds Wife. And immediately the said Loynds Wife went up out of his sight. And further this Informer saith, that after he was come from the company aforesaid to his Fathers house, being towards evening, his Father bad him go and fetch home two kine to seal (tie up). And in the way, in a field called the Ellers, he chanced to hap upon a Boy, who began to quarrel with him, and they fought together, till the Informer had his ears and face made up very bloody by fighting, and looking down he saw the Boy had a cloven foot. At which sight, he being greatly affrighted, came away from him to seek the kine. And in the way he saw a light like to a Lanthorn, towards which he made haste, supposing it to be carried by some of Mr. Robinson’s people; but when he came to the place he only found a Woman standing on a Bridge, whom, when he saw, he knew her to be Loinds Wife, and knowing her he turned back again; and immediately he met the aforesaid Boy, from whom he offered to run, which Boy gave him a blow on the back that made him to cry. And further this Informer saith, that when he was in the Barn, he saw three Women take six Pictures from off the beam, in which Pictures were many Thorns or such like things sticked in them, and that Loynds Wife took one of the Pictures down, but the other two Women that took down the rest he knoweth not. And being further asked what persons were at the aforesaid meeting, he nominated these persons following.” Here follows a list of names of no interest to the modern reader. At the end of this deposition is one from the Father.
“Edmund Robinson of Pendle, Father of the aforesaid Edmund Robinson, Mason, informeth,
“That upon All Saints-day last he sent his Son the aforesaid Informer, to fetch home two kine to seal, and saith that his Son, staying longer than he thought he should have done, he went to seek him, and in seeking of him heard him cry pitifully, and found him so affrighted and distracted that he neither knew his Father nor did know where he was, and so continued very near a quarter of an hour before he came to himself. And he told this Informer his Father all the particular passages that are before declared in the said Robinson his Son’s Information.
(Signed) “Richard Shuttleworth.“John Starkey.”
Who would dare to doubt such testimony as this? Here was another child of God grievously mishandled; and what might not be done to the servants of the devil who had so evilly intreated him? And was not Edmund Robinson evidently raised up and directed by God to be the scourge of all witches, and the great discoverer of their naughty pranks? So the lad was elevated to the post of witch-finder, and was taken about from church to church—accusing any who might strike his fancy or his fears, and sending them off to prison at the impulse of his childish will. Among other places he was brought to the parish church of Kildwick, where Webster was then curate. It was during the afternoon service, and the lad was put upon a stall to look the better about him, and discern the witches more clearly. After service Webster went to him and found him with “two very unlikely persons that did conduct him andmanage the business:” the curate of Kildwick would have drawn him aside, but the men would not suffer this. Then said Webster, “‘Good boy, tell me truly and in earnest, didst thou hear and see such strange things of the meeting of witches as is reported by many that thou dost relate, or did some person teach thee to say such things of thyself?’ But the two men, not giving the boy leave to answer, did pluck him from me, and said he had been examined by two able Justices of the Peace, and they did never ask him such a question; to whom I replied, ‘The persons accused had therefore the more wrong.’” So Webster got nothing by this, and the boy was not damaged nor his credit shaken. Very many persons were arrested on this young imp’s accusations, beside those seventeen whom he had seen “syleing” butter and bacon from witch-ropes in the magic barn. And among the rest Jennet Device, (was she our old acquaintance of perjured memory?) who was charged with killing Isabelle, the wife of William Nutter; and Mary Spencer, who was in imminent danger for having “caused a pale or cellocke to come to her, full of water, fourteen yards up a hill from a well;” and Margaret Johnson, accused of killing Henry Heape, and wasting and impairing the body of Jennet Shackleton—but there was no proof against her, save certain witch marks, which, however, were indisputable, and on the finding of which she was soon brought to confess. She said that, seven or eight years since, she was in a mighty rage against life and the world in general, when there appeared to her the devil like a man, dressed all in black tied about with silk points, who offered her all she might wish or want in return for her soul; telling her that she might kill man or beast as she should desire, and take her revenge when she would; and thatif she did but call “Mamillion” when she wanted him, he would come on the instant and do as he was bid. So “after a sollicitacion or two, she contracted and condicioned with the said devill or spiritt for her soul,” and henceforth became one of the most notorious of the Lancashire witches. She confessed that she was at the great witch-meeting held at Harestones, in Pendle, on All Saints’-day last past, and again at another the Sunday after; and that all the witches rode there on horses, and went to consult on the killing of men and beasts; and that “there was one devill or spiritt that was more greate and grand devill than the rest, and yf anie witch desired to have such an one, they might have such an one to kill or hurt anie body.” She said, too, which was a new idea on her part, that the sharp-boned witches were more powerful and malignant than those with “biggs” only; and then she wandered off, and accused certain of her neighbours, of whom one, “Pickhamer’s wife, was the most greate, grand, and auncyent witch.” Then she told her audience that if any witch desired to be carried to any place, a cat, or a dog, or a rod would convey them away; but not their bodies, only their souls in the likeness of their bodies. The judge was not quite satisfied with either Edmund Robinson’s depositions or Margaret’s confessions, and for all that the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, managed to get a reprieve, and to send up some of the accused to London. He managed also to interest the king, Charles I., who had not his father’s craze on the subject; and Charles ordered the bishop to make a special examination of the case, and send in his report. By this time, too, Edmund and his father were separated, and the boy fully examined; when at last he confessed to the entire worthlessness and fraud of all hehad said. He had been robbing an orchard of bullees (plums) more than a mile off the barn at the day and hour named; and, counselled by his father, had made up those wicked lies to screen himself. And then, finding the game profitable—for in a short time they made so good a thing by it that the father bought a couple of cows—he flew further a-field, and attacked every one within reach. Fortunately for his victims, the judge was a man of sense and independent judgment; so the judiciary records of England are stained with one crime the less, and the neighbours lost the excitement of an execution.
“Many are in a belief that this silly sex of women can by no means attaine to that so vile and damned a practise of Sorcery and Witchcraft, in regard of their illiteratenesse and want of learning, which many men have by great learning done;” nevertheless the Earl of Essex and his army, marching through Newberry, saw a feat done by a woman which not the most learned man of them all could have accomplished by natural means. Two soldiers were loitering behind the main body, gathering nuts, blackberries, and the like, when one climbed up a tree for sport, and the other followed him, jesting. From their vantage place, looking on the river, they there espied a “tall, lean, slender womantreading of the water with her feet with as much ease and firmnesse as if one should walk or trample on the earth.” The soldier called to his companion, and he to the rest; and soon they all—captains, privates, and commanders alike—saw this marvellous lean woman, who now they perceived was standing on a thin plank, “which she pushed this way and that at her pleasure, making it a pastime to her, little perceiving who was on her tracks.” Then she crossed the river, and the army after her; but there they lost her for a time, and when they found her all were too cowardly to seize her. At last one dare-devil went up and boldly caught her, demanding what she was. The poor wretch was dumb—perhaps with terror—and spoke nothing; so they dragged her before the commanders, “to whom, though she was mightily urged, she did reply as little.” As they could bethink themselves of nothing better to do with her, they set her upright against a mud bank or wall, and two of the soldiers, at their captain’s command, made ready and fired. “But with a deriding and loud laughter at them, she caught their bullets in her hands and chew’d them, which was a stronger testimony than her treading water that she was the same that their imagination thought her for to be.” Then one of the men set his carbine against her breast and fired; but the bullet rebounded like a ball, and narrowly missed the face of the shooter, which “so enraged the Gentleman, that one drew out his sword and manfully run at her with all the force his strength had power to make, but it prevailed no more than did the shot, the woman though still speechlesse, yet in a most contemptible way of Scorn still laughing at them, which did the more exhaust their furie against her life; yet one amongst the rest had heard that piercing or drawing bloud fromforth the veines that crosse the temples of the head, it would prevail against the strongest sorcery, and quell the force of Witchcraft, which was allowed for Triall: the woman, hearing this, knew then the Devill had left her, and her power was gone; wherefore she began alowd to cry and roare, tearing her haire, and making pitious moan, which in these words expressed were: And is it come to passe that I must dye indeed? Why then his Excellency the Earle of Essex shall be fortunate and win the field. After which no more words could be got from her; wherewith they immediately discharged a Pistoll underneath her eare, at which she straight sunk down and dyed, leaving her legacy of a detested carcasse to the wormes, her soul we ought not to iudge of, though the euills of her wicked life and death can scape no censure. Finis. This Book is not Printed according to order.”
And now the reign of Matthew Hopkins, of Mannington, gent., begins—that most infamous follower of an infamous trade—the witch-finder general of England. It was Hopkins who first reduced the practice of witch-finding to a science, and established rules as precise as any to be made for mathematics or logic. His method of proceeding was to “walk” a suspected witch between two inquisitors, who kept her from food and sleep, and incessantly walking, for four-and-twenty hours; or if she could not be thus walked she was cross-bound—her right toe fastened to her left thumb, and her left toe to her right thumb—care being taken to draw the cords as tightly as possible, and to keep her as uneasily, and inthis state she was placed on a high stool or chair, kept without food or sleep for the prescribed four-and-twenty hours, and vigilantly watched. And Hopkins recommended that a hole be made in the door, through which her imps were sure to come to be fed, and that her watchers be careful to kill everything they saw—fly, spider, lice, mouse, what not; for none knew when and under what form her familiars might appear; and if by any chance they missed or could not kill them, then they might be sure that they were imps, and so another proof be indisputably established. If neither of these ways would do, then, still cross-bound, she was to be “swum.” If she sank, she was drowned; if she floated—and by putting her carefully on the water she generally would float—then she was a witch, and to be taken out and hung. For water, being the sacred element used in baptism, thus manifestly refused to hold such an accursed thing as a witch within its bosom; so that, when she swam, it was a proof that this “sacred element” rejected her for the more potent keeping of the fire. This was the explanation which, it seemed to King James the First, was a rational and religious manner of accounting for a certain physical fact.
This, then, was the wise and liberal manner in which an impossible sin was discovered, and judgment executed, in those fatal years when Matthew Hopkins ruled the mind of England; yet years wherein Harvey was patiently at work on his grand physiological discovery, and when Wallis, and Wilkins, and Boyle were founding the Royal Society of liberal art and free discussion. It was only a piece of poetical justice that in the future he should be “swum” cross-bound in his own manner, and found to float according to the hydrostatics of witches. The shame and fear of this trial hastened theconsumption to which he was hereditarily predisposed; and after this stringent test we hear no more of this vile impostor and impudent deceiver, this canting hypocrite, who cloaked his cruelty and covetousness under the garb of religion, and professed to be serving God and delivering man from the power of the devil when he was pandering to the worst passions of the time, and sacrificing to his own corrupt heart. The blood money, for which he sent so many hapless wretches to the gallows (he charged twenty shillings a town for his labours), though not an exceeding bribe, as he himself boasts, was money pleasantly earned and pleasantly spent; for what man would object to travel through a beautiful country, surrounded by friends, and carrying influence and importance wherever he went, and have all his expenses paid into the bargain?
In 1664[130]we find him at Yarmouth, accusing sixteen women in a batch, among whom was an old woman easily got to confess. She said she used to work for Mr. Moulton, a stocking merchant and alderman of the town; but one day, going for work, she found him from home, and his man refused to let her have any till his return, which would not be for a fortnight. She, being exasperated against the man, applied to the maid to let her have some knitting to do, but the maid gave her the like answer: upon which she went home sorely discontented with both. In the middle of the night some one knocked at the door: on her rising to open it she saw a tall black man, who told her that she should have as much work from him as she would, if she would write her name in his book. He then scratched her hand with a penknife, and filled the pen with her blood—guiding her hand while she made her mark. This done,he asked what he could do for her: but when she desired to have her revenge on Mr. Moulton’s man, he told her he had no power over him, because he went constantly to church to hear Whitfield and Brinsley, and said his prayers morning and evening. The same of the maid; but there was a young child in the house more easy to be dealt with, for whom he would make an image of wax which then they must bury in the churchyard, and as the waxen image wasted and consumed, so would the child; which was done, and the child thrown into a languishing condition in consequence; so bad, indeed, that they all thought it was dying. But as soon as the witch confessed, the little one lifted up its head and laughed, and from that instant began to recover. The waxen image was found where she said she and the devil had buried it, and thus the whole of the charm was destroyed, and the child was saved; but the poor old crazy woman with her blackbird imp, and her fifteen compeers with their whole menagerie of imps, were hung at Yarmouth, amid the rejoicings of the multitude.
At Edmonsbury, that same year, another witch had a little black smooth imp dog, which she sent to play with the only child of some people she hated. At first the child refused to play with its questionable companion, but soon got used to its daily appearance, and lost all fear. So the dog-imp, watching its opportunity, got the boy one day to the water, when it dragged him underneath and drowned him. The witch was hanged: could they do less in such a clear case as this?
Another woman was hanged at Oxford for a story as wild as any to be found in Grimm or Mother Bunch. There were two sisters, left orphans but well provided for.The eldest, somewhat prodigal, married a man as bad or worse than herself, who spent her money and afterwards deserted her, leaving her with one child and in extreme poverty. The younger, being very serious and religious, waited for two or three years before she settled herself, then married a good, honest, sober farmer, with whom she lived well and prosperously; her gear increasing yearly, and herself the happy mother of a pretty child. Her sister was moved to envy to see all this prosperity and contentment, and in her passion made a compact with the devil, by which she became a witch for the purpose of killing her sister’s child as the greatest despite she could do them. For this purpose she used to mount a bedstaff, which, by the uttering of certain magical words, carried her to her sister’s room; but she could never harm the child, because it was so well protected by the prayers of its parents. Her own daughter, a little one of about seven, watched her mother in her antics with the bedstaff, and from watching took to imitating—going through the air one night after its dame, and in like fashion. However, it chanced that she was left behind in her uncle’s house; so presently she fell a-crying, her powers being apparently limited to going, not including the magic words that insured the return. Her uncle and aunt, hearing a child cry where never a child should be, took a candle and discovered the whole matter. Next day the child was taken before the magistrate, to whom it told its tale, and the mother was apprehended. On the trial this little creature of seven years old was admitted as the chief evidence against her mother; and after they had made the poor woman mad among them, she confessed, and was hanged quite quietly. These were only two out of the hundreds whom that miserable man,Matthew Hopkins, gent., contrived to send to the gallows. Beaumont, in his Treatise on Spirits, mentions that “thirty-six were arraigned at the same time before Judge Coniers, An. 1645, and fourteen of them hanged, and an hundred more detained in several prisons in Suffolk and Essex.” But the most celebrated and the saddest of all the trials in which Hopkins played a part was that of
held before Sir Matthew Hale in 1645—Hopkins’s great witch-year.
In a very scarce tract called ‘A true and exact relation of the severall Informations, Examinations, and Confessions of the Late Witches Arraigned and Executed in the county of Essex, Published by Authoritie, and Printed by M. S. for Henry Overton and Benj. Allen, and are to be sold at their shops in Popes-head-alley, 1645,’ is an account of these Manningtree witches. One John Rivet’s wife, living in Manningtree, was taken sick and lame and with violent fits, and John swore before Sir Harbottel Grimston, one of the justices of the peace, that a cunning woman—wife of one Hovye at Hadleigh—told him that his wife was cursed by two women, near neighbours; of whom one was Elizabeth Clarke,aliasBedingfield. Elizabeth’s mother, and others of her kinsfolk, had been hanged for witchcraft in the bygone years: so it ran in the blood, and it was not to be wondered at if it broke out afresh now. Sir Harbottel Grimston and Sir Thomas Bowes, the two Justices before whom this deposition was taken, then admitted the evidence of Matthew Hopkins of Manningtree, gentleman and witch-finder, who deposed to having watchedElizabeth Clarke last night, being the 24th of March, 1645, when he and one Master Sterne, who watched with him, saw some strange things which he would presently tell their worships of. Elizabeth told this deponent and his companion that if they would stay and do her no harm, she would call one of her imps, and play with it in her lap; which at first they refused, but afterwards consenting, there appeared to them “an Impe like to a Dog, which was white, with some sandy spots, and seemed to be very fat and plump, with very short legges, who forthwith vanished away.” This was Jarmara. Then came Vinegar Tom, in the shape of a greyhound with very long legs; and then for a moment only came one for Master Sterne, a black imp which vanished instantly; then one like a polecat, only bigger.[131]Elizabeth now told them that she had five imps of her own, and two of Beldam West’s, and that they sucked turn and turn about: now she was sucked by Beldam West’s and now Beldam West by hers. She further said that Satan, whom she knew very much too well as “a proper Gentleman with a laced band, havingthe whole proportion of a Man,” would never let her have any peace till she slew the hogs of Mr. Edwards of Manningtree, and Mr. Taylor’s horse. When she had slain them Satan let her be quiet. Then of his own accord, Mr. Hopkins said that going from Mr. Edwards’s house to his own, that night at nine or ten, he saw the greyhound which he had with him jump as if after a hare; and coming up hurriedly, there was a white thing like a “kitlyn,” and his greyhound standing aloof from it; but by-and-by the white kitlyn came dancing round and about the greyhound, “and by all likelihood bit off a piece of the flesh of the shoulder of the greyhound; for the greyhound came shrieking and crying to this Informant, with a piece of fleshe torne from her shoulder.” To crown all, coming into his own yard, Mr. Hopkins saw a thing like a black cat, only three times as big, sitting on the strawberry-bed glaring at him; but when he went towards it, it leaped over the pale, ran right through the yard—his greyhound after it—then flung open a gate which was “underset with a paire of Tumbrell strings,” and so vanished, leaving the greyhound in a state of extreme terror. Which, if there was any truth at all in these depositions, and they were not merely arbitrary lies, would make one suspect that Master Matthew Hopkins had been drinking, and knew a few of the phenomena of delirium tremens.
John Sterne, Matthew’s slavey or attendant, then gave information. Watching with Matthew Hopkins, he asked Elizabeth Clarke if she were never afraid of her imps? to whom she made this notable answer, “What, doe you thinke I am afraid of my children?” His tale of imps was rather different to his patron’s: they had consulted hurriedly, or John’s memory wasbad. The white imp was Hoult; Jarmara had red spots; Vinegar Tom was like a “dumbe Dogge;” and Sack-and-Sugar was a hard-working imp, which would tear Master John Sterne when it came. And it was well that Master Sterne was so quick, else this imp would have “soon skipped upon his face, and perchance had got into his throate, and then there would have been a feast of toades in this Informant’s belly.” Elizabeth had one imp, she said, for which she would fight up to her knees in blood before she would lose it; and when asked what the devil was like as a man, said he was a “proper man,” a deal “properer” than Matthew Hopkins.
Other witnesses affirmed that if Elizabeth smacked with her mouth then a white cat-like imp, would come, and that they saw five more imps, named as above. And furthermore that she confessed that old Beldam, meaning Ann West—which was a very disrespectful way of speaking of her gossip—had killed Robert Oakes’ wife and a clothier’s child of Dedham, both of whom had died about a week since; and also that “the said old Beldam Weste had the wife of one William Cole of Mannintree in handling, who deid not long since of a pining and languishing disease,” and that she had raised the wind which sunk the hoy in which was Tom Turner’s brother thirty months agone. She also said that Beldam West had taught her all she knew; for that one day as she was pitying her for her lameness—she had but one leg—and for her poverty, she told her how she might get imps and be rich, for that the imps would help her to a husband who would keep her ever after, so that she need not be put to such miserable shifts as gathering sticks for a living. Elizabeth Clarke then accused Elizabeth Gooding of being one of the tribe: and RobertTaylor came forward to give corroborative evidence against her. He said that nine weeks since, Elizabeth Gooding came to his shop for half a pound of cheese, on trust; that he denied it to her; whereupon she went away, “muttering and mumbling” to herself, and soon came back with the money. That very night his horse, which was in the stable, sound and in good condition, fell lame and in four days’ time died of a strange disease, and Elizabeth Gooding was the cause thereof. Elizabeth Gooding “is a lewd woman, and to this Informant’s knowledge, hath kept company with the said Elizabeth Clarke, Anne Leech, and Anne West, which Anne West hath been suspected for a Witch many years since, and suffered imprisonment for the same.” Elizabeth Gooding contented herself with saying quietly that she was not guilty of any one particular charged upon her in the examination of the said Robert Taylor. Nevertheless she was executed at Chelmsford.
Richard Edwards said that twelve months since he was driving his cows near to the house of Anne Leech, widow, when they both fell down and died in two days; the next day his white cow fell down within a rod of the same place, and died in a week after. In August last his child was out at nurse at goodwife Wyles’, who lived near Elizabeth Gooding and Elizabeth Clarke; which said child was taken very sick, with rolling of the eyes, strange fits, extending of the limbs, and in two days it died: and Elizabeth Gooding and Anne Leech were the cause of its death.
And now poor old Anne Leech was brought on the scene, to “confess,” as so many wretched victims did. She said that she and Elizabeth Clarke and Elizabeth Gooding sent their imps to kill Mr. Edwards’s black cow, and his white cow; she sent a grey imp, ElizabethClarke a black one, and Gooding a white; also that thirty years since she sent her grey imp to kill Mr. Bragge’s two horses, because he had called her a naughty woman—and that the imps did their work without fear of failure. When these imps were abroad, she said, and after mischief, she had her health, but when they were unemployed and for ever hanging about her, she was sick. They often spoke to her in a hollow voice which she easily understood, and told her that she should never feel hell’s torments: which it is very sure the poor old maniac never did. She and Gooding killed Mr. Edwards’s child too; she with her white imp, and Elizabeth with her black one. She had her white imp about thirty years since, and a grey and a black as well, from “one Anne, the wife of Robert Pearce of Stoak in Suffolk, being her brother.” Three years since she sent her grey imp to kill Elizabeth Kirk; and Elizabeth languished for about a year after and then died; the cause of her, Anne Leech’s, malice being that she had asked of Elizabeth a coif, which she refused. The grey imp killed the daughter of Widow Rawlyns, because Widow Rawlyns had put her out of her farm; and she knew that Gooding had sent her imp to vex and torment Mary Taylor, because Mary refused her some beregood; but when she wanted to warn her, the devil would not let her. Lastly, she said, that about eight weeks ago she had met West and Gooding at Elizabeth Clarke’s house “where there was a book read wherein she thinks there was no goodnesse.”
So all these wretched creatures were hanged at Chelmsford, and the informants plumed themselves greatly on their evidence. But before their execution, poor Hellen Clark, wife of Thomas Clark, and daughterof Anne Leech, was “fyled.” On the 4th of April, 1645, Richard Glascock gave information that he had heard a falling out between Hellen, and Mary wife of Edward Parsley, and that he “heard the said Hellen to say as the said Hellen passed by this Informant’s door in the street, that Mary the daughter of the said Edward and Mary Parsley should rue for all, whereupon presently the said Mary, the daughter, fell sick and died within six weeks after.” When Helen was arrested she made her confession glibly. She said that about six weeks since the devil came to her house in the likeness of a white dog by name Elimanzer, and that she fed him with milk porridge; that he spoke to her audibly, bidding her deny Christ and she should never want; which she did: but she did not kill Mary Parsley nevertheless. She was executed at Manningtree all the same as if she had spoken sober truth.
On the 23rd of the same month Prudence Hart came to the magistrates with an accusation. About eight weeks since, she said, being at church very well and healthful—some twenty weeks gone with child—she was suddenly taken with pains, and miscarried before she could be got home: and about two months since, being in bed, something fell upon her right side, but being dark she could not tell of what shape it was: but presently she was taken lame on that side, and with extraordinary pains and burning, and she believed that Anne West and Rebecca West, the daughter, were the cause of her pains. John Edes also swelled the count of accusations. He said that Rebecca had confessed to him that seven years since her mother incited her to intercourse with the devil, who had since appeared to her at divers times and in various shapes, but chiefly as a proper young man, desiring of her such things asproper young men are wont to desire of women; promising her that if she would yield to his wishes she should have what she would, and especially should be avenged of her enemies; and that then Rebecca had demanded the death of Hart’s son of Lawford, who, not long after, was taken sick and died. At which Rebecca had said “that shee conceived hee could do as God.” And furthermore, that Rebecca said, while she lived at Rivenall her mother Anne came to her and said, “the Barley Corn was picked up,” meaning one George Francis; and that shortly after George’s father said his son was bewitched to death; to which Anne replied, “Be it unto him according to his faith.” When Rebecca was called on the 21st of March, to answer to these charges, she confirmed all that John Edes had said, adding a few unimportant particulars which insured the execution of her mother in the August following; but in spite of her own confession she herself, though found guilty by the grand jury, was acquitted for life and death. Matthew Hopkins struck a few dashes of colour over the canvas, telling the judges that Rebecca had told him she was made a witch by her mother; and that when she met the four other goodies in Clarke’s house, the devil, or their familiars, had come, now in the shape of a dog, then of two kittyns, then of two dogs—and that they first did homage to Elizabeth Clarke, skipping up into her lap and kissing her, and then to all the rest, kissing each one of them save Rebecca. Afterwards, when Satan came as a man, he gave her kisses enough: and not quite so innocently as the “kittyns and the dogges.”
Susan Sparrow and Mary Greenliefe lived together. Each had a daughter thirteen or fourteen years old; and one night Susan Sparrow, being awake, heard Mary’schild cry out, “Oh mother, now it comes, it comes! Oh helpe, mother, it hurts me, it hurts me!” So Susan said, “Goodwife Greenliefe, Goodwife Greenliefe, if your childe be asleep awaken it, for if anybody comes by and heare it make such moans (you having an ill name already), they will say you are suckling your Impes upon it.” To which Mary replied that this was just what she was doing, and that she would “fee” with them (meaning her Imps), that one night they should suck her daughter, and one night Susan Sparrow’s; which fell out as she said. For the very next night Susan’s child cried out in the same manner as Mary’s had done, and clasped her mother round the neck, much affrighted and shrieking pitifully. She complained of being pinched and nipped on her thigh; and in the morning there was a black and blue spot as broad and long as her hand. Susan Sparrow also said that the house where they lived was haunted by a leveret, which came and sat before the door; and knowing that Anthony Sharlock had a capital courser, she went and asked him to banish it for her. Whether the dog killed it or not she did not know; all that she did know was, that Goodman Merrill’s dog coursed it but a short time before, but the leveret never stirred, and “just when the dog came at it he skipped over it, and turned about and stood still, and looked on it, and shortly after that dog languished and dyed. But whether this was an Impe in the shape of a Leveret, or had any relation to the said Mary, this Informant knows not, but does confesse shee wondered very much to see a Leveret, wilde by nature, to come so frequently and sit openly before the dore in such a familiar way.” Mary was searched, and found marked with witch marks, but contented herself with quietlydenying all knowledge of familiars, witchcraft, “bigges,” and the like.
Mary Johnson was accused of having a familiar, in shape like a rat “without tayl or eares,” which she used to carry about in her pocket, and set to rock the cradle. She kissed Elizabeth Otley’s child, and gave it an apple, and the child sickened and died of fits; and Elizabeth herself had extraordinary pains, which left her when she had scuffled with Mary Johnson and gotten her blood. And she killed Annabell Durant’s child by commending it as a pretty thing, stroking its face, and giving it a piece of bread and butter; and Annabell knew that she had been the death of the child, because, “setting up of broome in the outhouse after the little one had been taken, she saw the perfect representation of a shape just like Mary Johnson, and was struck with such a lamenesse in her Arms that she was not able to bow her arms, and so continued speechless all that day and night following. Mary came also as the noise of a Hornet, to the room where Annabell’s husband lay sick, for he cried out, ‘It comes, it comes! Now Goodwife Johnson’s Impe is come! Now she hath my life!’” And immediately a great part of the wall fell down. So was not Mary Johnson an undoubted witch with all this testimony against her?
Anne Cooper was executed at Manningtree because she had three black imps, by name Wynow, Jeso, and Panu; because she gave her daughter Sarah a grey imp like a kite, and called Tomboy, telling her there was a cat for her to play with; because she cursed a colt and it broke its neck directly after; and because she sent one of her imps to kill little Mary Rous—which it did. Elizabeth Hare was condemned, but afterwards reprieved, for giving two imps to Mary Smith. Thepoor old woman “praying to God with her hands upward, that if she was guilty of any such thing, He would show some example on her, presently after she shaked and quivered, and fell to the ground backward, and tumbled up and down the ground, and hath continued sick ever since.”
Old Margaret Moone had twelve imps, but her informants could only remember the names of “Jesus, Jockey, Sandy, Mrs. Elizabeth, and Collyn.” Her imps killed cows and babes; spoiled brewings; broke horses’ necks; bewitched “aples” so that the eaters thereof died; sent Rawbodd’s wife such a plague of lice that they might have been swept off her clothes with a stick; and did other maleficent things, proper to imps and witches. When searched she was found to have “bigges” where the imps sucked; and confessed the same, saying that “if she might have some bread and beere she would call her said Impes; which being given unto her, she put the bread into the beere and set it against a hole in the wall, and made a circle round about the pot, and then cried, Come Christ, come Christ, come Mounsier, come Mounsier.” No imps appearing, she said her daughters had carried them off in a white bag, and demanded that the said daughters might be “searched,” “for they were naught.” They were searched, and were found witch-marked. Margaret denied all the charges against herself, but was condemned nevertheless; and only escaped the executioner’s hands by dying on her way to the gallows.
Judith Moone helped her mother a step gallowsward by a rambling, pointless confession about some wood, and how her mother threatened her, and how something seemed to come about her legs that night; but when she searched she found nothing; so Judith Mooneprobably died because she did not know how to distinguish a false sensation from a true one.
Elizabeth Harvey, widow, Sarah Hating, wife, Marian Hocket, widow, were “searched:” the first two were marked, the last not, but yet was the worst witch of all, for she had made Elizabeth Harvey as bad as herself by bringing her three things the bigness of mouses, which she said were “pretty things,” and to be made use of. As for Sarah Hating, she had sent Francis Stock’s wife a snake, which the said wife espied lying on a shelf, and strove to kill with a spade, but the snake was too quick for her and vanished away; so Francis Stock’s wife was taken sick, and within one week died. A daughter was taken ill immediately after her mother, and she also died, and then another child; all because Francis Stock had impressed Sarah Hating’s husband for a soldier, and Sarah Hating was angered. Marian Hocket was told on by her own sister, Sarah Barton, who said that she had given her three imps, “Littleman, Prettyman, and Dainty.” They were all executed, Sarah and Marian denying their guilt, but Elizabeth Harvey sticking to her tale of the three mouses which Marian had brought her, and which sucked her.
Rose Hallybread bewitched Robert Turner’s servant so that he crowed like a cock, barked like a dog; groaned beyond the ordinary course of nature, and, though but a youth, struggled with such strength that four or five men could not hold him. Says Rose, fifteen or sixteen years ago, Goodwife Hagtree brought an imp to her house which she nourished on oatmeal, and suckled according to the manner of witches, for the space of a year and a half—when she lost it; then Joyce Boanes brought her another, as a small grey bird, whichshe carried to Thomas Toakley’s house in St. Osyth, putting it into a cranny of the door, so that his son should die, as he did—crying out all the time that Rose Hallybread had killed him. She then accused Susan Cocks and Margaret Landish, and died in prison, cheating the hangman.
Old Joyce Boanes now took up the tale. She had two imps like mouses she said, and they killed the lambs at the farm-house called Cocket-wick, and one of these imps called “Rug” she took to Rose Hallybread, that they might torment Turner’s servant. Wherefore her imp made him bark like a dog; Rose Hallybread’s “inforced him to sing sundry tunes in his great extremity of paines;” Susan Cock’s compelled him to crow like a cock; and Margaret Landish’s made him groan. Poor old Joyce Boanes was hanged in return for her drivelling ravings.
So was Susan Cock; who confirmed all that had gone before, adding only that the night her mother died she gave her two imps, one like a mouse “Susan,” the other yellow and like a cat “Besse,” with which she did sundry acts of spite and damage. Wherefore Susan was put out of the way of further harm. Margaret Landish knew not much about the matter, but was executed nevertheless, for having bewitched Thomas Hart’s child—incited thereto by the girl’s pointing at her and crying “There goes Pegg the witch!” upon which Peg turned back and clapped her hands in a threatening manner, saying “she should smart for it,” and that very night the child fell sick in a raving manner, and died within three weeks after; often in its fits crying out that “Pegg the witch was by the bedside making strange mouths at her.”
Rebecca Jones owned to knowing the devil as ahandsome young man, who pricked her wrist and made her his in soul and body. This was about four or five and twenty years ago, when living with John Bishop as his servant. About three months since too, going to St. Osyth to sell her master’s butter, she met a man in a ragged suit and with such great eyes that she was afraid of him, and he gave her three things like “moules,” having four feet apiece but no tails, and black, which he told her to nurse carefully and feed on milk. Their names were Margaret, Anie, and Susan, and they killed cows and sheep and hogs, and revenged her on her enemies. So Rebecca was hanged as befitted.
Johan Cooper, widow, had three imps, two like mouses and one like a frog; their names were “Prickeare, Robyn, and Frog,” and they killed men and beasts. Wherefore she too was hanged like the rest.
Anne Cate had four, given her by her mother twenty years ago, “James, Prickeare, Robyn, and Sparrow:” the first three like mouses, and the fourth like a sparrow; and they did evil and mischief and killed all whom she would. She was hanged too.
At the end of the tract is a very curious bit of evidence, given by an honest man of Manningtree, one Goff, a glover, concerning old Anne West, then on her trial. He said that one moonlight morning, about four o’clock, as he was passing Anne West’s house, the door being open, he looked in and saw three or four little things like black rabbits which came skipping towards him. He struck at them, but missed; when, by better luck, he caught one in his hand and tried to wring its head off; but “as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it came out betweene his hands like a lock of wooll,” so he went to drown it at a spring not far off. But still as he went he could not hinder himself from falling down, sothat at last he was obliged to creep on his hands and knees, till he came to the water, when he held the imp for a long space underneath, till he conceived it was drowned, but, “letting goe his hand, it sprang out of the water up into the aire, and so vanished away.” Coming back to Anne West’s, he found her standing at her door in terrible undress, and to his complaint of why did she send her imps to molest him? she answered “that they were not sent out to trouble him, but as Scouts upon another designe.”
But one of the most painful murders of the Hopkins Session was that of old Mr. Lewis,[132]the “Reading Parson” of Franlingham; a fine old man of good character, but generally regarded as a Malignant, because he preferred to read Queen Elizabeth’s Homilies instead of composing nasal discourses of his own, of the kind so dear to the Puritan party: wherefore the authorities and Matthew Hopkins—who was a devout Puritan—had their eyes upon him, and were not disposed to be lenient. He was swum in Hopkins’s manner, cross-bound; set on a table cross-legged; kept several nights without sleep, and twenty-four hours without food; run backwards and forwards in the room, two men holding him, until he was out of breath; “pricked” and searched for marks; after all which barbarity it is not surprising to find that the poor old Reading Parson of eighty-five “confessed.” Yes, he had made a compact with the devil and sealed it with his blood; and he had two imps that sucked him, one of which, the yellow dun imp, was always urging him to do some mischief, but the other was more amiable. Accordingly, to please the yellow dun he had one day sent it to sink an Ipswich ship, which he spied out in the offing: a commission whichthe imp executed with zeal and precision before the eyes of a whole beach full of spectators. This Ipswich ship was one of many that rode safely enough in the calm sea, but the imp troubled the waters immediately about her, and down she went like a stone, as all present could testify. Asked if he had not grieved to make so many—they were fourteen—widows in a few moments he said “No, he was glad to have pleased his imp.” This confession and various witch “bigges” found on him were held proofs conclusive; and Mr. Lewis was condemned to be hanged; his eighty years, and his gown, protecting him nowise. As soon as he was a little refreshed he denied all the ravings he had been induced to utter, read the burial service for himself with cheerfulness and courage, and met his death calmly and composedly; perhaps not sorry to resign into God’s keeping a life which Matthew Hopkins and the Puritans were rendering intolerable.
A Penitent Woman[133]of the same time confessed that when her mother lay sick a thing like a mole ran into bed to her. She, the Penitent Woman, started, but her mother told her not to fear, but to take the mole and keep it, saying, “Keep this in a pot by the fire, and thou shalt never want.” The daughter did as she was bid, and made the mole comfortable in its pot. And after she had done this, a seemingly poor boy came in and asked leave to warm himself by the fire. When he went away she found some money under the stool whereon he had sat. This happened many times, and so her mother’s promise and her imp brought the poor penitent romancer Barmecidal good luck. It could not have been much, for Hopkins, or at least his friend and comrade John Sterne, says in the examination ofJoan Ruccalver, of Powstead, Suffolk, that “six shillings was the largest amount he had ever known given by an imp to its dame.”
That all this seemed right and rational in the eyes of sane men is one of the most marvellous things connected with the delusion: that well-educated Englishmen should send such a wretch as Matthew Hopkins with legal authorisation to prick witches, associating with him Mr. Calamy “to see that there was no fraud:” that they should arraign miserable old women by scores, and hang them by dozens: and that Baxter should gravely argue for the validity of ghosts and spectres on the plea that “various Creatures must have a various Situation, Reception, and Operation: the Fishes must not dwell in our cities nor be acquainted with our affairs”—strikes me chiefly with amazement at the marvellous imbecility of superstition. It is well for the leaders of sects to bid us cast down our reason before blind faith; for, assuredly, our reason, which is the greatest gift of God, pleads loudly against the follies of belief and the vital absurdities into which religionists fall when unchecked by common sense. It was only the “Atheists” and “Sadducees,” as they were called, who at last managed to put a stop to this hideous delusion: all the pious believers upheld the holy need of searching for witches, and of not suffering them to live wherever they might be found. All sects and denominations of Christians joined in this, and found a meeting-place of brotherly love and concord beneath the witches’ gallows. And though one’s soul revolts most at the so-called “Reformed Party,” because of the greater unctuousness of their piety, and their mighty professions, yet they were all equally guilty, one with the other; all equally steeped to the lipsin insanest superstition. The temper of the times has so far changed now that men and women are no longer hung because they have mesmeric powers, or because hysterical and epileptic patients utter wild ravings: but the thing remains the same; there is the same amount of superstition still afloat, if somewhat altered in its direction; and modern Spiritualism, which has come to supersede Witchcraft, is, when it is true at all and not mere legerdemain, as little understood and as falsely catalogued as was ever the art of magic and sorcery.
In another very scarce tract by “J. D.” (John Davenport) “present at the trial,” we come to a strange and mournful group of judicial murders that took place in Huntingdon, 1646. First, there was Elizabeth Weed, of Great Catworth, who confessed that twenty-one years ago, as she was saying her prayers, three spirits came suddenly to her, one of which was like a man or youth, and the other two like puppies, of which one was white and the other black. The young man asked her if she would renounce God and Christ: to which she assented, her faith being weak; and then the devil promised that she should do all the mischief she would, if she would covenant to give him her soul at the end of twenty-one years. She assented to this too; and sealed the bargain with her blood. He drew the blood from under her left arm, and “a great lump of flesh did rise there, and has increased ever since;” and the devil scribbled with her blood, and the covenant was signed and sealed. The name of her white imp, like a puppy, was “Lilly,” of the black “Priscille;” and the office ofthe white was to hurt man, woman, and child, but of the black to hurt cattle. The man spirit’s function was that of her husband, in which relation she lived with him to her great satisfaction. Lilly killed Mr. Henry Bedell’s child, and Priscille sundry cattle; but she had not had much good of the bargain, for the twenty-one years were to be out next Low Sunday, when her soul would be required of her and the devil would take her away; and she desired to be rid of the burden of her life before then. The judges acquiesced in her desire: which a little good food and careful watching would have proved to them was but the phantasy of disease; and the hangman had her body, though no devil took her soul, and her sufferings and her sins vexed the universe no more.
John Winnick’s confession is one of the most graphic and extraordinary of any in the tract. I give it word for word as I found it.
“The examination of John Winnick, of Molseworth in the said County, Labourer, taken upon the 11th day of Aprill, 1646, before Robert Bernard, Esquire, one of His Majesties Justices of the Peace for this County. Hee saith, that about 29 yeares since, the 29th yeare ending about Midsommer last past, he being a Batchellour, lived at Thropston with one Buteman, who then kept the Inne at the George, and withall kept Husbandry: this Examinate being a servant to him in his Husbandry, did then loose a purse with 7s.in it, for which he suspected one in the Family. He saith that on a Friday being in the barne, making hay-bottles for his horses about noon, swearing, cursing, raging, and wishing to himselfe that some wise body (or Wizzard) would helpe him to his purse and money again: there appeared unto him a Spirit, blacke and shaggy, and having pawes like a Beare, but in bulk not fully so bigas a Coney. The Spirit asked him what he ailed to be so sorrowfull, this Examinate answered that he had lost a purse and money, and knew not how to come by it again. The Spirit replied, if you will forsake God and Christ and fall down and worship me for your God, I will help you to your purse and money again. This Examinate said he would, and thereupon fell down upon his knees and held up his hands. Then the Spirit said, to-morrow about this time of the day, you shall find your purse upon the floor where you are now making bottles, I will send it to you, and will also come my selfe. Whereupon this Examinate told the Spirit he would meete him there, and receive it, and worship him. Whereupon at the time prefixed, this Examinate went unto the place, and found his purse upon the floore, and tooke it up, and looking afterwards into it, he found there all the money that was formerly lost: but before he had looked into it, the same Spirit appears unto him and said, there is your purse and your money in it: and then this Examinate fell downe upon his knees and said, My Lord and God I thanke you. The said Spirit at that time brought with him two other Spirits for shape, bignesse, and colour, the one like a white Cat, the other like a grey Coney; and while this Examinate was upon his knees, the Beare Spirit spake to him, saying, you must worship these two Spirits as you worship me, and take them for your Gods also: then this Examinate directed his bodie towards them, and called them his Lords and Gods. Then the Beare Spirit told him that when he dyed he must have his soule, whereunto this Examinate yielded. Hee told him then also that they must suck of his body, to which this Examinate also yielded; but they did not sucke at that time. The Beare Spirit promised him that he should never want victuals. The Cat Spirit that itwould hurt Cattel when he would desire it. And the Coney-like Spirit that it would hurt men when he desired. The Bear Spirit told him that it must have some of his blood wherewith to seale the Covenant, whereunto this Examinate yielded, and then the beare Spirit leapt upon his shoulder, and prickt him on the head, and from thence tooke blood; and after thus doing, the said three spirits vanisht away. The next day about noone, the said Spirits came to him while hee was in the field, and told him they were come to suck of his body, to which he yielded, and they suckt his body at the places where the marks are found, and from that time to this, they have come constantly to him once every 24 hours, sometimes by day, and most commonly by night. And being demanded what mischiefe he caused any of the said spirits to do, he answered never any, onely hee sent his beare Spirit to provoke the maid-servant of Mr. Say of Molmesworth, to steale victualls for him out of her Master’s house, which she did, and this Examinate received the same.
The marke ofJohn WinnickeRob. Bernard.
He was hanged, 1646.
Eight years before this—namely, in 1638—Frances Moore had a black puppy imp of Margaret Simson of Great Catworth, which she called Pretty, and whose office was to harm cattle. Then Goodwife Weed gave her a thing like a white cat, called Tissy, saying, if she would deny God and affirm the same by her blood, to whomsoever she sent this cat, and cursed, would die. So she cursed William Foster, who, sixteen years ago would have hanged two of her children because they offered to take a piece of bread; and he died: but shecould not remember what the cat imp did to him. Poor old creature! such naïve little bits of truth and scientific direction come out in the midst of all the wildness and raving of the “examined!”—such little quiet bits of unconscious common sense, to redeem the whole account from the mere maunderings of lunacy! Frances Moore did not remember what her imp did to William Foster, yet she went on to say that she got tired of having them about her, and killed them both a year since; but they haunted her still, and when she was apprehended crept up her clothes and tortured her so that she could not speak.
Elizabeth Chandler, widow, had something that came to her in a “puffing and roaring manner,” and that now hurt her sorely. She denied that she ever spoiled Goodwife Darnell’s furmety, but Goodwife Darnell, by causing her to be ducked, she did heartily desire to be revenged on. She had been troubled with these roaring things for a quarter of a year, and had two imps besides, one called “Beelzebub,” and the other “Trullibub.” This she denied when asked, while sane and awake, saying that “Beelzebub was a logg of wood and Trullibub a stick.” But the neighbours testified against her, so her denial went for naught.
Ellen Shepheard had four iron-grey rat imps that sucked her; and Anne Desborough had two—mouses—Tib and Jone, one brown and the other white. She had been told to forsake God and Christ, and that she would then have her will on men and cattle; as she did, and got her mouse imps in consequence.
Jane Wallis saw a man in black clothes, about six weeks since, as she was making her bed. She bid him civilly good morning, and asked him his name. He told her it was “Blackeman,” and, in turn, asked her ifshe was poor. Yes, she said “she was.” Then he would send her two imps said he, Grissel and Greedigut, that should do anything for her she would. At this moment, Jane, looking up, saw he had ugly feet, and was fearful; still more fearful when he became at one moment bigger and at another less, and then suddenly vanished. Grissel and Greedigut came in the shape of “dogges, with great brisles of hogges hair upon their backs.” They said they came from Blackeman to do whatever she might command: and sometimes all three of them—the two dogs and the man—brought her two or three shillings at a time; and once they robbed a man and pulled him from his horse.
On September 25, 1645,[134]Joan Walliford confessed before the major and other jurates, “that the divell, about seven yeares agoe did appeare to her in the shape of a little dog, and bid her to forsake God and leane to him; who replied, that she was loath to forsake him.” Still, she wished to be revenged on Thomas Letherland and Mary Woodrufe, now his wife; and as “Bunne,” the devil, promised she should not lack, and did actually send her money, she knew not whence—sometimes a shilling and sometimes eightpence, “never more”—devil-worship did not seem such a bad trade after all. She further said that her retainer, Bunne, once carried Thomas Gardler out of a window; and that twenty years ago she promised her soul to the devil, and that he wrote the covenant between them in her blood, promising to be her servant for that space of time, which time was now almost expired; that Jane Hot, Elizabeth Harris, and Joan Argoll, were her fellows; that Elizabeth Harris curst the boat of one John Woodcott, “and so it came to passe;” that Goodwife Argoll,curst Mr. Major and John Mannington, and so it came to pass in these cases too; and that Bunne had come to her twice since in prison, and sucked her “in the forme of a muce.” So poor Joan Walliford was hanged, and at the place of execution exhorted all good people to take warning by her, and not to suffer themselves to be deceived by the divell, neither for love of money, malice, or anything else, as she had done, but to sticke fast to God; for if she had not first forsaken God, God would not have forsaken her.